The Nature of Magic

An Anthropology of Consciousness
1. Auflage 2005
ISBN: 978-1-84520-094-7
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 555 g

This book examines how and why practitioners of nature religion - Western witches, druids, shamans - seek to relate spiritually with nature through 'magical consciousness'. 'Magic' and 'consciousness' are concepts that are often fraught with prejudice and ambiguity respectively. Greenwood develops a new theory of magical consciousness by arguing that magic ultimately has more to do with the workings of the human mind in terms of an expanded awareness than with socio-cultural explanations. She combines her own subjective insights gained from magical practice with practitioners' in-depth accounts and sustained academic theory on the process of magic. She also tracks magical consciousness in philosophy, myth, folklore, story-telling, and the hi-tech discourse of postmodernity, and asks important questions concerning nature religion's environmental credentials, such as whether it as inherently ecological as many of its practitioners claim.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Greenwood, Susan

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Enzyklopädien, Nachschlagewerke, Wörterbücher
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer

Inhaltsverzeichnis

IntroductionNature Religion and Underlying Influences Reconnection with Nature'Calling to be Remembered': the Past, Ancestors, and Tradition Magical Consciousness The Wild Hunt: a Mythological Language of MagicLearning to be IndigenousA Tangled Web: Paradoxical ElementsNature in the City: Concluding Reflections

Über Autor(innen)

Susan Greenwood is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sussex.