hi Samuel and Kathryn,
Samuel Wagar:
>> ...open-minded ....
it is important to be extremely open-minded in a
study of a group of people and their magic. I've
seen problems with biases getting in the way of
sincere research. perhaps this is one reasons
that funding is targetted to the credentialed.
so are the Odinists doing religious possessory
rituals, runic spells, or something more novel?
I think that is a subset of the Asatruar.
I don't think that Christian Identity has anything
at all to do with magic do they? some Christians
have Transubstantiation, so i can never be sure.
do New Agers have magic? when i was exploring their
subculture they really tried very hard to avoid the
entry of ego into manipulation of reality except in
an abstracted sense. lately i've seen some excellent
movement from them in development methodologies of
'Manifestation', and i have been curious how close
these came to magical spells or ritual orientation.
for a long time i've been aware of the ideology of
'Create Your Own Reality' but details on how that
is to be done and the mechanisms for bringing into
being the actualizations of desire have been
pinioned by transcendental and desire-negating
mystical impulses.
>> Rodney Stark and his school of economics
>> based sociology of religion aside (a
>> school for which I have quite a bit of
>> respect for its explanatory power)....
does this school explain magic's role in
society? does it explain what magic is or
should be? curious where economics hits
the esoteric, thanks.
Kathryn Evans:
> ...Spiritualists ....
now Spiritualism i just spent a great bit of
time exploring, at least in terms of research.
I don't think that they used the term magic in
their self-descripts, and i cannot say that i
identified anything in Spiritualism culture
that i would myself call magic.
I have absolutely added the flank of automatism
to my occult studies and its various apparels.
some of the material culture of that is amazing.
kind regards,
nagasiva yronwode ([log in to unmask]), Director
YIPPIE*! -- http://www.yronwode.org/
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*Yronwode Institution for the Preservation
and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
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