Randall G. Styers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195151077
- eISBN:
- 9780199835263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151070.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter traces scholarly debates concerning magic first through nineteenth-century theories concerning the origins of religion and then through various twentieth-century attempts by philosophers ...
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This chapter traces scholarly debates concerning magic first through nineteenth-century theories concerning the origins of religion and then through various twentieth-century attempts by philosophers and social scientists to define the nature of religion. As intellectualized and privatized Enlightenment notions of religion came to define the appropriate forms for human relation to the supernatural, magic no longer designated idolatry, Satanism, or sin (as it had in medieval views of witchcraft and sorcery), but a new form of aberrational behavior, a delusion contravening appropriately rationalist, and largely Protestant, piety. Whether theorists have seen magic as designating a category distinct from (and external to) religion or as an internal subset of religion, magic has functioned to demarcate religion's limits and the bounds for appropriate religious behavior in modern liberal society. This chapter traces the normative views of human identity and power animating these scholarly formulations of magic.Less
This chapter traces scholarly debates concerning magic first through nineteenth-century theories concerning the origins of religion and then through various twentieth-century attempts by philosophers and social scientists to define the nature of religion. As intellectualized and privatized Enlightenment notions of religion came to define the appropriate forms for human relation to the supernatural, magic no longer designated idolatry, Satanism, or sin (as it had in medieval views of witchcraft and sorcery), but a new form of aberrational behavior, a delusion contravening appropriately rationalist, and largely Protestant, piety. Whether theorists have seen magic as designating a category distinct from (and external to) religion or as an internal subset of religion, magic has functioned to demarcate religion's limits and the bounds for appropriate religious behavior in modern liberal society. This chapter traces the normative views of human identity and power animating these scholarly formulations of magic.
Randall G. Styers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195151077
- eISBN:
- 9780199835263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151070.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines the scholarly literature in which magic is defined as faulty or inchoate science. The chapter begins by examining early theoretical constructions of the “primitive”; irrational ...
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This chapter examines the scholarly literature in which magic is defined as faulty or inchoate science. The chapter begins by examining early theoretical constructions of the “primitive”; irrational (or pre-rational) magical thought was seen by numerous early anthropologists and sociologists as a definitive index of the superstitious primitive mind. While the notion of the “primitive” has become intellectually untenable, magic nonetheless retains a central role in subsequent discussions of the nature and limits of modern rationality (often standing as shorthand for non-modern mental and social processes). Finally, the chapter moves to explore recent disputes among historians over the role of medieval natural magic in the emergence of early modern science. Positioned at (or beyond) the boundary of rationality, magic serves both as the foil against which distinctive forms of Western science are defined and as the decisive test of scientific rationality's ability to explain the irrational.Less
This chapter examines the scholarly literature in which magic is defined as faulty or inchoate science. The chapter begins by examining early theoretical constructions of the “primitive”; irrational (or pre-rational) magical thought was seen by numerous early anthropologists and sociologists as a definitive index of the superstitious primitive mind. While the notion of the “primitive” has become intellectually untenable, magic nonetheless retains a central role in subsequent discussions of the nature and limits of modern rationality (often standing as shorthand for non-modern mental and social processes). Finally, the chapter moves to explore recent disputes among historians over the role of medieval natural magic in the emergence of early modern science. Positioned at (or beyond) the boundary of rationality, magic serves both as the foil against which distinctive forms of Western science are defined and as the decisive test of scientific rationality's ability to explain the irrational.
Randall G. Styers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195151077
- eISBN:
- 9780199835263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151070.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The chapter begins by exploring various psychological theories in which magic is seen as a product of inchoate or inordinate desire. Whether asserting that magic is socially reactionary and ...
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The chapter begins by exploring various psychological theories in which magic is seen as a product of inchoate or inordinate desire. Whether asserting that magic is socially reactionary and authoritarian or fundamentally anti-social and anarchical, theorists have regularly seen magic as a threat to a productive social order. The dominant scholarly construction of magic has legitimated two distinct channels through which human needs are to be constructed and resolved: a spiritualized religious realm (to shape certain aspects of human identity and assuage internal tensions) and a rationalized scientific realm (to govern appropriate manipulation of the material world). With magic deployed as the stigmatized mediator between religion and science, the secularizing separation between these two channels is reinforced, and capitalism and Western science are relegated broad instrumental control of the material world. Even recent scholarly efforts to reverse the negative valence of magic maintain important elements of the traditional distinctions among religion, magic, and science and reinforce the paradigm in which rationalized religion and science are aligned with capitalist social relations.Less
The chapter begins by exploring various psychological theories in which magic is seen as a product of inchoate or inordinate desire. Whether asserting that magic is socially reactionary and authoritarian or fundamentally anti-social and anarchical, theorists have regularly seen magic as a threat to a productive social order. The dominant scholarly construction of magic has legitimated two distinct channels through which human needs are to be constructed and resolved: a spiritualized religious realm (to shape certain aspects of human identity and assuage internal tensions) and a rationalized scientific realm (to govern appropriate manipulation of the material world). With magic deployed as the stigmatized mediator between religion and science, the secularizing separation between these two channels is reinforced, and capitalism and Western science are relegated broad instrumental control of the material world. Even recent scholarly efforts to reverse the negative valence of magic maintain important elements of the traditional distinctions among religion, magic, and science and reinforce the paradigm in which rationalized religion and science are aligned with capitalist social relations.
Randall G. Styers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195151077
- eISBN:
- 9780199835263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151070.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter offers an account of the social and intellectual contexts within which definitions of magic emerged in the modern West, beginning with various early modern philosophical responses to the ...
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This chapter offers an account of the social and intellectual contexts within which definitions of magic emerged in the modern West, beginning with various early modern philosophical responses to the European witchcraft persecutions. Following the Reformation and the Enlightenment, intellectualized and privatized notions of religion gained prominence, particularly in Protestant anti-Catholic polemics. Coupled with this development was the proliferation of capitalism and Western science, both of which assert distinctive forms of mechanistic and rational manipulation of nature. Finally, with the European conquest of much of the non-Western world, the discourse on “primitive” culture came to play a significant role in legitimating colonial conquests and exploitation. In this context, magic came to serve as a particularly pliable tool in efforts to prescribe norms for liberal religious piety, modern scientific rationality, and capitalist social relations.Less
This chapter offers an account of the social and intellectual contexts within which definitions of magic emerged in the modern West, beginning with various early modern philosophical responses to the European witchcraft persecutions. Following the Reformation and the Enlightenment, intellectualized and privatized notions of religion gained prominence, particularly in Protestant anti-Catholic polemics. Coupled with this development was the proliferation of capitalism and Western science, both of which assert distinctive forms of mechanistic and rational manipulation of nature. Finally, with the European conquest of much of the non-Western world, the discourse on “primitive” culture came to play a significant role in legitimating colonial conquests and exploitation. In this context, magic came to serve as a particularly pliable tool in efforts to prescribe norms for liberal religious piety, modern scientific rationality, and capitalist social relations.
Randall G. Styers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195151077
- eISBN:
- 9780199835263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151070.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The introduction opens with an exploration of the prominence of magic in the scholarly literature of numerous modern academic disciplines and then offers a broad outline of the distinctive roles ...
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The introduction opens with an exploration of the prominence of magic in the scholarly literature of numerous modern academic disciplines and then offers a broad outline of the distinctive roles magic plays in this literature. Modern debates over magic turn on competing views of the nature of human subjectivity and the relation of the individual to society and to the material world. Scholars have used these debates as a site at which to articulate--and to challenge--norms for life in modernity.Less
The introduction opens with an exploration of the prominence of magic in the scholarly literature of numerous modern academic disciplines and then offers a broad outline of the distinctive roles magic plays in this literature. Modern debates over magic turn on competing views of the nature of human subjectivity and the relation of the individual to society and to the material world. Scholars have used these debates as a site at which to articulate--and to challenge--norms for life in modernity.
Randall G. Styers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195151077
- eISBN:
- 9780199835263
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151070.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Since the emergence of religious studies and the social sciences as academic disciplines in the late nineteenth century, the concept of "magic" has played a major role in defining religion and in ...
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Since the emergence of religious studies and the social sciences as academic disciplines in the late nineteenth century, the concept of "magic" has played a major role in defining religion and in mediating religion's relation to science. Many of the most important scholars in these disciplines have debated the relation of magic to religion and science, yet traditional efforts to formulate distinctions among these categories have proved notoriously unstable, the subject of repeated critique and deconstruction. The notion of magic has remained stubbornly amorphous. This book seeks to account for the extraordinary vitality of scholarly discourse purporting to define and explain magic despite its failure to do just that. The book argues that the persistence of scholarly debates over magic can best be explained in light of the Western drive to establish and secure distinctive norms for modern identity--norms based on narrow forms of instrumental rationality, industrious labor, rigidly defined sexual roles, and the containment of wayward forms of desire. Magic has served to designate a form of alterity or deviance against which dominant Western notions of appropriate religious piety, legitimate scientific rationality, and orderly social relations are brought into relief. Scholars have found magic an invaluable tool in their efforts to define the appropriate boundaries of religion and science. On a broader level, magical thinking has served as an important foil for modernity itself. Debates over the nature of magic have offered a particularly rich site at which scholars have worked to define and to contest the nature of modernity and norms for life in the modern world.Less
Since the emergence of religious studies and the social sciences as academic disciplines in the late nineteenth century, the concept of "magic" has played a major role in defining religion and in mediating religion's relation to science. Many of the most important scholars in these disciplines have debated the relation of magic to religion and science, yet traditional efforts to formulate distinctions among these categories have proved notoriously unstable, the subject of repeated critique and deconstruction. The notion of magic has remained stubbornly amorphous. This book seeks to account for the extraordinary vitality of scholarly discourse purporting to define and explain magic despite its failure to do just that. The book argues that the persistence of scholarly debates over magic can best be explained in light of the Western drive to establish and secure distinctive norms for modern identity--norms based on narrow forms of instrumental rationality, industrious labor, rigidly defined sexual roles, and the containment of wayward forms of desire. Magic has served to designate a form of alterity or deviance against which dominant Western notions of appropriate religious piety, legitimate scientific rationality, and orderly social relations are brought into relief. Scholars have found magic an invaluable tool in their efforts to define the appropriate boundaries of religion and science. On a broader level, magical thinking has served as an important foil for modernity itself. Debates over the nature of magic have offered a particularly rich site at which scholars have worked to define and to contest the nature of modernity and norms for life in the modern world.
Carolyne Larrington
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119821
- eISBN:
- 9780191671210
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119821.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This is a comparative study of Old Icelandic and Old English wisdom poetry. It examines problems of form, unity, and coherence, and how the genre responds to social change, both reflecting and ...
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This is a comparative study of Old Icelandic and Old English wisdom poetry. It examines problems of form, unity, and coherence, and how the genre responds to social change, both reflecting and shaping the thinking of the communities that originate it. The author analyses the differences between the pagan wisdom of Norse, ranging through everyday practical advice, rune magic, and spells, and the Christian, socially oriented ideals of Old English wisdom poetry, strongly rooted in Christian concepts of ‘natural’ order and hierarchy in God’s Creation. Close reading in primary texts, both runic and magical, lays bare the skilful, structural integration of pragmatic, social wisdom with other kinds of knowledge. The book explores the possibility of Christian influence on Norse texts and demonstrates the impact of Christian learning on the ancient pagan genre. The existence of a gnomic ‘key’ in Norse and English narrative verse is also shown. Far from being platitudinous moralizing, the wisdom poets of the two literatures reveal themselves as comic, ironic, dramatic, and grandiose by turns, exploring a gamut of themes unequalled in any other genre of the period.Less
This is a comparative study of Old Icelandic and Old English wisdom poetry. It examines problems of form, unity, and coherence, and how the genre responds to social change, both reflecting and shaping the thinking of the communities that originate it. The author analyses the differences between the pagan wisdom of Norse, ranging through everyday practical advice, rune magic, and spells, and the Christian, socially oriented ideals of Old English wisdom poetry, strongly rooted in Christian concepts of ‘natural’ order and hierarchy in God’s Creation. Close reading in primary texts, both runic and magical, lays bare the skilful, structural integration of pragmatic, social wisdom with other kinds of knowledge. The book explores the possibility of Christian influence on Norse texts and demonstrates the impact of Christian learning on the ancient pagan genre. The existence of a gnomic ‘key’ in Norse and English narrative verse is also shown. Far from being platitudinous moralizing, the wisdom poets of the two literatures reveal themselves as comic, ironic, dramatic, and grandiose by turns, exploring a gamut of themes unequalled in any other genre of the period.
M. Whitney Kelting
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195389647
- eISBN:
- 9780199866434
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389647.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter addresses the ways that Jain women, like Hindu women, locate their well‐being in their status as auspicious wives with living husbands (saubhagya) and the rituals they perform to protect ...
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This chapter addresses the ways that Jain women, like Hindu women, locate their well‐being in their status as auspicious wives with living husbands (saubhagya) and the rituals they perform to protect the health and well‐being of their families, especially their husbands. Jain women understand the workings of saubhagya fasts in distinctly Jain ways that circumvent the problematic strategy (for Jains) of merit transfer. By serving as a role model and teacher of Jainism in the home, invoking the blessings of guardian deities, and deploying the benefits of religio‐magical practices, Jain women are able to extend the benefits of their religious practices to their husbands and families. In addition, the most powerful Jain saubhagya fast posits that protecting the wife herself also protects her husband because of clear links between a husband's health and a wife's well‐being.Less
This chapter addresses the ways that Jain women, like Hindu women, locate their well‐being in their status as auspicious wives with living husbands (saubhagya) and the rituals they perform to protect the health and well‐being of their families, especially their husbands. Jain women understand the workings of saubhagya fasts in distinctly Jain ways that circumvent the problematic strategy (for Jains) of merit transfer. By serving as a role model and teacher of Jainism in the home, invoking the blessings of guardian deities, and deploying the benefits of religio‐magical practices, Jain women are able to extend the benefits of their religious practices to their husbands and families. In addition, the most powerful Jain saubhagya fast posits that protecting the wife herself also protects her husband because of clear links between a husband's health and a wife's well‐being.
Ian Bostridge
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206538
- eISBN:
- 9780191677205
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206538.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Social History
This introductory chapter sets out the objective of this book, which is to explain how belief in witchcraft in England moved from the 17th century respectability of sermons and treatises to 19th ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the objective of this book, which is to explain how belief in witchcraft in England moved from the 17th century respectability of sermons and treatises to 19th century embarrassment. This book suggests that witchcraft theory had a serious constituency well beyond 1700 and that the reasons for its loss of credibility were at least partly partly. It argues that witchcraft cantered on the notion of a covenant with the Devil to do harm to others.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the objective of this book, which is to explain how belief in witchcraft in England moved from the 17th century respectability of sermons and treatises to 19th century embarrassment. This book suggests that witchcraft theory had a serious constituency well beyond 1700 and that the reasons for its loss of credibility were at least partly partly. It argues that witchcraft cantered on the notion of a covenant with the Devil to do harm to others.
Peter van der Veer
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691128146
- eISBN:
- 9781400848553
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691128146.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This book challenges the notion that modernity in China and India are derivative imitations of the West, arguing that these societies have transformed their ancient traditions in unique and ...
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This book challenges the notion that modernity in China and India are derivative imitations of the West, arguing that these societies have transformed their ancient traditions in unique and distinctive ways. The book begins with nineteenth-century imperial history, exploring how Western concepts of spirituality, secularity, religion, and magic were used to translate the traditions of India and China. The book traces how modern Western notions of religion and magic were incorporated into the respective nation-building projects of Chinese and Indian nationalist intellectuals, yet how modernity in China and India is by no means uniform. While religion is a centerpiece of Indian nationalism, it is viewed in China as an obstacle to progress that must be marginalized and controlled. The book moves deftly from Kandinsky's understanding of spirituality in art to Indian yoga and Chinese qi gong, from modern theories of secularism to histories of Christian conversion, from Orientalist constructions of religion to Chinese campaigns against magic and superstition, and from Muslim Kashmir to Muslim Xinjiang.Less
This book challenges the notion that modernity in China and India are derivative imitations of the West, arguing that these societies have transformed their ancient traditions in unique and distinctive ways. The book begins with nineteenth-century imperial history, exploring how Western concepts of spirituality, secularity, religion, and magic were used to translate the traditions of India and China. The book traces how modern Western notions of religion and magic were incorporated into the respective nation-building projects of Chinese and Indian nationalist intellectuals, yet how modernity in China and India is by no means uniform. While religion is a centerpiece of Indian nationalism, it is viewed in China as an obstacle to progress that must be marginalized and controlled. The book moves deftly from Kandinsky's understanding of spirituality in art to Indian yoga and Chinese qi gong, from modern theories of secularism to histories of Christian conversion, from Orientalist constructions of religion to Chinese campaigns against magic and superstition, and from Muslim Kashmir to Muslim Xinjiang.
Vincent L. Wimbush
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199873579
- eISBN:
- 9780199949595
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199873579.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book is a transdisciplinary analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789. It was one of the earliest ...
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This book is a transdisciplinary analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789. It was one of the earliest and remains to this day one of the best-known English language “slave” narratives. This now famous work was not really meant to be in any simple respects autobiographical; and it does not unproblematically register the several interests and motivations of a slave, spiritual, or travel narrative. Notwithstanding the inclusion of some formal elements of all these genres, it is best read as something else altogether—as a reflexive social-political commentary and criticism disclosed by a simple narratological framework. What Equiano wrote was not so much his life story as it was his creative effort to describe, critique, and reshape dominant society through his mimetics of what he, as strategically positioned “stranger,” understood to be—and named as—the “magic” that was the (British-inflected) practice of scripture reading, reflected within the structure of discourse and power relations that the author calls “scripturalization”. The book uses Equiano’s narrative to think with; it is a site for historical and contemporary social-critical excavation, using scriptures as social-cultural phenomenon and dynamics as analytical wedge. This scripturalizing mimetics open an analytical window onto the dynamics and structuring of British (and by extension Euro-American) civilization as a kind of ideological-discursive and social-psychological slavery, the representations of which are the deeper interest of this book. The form of enslavement identified as scripturalization in turn poignantly raises the possibility—with Equiano the ex-slave as model—of a particular type of negotiation or escape: ideological-psychological marronage, if not freedom in absolute terms. In Equiano’s reflexive thinking and discursive are the elements for the construction of “the African,” or “the Ethiopian,” the complex self within a reconceptualized modern, pluralistic society.Less
This book is a transdisciplinary analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789. It was one of the earliest and remains to this day one of the best-known English language “slave” narratives. This now famous work was not really meant to be in any simple respects autobiographical; and it does not unproblematically register the several interests and motivations of a slave, spiritual, or travel narrative. Notwithstanding the inclusion of some formal elements of all these genres, it is best read as something else altogether—as a reflexive social-political commentary and criticism disclosed by a simple narratological framework. What Equiano wrote was not so much his life story as it was his creative effort to describe, critique, and reshape dominant society through his mimetics of what he, as strategically positioned “stranger,” understood to be—and named as—the “magic” that was the (British-inflected) practice of scripture reading, reflected within the structure of discourse and power relations that the author calls “scripturalization”. The book uses Equiano’s narrative to think with; it is a site for historical and contemporary social-critical excavation, using scriptures as social-cultural phenomenon and dynamics as analytical wedge. This scripturalizing mimetics open an analytical window onto the dynamics and structuring of British (and by extension Euro-American) civilization as a kind of ideological-discursive and social-psychological slavery, the representations of which are the deeper interest of this book. The form of enslavement identified as scripturalization in turn poignantly raises the possibility—with Equiano the ex-slave as model—of a particular type of negotiation or escape: ideological-psychological marronage, if not freedom in absolute terms. In Equiano’s reflexive thinking and discursive are the elements for the construction of “the African,” or “the Ethiopian,” the complex self within a reconceptualized modern, pluralistic society.
Frank Graziano
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195171303
- eISBN:
- 9780199785193
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195171303.003.intro
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter establishes the cultural and thematic contexts for understanding folk saint devotions. It explores the nature of devotion, the means by which devotions are initiated and disseminated, ...
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This chapter establishes the cultural and thematic contexts for understanding folk saint devotions. It explores the nature of devotion, the means by which devotions are initiated and disseminated, and the relation of folk saints to canonized saints and to the Catholic Church.Less
This chapter establishes the cultural and thematic contexts for understanding folk saint devotions. It explores the nature of devotion, the means by which devotions are initiated and disseminated, and the relation of folk saints to canonized saints and to the Catholic Church.
Ariel Glucklich
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195314052
- eISBN:
- 9780199871766
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195314052.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The Strides of Vishnu explores a wide range of topics in Hindu culture and history. Hinduism has often set out to mediate between the practical needs of its many communities and a ...
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The Strides of Vishnu explores a wide range of topics in Hindu culture and history. Hinduism has often set out to mediate between the practical needs of its many communities and a transcendent realm. Illuminating this connection, The Strides of Vishnu focuses not only on religious ideas but also on the various arts and sciences, as well as crafts, politics, technology, and medicine. The book emphasizes core themes that run through the major historical periods of Northern India, beginning with the Vedas and leading up to India's independence. Sophisticated sciences such as geometry, grammar, politics, law, architecture, and biology are discussed within a broad cultural framework. Special attention is devoted to historical, economic, and political developments, including urbanism and empire‐building. The Strides of Vishnu situates religious and philosophical ideas within such broad contexts so religion sheds its abstract and detached reputation. The message of classical and medieval religious masterpieces—including the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, plays of Kalidasa, and many others—comes to life within a broad world‐making agenda. But while the literary masterpieces reflected the work of the cultural elites, The Strides of Vishnu also devotes considerable attention to the work that did not make it into the great texts: women's rituals, magic, alchemy, medicine, and a variety of impressive crafts. The book discusses the stunning mythology of medieval India and provides the methods for interpreting it, along with the vast cosmologies and cosmographies of the Puranas. The Strides of Vishnu is an introductory book on Hindu culture, but while it highlights central religious themes, it explores these within broader historical and cultural contexts. It gives its readers a clear and highly textured overview of a vast and productive civilization.Less
The Strides of Vishnu explores a wide range of topics in Hindu culture and history. Hinduism has often set out to mediate between the practical needs of its many communities and a transcendent realm. Illuminating this connection, The Strides of Vishnu focuses not only on religious ideas but also on the various arts and sciences, as well as crafts, politics, technology, and medicine. The book emphasizes core themes that run through the major historical periods of Northern India, beginning with the Vedas and leading up to India's independence. Sophisticated sciences such as geometry, grammar, politics, law, architecture, and biology are discussed within a broad cultural framework. Special attention is devoted to historical, economic, and political developments, including urbanism and empire‐building. The Strides of Vishnu situates religious and philosophical ideas within such broad contexts so religion sheds its abstract and detached reputation. The message of classical and medieval religious masterpieces—including the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, plays of Kalidasa, and many others—comes to life within a broad world‐making agenda. But while the literary masterpieces reflected the work of the cultural elites, The Strides of Vishnu also devotes considerable attention to the work that did not make it into the great texts: women's rituals, magic, alchemy, medicine, and a variety of impressive crafts. The book discusses the stunning mythology of medieval India and provides the methods for interpreting it, along with the vast cosmologies and cosmographies of the Puranas. The Strides of Vishnu is an introductory book on Hindu culture, but while it highlights central religious themes, it explores these within broader historical and cultural contexts. It gives its readers a clear and highly textured overview of a vast and productive civilization.
Christopher Prendergast
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155203
- eISBN:
- 9781400846313
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155203.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the idea of literature as magic-making by focusing on Marcel Proust's use of the term “magic,” along with its cognates “enchantment” and “charm.” Proustian magic comes in all ...
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This chapter examines the idea of literature as magic-making by focusing on Marcel Proust's use of the term “magic,” along with its cognates “enchantment” and “charm.” Proustian magic comes in all shapes and sizes, but the preferred locales for conjuring the enchanted realm are dark or semidark, the domain of nightworld and shadowland. There are many such locales in the À la recherche du temps perdu, but the alchemist's place of darkness and silence par excellence is the “restful obscurity” of the bedroom, the world of sleep and dream, especially the liminal or threshold states of falling asleep and waking up, the midzone of the waking dream. The chapter also considers the ideological tenor of Proust's aesthetic, especially the posited relation in Le Temps retrouvé between art, truth, and epiphany.Less
This chapter examines the idea of literature as magic-making by focusing on Marcel Proust's use of the term “magic,” along with its cognates “enchantment” and “charm.” Proustian magic comes in all shapes and sizes, but the preferred locales for conjuring the enchanted realm are dark or semidark, the domain of nightworld and shadowland. There are many such locales in the À la recherche du temps perdu, but the alchemist's place of darkness and silence par excellence is the “restful obscurity” of the bedroom, the world of sleep and dream, especially the liminal or threshold states of falling asleep and waking up, the midzone of the waking dream. The chapter also considers the ideological tenor of Proust's aesthetic, especially the posited relation in Le Temps retrouvé between art, truth, and epiphany.
Ronald Hutton
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207443
- eISBN:
- 9780191677670
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207443.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
This chapter deals with an area of activity which had not altered in essentials from early modern times. One of the few specifically modern characteristics of it is the label of ‘low magic’, devised ...
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This chapter deals with an area of activity which had not altered in essentials from early modern times. One of the few specifically modern characteristics of it is the label of ‘low magic’, devised by the ‘high’ magicians of the occult revival. They used (and use) it to denote all those practices that fell within the broad category of magic and were not part of their self-consciously learned tradition. In particular, such activities belonged to the world of popular belief and custom, concerned not with the mysteries of the universe and the empowerment of the magus, so much as with practical remedies for specific problems. The chapter focuses on the practitioners of this operative magic in England and Wales, between 1740 and 1940.Less
This chapter deals with an area of activity which had not altered in essentials from early modern times. One of the few specifically modern characteristics of it is the label of ‘low magic’, devised by the ‘high’ magicians of the occult revival. They used (and use) it to denote all those practices that fell within the broad category of magic and were not part of their self-consciously learned tradition. In particular, such activities belonged to the world of popular belief and custom, concerned not with the mysteries of the universe and the empowerment of the magus, so much as with practical remedies for specific problems. The chapter focuses on the practitioners of this operative magic in England and Wales, between 1740 and 1940.
Charles Musser
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520292727
- eISBN:
- 9780520966123
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520292727.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
Politicking and Emergent Media looks at four presidential campaigns in the United States during the long 1890s (1888-1900) and the ways in which Republicans and Democrats mobilized a wide variety of ...
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Politicking and Emergent Media looks at four presidential campaigns in the United States during the long 1890s (1888-1900) and the ways in which Republicans and Democrats mobilized a wide variety of media forms in their efforts to achieve electoral victory. The 1890s was a pivotal era in which new means of audio and visual inscription were first deployed. Newspapers remained the dominant media, and Democrats had gained sufficient advantage in 1884 to put Grover Cleveland in the White House. In 1888 Republicans responded by strengthening their media arm with a variety of tactics, using the stereopticon, a modernized magic lantern, to deliver popular illustrated lectures on the protective tariff which helped Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison defeat Cleveland--though Harrison lost the rematch four years later. Efforts to regain a media advantage continued in 1896 as Republicans embraced motion pictures, the phonograph and telephone to further William McKinley’s campaign for president. When the traditionally Democratic press rejected “Free Silver” candidate William Jennings Bryan, McKinley’s victory was assured. As the United States became a world power in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, audio-visual media promoted American Imperialism, the “paramount issue” of the 1900 election, as McKinley won a second term.Less
Politicking and Emergent Media looks at four presidential campaigns in the United States during the long 1890s (1888-1900) and the ways in which Republicans and Democrats mobilized a wide variety of media forms in their efforts to achieve electoral victory. The 1890s was a pivotal era in which new means of audio and visual inscription were first deployed. Newspapers remained the dominant media, and Democrats had gained sufficient advantage in 1884 to put Grover Cleveland in the White House. In 1888 Republicans responded by strengthening their media arm with a variety of tactics, using the stereopticon, a modernized magic lantern, to deliver popular illustrated lectures on the protective tariff which helped Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison defeat Cleveland--though Harrison lost the rematch four years later. Efforts to regain a media advantage continued in 1896 as Republicans embraced motion pictures, the phonograph and telephone to further William McKinley’s campaign for president. When the traditionally Democratic press rejected “Free Silver” candidate William Jennings Bryan, McKinley’s victory was assured. As the United States became a world power in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, audio-visual media promoted American Imperialism, the “paramount issue” of the 1900 election, as McKinley won a second term.
Thomas Waters
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300221404
- eISBN:
- 9780300249453
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300221404.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This book unveils the enduring power of witchcraft, curses, and black magic in modern times. Few topics are so secretive or controversial. Yet, whether in the 1800s or the early 2000s, when disasters ...
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This book unveils the enduring power of witchcraft, curses, and black magic in modern times. Few topics are so secretive or controversial. Yet, whether in the 1800s or the early 2000s, when disasters struck or personal misfortunes mounted, many Britons found themselves believing in things they had previously dismissed — dark supernatural forces. The book explores the lives of cursed or bewitched people, along with the witches and witch-busters who helped and harmed them. It takes us on a fascinating journey from Scottish islands to the folklore-rich West Country, from the immense territories of the British Empire to metropolitan London. We learn why magic caters to deep-seated human needs but see how it can also be abused, and discover how witchcraft survives by evolving and changing. Along the way, the book examines an array of remarkable beliefs and rituals, from traditional folk magic to diverse spiritualities originating in Africa and Asia. This is a tale of cynical quacks and sincere magical healers, depressed people and furious vigilantes, innocent victims and rogues who claimed to possess evil abilities. Their spellbinding stories raise important questions about the state's role in regulating radical spiritualities, the fragility of secularism and the true nature of magic.Less
This book unveils the enduring power of witchcraft, curses, and black magic in modern times. Few topics are so secretive or controversial. Yet, whether in the 1800s or the early 2000s, when disasters struck or personal misfortunes mounted, many Britons found themselves believing in things they had previously dismissed — dark supernatural forces. The book explores the lives of cursed or bewitched people, along with the witches and witch-busters who helped and harmed them. It takes us on a fascinating journey from Scottish islands to the folklore-rich West Country, from the immense territories of the British Empire to metropolitan London. We learn why magic caters to deep-seated human needs but see how it can also be abused, and discover how witchcraft survives by evolving and changing. Along the way, the book examines an array of remarkable beliefs and rituals, from traditional folk magic to diverse spiritualities originating in Africa and Asia. This is a tale of cynical quacks and sincere magical healers, depressed people and furious vigilantes, innocent victims and rogues who claimed to possess evil abilities. Their spellbinding stories raise important questions about the state's role in regulating radical spiritualities, the fragility of secularism and the true nature of magic.
Kelly Hayes
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520262645
- eISBN:
- 9780520949430
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520262645.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Religion
This book examines the intersections of social marginality, morality, and magic in contemporary Brazil by analyzing the beliefs and religious practices related to the Afro-Brazilian spirit entity ...
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This book examines the intersections of social marginality, morality, and magic in contemporary Brazil by analyzing the beliefs and religious practices related to the Afro-Brazilian spirit entity Pomba Gira. Said to be the disembodied spirit of an unruly harlot, Pomba Gira is a controversial figure in Brazil. Devotees maintain that Pomba Gira possesses an intimate knowledge of human affairs and the mystical power to intervene in the human world. Others view this entity more ambivalently. This book provides an account of the intricate relationship between Pomba Gira and one of her devotees, Nazaré da Silva. Combining Nazaré's spiritual biography with analysis of the gender politics and violence that shapes life on the periphery of Rio de Janeiro, it highlights Pomba Gira's role in the rivalries, relationships, and struggles of everyday life in urban Brazil.Less
This book examines the intersections of social marginality, morality, and magic in contemporary Brazil by analyzing the beliefs and religious practices related to the Afro-Brazilian spirit entity Pomba Gira. Said to be the disembodied spirit of an unruly harlot, Pomba Gira is a controversial figure in Brazil. Devotees maintain that Pomba Gira possesses an intimate knowledge of human affairs and the mystical power to intervene in the human world. Others view this entity more ambivalently. This book provides an account of the intricate relationship between Pomba Gira and one of her devotees, Nazaré da Silva. Combining Nazaré's spiritual biography with analysis of the gender politics and violence that shapes life on the periphery of Rio de Janeiro, it highlights Pomba Gira's role in the rivalries, relationships, and struggles of everyday life in urban Brazil.
Solomon Schimmel
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195188264
- eISBN:
- 9780199870509
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195188264.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter examines how people acquire religious beliefs and protect them even when they are irrational. It integrates insights from psychology (Festinger on cognitive dissonance; Hinde on the ...
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This chapter examines how people acquire religious beliefs and protect them even when they are irrational. It integrates insights from psychology (Festinger on cognitive dissonance; Hinde on the persistence of religious beliefs), anthropology (Evans‐Pritchard on primitive religion; Boyer on evolution and religion), cultural history (Marsden on ‘creationism’), and social theory. It examines existential, social, and emotional functions served by religion, and how theology develops (unconvincing) bulwarks against challenges to religious beliefs. It analyzes defense mechanisms of believers, and eleven attitudes towards ‘truth’ of fundamentalists of the Abrahamic faiths, and notes similarities between theology and magical beliefs. The chapter debates a religious philosopher who is a critic of ‘evidentialism,’ and discusses the role that evidence and reason should play in making religious commitments about how to lead one's own and how to educate one's children. The chapter considers eighteen factors that can contribute to the loss of religious belief and faith.Less
This chapter examines how people acquire religious beliefs and protect them even when they are irrational. It integrates insights from psychology (Festinger on cognitive dissonance; Hinde on the persistence of religious beliefs), anthropology (Evans‐Pritchard on primitive religion; Boyer on evolution and religion), cultural history (Marsden on ‘creationism’), and social theory. It examines existential, social, and emotional functions served by religion, and how theology develops (unconvincing) bulwarks against challenges to religious beliefs. It analyzes defense mechanisms of believers, and eleven attitudes towards ‘truth’ of fundamentalists of the Abrahamic faiths, and notes similarities between theology and magical beliefs. The chapter debates a religious philosopher who is a critic of ‘evidentialism,’ and discusses the role that evidence and reason should play in making religious commitments about how to lead one's own and how to educate one's children. The chapter considers eighteen factors that can contribute to the loss of religious belief and faith.
Catherine L. Albanese
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195369786
- eISBN:
- 9780199871292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369786.003.005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines the Mormon prophet as a metaphysical figure. Noting that American religious history has too often limited itself to mainstream denominationalism and evangelicalism, the chapter ...
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This chapter examines the Mormon prophet as a metaphysical figure. Noting that American religious history has too often limited itself to mainstream denominationalism and evangelicalism, the chapter has been able to limn the contours of metaphysical religion. This tradition emphasizes the world and human beings as ontologically parallel to, and deriving a stream of spiritual energy from, a higher reality. The consequent world view, as above, so below, is characteristic of hermeticism and modern mystics like Emanuel Swedenborg. Exploiting Richard Bushman's suggestion that Smith is a protean figure amenable to any number of religious agendas, this chapter finds he fits the bill perfectly as a proto-metaphysician. Extending the arguments of Bloom and Brooke, it argues that in addition to exploring occult antecedents and their influence on Joseph Smith, it is time for American historians to take account of the debt metaphysical religion owes to Joseph Smith.Less
This chapter examines the Mormon prophet as a metaphysical figure. Noting that American religious history has too often limited itself to mainstream denominationalism and evangelicalism, the chapter has been able to limn the contours of metaphysical religion. This tradition emphasizes the world and human beings as ontologically parallel to, and deriving a stream of spiritual energy from, a higher reality. The consequent world view, as above, so below, is characteristic of hermeticism and modern mystics like Emanuel Swedenborg. Exploiting Richard Bushman's suggestion that Smith is a protean figure amenable to any number of religious agendas, this chapter finds he fits the bill perfectly as a proto-metaphysician. Extending the arguments of Bloom and Brooke, it argues that in addition to exploring occult antecedents and their influence on Joseph Smith, it is time for American historians to take account of the debt metaphysical religion owes to Joseph Smith.
