hi Mogg,
nagasiva yronwode:
>> eventually i reached the conclusion that the body
>> was not an *essential* part of magic, excepting
>> that it is used to construct and/or deploy certain
>> magical substances or create the symbolism and
>> association (whether in ritual or in spellcraft)
>> that i consider to be essential to magic itself,
>> and in fact identifying. the body is required for
>> most things that human beings do, but it is not
>> necessarily what happens with the body that makes
>> a thing what it is as a behaviour or phenomenon,
>> and this is the conclusion that i have so far
>> reached in the case of magic.
mandrake:
> Well that really just doesn't make sense to me -
> you're nothing without a body : )
indeed, but a working spell doesn't require a body
to keep it going and to still constitute magic.
a body alone doesn't mean magic to me, but a body
putting together an object representing (or
previously associated to) a target and another
associating an effect makes a magical act. the
body doing something is important to magical
action on the part of human beings. working spells
don't require that a human being is present,
though a body may have set them into working.
nagasiva yronwode ([log in to unmask]), Director
YIPPIE*! -- http://www.yronwode.org/
-----------------------------------------------------
*Yronwode Institution for the Preservation
and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
-----------------------------------------------------
|