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I agree with Sam, that ultimately we need a unifying model. I like this from Jacob Needleman's Introduction to 'Modern Esoteric Spirtuality', where he suggests that we all have a 'seeker' and a 'scholar' within us, and they must learn to co-operate on an inner level otherwise the polarity will constantly be projected outwards and create oppositional situations: " scholars need to be able to allow the seekers within themselves to exist, and seekers after esoteric knowledge must, for their part, allow within themselves the validity of the outward, analytic or critical mind". Dr Angela Voss 10 Arnold Road Chartham Canterbury CT4 7QL 07787 434958 01227 732457 www.cosmology-divination.com<http://www.cosmology-divination.com/> ________________________________ From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sam Garrard [[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 4:18 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Trials of the Moon and people who hate Hutton On Academia-bashing: People seem to think that “academia” is some sort of malevolent monster out to ruin Paganism. I’m surprised that some people (like Carla) obviously hate Hutton so much. Gosh, I was really pleased when ‘Triumph of the Moon’ came out, I even pre-ordered it from Borders and read it avidly every morning as I breastfed my firstborn. Hutton didn’t seem sloppy or unprofessional to me... Am I just one of the deluded suckers of academia? (sarcasm) I think it’s one of those peculiar tensions within the academic study of esotericism that one has to accept. The contention is that one is encouraged to study the field in the compartmentalised, objective mode of study, ie. empirically that the field of esotericism itself (ironically) provides an alternative to. - It is the study of traditions that emphasise the value of unifying knowledge through a mode of knowledge that appears to separate. I think that there is a way of embracing this seemingly paradoxical position without demeaning or over-valuating either side – and that is accepting that there is more than one mode of knowledge – and neither is more correct than the other. as Richard Linklater says in Waking Life (2001): “Life is a matter of a miracle, that is collected over time by moments flabbergasted to be in each others’ presence. The world is an exam, to see if we can rise into the direct experiences. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it, matter is here as a test for our curiosity, doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write a hundred stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling in to a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized at last, something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you can not understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely, which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say, that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me. And I can learn to love, and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of Self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, don’t forget, which is to say remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem, said that the iguana will bite those who do not dream. And, as one realizes, that one is a dream-figure in another person’s dream: that is self-awareness!”