I heartily agree with Jason! Both as regards the
both/and element in traditional societies, and when he
says that the way Wicca, Druidism, Odinism etc have
been set up as alternative religions is a modern
phenomenon.
And I'd add that, when considering religious
practices, to some extent 'magic' (like
'superstition')is a label imposed by hostile
outsiders.
This comes out clearly in the Protestant / Catholic
divide. I was raised Catholic, and well remember some
practices which my Protestant friends called
superstitions, and which I now as a folklorist would
say are part magical. For example, certain holy
pictures which were said to protect the room where
they were displayed from catching fire. Or the promise
that if you took Communion on the first Friday of nine
consecutive months, you were guaranteed not to die in
mortal sin. Much of this has been swept away (at any
rate in Britain) because the Church itself now regards
such practices as superstitious/magical, because of
their alleged automatic efficacy. But the nuns who
taught us to do them thought such practices and
beliefs were religious through and through, and linked
them to prayer.
Jacqueline
--- jason winslade <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> "When you say you can detect a bit of magic in all
> religions -
> i think you are falling back into the old mode of
> thinking -
> whereby you have magical techniques on one side and
> the search for god etc."
>
> - quite the contrary. I'm talking about ceremonial
> magicians (Agrippa, Dee, Ficino, the list is
> extensive) who firmly saw their magical practice as
> bolstering their Christianity, not to mention folk
> magicians who used Christian iconography. Or
> Kabbalists whose magical practice is firmly
> supported by understanding of the Torah. This
> doesn't even include, say, Catholics in Ireland who
> perform certain rituals but who wouldn't call it
> magic, even though we might see it as such. In my
> mind, separating magic out as its own practice
> involves those very dangers of binarism you
> mention, whereas for these people it certainly isn't
> an either/or proposition, but a both/and.
>
> Maybe this is an 'old mode of thinking', because the
> notion that magic itself can be a religion is pretty
> new, and probably the result of the New Age movement
> and Wicca, where contemporary practitioners have
> moved away from the religions they were raised in
> and are looking to create their own. Which I'm all
> for, because I'm certainly one of them, but I've
> seen countless examples of pagans who DO view things
> in this binary (ex: Christian = bad and non-magical,
> paganism = good and magical). But I find it very
> interesting when I meet 'magical' people who are
> still fully Catholic or Jewish. As a Hermetic
> practitioner, I see magic as only one modality that
> I work with, while meditation or prayer might be
> others.
> jlw
>
>
> Mogg Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Jason et al
>
> well yes - i see where you're coming from - but
> however you spell it -
> magic is not just a set of techniques - imo - but
> more defined by some sort of
> gnostic or spiritual quest - rather than some sort
> of 'failed' technology
> (the old frazier view that so influenced Crowley
> and his successors).
>
> IMO every technique has an 'implicite' theology.
>
> When you say you can detect a bit of magic in all
> religions -
> i think you are falling back into the old mode of
> thinking -
> whereby you have magical techniques on one side and
> the search for god etc.,
> on the other. Many religions use certain
> techniques to prove the validity of their central
> beliefs
> - ie. the magic has a religious purpose.
> Hence JCs practice of exorcism was seen as proof
> of the coming kingdom of god -
> it wasn't some kind of sideline.
> Likewise in tantrism - the performance of the
> siddhas requires special religious devotion
> by the operator - the two things are inextricably
> linked.
>
> There may be a special case in roman egypt - which
> was a very lively time when essentially a new
> religion,
> or new version of the old Egyptian faith - based
> around the Greek Magical Papyri - was in
> construction -
> that's HD Betz's opinion.
>
>
> ' love and do what you will'
>
> mogg
>
> PS: I'm not proposing this as the view of all
> practitioners - i am aware that many modern
> practioners have no space in their paradigms for
> the religious sensibility. Even so i have a personal
> gripe with those commentors / experts who don't
> seem interested in what some of the mystoi actually
> believe and who continue to peddle the idea that
> magick has no mystical component. That's just not
> my experience.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of jason winslade
> Sent: 02 March 2006 19:04
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Some Inherent
> Problems in Researching Magical Practice
>
>
> Maybe you're talking about the difference
> between magic and Magick. It seems like
> lowercase magic is a practice that can be utilized
> within other religions. As we've seen there's
> such a thing as Christian magic or Kabbalistic
> magic. Categorically, this seems like it's in the
> same vein as prayer - a technique that you can
> use to practice your religion. Though I know it's
> a controversial spelling, Magick might be used to
> indicate the particular religion that you're
> referring to (I'm guessing an eclectic blend of
> Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and Pagan beliefts? - but
> I guess it's up to the practitioner to define).
> JLW
>
> Mogg Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear All
>
> The problem I have with this discussion, is that i
> see Magick as a
> 'religion'
> - or path to spiritual enlightenment and liberation
> - i'm pretty su! re many
> other of the magi see it in a similar way (and even
> some academic
> commentators). Given this, i wonder how appropriate
> these questions about
> 'mechanism' really are - would they be directed at
> other religions??
>
> 'Love and do what you will'
>
> mogg
>
> PS: Ritner (the author of a prize winning book
> on the mechanics of egyptian
> magick) says that in the Egyptian context, its
> study has not been well
> served by anthropologists such as Malinowski et
> al.
>
>
>
>
>
> had a similar take. Magic is seen as a
> psychological mechanism for confidence building
> in the
> face of uncertainty.
>
> That said, I'm interested in the interface
> between
> magic and PSI, or parapsychological studies
> which
> addresses things such as remote viewing, healing at
> a
> distance, synchronities, ect. Biogenetic
> structuralism provides one potential
> theoretical
> framework for discussing how inner change within
> one's
> own wetware potential influences the ! world at
> large
> through nonlocal channels.
>
> I don't know of any research that's been done
> on
> practicing ceremonial magicians with regards to PSI,
> but organizations like the Institute of Noetic
> Sciences (www.noetic.org) have a growing
> databased of
> studies on the role of the mind in nonlocal
> phenomenon.
>
> --- Richard Ramsay wrote:
>
> > I've been trying to catch up on emails. This
> seems
> > to toch on Stuart Vyse's Believing in Magic.
> The
> > psychology of superstition. He talks about a
> > baseball player using magic or ritual as it's
> an
> > uncertain world on the pitch.
> >
> > I suppose that one can undertake activities in
> a
> > de-spirited sense but isn't there a hymn (by
> George
> > Herbert of Bemerton?) that says something
> like,
> >
> > 'Who sweeps a room in the name divine
> > Makes that and the action fine'?
>
=== message truncated ===
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