The Varieties Of Magical Experience
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The Varieties Of Magical Experience
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Author : Lynne L. Hume Ph.D.
language : en
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Release Date : 2013-01-24
The Varieties Of Magical Experience written by Lynne L. Hume Ph.D. and has been published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013-01-24 with Body, Mind & Spirit categories.
A rare combination of personal and academic, this book showcases the myriad avenues for transcending the boundaries of reality through direct sensory experience. The Varieties of Magical Experience: Indigenous, Medieval, and Modern Magic provides a comprehensive volume that examines magic in all its aspects. Through detailed case studies, verbatim accounts of personal experiences, and first-hand experience from the authors' own active participation in many alternative religious rituals and ceremonies, this unique book reveals how magic can be a universal phenomenon that crosses cultural, historical, and spatial boundaries. The work is organized in five sections that embrace several broad themes: indigenous magical and shamanic practices; medieval witchcraft; sorcery and hermetic magic; and contemporary Western magical practices, including the role of sexuality, trance, and meditation. The introductory section explores the idea of magic, other realities, and the employment of all the senses, while the final section discusses contemporary issues of ecology and cybermagic. The authors give voice to the powerful emotions and feelings that result from a magical encounter, providing engaging and accessible information to general readers, while those well versed in the opaque world of magic and occultism, consciousness studies, and imaginal and disembodied realms will appreciate the book's content at a deeper level.
The Scent Of Ancient Magic
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Author : Britta K. Ager
language : en
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Release Date : 2022-04-27
The Scent Of Ancient Magic written by Britta K. Ager and has been published by University of Michigan Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2022-04-27 with History categories.
Magic was a fundamental part of the Greco-Roman world. Curses, erotic spells, healing charms, divination, and other supernatural methods of trying to change the universe were everyday methods of coping with the difficulties of life in antiquity. While ancient magic is most often studied through texts like surviving Greco-Egyptian spellbooks and artifacts like lead curse tablets, for a Greek or Roman magician a ritual was a rich sensual experience full of unusual tastes, smells, textures, and sounds, bright colors, and sensations like fasting and sleeplessness. Greco-Roman magical rituals were particularly dominated by the sense of smell, both fragrant smells and foul odors. Ritual practitioners surrounded themselves with clouds of fragrant incense and perfume to create a sweet and inviting atmosphere for contact with the divine and to alter their own perceptions; they also used odors as an instrumental weapon to attack enemies and command the gods. Elsewhere, odiferous herbs were used equally as medical cures and magical ingredients. In literature, scent and magic became intertwined as metaphors, with fragrant spells representing the dangers of sensual perfumes and conversely, smells acting as a visceral way of envisioning the mysterious action of magic. The Scent of Ancient Magic explores the complex interconnection of scent and magic in the Greco-Roman world between 800 BCE and CE 600, drawing on ancient literature and the modern study of the senses to examine the sensory depth and richness of ancient magic. Author Britta K. Ager looks at how ancient magicians used scents as part of their spells, to put themselves in the right mindset for an encounter with a god or to attack their enemies through scent. Ager also examines the magicians who appear in ancient fiction, like Medea and Circe, and the more metaphorical ways in which their spells are confused with perfumes and herbs. This book brings together recent scholarship on ancient magic from classical studies and on scent from the interdisciplinary field of sensory studies in order to examine how practicing ancient magicians used scents for ritual purposes, how scent and magic were conceptually related in ancient literature and culture, and how the assumption that strong scents convey powerful effects of various sorts was also found in related areas like ancient medical practices and normative religious ritual.
The Problem Of Disenchantment
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Author : Egil Asprem
language : en
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Release Date : 2018-05-31
The Problem Of Disenchantment written by Egil Asprem and has been published by State University of New York Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2018-05-31 with Religion categories.
Max Weber famously characterized the ongoing process of intellectualization and rationalization that separates the natural world from the divine (by excluding magic and value from the realm of science, and reason and fact from the realm of religion) as the "disenchantment of the world." Egil Asprem argues for a conceptual shift in how we view this key narrative of modernity. Instead of a sociohistorical process of disenchantment that produces increasingly rational minds, Asprem maintains that the continued presence of "magic" and "enchantment" in people's everyday experience of the world created an intellectual problem for those few who were socialized to believe that nature should contain no such incalculable mysteries. Drawing on a wide range of early twentieth-century primary sources from theoretical physics, occultism, embryology, radioactivity, psychical research, and other fields, Asprem casts the intellectual life of high modernity as a synchronic struggle across conspicuously different fields that shared surprisingly similar intellectual problems about value, meaning, and the limits of knowledge.
Esotericism And Narrative The Occult Fiction Of Charles Williams
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Author : Aren Roukema
language : en
Publisher: BRILL
Release Date : 2018-05-29
Esotericism And Narrative The Occult Fiction Of Charles Williams written by Aren Roukema and has been published by BRILL this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2018-05-29 with Religion categories.
Esotericism and Narrative: The Occult Fiction of Charles Williams situates the life and fiction of the Inkling Charles Williams in the network of modern occultism, with special focus on his initiatory experiences in A.E. Waite’s Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. Aren Roukema evaluates fictional projections of magic, kabbalah, alchemy and ritual experience in Williams’s seven novels of supernatural fantasy. From this specific analysis, he develops more broadly applicable approaches to the serious expression of religious experience in fiction. Roukema shows that esoteric knowledge has frequently been blurred into fiction because of its inherent narrativity and adaptability, particularly by authors already attracted to the syncretism, multivalence and lived fantasy of the modern occult experience.
Solomonic Magic
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Author : Gal Sofer
language : en
Publisher: BRILL
Release Date : 2025-05-22
Solomonic Magic written by Gal Sofer and has been published by BRILL this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2025-05-22 with Religion categories.
Solomonic magic has captivated imaginations for centuries, yet its definition remains elusive. Is it a specialized branch linked to King Solomon, or a broader classification of practices attributed to him? This book explores the mysterious world of demon subjugation, examining previously unknown texts in multiple languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and more) to reveal the historical evolution of this magical tradition. Divided into three parts, the book presents analyses of key manuscripts and examines the historical influence of Hebrew texts on later traditions. Featuring many unpublished manuscripts, this book challenges previous scholarly assumptions and offers a new perspective on the textual network that shaped medieval and early modern magical works.
Magical Tourism And Enchanting Geographies
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Author : Jane Lovell
language : en
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Release Date : 2025-06-06
Magical Tourism And Enchanting Geographies written by Jane Lovell and has been published by Taylor & Francis this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2025-06-06 with Business & Economics categories.
This book explores the events, attractions, and places that comprise magical tourism. It showcases magical storytelling, ecologies, realities, entities, belief systems, cultural heritage, and rituals leading to spiritual, otherworldly, enchanting, mindful, interconnected, green, and dark experiences. The volume offers the reader insights into the exciting, popular new tourism trend of magical tourism and its over-arching attributes and tropes. Chapters feature a number of case studies and discussions including the history of magical travel, studies of affect, witch festivals, the rights of mythical animals, folkloric beasts, unmappable places that seem to retreat and slide sideways, multi-layered place folklore and mythology, portals, nexuses of meaning, fayres, festivals, identities, and cos-play. This volume addresses the challenges of sustainable futures, green heritages, commercialisation, representation, inclusion, accessibility, community ownership, magical events, beliefs, and practices and asks if there is a magical turn in research. The book is highly relevant to those with expertise and interest in geography, tourism, hospitality and events studies, marketing, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, and heritage and cultural studies.
Magical Symbols And Alphabets
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Author : Sandra Kynes
language : en
Publisher: Llewellyn + Orm
Release Date : 2020-03-08
Magical Symbols And Alphabets written by Sandra Kynes and has been published by Llewellyn + Orm this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020-03-08 with Body, Mind & Spirit categories.
Symbols and Alphabets for Dynamic Magic Witchcraft Energize your Wiccan or Pagan practice with rich symbol systems and magical alphabets. Discover how astrological symbols, zodiac signs, and the fixed stars can be used to invigorate spells and rituals. Connect with the power of the elements and explore tools like the ogham and other runes for divination and spiritual connection. Learn how to use sigils and esoteric alphabets so you can live more deeply in the powerful magical energy that is all around you. While you can use symbols to boost the energy of spells and rituals, learning the fullness of their history will help you utilize them for the specific needs we confront today. With hands-on exercises as well as extraordinary insights into each system's history and lore, this book is an irresistible guide to integrating potent symbols into your spiritual practice.
Fashion And Feeling
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Author : Roberto Filippello
language : en
Publisher: Springer Nature
Release Date : 2023-05-16
Fashion And Feeling written by Roberto Filippello and has been published by Springer Nature this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2023-05-16 with Social Science categories.
Fashion and Feeling: The Affective Politics of Dress explores the complex nexus of fashion and the feeling body from a variety of critical perspectives across fashion studies, anthropology, sociology, design practice, and media studies. It asks such questions as: What does fashion look and feel like in an age dominated by amplified anxiety, isolation, depression, and precariousness? How are feelings woven into clothing and mobilized through fashion practices in ways that might sustain living with a sense of ongoing crisis? Does fashion have the potential to help us reimagine new lifeworlds which might be reinvigorating? In other words, how is fashion engaging with the “bad,” the “good,” and the ambivalent feelings associated with our personal and collective histories, with our troubled political present, and with our imagined future? Despite such diverse and scattered contributions, the potentialities of “feeling” for the study of fashion are still largely neglected. This edited volume seeks to tease out possible avenues of investigation of the clothed body and its representations through the lens of feeling.
Aleister Crowley And Western Esotericism
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Author : Henrik Bogdan
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2012-08-01
Aleister Crowley And Western Esotericism written by Henrik Bogdan and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-08-01 with Religion categories.
This volume is the first comprehensive examination of one of the twentieth century's most distinctive iconoclasts. Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was a study in contradictions. Born into a fundamentalist Christian family and educated at Cambridge, he was vilified as a traitor, drug addict, and debaucher, yet revered as perhaps the most influential thinker in contemporary esotericism. Moving beyond the influence of contemporary psychology and the modernist understanding of the occult, Crowley declared himself the revelator of a new age of individualism. Crowley's occult bricolage, Magick, was an eclectic combination of spiritual exercises drawn from Western European magical ceremonies and Indic sources for meditation and yoga. This journey of self-liberation culminated in harnessing sexual power as a magical discipline, a "sacrilization of the self" as practiced in Crowley's mixed masonic group, the Ordo Templi Orientis. The religion Crowley created, Thelema, legitimated his role as a charismatic revelator and herald of a new age of freedom. Aleister Crowley's lasting influence can be seen in the counter-culture movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s and in many forms of alternative spirituality and popular culture. The essays in this volume offer crucial insight into Crowley's foundational role in the study of Western esotericism, new religious movements, and sexuality.
The Psychology Of Magic And The Magic Of Psychology
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Author : Amir Raz
language : en
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Release Date : 2016-11-18
The Psychology Of Magic And The Magic Of Psychology written by Amir Raz and has been published by Frontiers Media SA this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-11-18 with categories.
Magicians have dazzled audiences for many centuries; however, few researchers have studied how, let alone why, most tricks work. The psychology of magic is a nascent field of research that examines the underlying mechanisms that conjurers use to achieve enchanting phenomena, including sensory illusions, misdirection of attention, and the appearance of mind-control and nuanced persuasion. Most studies to date have focused on either the psychological principles involved in watching and performing magic or “neuromagic” - the neural correlates of such phenomena. Whereas performers sometimes question the contributions that modern science may offer to the advancement of the magical arts, the history of magic reveals that scientific discovery often charts new territories for magicians. In this research topic we sketch out the symbiotic relationship between psychological science and the art of magic. On the one hand, magic can inform psychology, with particular benefits for the cognitive, social, developmental, and transcultural components of behavioural science. Magicians have a large and robust set of effects that most researchers rarely exploit. Incorporating these effects into existing experimental, even clinical, paradigms paves the road to innovative trajectories in the study of human behaviour. For example, magic provides an elegant way to study the behaviour of participants who may believe they had made choices that they actually did not make. Moreover, magic fosters a more ecological approach to experimentation whereby scientists can probe participants in more natural environments compared to the traditional lab-based settings. Examining how magicians consistently influence spectators, for example, can elucidate important aspects in the study of persuasion, trust, decision-making, and even processes spanning authorship and agency. Magic thus offers a largely underused armamentarium for the behavioural scientist and clinician. On the other hand, psychological science can advance the art of magic. The psychology of deception, a relatively understudied field, explores the intentional creation of false beliefs and how people often go wrong. Understanding how to methodically exploit the tenuous twilight zone of human vulnerabilities – perceptual, logical, emotional, and temporal – becomes all the more revealing when top-down influences, including expectation, symbolic thinking, and framing, join the fray. Over the years, science has permitted magicians to concoct increasingly effective routines and to elicit heightened feelings of wonder from audiences. Furthermore, on occasion science leads to the creation of novel effects, or the refinement of existing ones, based on systematic methods. For example, by simulating a specific card routine using a series of computer stimuli, researchers have decomposed the effect and reconstructed it into a more effective routine. Other magic effects depend on meaningful psychological knowledge, such as which type of information is difficult to retain or what changes capture attention. Behavioural scientists measure and study these factors. By combining analytical findings with performer intuitions, psychological science begets effective magic. Whereas science strives on parsimony and independent replication of results, magic thrives on reproducing the same effect with multiple methods to obscure parsimony and minimise detection. This Research Topic explores the seemingly orthogonal approaches of scientists and magicians by highlighting the crosstalk as well as rapprochement between psychological science and the art of deception.