Showing results for "The Magic" in Anthropology

Three great strands of practice and belief run through human history - science, religion and magic. Over the last few centuries, magic - the idea that we have a connection with the universe and that the universe responds to us - has developed a bad reputation. But it is still with us, as it has been for millennia, as Professor Chris Gosden shows in this extraordinarily bold and unprecedented history.

The Golden Bough, the monumental study of religious rites and practices in ‘primitive’ societies, was one of the earliest influential texts in anthropology. Its author, Sir James Frazer, surveyed the wide range of cultural habits, taboos and beliefs in communities across the world concluding that there was an observable pattern in the way magic developed into religion, though formal expression emerged in different ways.

Since the dawn of time, magic has been the node around which all human activities and culture revolve. As magic entered the development of science, art, philosophy, religion, myth, and psychology, it still retained its essence: that we have a dynamic connection with all other forms of life. Exploring the source magic that flows beneath the surface of culture and occulture throughout the ages, Carl Abrahamsson offers a “magical-anthropological” journey from ancient Norse shamanism to the modern magick of occultists like Genesis P-Orridge.

The mysterious art of magic has been a source of wonderment since before the time of Christ. Ranging from the supernatural practices of "black" magic to demonstrations of dazzling illusion, magic has been called on to conjure the evil eye, burn villages to the ground, and slice women in half. From the astrology of the three wise men to David Blaine's "stunts", Robert Ralley delves into this magical underworld and illuminates the dangerous balance between illusion, fraud, and wickedness that still exists today.

Moving from St Paul’s coining of the word in the first century of the Christian Era right up to the present day, charisma continues to be a powerful influence, not always for the good, in the fields of politics, banking, terrorism, theatre and film. Along the way, Francine takes in early medieval mystics such as Margery Kempe and Joan of Arc; the Elizabethan belief in the so-called 'Royal Touch' and its different manifestations today; the powerful healing claims of Franz Mesmer; and radical charismatic leaders from Garibaldi to Osama bin Laden.