Midnight Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Midnight, literally "the middle of the night", was a time arbitrarily designated to determine the end of a day and the beginning of the next in some, mainly Western, cultures. Originally midnight depended on the time of the sunset and dawn, varying according to the seasons. With the advent of clocks and the division of the day into twenty-four hours, midnight was fixed at 12 am in the 12-hour clock.Midnight now marks the start of the day in civil time throughout the world; however, some religious calendars continue to begin the day at another time — for example, at dusk in the Hebrew calendar or the Islamic calendar.
Each day thus has two midnights, one at the start and one at the end. In the 24-hour clock these are written 00:00 and 24:00 respectively; the 12-hour clock has no notation for the midnight at the end of the day (it has to written as 12 am on the next day).
In traditional magical thinking, both midnight and its opposite, noon, form an axis linking the mundane world with otherworlds by being apogee of darkness and light, respectively. Thus, midnight is associated with chaos, death, underworld and mystery.
Similarly as with noon, the midnight were seen as moment when sacrum manifests itself and epiphanies were most likely. Of course the epifanies expected were that associated with darkness, so it was thought that at midnight visitation from spirits, ghosts, demons and devils were common.
All the supernatural creatures of darkness - reminiscence of feared nocturnal predators - were believed to haunt the night, their potency greatest at its central point. According to Slavic folklore, midnight was time when strzygas have risen from graves to suck blood of mortals, zmoras assailed sleeping to steal their breath and devils came for sinners. Polish Judes believed that it is time when dybbuks possessed folk causing insanity.
As night's attributes are chaos and primordiality, all the acts of summoning from otherworlds were easiest to perform at the culmination of the night. supernatural entities like demons and devils universally answered human call - be it death wish, curse of famine, prostration or pact with devil. All the acts of sorcery, witchcraft, necromancy were easiest then. While some beliefs stated that elaborate rituals were needed, some other folk lore ascribed unholy power to such simple acts as calling the devil at crossroads at midnight. Even peeking into mirror at night (without reliable clock one could never be certain that time it is) was dangerous as devil himself could have looked back.
Midnight was also the time to gather the ingredients used in magical acts done at other times, so various herbs were thought to be most potent when harvested at midnight. Cultural meanings