Midnight
Midnight, literally "the middle of the night", is 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.
Solar midnight is that time opposite of
solar noon, when the sun is closest to
nadir and the night is furthest from dusk and dawn. Due to the advent of
time zones, which makes time identical across a range of
meridians, it rarely coincides with midnight on a clock, but can be computed on a number of websites that perform solar time calculations. Solar midnight is dependent on longitude rather than on a time zone.
Midnight marks both the start and the end of each day in
civil time throughout the world. Since, therefore, two midnights are associated with each day, conventions are needed to distinguish between them.
In the
24-hour time notation, the solution is very simple: "00:00" refers to the start and "24:00" to the end of a given date. In other words, "today at 24:00" is the same point in time as "tomorrow at 00:00".
With the
12-hour time notation, which is still used in Armenia, Greece, and parts of the English-speaking and South American world, there is no simple and
unambiguous notation for midnight. While it has become common practice for computers and digital
clocks in these regions to display "12:00 a.m." for midnight, other notations such as "12 midnight" are also encountered. As these notations provide no clear and unambiguous way to distinguish between midnight at the start and at the end of a day, it has become customary in these regions to move deadlines away from midnight, for example to "11:59 p.m." or "12:01 a.m." (23:59 or 00:01), to associate them unambiguously with a single date.
Some religious calendars continue to begin the day at another time — for example, at
dusk in the
Hebrew calendar or the
Islamic calendar.
In many developed nations, particularly in
Northern America, the colloquial "beginning of the next day" is sometime between 2-5am, as many people with daylight work schedules stay awake past midnight. A majority of
TV stations advertise in accordance with this. In the
United Kingdom, television and radio broadcasters consider a day as starting and finishing at 6am. Many
college-agers in these areas even define it as
sunrise.
In traditional
magical thinking, midnight refers to
solar midnight, which is opposite
solar noon. These form an axis linking the mundane world with
otherworlds by being the
apogee of darkness and the
perigee of light. Thus, traditional midnight is associated with
chaos,
death,
underworld and mystery. It was seen as a moment when
sacrum manifests itself and
epiphanies were most likely. Of course the epiphanies expected were those 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 - reminiscent of feared nocturnal predators - were believed to haunt the night, their potency greatest at its central point, midnight. According to Slavic folklore, midnight was time when
strzygas rose from graves to suck the blood of mortals,
zmoras assailed the sleeping to steal their breath, and devils came for sinners.
Polish Jews believed that it was the 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 a human call - be it death wish,
curse of
famine, prostration or pact with the devil. All the acts of
sorcery,
witchcraft,
necromancy were easiest then. While some beliefs stated that elaborate rituals were needed, some other folklore ascribed unholy power to such simple acts as calling the devil at
crossroads at midnight. Even peeking into a mirror at night (without a reliable clock one could never be certain what time it was) was dangerous, as the 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.
