Immersion in far-flung situations by simple, seemingly magical means could serve as a quick description of Mr. Harrison's restless theatrical aesthetic.
The strength and health of the body, the normal growth of children, the capacity to procreate, and even psychic qualities are obtained by magical means.
Medea first helped Jason by magical means when her father required him to perform seemingly impossible tasks in order to win the fleece.
Cormac describes how cattle were driven between two bonfires on Beltane as a magical means of protecting them from disease before they were led into summer pastures a custom still observed in Ireland in the 19th century.
Yet the last of these, "The Tempest," is one of Shakespeare's masterpieces: the strained contrivances and righted wrongs of the previous romances — "Plot has always been the curse of serious drama," George Bernard Shaw said, discussing "Cymbeline" — fall simply into place, with the contriver in plain view, his motives and magical means established at the start.
One example: a pair of Edison movies, "An Artist's Dream" (1899) and "The Artist's Dilemma" (1901), attribute to artists an unconscious desire to make their work move; in each the feat is accomplished by magical means while the artist sleeps.
Grimoires purporting to have been written by a legendary St Cyprian (there was a real St Cyprian as well) became popular in Scandinavia during the late 18th century, while in Spain and Portugal print editions of the Libro de San Cipriano included a gazetteer to treasure sites and the magical means to obtain their hidden riches.
As for how the money is actually transferred, Aude tells me that "The mechanism it uses is to debit one account, and then use some magical means to lookup the bank account number of the recipient and ACH [Automated Clearing House] deposit it, Identical to Square Cash".
He reportedly employed magical means to offer cures for ailments and to locate lost property, although was also alleged to have threatened to curse people's property.
Parsons initially attempted to obtain redress through magical means, carrying out a "Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram" to curse Hubbard and Sara.
