>There are many assumptions here that aren't being
questioned. Even assuming magic exists (which I
certainly wouldn't argue in an academic paper) as an
objective or factual "thing" in and of itself (as
opposed to subjective changes in consciousness), I
doubt if documenting THAT is what any scholar would
>be trying to do.
The philosophical point I was originally trying to
enlighten you to was that there is no such thing as an
intellectual position that isn't founded on
unquestioned assumptions. :)
In fact a position grounded in fact without
assumptions would be conceptually impossible. Science
itself for instance is currently grounded in nomic and
realist soil (both of which are assumptions rather
than facts). Any study of 'factual material' is
likewise contextualised by the unfounded assumptions.
This is perhaps the only 'fact of life' there is for
serious intellectual or scholarly study. This however
can be seen as a liberation rather than a limitation
in my view, as it allows us to operate with different
metaparadigms or perspectives by changing the
assumptions we take as our ground.
Unfortunately the current intellectual establishment
operate within a closed metaparadigm at present and I
doubt that this will change within the next few
decades.
>Who is going to set themselves up for failure by
trying to document the internal, subjective affect of
a ritual activity? People are going to
focus on what they can document: activities, schools
of thought, texts, teaching, group interaction (and
>probably much more).
Why not document the external, objective effects of
magic? But I agree there will always be room for the
'soft sciences' you mention.
>The closest that I've seen is the attempt by someone
to document changes in brain activity by Tibetan monks
but then these researchers (nor the monks) are not
stating that the monks are doing a magical act
affecting the rest of the world. They are simply
looking at brain effects caused by certain forms of
>meditation on the actor.
Which as we have no idea how the brain works outside
of the current outdated half model is a bit limited.
:)
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