Memetic Hexerei (aka Chain Letters)

I've been thinking about American magical traditions a lot recently. In witchcraft it's pretty hard to avoid a strong association with the British Isles (everything from Arthur and Avalon to traditional Wicca), and Germanic and Norse folk practices may well be the second most common source. 

European witchcraft traditions have been evolving in America for centuries, though...for example, the Pennsylvania Dutch magical system called hexerei or pow-wow. My background is British, German, and in particular Pennsylvannia Dutch (which, by the way, actually means German in this case. Also, here I am still in Pittsburgh), so this is all pretty relevant for me personally.

Anyway, I remembered learning something about hex signs as a kid, so I was looking into that a little more deeply when I came across this completely random thing: the picture above is called a "himmelsbrief", literally "heaven's letter". Apparently this is a centuries-old German and German-American tradition in which letters supposedly written by God are carried around as protective talismans. 

The really funny thing is the memetic structures these letters contain. Most of the text concerns the specific blessings bestowed upon the bearer of the letter, and encourages the reader to make their own copy. It's a chain letter from God! According to the chain letter evolution archive, modern chain letters descend circuitously from this practice.

Memetically, it's brilliant. Letters are easy to replicate, so when you give people the motivation to do so, you can end up with an exponential explosion of information (or postcards, or even money, as later innovators realized). Offer a superstitious carrot and stick, for example, and you're in business. When you think about throwing the super-speed copying and memetic sharing medium of the internet into the mix, the possibilities are staggering.

(Himmelsbriefe also remind me of this amazing piece of junk mail. God sure sends some weird letters.)