Yes, a very nice subject for procrastination! Although Nevill
Drury would probably like my overdue chapter finished rather than read
watermelon arguments in the summer heat. It won't be long, Dr. Drury! I
promise!
I generally agree on the participation bits, even if I would
discern between practitioner and participant-observer here. That is, I agree on
trying to understand the subleties beneath visible actions and words (this
actually includes texts as well as rituals and images), but we shouldn't expect
observers to go too deep - that would be the old "you have to be a murderer to
write about murder"-argument (insert Nazi, Satanist or whatever). One the one
hand, I can definitely write about Satanism, for example, without being a
Satanist or practicing satanic rituals; on the other hand, I would be a very bad
scholar if I didn't talk to actual Satanists, participate in their rituals and
read their material. In a sense, that is what emic and etic theorizing is all
about, isn't it? Understanding the insides of a given system, but interpreting
it in terms of another.
Oh, and I do enjoy a good ritual, whether small, large, noisy
or quiet, religious or otherwise. We do need theatre, fun and scary moments
too.
Now another post ticked in...
Yes, regarding titels and degrees: They can be bought, as can
religious and political ones, and not all "credentialed" people do or
exhibit the things associated with degrees. Nevertheless, that can often be
checked. I think they remain a useful fiction :)
Best,
Jesper.
super thread on a summer day, when the list is
traditionally a bit quiet : )
great point on Stephen E Flowers, who is
both respected academic and lefthandpath magico
and yes re judging on
usefulness, not on any 'designer label' - an academic study of subject A
from Oxbridge versus academically-worked freelance practitioner report on same
subject - on paper its the Oxbridge if you are 'scoring' on kudos and looking
at how your peer-reviewers will see your findings, but the content of both may
be excellent, and as i will always argue, a practitioner contribution to the
feast is always hugely useful as it has privileged and nuanced insider
knowledge that may otherwise be lacking - an academic who has not participated
in, for example a ritual invocation, will *never* as an observer or reader,
understand the cornucopia of what is going on
A hypothetical an
non-ritually-experienced observer who witnessed me do some ritual group work
at a woodland site a few years back would have concluded that i emerged from
the undergrowth clad in rather lurid fancy dress and an animal mask, shouted
some disjointed poetry, the group laughed a lot, they danced round a fire for
a while and a little later everyone ate cake. it was actually a heavy-duty
invocation rite that had as a central part some amazing internal and not
immeidately visual or verbally-summarisable experiences. On a pure observation
level it was scarcely have been worth writing about, yet it remains one of my
top ten ritual experiences. Go figure
it's like the old argument about
poetry- a Turing-esque robotic word analyser can be trained to assess all love
poems ever published, it can be told to pick the salient themes and will, with
some programming on how to structure a sentence, produce a good poem about
love that reads nicely. Someone with the vocabulary, who has ever *been* in
love will perhaps produce a poem that is probably more meaningful, and
certainly with some passion, based on experience
not a great metaphor
as i'm not calling non-practicers impassionate robots, but it'll have to do
for now
as one of our JSM editors Robert Wallis wrote a long time ago,
if we dare to do this work without engaging with practitioners than we are not
doing our jobs right. Which is one reason why, when i was running the JSM ship
at least, we reviewed both important institution-based academic publications,
freelance works and intelligently-written practitioner books on the same
playing field, which i think was to the benefit of everyone
something
else that tends to occur with a practitioner writing in academic format is a
usefully blended discipline- bits of history, anthro, sociol etc; which is
somewhat rarer in academics embedded in institutions (as there are line
management issues, historians working in history departments are expected to
get published in history journals etc)
cheers
Dave E
---------- Original Message -----------
From: Jesper
Aagaard Petersen <[log in to unmask]>
To:
[log in to unmask]
Sent: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 13:03:52 +0200
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Academia and Amateurs
>
Jake,
> "Serious, non-pop and based on
solid research, but employing very different devices than a formal study from
an academic." Exactly! In the previous post, I forgot to include something
about genre and anticipation - I mean, most sympathetic academics on the
inside and outside read primary and secondary material with great interest;
and some material is difficult to categorize, eg. Stephen Flowers "Lords of
the Left-Hand Path" is both serious scholarship and an inside view. A useful
text is a useful text, no matter the provenance. But when evaluating
reliability and validity outside a magical context, some indication of genre
and some understanding of reader anticipation is needed.
> Any academic who discards material out of hand is doing a poor job in
my opinion. On the other hand, one benefit of education is a framework of
previous judgements; again, not foolproof, but useful.
> Best,
> Jesper.
>
>
-----Original Message-----
> From:
Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Jake Stratton-Kent
> Sent: Friday,
July 02, 2010 12:52 PM
> To:
[log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re:
[ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Academia and Amateurs
> On 2
July 2010 11:37, Jesper Aagaard Petersen <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> > Dave (and others),
>
>
> > well said! Although I
would call work academic based on communicative
> > merits, not methodology or intention, I definitely agree that it
has
> > nothing to do with location,
labels or buildings. When it comes to
> >
education, degrees and titles, I am a little more ambivalent. On the
> > one hand, we shouldn't exclude people solely
on the basis of lacking
> > these elements; on
the other, they have something to say.
> >
> > I mean, some of the students I
teach (the lazy ones) have absolutely
> >
nothing to back up any titles they eventually get, even though they
> > attended university. On the other
hand, the passionate "amateur" (as
> > in
lover of the
> > subject) probably knows more
than me, even without professional
> >
schooling. Nevertheless, when marking and grading papers I see a
> > development in reflection and construction
of arguments in the good
> > students that is
ideally what a degree or title is about, again
> > reflected in the good article or monograph. To read a book or
think
> > critically is not exclusively
academic; but it is one of the ways to
> > read
and think. Regarding the unaffiliated, they are probably unlucky
> > and could do the job as well as the tenured
staff (or they chose to be independent).
> >
> > Oh, and when I was spreading a
diluted meme earlier on mostly useless
> > work,
I was talking about the university sector as a whole, not
>
> esotericism/magic/religious studies.
> this takes me back to something Ted said about non-academic (sic)
writers providing useful texts and the need for more. Fact is I know how to
write an *essay*: premiss, argument, summary and conclusion.
>
Writing a book is a whole different matter, whether aimed at
academics or not.
> The structural methods I have
engaged in this respect are probably not what is expected, and are unlikely to
become so - in fact probably less with the next title than the previous one!
Serious, non-pop and based on solid research, but employing very different
devices than a formal study from an academic. Depending on the subject matter
and the intention, this is probably inevitable for many 'serious'
occultists.
> This shouldn't be an obstacle for
academics since of course primary sources don't generally follow the
guidelines either. ;)
> Jake
> http://www.underworld-apothecary.com/
------- End of Original Message -------
