Hello folks,
Corcerning this topic there are some relevant studies by the
romanian ethnologist and historian of religion Andrei Oişteanu, expecially the
new massive book Narcotice īn cultura
romānă. Istorie, religie şi literatură ("Narcotics in romanian
culture. History, religion and literature", romanian language only. Looking for
the new 2011 extended edition, a translation would be surely amazing), but he
has written quite often in english e.g. Narcotics and hallucinogens:
scholars from the romanian territories travelling to the East (Spathary Milescu,
D. Cantemir, J.M. Honigberger, M. Eliade), in "Studia Asiatica.
International Journal for Asian Studies" 10 (2009), 263-285; Id., Mircea Eliade and Ioan Petru
Culianu on narcotics and religion, in "Archaeus. Studies in History of
Religions" 14 (2010), 121-140. Davide Ermacora
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Occult practices and the drug
trade
Two simple reasons: there's no money in it, and it is ilegal.
Some would say drugs are ilegal because there's money in making it
ilegal.
On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Noah Gardiner
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Mogg,
Yes, drug use is such an
incredibly important modern cultural phenomenon, in occultism and elsewhere,
and of course an important phenomenon historically. I've long wondered why
there's no academic field taking a humanities approach to the topic, "Drugs
studies" or somesuch. For example, there's been a little been done on medieval
Middle Eastern hashish use, but it could be explored much further. Obviously,
psychotropics/"shamanism" have gotten some attention, but there's a lot more
to the topic of drugs than just that category. It's also of enormous political
importance, of course, given my dear country's international "war on
drugs."
Someday, if I get a tenured job (if tenure still exists in the
near future), I'll try to pursue it.
- N
On 7/26/2011 12:16 PM, mandrake wrote:
Noah
Cheers
interesting - non medical drug
use is the heresy and witchcraft of modern times -
reminds me a bit of
David Land's "Guns & Rain: Guerillas and Spirit Mediums
in Zimbabwe"
bb
mogg
On 26/07/2011 09:54,
Noah Gardiner wrote:
This story from today's LA Times might interest
people on this list. It's part of a series about the Sinaloa drug cartel,
and includes quite a bit of stuff about occult practices by some
distributors. A bit sensationalistic, but interesting.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/cartel/la-me-cartel-20110726,0,6413313.story
