Hi Nagasiva,
Thank you once again for very discerning/discriminating (not discriminatory)
comments.
You are right; I should have used a lower-case "s" on "spiritualists," as I
was not implying Spiritualism, but rather self-professed
spiritually-oriented people.
I was thinking along the lines of the human capacity for "suspension of
disbelief" regarding spiritual/religious information in various media. And
I've been thinking lately of a funny line from the Frank Capra movie 'You
Can't Take it With You,' when the silly middle-aged playwright says to the
sophisticated middle-aged society lady--who practices Spiritualism-- . . .
"Everybody knows that's a fake." So perhaps those two threads of thought
crossed to produce my "Spiritualists" with a capital "S";)
Kathryn
----- Original Message -----
From: "nagasiva yronwode, YIPPIE Director" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 10:55 AM
Subject: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] New Age, Neopagan, Spiritualist Magics?
> hi Samuel and Kathryn,
>
> Samuel Wagar:
>>> ...open-minded ....
>
> it is important to be extremely open-minded in a
> study of a group of people and their magic. I've
> seen problems with biases getting in the way of
> sincere research. perhaps this is one reasons
> that funding is targetted to the credentialed.
>
> so are the Odinists doing religious possessory
> rituals, runic spells, or something more novel?
> I think that is a subset of the Asatruar.
>
> I don't think that Christian Identity has anything
> at all to do with magic do they? some Christians
> have Transubstantiation, so i can never be sure.
>
> do New Agers have magic? when i was exploring their
> subculture they really tried very hard to avoid the
> entry of ego into manipulation of reality except in
> an abstracted sense. lately i've seen some excellent
> movement from them in development methodologies of
> 'Manifestation', and i have been curious how close
> these came to magical spells or ritual orientation.
>
> for a long time i've been aware of the ideology of
> 'Create Your Own Reality' but details on how that
> is to be done and the mechanisms for bringing into
> being the actualizations of desire have been
> pinioned by transcendental and desire-negating
> mystical impulses.
>
>>> Rodney Stark and his school of economics
>>> based sociology of religion aside (a
>>> school for which I have quite a bit of
>>> respect for its explanatory power)....
>
> does this school explain magic's role in
> society? does it explain what magic is or
> should be? curious where economics hits
> the esoteric, thanks.
>
> Kathryn Evans:
>> ...Spiritualists ....
>
> now Spiritualism i just spent a great bit of
> time exploring, at least in terms of research.
> I don't think that they used the term magic in
> their self-descripts, and i cannot say that i
> identified anything in Spiritualism culture
> that i would myself call magic.
>
> I have absolutely added the flank of automatism
> to my occult studies and its various apparels.
> some of the material culture of that is amazing.
>
> kind regards,
>
> nagasiva yronwode ([log in to unmask]), Director
> YIPPIE*! -- http://www.yronwode.org/
> -----------------------------------------------------
> *Yronwode Institution for the Preservation
> and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
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