Anthropology of "real" magic

compiled by Robert Mathiesen, sent to Academic-Study-Magic e-list

"Here are some anthropologists' encounters with magic that seemed to be (or actually was) effective, as well as a few other related items:

(1)  Anthologies:

David E. Young & Jean-Guy A. Goulet, edd.  Being Changed by Cross-Cultural Encounters; The Anthropology of Extraordinary Exeprience.  Broadview Press, 1994.

Jean-Guy A. Goulet & Bruce Granville Miller, edd.  Extraordinary Anthropology: Transformations in the Field. University of Nebrasks Press, 2007.

Philip M. Peek, ed.  African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing.  Indiana University Press, 1991.

Michael Winkelman & Philip M. Peek, edd.  Divination and Healing: Potent Vision.  University of Arizona Press, 2004.


(2)  Monographic Studies:

Paul Stoller and Cheryl Olkes.  In Sorcery's Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship among the Songhay of Niger. University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Edith Turner et alii.  Experiencing Ritual: A New Interpretation of African healing.  University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.

Barbara Tedlock.  The Woman in  the Shaman's Body.  Random House (Bantam), 2005.

Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer.  Extraordinary Knowing.  Random House (Bantam,) 2007.


(3)  Various articles:

Michael Winkelman.  "Magic: A Theoretical Reassessment," Current Anthropology, 23/1 (Fenruary 1982), 37-66.

Bruce T. Grindal, "Into the Heart of Sisala Exeprience: Witnessing Death Divination," Journal of Anthropological Research, 39 (1983), 60-80.  --  Perhaps the most important article of them all.

Barbara Tedlock.  "From Participant Observation to the Observation of Participation: The Emergence of Narrative Ethnography," Journal of Anthropological Research, 47/1 (1991), 69-94.

Edith Turner.  "The Reality of Spirits: A Tabooed or Permitted Field of Study?" Anthropology of Consciousness, 4/1 (March 1993), 9-12.

James McClenon & Jennifer Nooney.  "Anomalous Experiences Reported by Field Anthropologists: Evaluating Theories Regarding Religion," Anthropology of Consciousness, 13/2 (2002), 46-60.

Edith Turner.  "Advances in the Study of Spirit Experience: Drawing Together Many Threads," Anthropology of Consciousness, 17/2 (2006), 33-61.  --  Has large bibliography."

William Blake Saw the Fnords

Sebald on Sense of Place

A sense of place distinguishes a piece of writing. It may be a distillation of different places. There must be a very good reason for not describing place. -Max Sebald

Foucault on knowing "what you are"

‎"I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.”
― Michel Foucault

Homemade Magic

Abstract: The tradition of placing objects and symbols within, under, on, and around buildings for supernatural protection and good luck, as an act of formal or informal consecration, or as an element of other magico-religious or mundane ritual, has been documented throughout the world. This thesis examines the material culture of magic and folk ritual in the eastern United States, focusing on objects deliberately concealed within and around standing structures. While a wide range of objects and symbols are considered, in-depth analysis focuses on three artifact types: witch bottles, concealed footwear, and concealed cats. This thesis examines the European origins of ritual concealments, their transmission to North America, and their continuation into the modern era. It also explores how culturally derived cognitive frameworks, including cosmology, religion, ideology, and worldview, as well as the concepts of family and household, may have influenced or encouraged the use of ritual concealments among certain groups.

by M. Chris Manning

http://www.academia.edu/2174815/Homemade_Magic_Concealed_Deposits_in_Architectural_Contexts_in_the_Eastern_United_States

Houllebecq on Lovecraft

Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don’t care to know any more. Humanity, such as it is, inspires only an attenuated curiosity in us. All those prodigiously refined ‘notations’, ‘situations’, anecdotes . . . All they do, once the book has been set aside, is reinforce the slight revulsion that is already adequately nourished by any one of our ‘real life’ days. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/jun/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview6

Wolfson on Secrecy

"The duplicitous nature of secrecy is such that in order to be a secret, the secret cannot be disclosed as the secret it purports to be, but if the secret is not disclosed as the secret it secretly cannot be, it cannot be the secret it exposes itself not to be." (Eliot Wolfson, "Kabbalah," in The Brill Dictionary of Religion, 4 vols., Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2006, 1052-57, 1052)

taken from http://borbor-chan.livejournal.com/643748.html?view=927140#t927140