Caelum Rainieri wrote:
> Sorry, Al. You lost me.
>
> For this entire thread, I was discussing what I perceive as inherent
> problems in the academic study of magic, which, in turn, was based
> upon earlier discussions about how Tanya Luhrman conducted her research.
>
> My opinion is that anthropologists who observe magical rituals have to
> overcome numerous obstacles in making an accurate record of what
> they've witnessed; that, in fact, it may very well be impossible.
>
> How that somehow became, in your view, my espousing a dualistic
> argument akin to a 12th Century struggle of God versus Satan eludes me.
It was your buttonholing of something into a polarity of being either
an art or a science.
As to anthropologists documenting what they have witnessed, that is
quite easy. They literally document what they have witnessed. If you
really mean the mental state of those doing the activities that they
have witnessed, that's impossible but it is for any activity. You can
document what people do, what they say, how they interact, but you
cannot document anyone's state of mind. That's just a given.
I don't see how that makes studying people's magical practice any
different than studying many other kinds of activities unless you are
presupposing that magic is "doing" something in and of itself, which is
not a scholastic assumption.
Al
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