Dear all,

 

'The Nature of Magic' is being reviewed for JSM4 and is an important companion to 'magic, witchcraft and the otherworld' , which I thought was an excellent book. As regards balance, in her earlier book Greenwood was pretty clear that ceremonial magick was not for her personally, but I think that it's to her credit that she did not do a hatchet job. She did however make some generalisations about ceremonial magick and the witchcrafts she encountered which are specific to the groups she encountered and should be taken as valid but not necessarily reliable. That's just a peril of ethnography I guess.

 

In the latest book she looks specifically at magical consciousness and its relationship to nature spirituality, so it's not that she's deliberately ignoring certain magicks, i think, just her focus is more narrow.

 

Just to welcome new people on to the list too - please feel free to introduce yourself and join in the discussion.

 

dave   

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From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic on behalf of Mogg Morgan
Sent: Sat 24/06/2006 20:53
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Greenwood's The Nature of Magic: An Anthropology of Consciousness

Dear all

sounds interesting although i'm not sure what to think about

its (reported) bias towards 'shamanic, Druids and some Wiccans,' -
which sounds like it will reflect the usual bias _against_ magical practice
and towards a group that often expresses hostility to magic?
I'd be disappointed if this were true as what i've seen of Susan Greenwood i
like.

IMO, this traditional invisibility of UK magicians is in no way a function
of the size or theoretical influence of that group. There's that well know
thing in Tanya Luhrman that she studiously avoids any discussion with
magicians -
i guess because she was told to avoid them by her main contacts?? And that
dynamic often continues. but i will wait and see the review - sure it will
be cool.

bb/93

mogg






 by relating to nature through "magical consciousness."  Borrowing from
Levy-Bruhl, she argues that magical consciousness consists of a perspective
on the world that emphasizes relatedness.  She traces how practitioners
connect to nature through a series of rituals and magical experiences,
including her own responses to some events she describes.  Her experiences
are well-integrated into a body of material from her informants, so while
the book benefits from a post-modern perspective, it's not autoethnography.
In the analysis, she confronts some paradoxical elements in contemporary
paganism, such as the problematic construction of "nature" and the
relationship between Western esotericism and the emphasis on indigenousness
of magical traditions.  She relates this emphasis to the globali!
za!
!
tion/localization phenomenon.

Midsummer cheer,
Sabina

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:38:54 -0400
>From: Daniel Harms <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Greenwood's The Nature of Magic:  An
Anthropology of Consciousness
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>   I couldn't find any mention of this book in the
>   archives.  Has anyone seen it yet?  Thoughts?
>
>
>
>   Dan Harms
>
>   Coordinator of Instruction Librarian
>
>   SUNY Cortland Memorial Library
>
>   P.O. Box 2000
>   Cortland  NY, 13045
>
>   (607) 753-4042
Sabina Magliocco
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
California State University
18111 Nordhoff St.
Northridge, CA  91330-8244


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