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The Pedagogical
Possibilities of Witnessing
and Testimonies
Through the Lens
of Agamben

Marie Hållander
The Pedagogical Possibilities of Witnessing
and Testimonies
 Marie Hållander

The Pedagogical
Possibilities of
Witnessing and
Testimonies
Through the Lens of Agamben
Marie Hållander
School of Culture and Education
Södertörn University
Stockholm, Sweden

ISBN 978-3-030-55524-5    ISBN 978-3-030-55525-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55525-2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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For Essi and Edith
 Foreword

What does it mean to testify about what has left traces within our bodies?
What possibilities are there in witnessing and in the testimony? This book
is about the pedagogical possibilities of making one’s voice heard from an
exposed position, it is about how wounds are represented in teaching,
about the feelings that may arise in the meeting with testimonies and what
these voices and feelings can do and create. Throughout this book I want
to discuss how witnessing is an impossibility, where words stand against
words and where to give a testimony can mean an “if you win, you lose”
situation. But I also want to discuss how witnessing can be subversive.
How witnessing can involve other people. Through witnessing we can cre-
ate movements, change things, in our schools, in our workplaces, in our
streets and in our homes.
The work I have now completed is a work that I have been undertaking
for more than ten years, from the very start of my application to the PhD
position, to these words that I am here now writing. A decade has passed,
and so many testimonies, conversations and discussions have made me
rethink and complete this study.
As always, there are a lot of people to thank: my main supervisor Sharon
Todd, who enrolled me to the position and whose work inspired me to
write; The PhD program of the philosophical studies of pedagogical rela-
tions, with Erica Hagström, Eric Hjulström and Johannes Rytzler as my
companions. I also send my thanks to my supervisors for the thesis Lovisa
Bergdahl, Ulf Olsson and Carl Anders Säfström who made indispensable
readings and contributions to this work. From 2016, when I completed
the thesis, until now, the book has found readers and discussions, most of

vii
viii FOREWORD

all because it was published by Eskaton in 2017 in Swedish, which has

made me rethink and deepen my understanding of the possibilities of tes-
timony and witnessing. For this I thank Jacob Andersson at Eskaton. I am
now looking forward to making the text meet English speakers. For this I
thank the editors and publishers at Palgrave Macmillan Eleanor Christie,
Rebecca Wide, Ruby Panigrahi, V. Vinodh Kumar among others. I would
also like to thank Ida Stefansson who translated some of the chapters in
this book, as well as Naomi Hodgson’s proof reading, as well as Simon
Ceder who read some of the final chapters: for your support, thank you!
Also, Janne Kontio, Essi Kontio Hållander and Edith Kontio Hållander: I
would not have made it without you.
When finalizing this book, the world is undergoing a pandemic era,
with the corona virus Covid-19 spreading around the world, and in this I
see how new testimonies are formed, but not always heard. As a former
worker within elderly care my special thoughts are going to social health
care workers, nurses and doctors whose voices talk about lack of security
and protective equipment, and as always, I hope that the testimonies that
testify to these conditions can create movements that can change injustice.
Let’s start with the testimonies.

Stockholm, Sweden Marie Hållander


May 2020
 Preface

Let me start with an example. In a dark and fairly quiet classroom, I sit
down along with the students I teach. We are going to watch a program
about Wikileaks. A short way in to the program a black and white film
sequence is shown. It shows a street filmed from a helicopter hovering
above. We see the street through binoculars, a cross in the middle, and
hear soldiers talking over an internal phone.
Noise.

Come on, let us shoot! Bushmaster; Crazyhorse One-Eight. They’re taking him.
Bushmaster; Crazyhorse One-Eight. This is Bushmaster Seven, go ahead. Roger.
We have a black SUV-uh Bongo truck picking up the bodies. Request permission
to engage. Fuck. This is Bushmaster Seven, roger. This is Bushmaster Seven,
roger. Engage. One-eight, engage. Clear. Come on! Clear. Clear. We’re engag-
ing. (Wikileaks, 2010)

Shots are fired after the last words. Multiple shots ring out. Then we see
men running from a minivan, and men lie injured and murdered in the
street. Children, too.
In the classroom, I remember the students speaking. But their words
were inaudible. Bodies were moving. I can’t remember what was said.
Then I remember silence. Total silence. A rupture. A gap. A silence that I
had trouble relating to. “How the hell should I go on with this?”, was all
I could think.
The black and white film sequence was part of the material Wikileaks
released under the name Collateral Murder. It was filmed on July 12,

ix
x Preface

2007, when two US Apache helicopters killed a dozen people in a suburb

of Baghdad. The class took place one day in January 2011 at a high school
where I taught at that time. The course was about the relationship between
technology, humans, and society, with a particular focus on computers,
game design, and information sharing. During the same week I had seen
an episode of Kobra,1 which at that time had also happened to focus on
information sharing. As the course I was teaching dealt with issues related
to technology and ethics, I judged, as a teacher, that there would be plenty
to discuss in this episode of Kobra.
After the program, when the classroom lights were back on, I remem-
ber that I uttered some regretful words, about how awful the whole thing
was, that I sighed, but that the lesson then continued with questions I had
prepared in advance, which touched on issues other than the brutal scene
we had just seen. The students did not mention the scene or the violence
into the discussion. The dead bodies were never mentioned again.
The film sequence told us something: it was a testimony of brutal vio-
lence, of war, from recent history that sparked our attention. But also, it
was as if the images wanted something to happen: a political change. The
beginning of a revolution. The images reached out to us in the classroom,
and placed us between the past and the present. They offered various
opportunities for ethical, political and educational awareness. Or did they?
That was perhaps what I wanted the film sequence to lead to, which is
not such a strange idea. Both within the research literature and in wider
society I can find accounts of how the use of testimonies in teaching can
evoke feelings or emotions that are positive and that can lead to change;
to a more equal society or to righting the wrongs of history. But does it
work that way? What are the pedagogical possibilities in witnessing and in
testimony? This book tries to answer these questions.

Stockholm, Sweden Marie Hållander

1
Kobra is a Swedish television programme produced by SVT with interviews and report-
age about culture and society.
 Acknowledgements

Material from Det omöjliga vittnandet: om vittnesmålets pedagogiska möj-

ligheter, Eskaton (2017) have been translated from Swedish into English
and reproduced with permission by the Publisher Eskaton and the author.
The article “On the Verge of Tears: The Ambivalent Spaces of Emotions
and Testimonies”, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 38, 467–480
(2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-019-09663-2 is reproduced
with the permission of Studies in Philosophy and Education and the author.
Part of the article “Inhabiting a Place in the Common: Profanation and
Biopolitics in Teaching”, in Studer i Pædagogisk Filosofi, 6(1), 69–82
(2018). https://doi.org/10.7146/spf.v6i1.102661 is reproduced with
permission of Studer i Pædagogisk Filosofi and the author.

xi
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 The Impossible Witnessing, The Pedagogical Possibilities:

Theoretical Framing 15

3 “Pull Out the Uneven Thick Threads”: On Penelope’s

Web and Re-Presentation as a Way of Teaching 31

4 On Saying We: Relational Witnessing and Empowered

Subjectivity 55

5 On the Verge of Tears: The Ambivalent Spaces

of Emotions and Testimonies 71

6 Witnessing for the Future 93

Index107

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract The Pedagogical Possibilities of Witnessing and Testimonies—

Through the Lens of Agamben by Marie Hållander offers an intriguing
analysis of the phenomena of witnessing and testimony. In this introduc-
tory chapter the argument to be made on testimonies and the act of wit-
nessing as a pedagogical possibility is framed within previous research and
in relation to the examples of Collateral Murder (2010) and the Swedish
The Living History Forum’s book Tell Ye Your Children (1998). The
chapter also discusses the theoretical and methodological approach taken
in the book, in relation to the work of Giorgio Agamben. More specifi-
cally, the chapter introduces the kinds of pedagogical possibilities in wit-
nessing and testimony, in relation to school teaching as well as non-formal
pedagogical contexts.

Keywords Collateral Murder • Pedagogical possibilities • Witnessing •

Testimony • Agamben

The Pedagogical Possibilities of Witnessing and Testimonies: Through the

Lens of Agamben seeks to investigate the pedagogical possibilities in a
complex phenomenon; what Giorgio Agamben calls ‘the impossible testi-
mony’ (2008). In this book I investigate three different aspects of witness-
ing and testimony. First, I examine the pedagogical possibilities in relation
to the problem of representation. In particular, in relation to the

© The Author(s) 2020 1

M. Hållander, The Pedagogical Possibilities of Witnessing and
Testimonies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55525-2_1
2 M. HÅLLANDER

representations of different historical wounds that enter teaching, such as

the example of the images from Collateral Murder (Wikileaks 2010) that
opened this book. Second, I examine how witnessing can take place as a
process of subjectivation and how witnessing can create change. Third, I
examine the role that students’ and teachers’ emotions can have when
exposed to testimonies within teaching. I chose to focus on these aspects
based on how testimony is used in teaching and how educational philoso-
phy has understood and examined witnessing and testimony in the context
of teaching. In this introductory chapter I will situate the argument of the
book within previous research, as well as discuss the theoretical and the
methodological background of what follows.

The Use of Testimony in Teaching: Framing

the Argument

There is a great interest in testimonies currently, both in society at large

and as a theoretical concept within educational research, as a way to under-
stand and develop epistemological, political or ethical thinking. Anat
Ascher writes that, if the 1900s can be understood as the century of the
witness, the 2000s tend to have a similar spirit, in that “the word of the
witness is to be found virtually everywhere” (Ascher 2011, p. 1). The
interest in testimony is also found in the framework for teaching. Ann
Chinnery (2011) writes that there has been a change in the teaching of
historical traumas; there is now a tendency to move the focus away from
facts about historical events towards personal stories about those events.
Within the framework of this change, testimonies become the central
focus in order to develop a so-called historical consciousness, an ethical
approach to historical events.
An example of this central use of testimony in relation to the dealing
with historical trauma is the work of The Living History Forum in
Stockholm. In their work they foreground testimony on historical trauma
through exhibitions, movie clips, stories and books of personal narratives.
Their website, under the tab “Testimony with classroom exercises”, says:

Taking part in other people’s experiences can awaken feelings and lead to
insights about past events and events in our history that must never happen
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

again. When students get together to share movie clips containing personal
testimonies, a starting point is created for reflection and discussion.1

The Living History Forum describes how sharing various testimonies

from, among others, communist regimes against humanity, the Holocaust,
the genocide in Rwanda, minority abuses, can elicit feelings and insights
about the suffering. Those emotions and insights can then be a starting
point for reflection on and discussion of issues that specifically concern
democracy, human rights and tolerance. The idea is that the encounter
with testimony can lead not only to knowledge of historical events but also
become a basis for reflection and discussion and, in the long run, prevent
intolerance. Thus, at The Living History Forum there are statements
about the witnesses’ ability to create change by offering insights into
events that may not happen again and the lessons that can be drawn from
those insights. In this context, the statements also highlight emotions as a
way of dealing with historical wounds. That is, how being emotionally
affected by knowledge of historical suffering may invoke students to take
action for tolerance and human rights.
The work of Swedish public authority The Living History Forum is an
example of the use of testimonies in the teaching of traumatic historical
events. It utilizes personal stories about the Holocaust and other crimes
against humanity as the starting point of its objective “to work with issues
on tolerance, democracy, and human rights” (The Living History Forum).
To achieve their stated mission, the forum has compiled historical testimo-
nies that can be used as teaching materials by schools. One example of this
is the book, Tell ye your children … (Bruchfeld and Levine 1998), which I
was handed as a pupil in secondary school during the 90’s. The book was
commissioned by the Swedish government as a way of providing public
information and was distributed free of charge to school children in
Sweden. The forum and the book can be seen to mark the aforementioned
shift of focus in education towards remembrance work in schools and
beyond, based on the idea that the wounds of history have something to
teach us. (For a discussion on this book, see Hållander 2015, 2017).

1
My translation, in Swedish it says: “Att ta del av andra människors upplevelser kan väcka
känslor och leda till insikter om tidigare händelser och skeenden i vår historia som inte får
hända igen. När eleverna gemensamt får ta del av filmklipp innehållande personliga vittnesmål
skapas en utgångspunkt för reflektion och diskussion” Forum för levande historia (n.d.),
“Vittnesmål med klassrumsövningar”, visited 2020-03-24, https://www.levandehistoria.
se/klassrummet/vittnesmal-med-klassrumsovningar.
4 M. HÅLLANDER

Therefore different pedagogical and didactical reasons can be offered to

explain why teachers use testimonies to impart history lessons
(Hållander 2015).

Educational Research on Testimony and Pedagogy

Educational research offers a number of theories and understandings of
how the use of testimony in teaching can enable students to develop posi-
tive values, such as a historical consciousness or an ethical approach to the
world and other people, or how being exposed to various testimonies
could bring about particular feelings and emotions—or even crises (see,
for example, Simon 2005; Simon and Eppert 1997; Felman and Laub
1992). These feelings or crises can be a starting point for dealing with
historical traumas, and through that be the basis for historical knowledge,
including understanding of those different from oneself and/or from
other parts of the world. This is also stressed by The Living History
Forum. Testimonies carry the idea of being singular and of being “true”
stories. Thus, to expose students and pupils to testimonies is seen to be of
value when considering historical trauma and attempting to bring con-
sciousness and personal ethical reflection to the issue.
Numerous researchers have examined the use of testimony and the
function of the witness in educational relationships and in teaching.
Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub’s work, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in
Literature, Psychoanalysis and History (1992), is particularly influential. It
elucidates the teaching potential of reading historical testimonies as a form
of literature. Their work, founded in literary theory and psychoanalysis,
has greatly influenced subsequent analyses of the evidence in both philo-
sophical, literary and pedagogical research. Felman and Laub write how
the encounter with literary testimonies can create a learning situation in
which, by being emotionally affected, students are also taught. The book
Testimony investigates the relationship between the crisis—trauma—and
pedagogy, and articulates how Felman and Laub understand emotions and
personal crisis as an opportunity for learning. It is by deeply engaging with
the testimonies that students can learn something.
Significant work on the use of testimonies in relation to teaching and
learning has also been undertaken by Roger Simon. Among other things,
he has studied what learning can look like in relation to memorial acts of
historical trauma. Together with Claudia Eppert, Mark Clamens and
Laura Beres, in “Witness as Study: The Difficult Inheritance of Testimony”
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

(Simon et al. 2000) he describes a pedagogical witnessing in relation to

testimonies from the Vilna Ghetto in Poland:

Engaging the surviving testament of Ghetto—the text, audiovisual testi-

mony, images, and the music that speak of and attempt to convey what hap-
pened there, we argue for a public staging, a pedagogical witness, of one’s
practices of reading, viewing and listening which make evident how witness-
ing may become an event in which an Other’s time may disrupt my own.
(Simon et al. 2000, p. 289)

Simon et al. base their interpretation on Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics, and

through that understand the encounter with testimony as an educational
act in terms of responsibility. They do not emphasize crisis in the same way
as Felman and Laub, but instead draw upon the memorial to historical
wounds as a form of ethical learning—where the testimonies enable one to
feel, to caress, the past in the present. Both Felman and Laub and Simon
et al. have put forward the performative and transformative features of
testimony and illustrated how the encounter with different historical testi-
monies can have a teaching character and be a starting point for an ethical
consciousness. Although these researchers come from different research
traditions, from literary theory, trauma studies and psychoanalysis, they all
highlight how testimonies can create a challenging encounter for readers,
students and teachers, which in turn has the potential to disrupt previous
beliefs and, thereby, to offer a different way to handle and approach his-
torical traumas.
Other researchers have questioned testimonies’ coherence with “real-
ity”, however, and have criticized their use in education due to this lack of
coherence (see for example David Bakhurst 2013). In line with this
research, testimonies can be described as what Jonathan Adler (2015)
refers to as “epistemologically fragile”. There are reasons to disbelieve the
witness, these researchers write, which in turn has consequences for what
kind of knowledge one can claim to get from a witness. Based on this
research, which specifically examines the epistemological aspects of testi-
mony, there are good reasons to see it as an insufficient source of knowl-
edge (Bakhurst 2013). Some of these researchers, however, highlight the
epistemological significance of testimony for an education that seeks to
promote social justice. For example, Martha J. Ritter (2007) and Lorraine
Code (2010) highlight how testimony can provide situated knowledge
and knowledge that does not in itself perpetuate oppression.
6 M. HÅLLANDER

Miranda Fricker (2007) also highlights testimonies’ epistemological

vulnerability and fragility by showing how interpretation of testimonies is
coloured by the prejudices of those who read or hear them. Fricker (2007)
writes how not only is testimony fragile per se but also there is an episte-
mological injustice related to different testimonies. This epistemological
injustice is not based on the witness’s inability to recount or convey
through her sense and perception what has happened, but rather is based
on the audience’s prejudice. Prejudice plays a role in how a testimony’s
truthfulness will be assessed, Fricker writes, as listeners will trust the testi-
monies of some witnesses more than those of others. Hence, there is an
epistemological injustice based on the different social positions that peo-
ple have in society, where class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, functionality
and race play significant roles.
Other researchers within psychoanalytical, hermeneutical and phenom-
enological traditions (for example, Felman and Laub (1992), Simon
(1992, 2005), Simon et al. (2000), Simon and Eppert (1997), Chinnery
(2011) and Michalinos Zembylas (2006, 2009)) have all discussed this
fragility based on theoretical frameworks not directly concerned with the
veracity of testimony. These researchers have used these theoretical frame-
works to focus on how testimony and witnessing are performative acts and
processes that stand in relation to the unconscious or the unknown. These
performative acts can also have pedagogical implications for learning and
teaching. For example, as mentioned earlier, Felman and Laub (1992)
write how, through the encounter with literary testimonies, students may
become emotionally involved and, through that, can be taught. It is by
being deeply affected emotionally that testimony can bring about learning.
Existing research shows clearly that the use of testimony in educational
contexts is considered to be a valuable tool for teaching about historical
wounds and injustice. The researchers that draw on psychoanalysis and
trauma studies highlight the importance of testimony within the context
of teaching to develop, for example, an ethical or historical consciousness.
This research promotes theories on how the emotions—empathy and cri-
sis—can serve as a way to develop this. Analytical philosophical research
takes a more sceptical approach in relation to the value of using testimo-
nies in teaching, due to deficiencies in testimonies’ truth claims. Based on
this overview of previous research, I will now outline the purpose of the
present study.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Purpose
The overall aim of the book is to investigate the pedagogical possibilities
of witnessing and testimony. I examine both the process and the act of
witnessing and witness’ statements; that is, the testimony as a representa-
tion of an event, and its pedagogical possibility. Witnessing and sharing
testimonies can take place in various educational contexts, e.g., schools or
museums, but it can also take place elsewhere. Therefore, and as a way to
deepen and explore different forms of witnessing and testimony, I will
address their pedagogical possibilities both in the context of school and
outside of school, which will be clarified throughout the study. Based on
previous research on, and actual use of, testimony, I have focused the
study on three particular aspects, namely representation, subjectivity and
emotions. These three aspects in turn lead to three different chapters,
which have different foci and issues.
The first aspect concerns the problem of representation and the testi-
mony as a referent. I investigate testimony based on what it means to
encounter representations of historical wounds in educational settings,
such as public schools. In particular, I ask: what pedagogical possibility
does historical testimony have to change the present? Representation is a
significant issue with implications for e.g. political representation, truth,
history and memory. Representation is also a specific issue for pedagogy,
as so much of teaching is based on representations of the world. The inves-
tigation of this aspect takes different perspectives into consideration to
illustrate and problematize the pedagogical possibilities of testimony.
In relation to the second aspect, I ask: how can witnessing enable the
processes of subjectivation? I focus on how witnessing can influence and
create possibilities for different subjects’ becomings. Through this aspect,
I will move my focus away from teaching to consider the witnesses’ sub-
jectivity, and the ability to change oneself and one’s environment through
witnessing, specifically in relation to working conditions. In this chapter I
do not directly address pupils’ subjectivity, but rather that of the witnesses,
an investigation that has implications for the understanding of witnessing
and its possibilities in relation to subjectivity in school settings and
teaching.
Third, the focus on emotions and emotional crisis deriving from exist-
ing research considers how emotional reactions to testimony can impact
pedagogical possibility, by asking the question: what do emotions do when
encountering testimonies? Here I return in part to issues related to
8 M. HÅLLANDER

teaching and the emotions that testimonies can evoke, but also to a more
political discussion on the role of emotions and testimonies in politics and
in the globalized world.

Theoretical Framing
I examine the pedagogical possibilities of testimony and witnessing based
on the idea that these possibilities are situated in human deficiency and
inability; that is, our knowledge is placed in an inability, in our non-­
knowledge. This theoretical framing is based on Giorgio Agamben’s phi-
losophy, which creates a foundation on which to start thinking about
testimony, the understanding of potentiality, and its possibilities.
Through Agamben, the concepts of testimony and the pedagogical
possibilities of the witness are articulated in relation to their impossibility.
I therefore examine the pedagogical possibilities of the testimony and the
witness, based on the idea that these pedagogical possibilities exist in
human shortcomings and inabilities; where the knowledge itself is placed
in the very impossibility, in our non-knowledge, a position I develop in the
chapter “The impossible witnessing, the pedagogical possibilities—theo-
retical framing”. This dialectical understanding offers a different formula-
tion than previous research, in that the encounter with testimonies is not
formulated in terms of crisis, as in Felman and Laub’s formulation (1992),
or in terms of hopes and dreams or an ethical consciousness, as in Simon
(2005). An Agambenian approach enables a different examination of tes-
timony and its pedagogical possibilities than has been seen in previous
research, and hence it contributes an original perspective to the
pedagogical-­philosophical field.
Agamben’s philosophy examines testimony in relation to a specific
event: the testimonies that emerge after Auschwitz. To offer a deeper,
more nuanced account of the aspects I explore here—representation, sub-
jectivity and emotions—and to relate them to a more situated context,
such as school and teaching, I also draw on further philosophical work
that deals with testimony, witnessing and/or historical wounds. These are,
among others: Édouard Glissant (1997) and his understanding of opacity
and transparency; Sara Ahmed’s analysis of emotions (2004); Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak’s development of pedagogy (2004, 2009, 2012);
Kelly Oliver’s (2001) nuance of subjectivity and subject position in rela-
tion to the witness; and The Latina Feminist Group’s (2002) understand-
ing of witnessing. These different philosophies also tend to approach
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

testimony in terms of its impossibility (in different ways), based on the

idea that testimonies and the testimony are conditional. These philoso-
phers’ perspectives also enable me to deepen and problematize Agamben’s
reasoning about the impossibility of testimony.

Method: Writing with Examples

My approach is philosophical; that is, I investigate educational issues by
means of philosophical investigations. The book is formed of three parts.
The first part is an extended review of previous research. The second sets
out Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy that provides the theoretical basis of
the study. The third part presents various examples of testimonies. Hence,
I now want to discuss what it means to write with examples and what role
these play in my argument.
I take a broad definition of what counts as a testimony, and I do not
need a stamp of approval to allow it to pass as such. As the examples will
show, they can take many forms. I began the thesis, for example, with an
event from my own teaching: being exposed to Collateral Murder. I also
discussed the book Tell ye your children … published by The Living History
Forum (Bruchfeld and Levine 1998), which is elaborated on later in this
book. I will also discuss: Eyvind Johnson’s Penelope and her weaving in
Strändernas svall from 1946 (Johnson 2004), published in English with
the title Return to Ithaca: The Odyssey retold as a modern novel (Johnson
1952); the testimonies from the mine workers in Gruva (Mine) by Sara
Lidman and Odd Uhrbom (1969); and pictures taken by Nilüfer Demir of
Alan Kurdi in 2015 (‘Death of Alan Kurdi’ 2016). These examples differ
from one another. They present singular, unique stories, but this does not
mean that they are entities that are separated from the world. They are in
some way representative of the world.
In the lecture “What is a paradigm” Agamben (2009) deals with the
function of the example, philosophically and ontologically. Paradigm is
used here synonymously with examples, and he writes that “we all” use
examples; in philosophy, in art, in literature and in education. In an ety-
mological sense, paradigm derives from the Latin “paradigm” or Greek
“para-deigm”, meaning that which appears next to, or that which stands
next to it (prefix “para” means next to and “digm” to show). What
Agamben raises in relation to this is how the example not only points
inward towards itself, but also to something else: to what is next to it. In
the lecture Agamben deals with the paradigm ontologically and considers
10 M. HÅLLANDER

how the example shows a basic similarity between the example and the
world, which Agamben formulates as a movement from the singular to the
singular—and not as a movement from the particular to the general. The
example is thus something that stands for itself, but that also, in its speci-
ficity, moves towards what is visible next to it. But what does this move-
ment consist of? Aristotle argued that the example is “more knowable”
(Aristotle, in Agamben 2009), which can be interpreted to mean that the
paradigmatic relation takes place between the phenomenon and its know-
ability. What the example has in common with an object, or the world, is
its knowability and through that it produces a new ontological context of
a “besides being”. When I write on pedagogical possibilities of testimony
and witnessing it is this that I am interested in. The examples that I write
of are singular, unique stories, though this does not mean that they are
separate entities. The examples are not autonomous but related; they
move from the singular to another singularity and, through this move-
ment, the examples help me to investigate the questions guiding this
book, by making things become flesh and more understandable.
In the book Remnants of Auschwitz (2008) Agamben writes about tes-
timonies in relation to the archive. This becomes relevant to this study as
this research on testimony and witnessing also has involved encountering
an enormous number of testimonies, which together can be likened to an
archive. The archive is not understood here as an actual archive, securely
stored or indexed, but rather as all the testimonial stories that are recorded
or that we have the opportunity to encounter. And that we do often
encounter (I would almost say on a daily basis, because there are many
bodies who testify through different media and forms). What kind of selec-
tion have I made from this “archive”? The selection of examples I made
from this “archive” is based on how each has shown something next to it,
understood here in terms of the pedagogical possibilities of witnessing and
testimony. The examples have helped me to pursue the analysis of the cen-
tral questions of the study, through the way they embody the problem and
make it more knowable. The examples that I write about have given rise to
questions about what it means to create pedagogical possibility in relation
to the different aspects: representation, subjectivity and emotions. The
examples that I discuss are distinct; that is, they are in different contexts
and show the breadth of the impossibilities of witnessing and testimony,
which was also an important factor in the selection of examples. So I have
not selected examples on the basis that they might give rise to similar inter-
pretations or that they are consistent. Rather, it is the differences that they
present that were interesting and relevant to the study.
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

Disposition
The book consists of six chapters. The first chapter, this introduction, has
introduced the problem, explained the purpose and means of selection for
the study and discussed what it means to write with examples.
In Chap. 2, “The Impossible Witnessing, the Pedagogical Possibilities:
Theoretical Framing”, I discuss the theoretical framing for the book. The
chapter also begins with an etymological understanding of the witness and
the testimony. I demonstrate the ambiguity of the testimony, as well as
give my understanding of what education and the pedagogical means.
This chapter has been translated from Swedish with the help of Ida
Stefansson.
Chapter 3 “Pull out the uneven thick threads”: On Penelope’s Weave
and Re-presentation as a way of Teaching” deals with what kind of role
testimonies from the past can have in teaching. The chapter discusses
Eyvind Johnson’s book Return to Ithaca: The Odyssey retold as a modern
novel (Johnson 1952) in order to discuss several different perspectives on
representation as a pedagogical question, such as the paradox of history,
the testimony as a remnant and voice drawing on Arendt and Agamben.
In this chapter I argue for the possibilities—as well as difficulties—of the
school as a special place which can be (however, not always is) a place for
free time, drawing on Masschelein and Simons (2013), where stories and
testimonies can be put on the table in order to understand and relate
things for students. The classroom can also be this place, with Di
Paolantonio’s words, where we can work with texts, stories, testimonies,
who cannot speak for themself, but at the same time we must understand
the pledge in doing this, and guard them “against any present condensa-
tion” (Di Paolantonio 2010, p. 132). In this pledge I discuss the ethical,
political and aesthetic aspects of testimonies that do not continue to
expropriate and exploit already vulnerable bodies, drawing on Spivak’s
suturing pedagogy: a pedagogy that could start to heal the wounds that
are produced in history and reproduced in the present.
Chapter 4, “On Saying We: Relational Witnessing and Empowered
Subjectivity”, discusses subjectivity in relation to the book Gruva by Sara
Lidman and Odd Uhrbom (1969) and documents related to the wildcat
strike in Svappavaara (1969–1970) in the northern part of Sweden. It
highlights how the paradox of the witness has different expressions,
including how the paradox implies a separation between the witness and
the testimony, and thereby between the process and the product. This
12 M. HÅLLANDER

creates testimony for someone else, which makes subjectivity difficult. The
chapter therefore moves from the individual witness, framed by Derrida
and Celan (Derrida 2005), to an understanding of the testimony as a rela-
tional possibility by examining how translation as a phenomenon can
become processes and a possible path. Through these readings, subjectiv-
ity is formulated in relation to other bodies, which results in an argument
for the pedagogical possibilities of becoming in relation to others. The
chapter stresses a relational view of witnessing, which does not separate
the process from the product: where the process of a relational witnessing
(by saying ‘we’) can demand change and lead to empowered subjectivity.
In Chap. 5, “On the Verge of Tears: The Ambivalent Spaces of Emotions
and Testimonies”, I discuss the relationship between emotions and testi-
mony by asking: What do emotions do? Are emotions possible and desir-
able starting points for teaching difficult and complex subjects such as
injustice and historical wounds? This chapter explores the 2015 image
with Alan Kurdi, photographed lying on a beach on the Mediterranean
coast of Turkey, and the immense emotional response it elicited from the
media. By critiquing emotions based on testimonies encountered in teach-
ing, primarily following Ahmed (2004) and Todd (2003), this chapter
argues that emotions are cultural practices, not psychological states and,
thus, are relational. At this point, the argument takes two different direc-
tions: first, the effects offered by listening; second, opacity in relation to
transparency, based on the thoughts of Glissant (1997). The aspects of
listening and opacity in relation to testimonies in turn yield an ambivalent
space in which emotions play a role (regardless of whether or not that
function is desired). This chapter has been published as: Hållander, Marie
(2019) “On the Verge of Tears: The Ambivalent Spaces of Emotions and
Testimonies”, Studies in Philosophy and Education 38, no. 5: 467–480.
The last chapter, Chap. 6, “Witnessing for the Future”, summarizes
and deepens the discussion of the pedagogical implications of the forego-
ing analysis in relation to teaching. The chapter also reframes the argu-
ment in relation to Agamben’s idea of the possibilities of testimony, in
terms of giving authority back to the witness (to acknowledge the witness
as a subject), and the witness predicting and giving authority to those who
are witnessing the testimony. The chapter also considers the temporal
aspect of witnessing in terms of arrested time; a time wherein possibilities
can become actualities. This chapter has been translated with the help of
Ida Stefansson.
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

References
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Agamben, G. (2008). Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive.
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Ahmed, S. (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge.
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vittnesmal-med-klassrumsovningar.
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ligheter. Eskaton.
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Trans. M.A Michael. Thames & Hudson.
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 CHAPTER 2

The Impossible Witnessing, The Pedagogical

Possibilities: Theoretical Framing

Abstract What characterises witnessing and testimony as phenomena?

What is meant by their pedagogical possibilities? To begin to answer these
questions, Hållander creates a framework in this chapter for the theoretical
approach applied in the book, highlighting and contextualising central
concepts. First, she explores witnessing and testimony through an etymo-
logical investigation and then focuses on their connection to the wound
and injustice. This is followed by a more detailed discussion of pedagogy
and, more specifically, of pedagogical possibilities, in relation to Agamben’s
writings on potentiality (Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy.
Stanford University Press, 1999) and by putting these phenomena in a
societal context.

Keywords Potentiality • Testimony • Pedagogy • Witnessing

• Agamben

Introduction
What characterises witnessing and testimony as a phenomenon? What is
meant by pedagogical possibilities? The idea behind this chapter is to cre-
ate a framework for the theoretical approach that I am applying, by empha-
sising important and central concepts for the book and placing them in a
context. I do this firstly by shedding light on witnessing and testimony
based on an etymological investigation and then by focusing on their

© The Author(s) 2020 15

M. Hållander, The Pedagogical Possibilities of Witnessing and
Testimonies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55525-2_2
16 M. HÅLLANDER

connection to the wound and injustice. This is followed by a more detailed

discussion on pedagogy, and more specifically the pedagogical possibili-
ties, by discussing it in relation to potentiality and by putting these phe-
nomena in a societal context.

Etymological Perspectives
In the writing, I use three related concepts: the witness, to witness and
testimony, concepts that are tightly interwoven but at the same time sepa-
rate. In Swedish, these words are more similar; the words vittne (the wit-
ness) and vittnesmål (testimony) have the same root (Svenska akademiens
ordlista över svenska språket 2006).1 However, in English language and
literature, which I am here writing in, these three concepts: the
witness/witnessing and testimony have different roots. In the use of these
concepts (the witness/to witness and testimony) there is a distinction that
emerges, which can be more or less emphasized. The differences between
these three concepts, which is most often made, is that the witness who
gives a testimony of something is making a statement in some way (which
in turn can also be witnessed) which differs from the process of witnessing,
which instead is rather referring to the act of seeing, hearing or feeling.
This latter meaning thus does not have the same weight on the statement
itself. One can be a witness without speaking or giving a testimony.
In Latin etymology, witness (témoin) stands, firstly for testis, “the one
who testifies” and means to stand for a person in terms of a third person
(terstis), in a trial, for example, where a person testifies in order to prove
what has happened (Derrida 2005, p. 72). The second word for a witness
in Latin is superstes which can mean témoin (“the one who testifies”) but
is instead referring to a person who has lived through something. The one
who testifies has survived and has an experience from the beginning to the
end (Agamben 2008, p. 17). The witness who stands for superstes is thus
present in the event in a different way from the witness as a third person
(testis): s/he lives through an event and survives it. The interesting thing
about superstes is that this witness does not have to express or give voice to
the event. So superstes is not only in relation to the testimony itself. She

1
“bli vittne till, bära vittne om”, ådagalägga, visa”, och vittnesmål eller vittnesbörd som
“avlägga vittnesmål, vittna”. Svenska Akademiens ordlista över svenska språket (Stockholm:
Svenska akademien, 2006), http://www.svenskaakademien.se/ordlista.
 2 THE IMPOSSIBLE WITNESSING, THE PEDAGOGICAL POSSIBILITIES… 17

can testify without giving a testimony, which I discussed earlier in relation

to the difference and understandings of a witness and a testimony.
It is easy to recognize the English word testimony from the Latin words
témoin, testis and tersis, but it is not as easy to derive it from the Swedish
word vittne (witness). However, we find the word testamente in Swedish
(a will), as a last will or last wish derived from testis. This testament (will)
can be linked to the word of testimonium, Derrida write, as an act of the
secret and sealed—but also as an act, or promise, that stands between the
dying (or the dead) and the living (Derrida 2005).
It is not possible to write on testimony and witnessing without also
mentioning the theological and religious historical links. In classic Greek,
“martyr” (martys) has the meaning of a witness. Michael Azar writes in
the book Vittnet (The Witness) that man can testify in two different ways:
with blood or with words. Through her blood, she testifies with her own
life as a contribution: “it is through the dead body the truth arises” (Azar
2008, p. 7).2 She testifies to her faith by becoming a witness of blood. The
second way of witnessing is through the word; then the witness tries
instead to “discover the truth by speaking; it is through the mouth of the
witness that the past and absent are reborn in the present moment” (Azar
2008, p. 7).3 There is an understanding of the witness where the witness
can testify through language and how the witness can be understood as
beyond the statement itself: the martyr can testify to something, for God,
through her own death. She becomes a martyr by her suffering, her tor-
ment and finally by her death. The religious connection is also in relation
to various religious practices to confirm or show ones faith to God, for
example by the Bible word: “You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and I
am God” (Isaiah 43:12). In the context of evangelical Christian commu-
nities, it is also common to witness, which means that one tells the congre-
gation how one came to become a Christian.
Etymologically, therefore, there are many understandings of the wit-
ness, understandings that differ in relation to what context the witness is
in: in religious contexts, in a trial, in relation to historical events and his-
torical contexts. What can one say from these etymological derivations?

2
Original in Swedish: “det är genom den döda kroppen som sanningen uppstår” (Azar
2008, p. 7). My translation.
3
Original in Swedish: “uppdaga sanningen genom att ta till orda; det är genom vittnets
mun som det förflutna och frånvarande återföds i det nuvarande nuet” (Azar 2008, p. 7). My
translation.
18 M. HÅLLANDER

And what do these understandings mean in relation to the purpose of this

book, of understanding the pedagogical possibilities of testimony and wit-
nessing? The interesting thing about the etymological derivations is how
it opens up to different understandings of the witness, understandings that
differ from each other, but which all highlight how the witnesses are refer-
ring to people who live, see, hear or experience something that these peo-
ple can later give testimony about. It is also clear how there are traces of
wounds and of the impossibility of the testimony: about the witness who
speaks of suffering and injustice: of blood, and of death.

The Impossible Testimony

In the book, I apply a view on testimony and witnessing where the witness
has a unique position: she testifies to her own or other’s wounds. She testi-
fies to that which is unjust. Unjust towards her or unjust towards some-
thing or someone else (Spivak 2004; see also Hållander 2017). The
connection between wound and testimony is made by several authors and
researchers (and can also be found within the etymological investigation),
above all through the Greek word trauma. As Gilmore (2001) points out,
the meaning of the Greek word “trauma” is sore; originally a wound on
the body, but also later came to involve wounds that are linked to the
mind or the soul.
Also Mary Jo Hinsdale (2014) writes about “Witnessing across
wounds”, in other words, about a witnessing that stretches across our
wounds. Through wounds, my point of departure for testimonies is also
made clear: it is not everyday descriptions of what people had for breakfast
that I am interested in (Cf. Goldberg 2013). The book develop witnessing
in relation to this kind of understanding of witnessing: Witnessing can
take place in many different ways and for different purposes: for example,
liberation, justification, bringing forth the truth or showing resistance.
Witnessing can also take place without a specific purpose, it can be a wit-
nessing that takes place in silence or voicelessness.
In the book, I write about witnessing and testimony as an impossibility.
I do so in order to capture the fragility and the lack that testimony is sur-
rounded by and which touches upon several different aspects, such as the
subject, representation and truth. I have picked up the description of tes-
timony as an impossibility from Agamben and his reading of different
testimonies from Auschwitz. To Agamben, the witness as a phenomenon
is interesting in order to understand Auschwitz—or the reverse, it is in
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opposed and commended by physicians, condemned and eulogized
by priests and kings[18], and proscribed and protected by
governments, whilst, at length, this once insignificant production of
a little island, or an obscure district, has succeeded in diffusing itself
through every climate, and in subjecting the inhabitants of every
country to its dominion. The Arab cultivates it in the burning desert;
—the Laplander and Esquimaux risk their lives to procure a
refreshment so delicious in their wintry solitude;—the seaman, grant
him but this luxury, and he will endure with cheerfulness every other
privation, and defy the fury of the raging elements;—and, in the
higher walk of civilized society, at the shrine of fashion, in the palace
and in the cottage, the fascinating influence of this singular plant,
commands an equal tribute of devotion and attachment. Nor is the
history of the potatoe less extraordinary or less strikingly illustrative
of the imperious influence of authority. In fact, the introduction of
this valuable plant received, for more than two centuries, an
unprecedented opposition from vulgar prejudice, which all the
philosophy of the age was unable to dissipate, until Louis XV. wore a
bunch of the flowers of the potatoe in the midst of his court, on a day
of mirth and festivity. The people then, for the first time,
obsequiously acknowledged its utility, and began to express their
astonishment at the apathy which had so long prevailed with regard
to its general cultivation.
The history of the warm bath furnishes us with another curious
instance of the vicissitudes to which the reputation of our valuable
resources are so uniformly exposed. That, in short, which for so
many ages was esteemed the greatest luxury in health, and the most
efficacious remedy in disease, fell into total disrepute in the reign of
Augustus, for no other reason than because Antonius Musa had
cured the emperor of a dangerous malady by the use of the cold bath.
The coldest water, therefore, was recommended on every occasion.
This practice, however, was but of short duration. The popularity of
the warm bath soon lost all its premature and precocious popularity;
for, though it had restored the emperor to health, it shortly
afterwards killed his nephew and son-in-law Marcellus; an event
which at once deprived the remedy of its credit, and the physician of
his popularity.[19]
 An illustration of the overbearing influence of authority, in giving
celebrity to a medicine, or in depriving it of that reputation to which
its virtues entitle it, might be furnished in the history of the Peruvian
bark. This heroic remedy was first brought to Spain in the year 1632,
where it remained seven years before any trial was made of its
powers. An ecclesiastic of Alcala was the first to whom it was
administered, in the year 1639; but even at this period, its use was
limited, and it would have sunk into oblivion, but for the supreme
power of the Roman church, by whose protecting auspices it was
enabled to gain a temporary triumph over the passions and
prejudices which opposed its introduction. Innocent the Tenth, at the
intercession of Cardinal de Lugo, who was formerly a Spanish jesuit,
ordered that its nature and effects should be duly examined, and on
its being reported both innocent and salutary, it immediately rose
into public notice. Its career, however, was suddenly arrested by its
having unfortunately failed in the autumn 1652 to cure Leopold,
Archduke of Austria, of a quartan intermittent: from this
circumstance it had nearly fallen into disrepute.
As years and fashion revolve, so have these neglected remedies,
each in its turn, risen again into favour and notice; whilst old
receipts, like old almanacks, are abandoned, until the period may
arrive that will once more adapt them to the spirit and fashion of the
times. Thus it happens, that most of the new discoveries in medicine
have turned out to be no more than the revival and readoption of
ancient practices.
During the last century, the root of the male fern was retailed as a
secret nostrum, by Madame Nouffleur, a French empiric, for the cure
of the tapeworm: the secret was purchased for a considerable sum of
money by Lewis XV. The physicians then discovered, that the same
remedy had been administered in that complaint by Galen.
The history of popular remedies for the cure of gout, also furnishes
ample matter for the elucidation of this subject.
The celebrated powder of the Duke of Portland, was no other than
the diacentaureon of Cœlius Aurelianus, or the antidotos ex duobus
centaureæ generibus of Ætius, the receipt for which a friend of his
Grace brought with him from Switzerland; into which country, in all
probability, it had been introduced by the early medical writers, who
had transcribed it from the Greek volumes, soon after their arrival
into the western parts of Europe.
The active ingredient of a no less celebrated remedy for the same
disease, the eau médicinale, a medicine brought into fashion by M.
Husson, whose name it bears, a military officer in the service of the
King of France, about fifty years ago, has been discovered to be the
colchicum autumnale, or meadow saffron. Upon investigating the
virtues of this medicine, it was observed that similar effects in the
cure of the gout were ascribed to a certain plant, called
Hermodactyllus, by Oribasius[20] and Ætius[21], but more particularly
by Alexander of Tralles, a physician of Asia Minor, whose
prescription consisted of hermodactyllus, ginger, pepper, cummin-
seed, aniseed, and scammony, which, he says, will enable those who
take it, to walk immediately. An inquiry was immediately instituted
after this unknown plant, and upon procuring a specimen of it from
Constantinople, it was actually found to be a species of colchicum.
The use of Prussic acid in the cure of consumptions, lately
proposed by Dr. Majendie, a French physiologist, is little else than
the revival of the Dutch practice in this complaint; for we are
informed by Lumæus, in the fourth volume of his “Amenitates
Acadamicæ,” that distilled laurel water was frequently used in
Holland in the cure of pulmonary consumption. The celebrated Dr.
James’s fever powder was evidently not his original composition, but
an Italian nostrum, invented by a person of the name of Lisle, a
receipt for the preparation of which is to be found at length in
Colborne’s complete English Dispensary for the year 1756. The
various secret preparations of opium which have been lauded as the
discovery of modern times, may be recognised in the works of
ancient authors.
 ALCHYMY[22].

The science, if it deserves to be distinguished by the name of

Alchymy, or the transmutation of metals into gold, has doubtless
been an imposition, which, striking on the feeblest part of the human
mind, has so frequently been successful in carrying on its delusions.
The Corrina of Dryden (Mrs. Thomas) during her life, has recorded
one of these delusions of Alchymy. From the circumstances, it is very
probable the sage was not less deceived than his patroness. An
infatuated lover of this delusive art met one who pretended to have
the power of transmuting lead to gold; that is, in their language, the
imperfect metals to the perfect one. This Hermetic philosopher
required only the materials and time, to perform his golden
operations. He was taken to the country residence of his patroness, a
long laboratory was built, and that his labours might not be impeded
by any disturbance, no one was permitted to enter into it. His door
was contrived to turn on a pivot; so that, unseen and unseeing, his
meals were conveyed to him without distracting the sublime
contemplations of the sage.
During a residence of two years he never condescended to speak
but two or three times in the year to his infatuated patroness. When
she was admitted into the laboratory, she saw with pleasing
astonishment, stills, immense cauldrons, long flues, and three or
four Vulcanian fires, blazing at different corners of this magical
mine: nor did she behold with less reverence the venerable figure of
the dusty philosopher. Pale and emaciated with daily operations and
nightly vigils, he revealed to her, in unintelligible jargon, his
progress; and having sometimes condescended to explain the
mysteries of the Arcana, she beheld or seemed to behold, streams of
fluid, and heaps of solid ore, scattered around the laboratory.
Sometimes he required a new still, and sometimes vast quantities of
lead. She began now to lower her imagination to the standard of
reason. Two years had now elapsed, vast quantities of lead had gone
in, and nothing but lead had come out. She disclosed her sentiments
to the philosopher; he candidly confessed he was himself surprised at
his tardy processes; but that now he would exert himself to the
utmost, and that he would venture to perform a laborious operation,
which hitherto he had hoped not to have been necessitated to
employ. His patroness retired, and the golden visions of expectation
resumed all their lustre.
One day as they sat at dinner, a terrible shriek, and one crack
followed by another loud as the report of cannon, assailed their ears.
They hastened to the laboratory; two of the greatest stills had burst,
and one part of the laboratory and the house were in flames. We are
told that after another adventure of this kind, this victim to Alchymy,
after ruining another patron, in despair swallowed poison.
Even more recently we have a history of an Alchymist in the life of
Romney, the painter. This Alchymist, after bestowing much time and
money on preparations for the grand projection, and being near the
decisive hour, was induced, by the too earnest request of his wife, to
quit his furnace one evening, to attend some of her company at the
tea-table. While the projector was attending the ladies, his furnace
blew up! In consequence of this event, he conceived such an
antipathy against his wife, that he could not endure the idea of living
with her again.
Henry IV. was so reduced by his extravagancies, that Evelyn
observes in his Numismata, he endeavoured to recruit his empty
coffers by an Alchymical speculation. The record of this singular
proposition, contains “the most solemn and serious account of the
feasibility and virtues of the philosopher’s stone, encouraging the
search after it, and dispensing with all statutes and prohibitions to
the contrary.” This record was very probably communicated (says an
ingenious antiquary) by Mr. Selden to his beloved friend Ben Jonson,
when he was writing his comedy of the Alchymist.
After this patent was published, many promised to answer the
King’s expectations so effectually (adds the same writer) that the
next year he published another patent; wherein he tells his subjects,
that the happy hour was drawing nigh, and by means of the STONE,
which he should be master of, he would pay all the debts of the
nation in real gold and silver. The persons picked out for his new
operations were as remarkable as the patent itself, being a most
“miscellaneous rabble” of friars, grocers, mercers, and fishmongers!
This patent was likewise granted authoritate parliamenti.
Prynne, who has given this patent in his Aurum Reginæ, p. 135,
concludes with this sarcastic observation:—“A project never so
seasonable and necessary as now!” And this we repeat, and our
successors will no doubt imitate us!
Alchymists were formerly called multipliers; as appears from a
statute of Henry IV. repealed in the preceding record. The statute
being extremely short, we shall give it for the reader’s satisfaction.
“None from henceforth shall use to multiply gold or silver, or use
the craft of multiplication; and if any the same do, he shall incur the
pain of felony.”
Every philosophical mind must be convinced that Alchymy is not
an art, which some have fancifully traced to the remotest times; it
may rather be regarded, when opposed to such a distance of time, as
a modern imposture. Cæsar commanded the treatises of Alchymy to
be burnt throughout the Roman dominions—Cæsar, who is not less
to be admired as a philosopher than as a monarch.
Mr. Gibbon has the following succinct passage relative to Alchymy:
“The ancient books of Alchymy, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras,
to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent
adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or abuse of
chemistry. In that immense register, where Pliny has deposited the
discoveries, the arts and the errors of mankind, there is not the least
mention of the transmutation of metals; and the persecution of
Dioclesian is the first authentic event in the history of Alchymy. The
conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the
globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in
China as in Europe, with equal eagerness and equal success. The
darkness of the middle ages ensured a favourable reception to every
tale of wonder; and the revival of learning gave new vigour to hope,
and suggested more specious arts to deception. Philosophy, with the
aid of experience, has at length banished the study of Alchymy; and
the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them
by the humbler means of commerce and industry.”
 Elias Ashmole writes in his diary—“May 13, 1653. My father
Backhouse (an Astrologer who had adopted him for his son—a
common practice with these men) lying sick in Fleet Ditch, over
against St. Dunstan’s church, and not knowing whether he should
live or die, about eleven of the clock told me in Syllables the true
matter of the Philosopher’s Stone, which he bequeathed to me as a
legacy.” By this we learn that a miserable wretch knew the art of
making gold, yet always lived a beggar; and that Ashmole really
imagined he was in possession of the Syllables of a secret! he has
however built a curious monument of the learned follies of the last
century, in his “Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum.” Though
Ashmole is rather the historian of this vain science than an adept, it
may amuse literary leisure to turn over his quarto volume, in which
he has collected the works of several English Alchymists, to which he
has subjoined his Commentary. It affords a curious specimen of
Rosicrucian Mysteries; and Ashmole relates stories, which vie for the
miraculous, with the wildest fancies of Arabian invention. Of the
Philosopher’s Stone, he says, he knows enough to hold his tongue,
but not enough to speak. This Stone has not only the power of
transmuting any imperfect earthy matter into its utmost degree of
perfection, and can convert the basest metals into gold, flints into
stones, &c. but it has still more occult virtues, when the arcana have
been entered into, by the choice fathers of hermetic mysteries. The
vegetable stone has power over the natures of man, beast, fowls,
fishes, and all kinds of trees and plants, to make them flourish and
bear fruit at any time. The magical stone discovers any person
wherever he is concealed; while the angelical stone gives the
apparitions of angels, and a power of conversing with them. These
great mysteries are supported by occasional facts, and illustrated by
prints of the most divine and incomprehensible designs, which we
would hope were intelligible to the initiated. It may be worth
shewing, however, how liable even the latter were to blunder on
these Mysterious Hieroglyphics. Ashmole, in one of his chemical
works, prefixed a frontispiece, which, in several compartments,
exhibited Phœbus on a lion, and opposite to him a lady, who
represented Diana, with the moon in one hand and an arrow in the
other, sitting on a crab; Mercury on a tripod, with the scheme of the
heavens in one hand, and his caduceus in the other. They were
intended to express the materials of the Stone, and the season for the
process. Upon the altar is the bust of a man, his head covered by an
astrological scheme dropped from the clouds; and on the altar are
these words, Mercuriophilus Anglicus, i. e. the English lover of
hermetic philosophy. There is a tree and a little creature gnawing the
root, a pillar adorned with musical and mathematical instruments,
and another with military ensigns. This strange composition created
great inquiry among the chemical sages. Deep mysteries were
conjectured to be veiled by it. Verses were written in the highest
strain of the Rosicrucian language. Ashmole confessed he meant
nothing more than a kind of pun on his own name, for the tree was
the ash, and the creature was a mole. One pillar tells his love of
music and freemasonry, and the other his military preferment and
astrological studies! He afterwards regretted that no one added a
second volume to his work, from which he himself had been
hindered, for the honour of the family of Hermes, and “to shew the
world what excellent men we had once of our nation, famous for this
kind of philosophy, and masters of so transcendant a secret.”
Modern chemistry is not without a hope, not to say a certainty, of
verifying the golden visions of the Alchymists. Dr. Gertänner, of
Gottingen, has lately adventured the following prophecy: “In the
nineteenth century the transmutation of metals will be generally
known and practised. Every chemist and every artist will make gold;
kitchen materials will be of silver, and even gold, which will
contribute more than any thing else to prolong life, poisoned at
present by the oxyds of copper, lead, and iron, which we daily
swallow with our food[23].” This sublime chemist, though he does not
venture to predict that universal Elixir[24], which is to prolong life at
pleasure, yet approximates to it. A chemical friend observed, that
“the metals seem to be composite bodies, which nature is perpetually
preparing; and it may be reserved for the future researches of
Science to trace, and perhaps to imitate, some of these curious
operations.”
Origin, Objects, and Practice of Alchymy, &c.
We find the word Alchymy occurring, for the first time, in Julius
Firmicus Maternus, an author who lived under Constantine the
Great, who in his Mathesis, iii. 35, speaking of the influence of the
heavenly bodies, affirms, “that if the Moon be in the house of Saturn,
at the time a child is born, he shall be skilled in Alchymy.”
The great objects or ends pursued by Alchymy, are, 1st, To make
gold; which is attempted by separation, maturation; and by
transmutation, which is to be effected by means of the Philosopher’s
stone. With a view to this end, Alchymy, in some writers, is also
called ποιητκη, poetice, and χρυσοποιητικη, chryso poetice, i. e. the
art of making gold; and hence also, by a similar derivation, the artists
themselves are called gold-makers.
2d. An universal medicine, adequate to all diseases.
3d. An universal dissolvent or alkahest. (See Alkahest.)
4. An universal ferment, or a matter, which being applied to any
seed, shall increase its fecundity to infinity. If, for example, it be
applied to gold, it shall change the gold into the philosopher’s stone
of gold,—if to silver, into the philosopher’s stone of silver,—and if to
a tree, the result is, the philosopher’s stone of the tree; which
transmutes every thing it is applied to, into trees.
The origin and antiquity of Alchymy have been much controverted.
If we may credit legend and tradition, it must be as old as the flood;
nay, Adam himself, is represented by the Alchymist, as an adept. A
great part, not only of the heathen mythology, but of the Jewish and
Christian Revelations, are supposed to refer to it. Thus Suidas will
have the fable of the Philosopher’s Stone, to be alluded to in the fable
of the Argonauts; and others find it in the book of Moses, &c. But if
the æra of the art be examined by the monument of history, it will
lose much of this fancied antiquity. The learned Dane, Borrichius,
has taken immense pains to prove that it was not unknown to the
ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Crounguis, on the contrary, with
equal address, undertakes to show its novelty. Still not one of the
ancient poets, philosophers, or physicians, from the time of Homer
till four hundred years after the birth of Christ, mention any thing
about it.
The first author who speaks of making gold, is Zosimus the
Pomopolite, who lived about the beginning of the fifth century, and
who has a treatise express upon it, called, “the divine art of making
gold and silver,” in manuscript, and is, as formerly, in the King of
France’s library. The next is Æneas Gazeus, another Greek writer,
towards the close of the same century, in whom we find the following
passage:—“Such as are skilled in the ways of nature, can take silver
and tin, and changing their nature, can turn them into gold.” The
same writer tells us, that he was “wont to call himself χρυσοχοος,
gold melter, and χημευτης, chemist.” Hence we may conclude, that a
notion of some such art as Alchymy was in being at that age; but as
neither of these artists inform us how long it had been previously
known, their testimony will not carry us back beyond the age in
which they lived.
In fact, we find no earlier or plainer traces of the universal
medicine mentioned any where else; nor among the physicians and
naturalists, from Moses to Geber the Arab, who is supposed to have
lived in the seventh century. In that author’s work, entitled the
“Philosopher’s Stone,” mention is made of a medicine that cures all
leprous diseases. This passage, some authors suppose, to have given
the first hint of the matter; though Geber himself, perhaps, meant no
such thing; for by attending to the Arabic style and diction of this
author, which abounds in allegory, it is highly probable, that by man
he means gold; and by leprous, or other diseases, the other metals;
which, with relation to gold, are all impure.
The manner in which Suidas accounts for this total silence of old
authors with regard to Alchymy, is, that Dioclesian procured all the
books of the ancient Egyptians to be burnt; and that it was in these
that the great mysteries of chymistry were contained. Corringius calls
this statement in question, and asks how Suidas, who lived but five
hundred years before us, should know what happened eight hundred
years before him? To which Borrichius answers, that he had learnt it
of Eudemus, Helladius, Zosimus, Pamphilius, &c. as Suidas himself
relates.
Kercher asserts, that the theory of the Philosopher’s Stone, is
delivered at large in the table of Hermes, and that the ancient
Egyptians were not ignorant of the art, but declined to prosecute it.
They did not appear to transmute gold; they had ways of separating
it from all kinds of bodies, from the very mud of the Nile, and stones
of all kinds: but, he adds, these secrets were never written down, or
made public, but confined to the royal family, and handed down
traditionally from father to son.
The chief point advanced by Borrichius, and in which he seems to
lay the principal stress, is, the attempt of Caligula, mentioned by
Pliny, for procuring gold from Orpiment, (Hist. Nat. 1. xxxiii. c. 4.)
But this, it may be observed, makes very little for that author’s
pretensions; there being no transmutations, no hint of any
Philosopher’s Stone, but only a little gold was extracted or separated
from the mineral.
The principal authors on Alchymy are, Geber, Friar Bacon, Sully,
John and Isaac Hallandus, Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, Van Zuchter,
and Sendirogius.
 ALKAHEST, OR ALCAHEST,

In Chemistry, means a most pure and universal menstruum or

dissolvent, with which some chemists have pretended to resolve all
bodies into their first matter, and perform other extraordinary and
unaccountable operations.
Paracelsus and Van Helmont, expressly declare, that there is a
certain fluid in nature, capable of reducing all sublunary bodies, as
well hemogeneous as mixed, into their ens primum, or original
matter of which they are composed; or into an uniform equable and
potable liquor, that will unite with water, and the juices of our
bodies, yet will retain its radical virtues; and if mixed with itself
again, will thereby be converted into pure elementary water. This
declaration, seconded by the asseveration of Van Helmont, who
solemnly declared himself possessed of the secret, excited succeeding
Chemists and Alchymists to the pursuit of so noble a menstruum.
Mr. Boyle was so much attracted with it, that he frankly
acknowledged he had rather been master of it, than of the
Philosopher’s Stone. In short, it is not difficult to conceive, that
bodies might originally arise from some first matter, which was once
in a fluid form. Thus, the primitive matter of gold is, perhaps,
nothing more than a ponderous fluid, which, from its own nature, or
a strong cohesion or attraction between its particles, acquires
afterwards a solid form. And hence there does not appear any
absurdity in the notion of an universal ens, that resolves all bodies
into their Ens Genitate.
The Alcahest is a subject that has been embraced by many anthers;
e. g. Pantatem, Philalettes, Tachenius, Ludovicus, &c. Boerhaave
says, a library of them might be collected; and Werdenfelt, in his
treatise de Secretis Adeptorum, has given all the opinions that have
been entertained concerning it.
 The term Alcahest is not peculiarly found in any language:
Helmont declares, he first observed it in Paracelsus, as a word that
was unknown before the time of that author, who in his second book,
De Viribus Membrorum, treating of the liver, has these rather
remarkable words: Est etiam alkahest liquor, magnam sepates
conservandi et confortandi, &c. “There is also the liquor Alkerhest, of
great efficacy in preserving the liver; as also in curing hydropsical
and all other diseases arising from disorders of that part. If it have
once conquered its like, it becomes superior to all other hepatic
medicines; and though the liver itself was broken and dissolved, this
medicine should supply its place.”
It was this passage alone, quoted from Paracelsus, that stimulated
succeeding chemists to an enquiry after the Alkahest; there being
only another indirect expression, in all his work, relating to it.
As it was a frequent practice with Paracelsus to transpose the
letters of his words, and to abbreviate or otherwise conceal them; e.
g. for tartar, he would write Sutratur; for Nitrum, Mutrin, &c. it is
supposed that Alcahest must be a word disguised in the same
manner. Hence some imagine it, and with much probability, to be
formed of alkali est; consequently that it was the Alkaline salt of
tartar salatilized. This appears to have been Glauber’s opinion; who,
in fact, performed surprising things with such a menstruum, upon
subjects of all the three kingdoms. Others will have it derived from
the German word algeist, that is, wholly spirituous or volatile; others
are of opinion, that the word Alcahest is taken from saltz-geist, which
signifies spirit of salt; for the universal menstruum, it is said, is to be
wrought from water: and Paracelsus himself calls salt the centre of
water, wherein metals ought to die, &c. In fact, spirit of salt was the
great menstruum he used on most occasions.
The Commentator on Paracelsus, who gave a Latin edition of his
works at Delft, assures us that the alcahest was mercury, converted
into a spirit. Zwelfer judged it to be a spirit of vinegar rectified from
verdigris, and Starkey thought he discovered it in his soap.
There have nevertheless been some synonimous and more
significant words used for the Alkahest. Van Helmont, the elder,
mentions it by the compound name of ignis-aqua, fire-water: but he
here seems to allude to the circulated liquor of Paracelsus, which he
terms fire, from its property of consuming all things; and water, on
account of its liquid form. The same author calls it liqoer Gehennæ,
infernal fire; a word also used by Paracelsus. He also entitles it,
“Summun et felicismum omnium salium,” “the highest and most
successful of all salts; which having obtained the supreme degree of
simplicity, purity, and subtilty, enjoys alone the faculty of remaining
unchanged and unimpaired by the subjects it works upon, and of
dissolving the most stubborn and untractable bodies; as stones,
gems, glass, earth, sulphur, metals, &c. into real salt, equal in weight
to the matter dissolved; and this with as much ease as hot water
melts down snow.”—“This salt,” continues he, “by being several times
cohabited with Paracelsus’, Sal circulatum, loses all its fixedness, and
at length becomes an insipid water, equal in quantity to the salt it
was made from.”
Van Helmont positively expresses that this salt is the product of
art and not of nature. “Though, says he, a homogeneal part of
elementary earth may be artfully converted into water, yet I deny
that the same can be done by nature alone; for no natural agent is
able to transmute one element into another.” And this he offers as a
reason why the Elements always remain the same.
It may throw some light into this affair, to observe, that Van
Helmont, as well as Paracelsus, took water for the universal
instrument of chymistry and natural philosophy; and earth for the
unchangeable basis of all things—that fire was assigned as the
sufficient cause of all things—that seminal impressions were lodged
in the mechanism of the earth—that water, by dissolving and
fermenting with this earth, as it does by means of fire, brings forth
every thing; whence originally proceeded the animal, vegetable, and
mineral kingdoms: even man himself, according to Moses, was thus
at first created.
The great characteristic or property of the Alkahest, as has already
been observed, is to dissolve and change all sublunary bodies—water
alone excepted.——The changes it induces proceed in the following
manner, viz.
1. The subject exposed to its operation, is converted into its three
principles, salt, sulphur, and mercury; and afterwards into salt alone,
which then becomes volatile; and, at length, is wholly turned into
insipid water.—The manner in which it is applied, is by touching the
body proposed to be dissolved; e. g. gold, mercury, sand, glass, or the
like, once or twice with the pretended alkahest; and if the liquor be
genuine, the body will on this application be converted into its own
quality of salt.
2. It does not destroy the seminal virtues of the bodies thereby
dissolved.—For instance,—gold, by its action, is reduced to a salt of
gold; antimony, to a salt of antimony; saffron, to a salt of saffron, &c.
of the same seminal virtues, or characters with the original concrete.
By seminal virtues, Van Helmont means those virtues which depend
upon the structure or mechanism of a body, and which constitutes it
what it actually is. Hence an actual and general aurum potabile
might readily be gained by the alkahest, as converting the whole
body of gold into salt, retaining its seminal virtues, and being withal
soluble in water.
3. Whatever it dissolves may be rendered volatile by a sand-heat;
and if, after volatilizing the solvent, it be distilled therefrom, the
body is left pure insipid water, equal in quantity to its original self,
but deprived of its seminal virtues. Then, if gold be dissolved by the
Alkahest, the metal first becomes salt, which is potable gold; but
when the menstruum, by a further application of fire, is distilled
therefrom, it is left mere elementary water. Whence it appears, that
pure water is the last production or effect of the alkahest.
4. It suffers no change or diminution of force by dissolving the
bodies it works in; consequently sustains no reaction from them;
being the only immutable menstruum in nature.
5. It is incapable of mixture, and therefore remains free from
fermentation and putrefaction; coming off as pure from the body it
has dissolved, as when first applied to it; without leaving the least
foulness behind.
 MAGICIAN.

One who practises the art of Magic. (Vide Divination, Sorcery,

and Magic.)
The ancient magicians pretended to extraordinary powers of
interpreting dreams, foretelling future events, and accomplishing
many wonderful things, by their superior knowledge of the secret
powers of nature, of the virtues of plants and minerals, and of the
motions and influences of the stars. And as the art of magic among
Pagan nations was founded on their system of theology, and the magi
who first exercised it were the priests of the gods, they pretended to
derive these extraordinary powers from the assistance of the gods,
which assistance they sought by a variety of rites and sacrifices,
adapted to their respective natures, by the use of charms and
superstitious words, and also by ceremonies and supplications: they
pretended, likewise, in the proper use of their art, to a power of
compelling the gods to execute their desires and commands. An
excellent writer has shewn, that the Scripture brands all these
powers as a shameless imposture, and reproaches those who
assumed them with an utter inability of discovering, or
accomplishing, any thing supernatural. (See Isaiah, xlvii. 11, 12, 13.
chap. xli. 23, 24. chap. xliv. 25. Jeremiah, x. 2, 3, 8, 14. chap xiv. 14.
chap, xxvii. 9, 10. chap. i. 36. Ps. xxi. 6. Jonah, ii. 8.) Nevertheless,
many of the Christian fathers, as well as some of the heathen
philosophers, ascribed the efficacy of magic to evil dæmons; and it
was a very prevailing opinion in the primitive, that magicians and
necromancers, both among the Gentiles and heretical Christians, had
each their particular dæmons perpetually attending on their persons,
and obsequious to their commands, by whose help they could call up
the souls of the dead, foretel future events, and perform miracles. In
support of this opinion, it has been alleged that the names by which
the several sorts of diviners are described in scripture, imply a
communication with spiritual beings; that the laws of Moses (Exod.
xxii. 18. Lev. xix. 26, 31. chap. xx. 27. Deut. xviii. 10, 11.) against
divination and witchcraft, prove the efficacy of these arts, though in
reality they prove nothing more than their execrable wickedness and
impiety; and that pretensions to divination could not have supported
their credit in all the heathen nations, and through all ages, if some
instances of true divination had not occurred. But the strongest
argument is derived from the scripture history of the Egyptian
magicians who opposed Moses. With regard to the works performed
by these magicians, some have supposed that God himself
empowered them to perform true miracles, and gave them an
unexpected success; but the history expressly ascribes the effects
they produced, not to God, but to their own enchantments. Others
imagine, that the devil assisted the magicians, not in performing true
miracles, but in deceiving the senses of the spectators, or in
presenting before them delusive appearances of true miracles:
against which opinion it has been urged, that it tends to disparage
the credit of the works of Moses. The most common opinion, since
the time of St. Austin, has been, that they were not only performed
by the power of the devil, but were genuine miracles, and real
imitations of those of Moses. In a late elaborate enquiry into the true
sense and design of this part of scripture history, it has been shewn
that the names given to magicians seem to express their profession,
their affectation of superior knowledge, and their pretensions both to
explain and effect signs and wonders, by observing the rules of their
art; and therefore, that they are the persons, whose ability of
discovering or effecting any thing supernatural, the scripture
expressly denies. The learned author farther investigates the design
for which Pharaoh employed them on this occasion: which, he
apprehends, was to learn from them, whether the sign given by
Moses was truly supernatural, or only such as their art was able to
accomplish. Accordingly it is observed, that they did not undertake
to outdo Moses, or to controul him, by superior or opposite arts of
power, but merely to imitate him, or to do the same works with his,
with a view of invalidating the argument which he drew from his
miracles, in support of the sole divinity of Jehovah, and of his own
mission. The question on this was not, are the gods of Egypt superior
to the gods of Israel, or can any evil spirits perform greater miracles
than those which Moses performed by the assistance of Jehovah? but
the question is, are the works of Moses proper proofs, that the god of
Israel is Jehovah, the only sovereign of nature, and consequently that
Moses acts by his commission; or, are they merely the wonders of
nature, and the effects of magic? In this light Philo, (de Vita Mosis,
lib. i. p. 616.) and Josephus, (Antiq. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 13.) place the
subject. Moreover, it appears from the principles and conduct of
Moses, that he could not have allowed the magicians to have
performed real miracles; because the scripture represents the whole
body of magicians as impostors; the sacred writers, Moses in
particular, describe all the heathen deities, in the belief of whose
existence and influence the magic art was founded, as unsupported
by any invisible spirit, and utterly impotent and senseless: the
religion of Moses was built on the unity and sole dominion of God,
and the sole divinity of Jehovah was the point which Moses was now
about to establish, in direct opposition to the principles of idolatry;
so that if he had allowed that the heathen idols, or any evil spirit
supporting their cause, enabled the magicians to turn rods into
serpents, and water into blood, and to create frogs, he would have
contradicted the great design of his mission, and overthrown the
whole fabric of his religion; besides, Moses appropriates all Miracles
to God, and urges his own, both in general and separately, as an
absolute and authentic proof, both of the sole divinity of Jehovah,
and of his own mission; which he could not justly have done, if his
opposers performed miracles, and even the same with his. On the
other hand, it has been urged, that Moses describes the works of the
magicians in the very same language as he does his own, (Exod. vii.
11, 12. chap. v. 22. chap. viii. 7.) and hence it is concluded, that they
were equally miraculous. To this objection it is replied, that it is
common to speak of professed Jugglers, as doing what they pretend
and appear to do; but that Moses does not affirm that there was a
perfect conformity between his works and those of the magicians, but
they did so, or in like manner, using a word which expresses merely a
general similitude; and he expressly refers all they did, or attempted
in imitation of himself, not to the invocation of the power of
dæmons, or of any superior beings, but to human artifice and
imposture. The original words, translated enchantments, (Exod. vii.
11, 22. and chap. viii. 7, 18.) import deception and concealment, and
ought to have been rendered, secret slights or jugglings. Our learned
writer farther shews, that the works performed by the magicians did
not exceed the cause, or human artifice, to which they are ascribed.
Farmer’s Diss. on Miracles, 1771, chap. 3. § 3. chap. 4. § 1. (See
Magii.)
 MAGI, OR MAGEANS,

A title which the ancient Persians gave to their wise men or

philosophers.
The learned are in great perplexity about the word magus, μαγ ος.
Plato, Xenophon, Herodotus, Strabo, &c. derive it from the Persian
language, in which it signifies a priest, or person appointed to
officiate in holy things; as druid among the Gauls; gymnosophist
among the Indians; and Levite, among the Hebrews. Others derive it
from the Greek μεγας, great; which they say, being borrowed of the
Greeks, by the Persians, was returned in the form μαγος; but
Vossius, with more probability, brings it from the Hebrew ‫ הגה‬haga,
to meditate; whence ‫מהגים‬, maaghim, in Latin, meditabundi, q. d.
people addicted to meditation.
Magi, among the Persians, answers to σοφοι, or φιλοσοφοι, among
the Greeks; sapientes, among the Latins; druids, among the Gauls;
gymnosophists, among the Indians; and prophets or priests among
the Egyptians.
The ancient magi, according to Aristotle and Laertius, were the
sole authors and conservators of the Persian philosophy; and the
philosophy principally cultivated by them, was theology and politics;
they being always esteemed as the interpreters of all law, both divine
and human; on which account they were wonderfully revered by the
people. Hence, Cicero observes, that none were admitted to the
crown of Persia, but such as were well instructed in the discipline of
the magi; who taught τα βασιλικα, and showed princes how to
govern.
Plato, Apuleius, Laertius, and others, agree, that the philosophy of
the magi related principally to the worship of the gods: they were the
persons who were to offer prayers, supplications, and sacrifices, as if
the gods would be heard by them alone. But according to Lucian,