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The Anthropology of Magic
Magic is arguably the least understood subject in anthropology today. Exotic and fascinating, it offers us a glimpse into another world but it also threatens to undermine the foundations of anthropology due to its supposed irrational and non-scientific nature. Magic has thus often been 'explained away' by social or psychological reduction. The Anthropology of Magic redresses the balance and brings magic, as an aspect of consciousness, into focus through the use of classic texts and cutting-edge research. Suitable for student and scholar alike, The Anthropology of Magic updates a classical anthropological debate concerning the nature of human experience. A key theme is that human beings everywhere have the potential for magical consciousness. Taking a new approach to some perennial topics in anthropology - such as shamanism, mythology, witchcraft and healing - the book raises crucial theoretical and methodological issues to provide the reader with an engaging and critical understanding of the dynamics of magic.Join the live discussion on Facebook!
172 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2009
9 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Susan Greenwood
29 books7 followersLibrarian note:
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Susan Greenwood - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
For other authors of this name, see:
Susan Greenwood - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 17, 2013
Although slim, this was another slog of a book. I kept thinking of Twain's critique of Cooper: say what you ere trying to say, don't just come near it. Whenever Greenwood approaches a point, she first stops to review what has already been said, and, in most cases, chooses to discuss some academic's theories first. Certainly, this is a trait of much scholarly writing, but the etiology of the disease if different here. It seems that Greenwood came late to academia, intent to study magic, in which she already had an interest, and is now only tenuously connected to the Ivory Tower. This book seems an attempt to prove that magic is too really worth studying, and so it apes some scholarly traditions while in other cases being incredibly weird and untrustworthy.
(What is it that makes books about magic unreadable and fakely knowledgeable--this, Stolen Lightning, Tambiah's book, The Occult Mind?)
Greenwood roots her theory in a discussion between Lucien Levy-Bruhl and E. Evans-Pritchard (although her work really seems closes to Edith Turner's and Stanley J. Tambiah's). I have never read either LLB or EEP, knowing them only by reputation, so I can't say whether Greenwood gets them right, but I don't trust her. Because the chapter in which she sets out to describe their argument she organizes as an imaginary conversation between the philosopher and anthropologist. The words are all hers, and there are very few citations. In other chapters, unattributed quotations are dropped here and there, and she adopts the tone of knowing all this material though, again, I don't always trust her.
Her idea is to look at magic not as a psychological process or even a sociological one but is instead a particular form of consciousness that is favored in certain social situations )although she does not say what those contexts are). Magic is not based causation, which is the groundwork for science, but participation: letting oneself soak into an experience and feel connected to the rest of the world. The forms of connection--again--are not causality, but sympathy and analogy. Involved in this mode of consciousness, a person can see themselves as, say, a bird--since all the world is connected--is monistic, opposed to the dualism of scientific materialism. At some points Greenwood suggests that this consciousness is co-extensive with imagination. Magic is thus a way of forming meaningful connections between disparate objects.
This theory puts Greenwood at odds with Malinowski's much more well-known theory of magical thinking--as populating domains of limited knowledge with special forces. She also takes time to disagree with TM Luhrmann, who studied modern magic. Instead, she is much more allied with Stanley J. Tambiah and Edit Turner, so much so that it is hard to see what her contribution is, beyond, perhaps, synthesis. She encourages anthropologists and others who study magic not to reduce it to underlying psychological or social factors--but to accept it as a part of human experience. Turner is famous for saying that she experienced spirits during her anthropological excursions, and has collected together stories of other anthropologists who have had unusual experiences in the field.
The biggest problem is that even if Greenwood is correct--and at this stage the project is more theory than evidence--it is still limited. She gets to this understanding of magic by never defining the term, nor dealing with the very many different practices that are included in the category. How does this theory explain water-witching, for example, or witchcraft. Christine Wicker's wonderful _Not in Kansas Anymore_ gives all sorts of magical practices common in America at the turn of the twenty first century, and not many of these can be understood in terms of an altered consciousness. I'm sure anthropology would give up plenty of other examples. So, maybe this altered consciousness is part of the human experience--I'm more than willing to accept the possibility--but it cannot fully explain magic.
(What is it that makes books about magic unreadable and fakely knowledgeable--this, Stolen Lightning, Tambiah's book, The Occult Mind?)
Greenwood roots her theory in a discussion between Lucien Levy-Bruhl and E. Evans-Pritchard (although her work really seems closes to Edith Turner's and Stanley J. Tambiah's). I have never read either LLB or EEP, knowing them only by reputation, so I can't say whether Greenwood gets them right, but I don't trust her. Because the chapter in which she sets out to describe their argument she organizes as an imaginary conversation between the philosopher and anthropologist. The words are all hers, and there are very few citations. In other chapters, unattributed quotations are dropped here and there, and she adopts the tone of knowing all this material though, again, I don't always trust her.
Her idea is to look at magic not as a psychological process or even a sociological one but is instead a particular form of consciousness that is favored in certain social situations )although she does not say what those contexts are). Magic is not based causation, which is the groundwork for science, but participation: letting oneself soak into an experience and feel connected to the rest of the world. The forms of connection--again--are not causality, but sympathy and analogy. Involved in this mode of consciousness, a person can see themselves as, say, a bird--since all the world is connected--is monistic, opposed to the dualism of scientific materialism. At some points Greenwood suggests that this consciousness is co-extensive with imagination. Magic is thus a way of forming meaningful connections between disparate objects.
This theory puts Greenwood at odds with Malinowski's much more well-known theory of magical thinking--as populating domains of limited knowledge with special forces. She also takes time to disagree with TM Luhrmann, who studied modern magic. Instead, she is much more allied with Stanley J. Tambiah and Edit Turner, so much so that it is hard to see what her contribution is, beyond, perhaps, synthesis. She encourages anthropologists and others who study magic not to reduce it to underlying psychological or social factors--but to accept it as a part of human experience. Turner is famous for saying that she experienced spirits during her anthropological excursions, and has collected together stories of other anthropologists who have had unusual experiences in the field.
The biggest problem is that even if Greenwood is correct--and at this stage the project is more theory than evidence--it is still limited. She gets to this understanding of magic by never defining the term, nor dealing with the very many different practices that are included in the category. How does this theory explain water-witching, for example, or witchcraft. Christine Wicker's wonderful _Not in Kansas Anymore_ gives all sorts of magical practices common in America at the turn of the twenty first century, and not many of these can be understood in terms of an altered consciousness. I'm sure anthropology would give up plenty of other examples. So, maybe this altered consciousness is part of the human experience--I'm more than willing to accept the possibility--but it cannot fully explain magic.
March 16, 2012
Anthropological models of magic have been as important for practitioners as they have been for scholars – as can be seen by the influence of early theorists such as Tylor, James Frazer or Eliade in shaping practitioner’s own understandings of magic. In this book, practitioner-ethnographer Susan Greenwood reviews and critiques dominant anthropological approaches to magic; and argues that to move towards a fuller understanding of magic, anthropology needs to develop a radically different approach. She offers the proposal that magic is an aspect of human consciousness – in particular, magical consciousness:
The first chapter opens with an “imagined dialogue” between the English anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard and the French philosopher Lucien Levy-Bruhl – highlighting the importance of participation as a feature of “mystical mentality” – shifting the focus from magic as an instantiation of “primitive thought” towards it being an alternative ideational system of thought – a “frame of mind” present in all societies.
Chapter Two moves this theme of “participation” onwards, with Susan drawing on her own experiences and the ideas of Levy-Bruhl in order to set out the key features of Participation: altered states of consciousness; holistic language; a metaphorical modality; engagement with an inspirited worldview; and drawing us into a mythologcal realm using narratives – and then making use of Stanley Tambiah’s distinction between the Causal and the Participative orientations to the world – stressing their complentarity rather than the tendency to see them as opposites.
or the third chapter, Susan examines James Frazer’s concept of “Sympathetic Magic” and argues that despite Frazer’s own dismissal of magic against science, his ideas about magic’s propensity towards associative thought are nonetheless useful, as she moves on to examine the role of analogical thinking in magic, which: “involves an evocative transference of the value of meaning implied on one set of relationships to a second set of relationships” – drawing on the work of both Tambiah and Malinowski.
Chapter Four is devoted to an explication of “Magical Consciousness” – “an affective awareness experienced through an alternative mode of mind.” She discusses magic in terms of it being a different modality of consciousness, quoting shamanic practitioner Jo Crow’s reflections on how magic cannot be approached logically – Trying to understand stops the flow and also stresses the importance of “thinking with the heart” – the importance of magical consciousness as a whole-body experience. As Susan says, the idea of thinking from the heart challenges western scientific views of mind, but it also provides a challenge to magical presentations where practitioners assume a pose of being cool and detached – scientific experimenters, rather than engaged participants.
Chapter Five focuses on Mythology as “the language of magic” and Susan returns again to James Frazer and his 1922 classic The Golden Bough and argues that despite the problems of Fraser’s work, it is still useful to consider The Golden Bough in terms of associative thinking. She goes on to discuss the distinction between myth and logos, pointing in the direction of Levi-Strauss, and, drawing again on her own experience of mythodramatic magic, illustrates how mythic themes in practice involves participants emotionally – arguing that myth is affective and performative.
Chapter six deals with the issue of belief. Susan makes an important point I think, when she stresses that “Magic is dynamic and situationally adaptive; it refuses neat categorisation.” She examines Evans-Pritchard’s work on the Azande, and how it contributed towards understanding that magic could be “rational” within its own context, but also how Evans-Pritchard’s work was co-opted into functionalist accounts.
Chapter 7 “Magic in Everyday Life” – examines divination and healing as two examples of the magical mode of mind – the experience of which can potentially lead towards a “restructuring of lived reality”. Chapter 8 moves the discussion into a terrain which has been particularly problematic for anthropologists – the “reality” of spirits. Susan argues that in order to understand spirits “objectively” the anthropologist has to move beyond the western worldview which dismisses spirits. He reviews how magic has become associated with “irrationality” from the Age of Enlightenment onward, and particularly due to the influence of Descartes. In this context, she critiques the now infamous study of magic undertaken in the 1980s by Tanya Luhrmann. Susan argues that, as an anthropologist, she has been able to combine both the analytical and participatory orientations (often kept opposed by accusations that anthropologists have made the cardinal error of “going native”) and asserts that bringing these two orientations together can provide real insights.
The final chapter “not only, but also” argues for a more inclusive approach to anthropology (and by extension, science in general), drawing on Geoffrey Samuel’s Multimodal Framework (see Mind, Body and Culture: Anthropology and the biological interface Cambridge University Press, 1990) – a dynamic, relational framework which echoes Bateson’s evocative “flow of relatedness” and overcomes the dichotomies of mind v matter, subject v object, self v society.
Although aimed primarily at students and scholars of anthropology, The Anthropology of Magic offers much that is challenging to practitioners too. Susan’s clear, incisive and sympathetic approach to magic might well help in prompting a new wave of practitioner-scholars to step forth, and also invite practitioners to re-evaluate the academic theories which get routinely wheeled out in support of magic, often with all too little in the way of critical examination. This gentle, unassuming, yet highly provocative book could well be the crest of a wave which will wash over magical practitioners and scholars alike, and take us to a new mutually fruitful understanding. Highly reccomended!
…a mythopoetic, expanded aspect of awareness that can potentially be experienced by everyone; it is expressed in myriad varying situations and contexts, and it informs both the shaping of cosmological realities and individual behaviour as well as social structures … Thus magical consciousness is an aspect of mind that occurs in a multiplicity of ways in varying individuals and cultural contexts, and through time.
The first chapter opens with an “imagined dialogue” between the English anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard and the French philosopher Lucien Levy-Bruhl – highlighting the importance of participation as a feature of “mystical mentality” – shifting the focus from magic as an instantiation of “primitive thought” towards it being an alternative ideational system of thought – a “frame of mind” present in all societies.
Chapter Two moves this theme of “participation” onwards, with Susan drawing on her own experiences and the ideas of Levy-Bruhl in order to set out the key features of Participation: altered states of consciousness; holistic language; a metaphorical modality; engagement with an inspirited worldview; and drawing us into a mythologcal realm using narratives – and then making use of Stanley Tambiah’s distinction between the Causal and the Participative orientations to the world – stressing their complentarity rather than the tendency to see them as opposites.
or the third chapter, Susan examines James Frazer’s concept of “Sympathetic Magic” and argues that despite Frazer’s own dismissal of magic against science, his ideas about magic’s propensity towards associative thought are nonetheless useful, as she moves on to examine the role of analogical thinking in magic, which: “involves an evocative transference of the value of meaning implied on one set of relationships to a second set of relationships” – drawing on the work of both Tambiah and Malinowski.
Chapter Four is devoted to an explication of “Magical Consciousness” – “an affective awareness experienced through an alternative mode of mind.” She discusses magic in terms of it being a different modality of consciousness, quoting shamanic practitioner Jo Crow’s reflections on how magic cannot be approached logically – Trying to understand stops the flow and also stresses the importance of “thinking with the heart” – the importance of magical consciousness as a whole-body experience. As Susan says, the idea of thinking from the heart challenges western scientific views of mind, but it also provides a challenge to magical presentations where practitioners assume a pose of being cool and detached – scientific experimenters, rather than engaged participants.
Chapter Five focuses on Mythology as “the language of magic” and Susan returns again to James Frazer and his 1922 classic The Golden Bough and argues that despite the problems of Fraser’s work, it is still useful to consider The Golden Bough in terms of associative thinking. She goes on to discuss the distinction between myth and logos, pointing in the direction of Levi-Strauss, and, drawing again on her own experience of mythodramatic magic, illustrates how mythic themes in practice involves participants emotionally – arguing that myth is affective and performative.
Chapter six deals with the issue of belief. Susan makes an important point I think, when she stresses that “Magic is dynamic and situationally adaptive; it refuses neat categorisation.” She examines Evans-Pritchard’s work on the Azande, and how it contributed towards understanding that magic could be “rational” within its own context, but also how Evans-Pritchard’s work was co-opted into functionalist accounts.
Chapter 7 “Magic in Everyday Life” – examines divination and healing as two examples of the magical mode of mind – the experience of which can potentially lead towards a “restructuring of lived reality”. Chapter 8 moves the discussion into a terrain which has been particularly problematic for anthropologists – the “reality” of spirits. Susan argues that in order to understand spirits “objectively” the anthropologist has to move beyond the western worldview which dismisses spirits. He reviews how magic has become associated with “irrationality” from the Age of Enlightenment onward, and particularly due to the influence of Descartes. In this context, she critiques the now infamous study of magic undertaken in the 1980s by Tanya Luhrmann. Susan argues that, as an anthropologist, she has been able to combine both the analytical and participatory orientations (often kept opposed by accusations that anthropologists have made the cardinal error of “going native”) and asserts that bringing these two orientations together can provide real insights.
The final chapter “not only, but also” argues for a more inclusive approach to anthropology (and by extension, science in general), drawing on Geoffrey Samuel’s Multimodal Framework (see Mind, Body and Culture: Anthropology and the biological interface Cambridge University Press, 1990) – a dynamic, relational framework which echoes Bateson’s evocative “flow of relatedness” and overcomes the dichotomies of mind v matter, subject v object, self v society.
Although aimed primarily at students and scholars of anthropology, The Anthropology of Magic offers much that is challenging to practitioners too. Susan’s clear, incisive and sympathetic approach to magic might well help in prompting a new wave of practitioner-scholars to step forth, and also invite practitioners to re-evaluate the academic theories which get routinely wheeled out in support of magic, often with all too little in the way of critical examination. This gentle, unassuming, yet highly provocative book could well be the crest of a wave which will wash over magical practitioners and scholars alike, and take us to a new mutually fruitful understanding. Highly reccomended!
March 5, 2013
This is one of the better academic texts on magic out there. The author draws both on academic texts and her own experiences as a magic practitioner to knowledgeably discuss magic and how it is treated in the Anthropological field, while successfully arguing that magic represents a different, but equally valid way of understanding the world. If I have one complaint its that the author doesn't draw on actual occult texts. However she does interview magic practitioners and shares her own experiences as well. This is a good book to have, whether you're an academic or an occultist.
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February 23, 2019This was practically promoting and convincing of magic as opposed to explaining thought and trends around it. I wasn´t a big fan of this book. The author seems to have taken on the lifestyle after her fieldwork and writes this book, like I said, to promote magic. I didn´t finish it till the end because of this. A first timer for me.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews