aye Mogg, indeed
Owen Davies' fine book (is he still on this list? i'm not sure) was, i think, subtitled 'a history of magic books' ( i don't have it to hand but i think that's correct) which indicates the function, it was never intended to be a 'how to'... a practical book to achieve that other function might have to be a meta-Grimoire, which is by definition going to be hands-on, not academic in focus. Simialrly you are unlikely to find any complete ritual rubric in a work by Hutton or Hanegraaff, since that's not what they are about
re: expert historians, i'd disagree somewhat; someone has kindly called me an expert on Kenneth Grant, and while i'm flattered that i might be (in my opinion charitably) mentioned in the same breath as stellar names like Henrik Bogdan, Martin Starr et al, it doesn't mean i'm an expert of the practice; sure i looked at Mr G in great depth on a historical impact angle, but on a practical level my forays into Typhonian areas as a practitioner are a different matter, and very much as a ground-level explorer, and so they didn't merit mention in my academic work on the guy as that wasn't part of the remit, and it would be wrong of me to say that since i'd studied the historical angles of him so much that i knew everything about his practice, and was qualified to expound on that area with great authority; that side of things would probably best be left to the steering of someone like Mike Staley; who i hope at some point wil produce a great experiential book on 'my time with Ken' or words to that effect
Dave E
help me raise money for endangered tribes http://www.justgiving.com/shaveDaveshead
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Original Message
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From: mandrake <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:41:56 +0100
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] FW: [JFRR] Fairy Tales: A New History
(Bottigheimer, Ruth B.)
> Dear David et al
>
>
> "but
when it comes to magic, who is the
laity
and who are the
experts?"
>
Very well put !
>
>
"Academics dig things up and burial them again" - Terry Duquesne
>
>
When historians study magick maybe they become the experts -
>
and sometimes lay down the lore - perhaps erroneously?
>
>
Magick is a very intellectual pursuit.
>
>
I suppose a clear difference between practitioner and
academic
perspective is that academic authors often leave out
important
operational material.
>
Thus Owen Davies' book on grimoires doesn't give any
useable
examples. Or recently I looked at a very informative book on
ancient
dream incubation
>
only to find the long discussion was really about whether
temples
were used in this way before the Greek period (a typical
academic
obsession)
>
but not so relevant to the practitioner/reconstructionist.
>
I like academic writing that is does both.
>
>
senebty
>
>
Mogg Morgan
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