The Art And Meaning Of Magic

A bird's eye view of the whole field of magic, covering divination, evocation, invocation, vision and initiation. Some of the practical tips on what used to be called "Scrying in the Spirit Vision" cannot be found elsewhere even in large and rarer texts, and the method of Tattva cards and the Qabalah are given with examples of results achieved. There are interesting explanations of the magical art in the light of Jungian psychology. Complete with full page plates of Tatvas for the serious reader/student to experiment with.

"This delightful introduction to the composition of New-Age Wiccan Spell Poetry takes the reader through the whole process of making a piece of rhyme that works, and it also includes a Grimoire of spell poems by the author." Peter J Carroll, Past Grandmaster, Illuminates of Thanateros "Rather than simply advising readers to consider composing magickal prose as part of their Craft, the author encourages personal experimentation by providing lucid, step-by-step examples of her own creative process. The extensive included Grimoire reveals lyrical verse as a powerful and elegant tool for focusing intent and achieving magickal gnosis. A rich selection of spell-poems ranging from the pragmatic to the celebratory and visionary will inspire readers to explore the techniques herein and experiment with the possibilities for themselves." Al Hogar, Mystic and Magus, Order of the Golden Breath

Defining 'magic' is a maddening task. Over the last century numerous philosophers, anthropologists, historians, and theologians have attempted to pin down its essential meaning, sometimes analysing it in such complex and abstruse depth that it all but loses its sense altogether. For this reason, many people often shy away from providing a detailed definition, assuming it is generally understood as the human control of supernatural forces. 'Magic' continues to pervade the popular imagination and idiom. People feel comfortable with its contemporary multiple meanings, unaware of the controversy, conflict, and debate its definition has caused over two and a half millennia. In common usage today 'magic' is uttered in reference to the supernatural, superstition, illusion, trickery, religious miracles, fantasies, and as a simple superlative. The literary confection known as 'magical realism' has considerable appeal and many modern scientists have ironically incorporated the word into their vocabulary, with their 'magic acid', 'magic bullets' and 'magic angles'. Since the so-called European Enlightenment magic has often been seen as a marker of primitivism, of a benighted earlier stage of human development. Yet across the modern globalized world hundreds of millions continue to resort to magic - and also to fear it. Magic provides explanations and remedies for those living in extreme poverty and without access to alternatives. In the industrial West, with its state welfare systems, religious fundamentalists decry the continued moral threat posed by magic. Under the guise of neo-Paganism, its practice has become a religion in itself. Magic continues to be a truly global issue. This Very Short Introduction does not attempt to provide a concluding definition of magic: it is beyond simple definition. Instead it explores the many ways in which magic, as an idea and a practice, has been understood and employed over the millennia. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The first accessible reader on magic’s generative relationship with contemporary art practice. From the hexing of presidents to a renewed interest in herbalism and atavistic forms of self-care, magic has furnished the contemporary imagination with mysterious and often disorienting bodies of arcane thought and practice. This volume brings together writings by artists, magicians, historians, and theorists that illuminate the vibrant correspondences animating contemporary art’s varied encounters with magical culture, inspiring a reconsideration of the relationship between the symbolic and the pragmatic. Dispensing with simple narratives of reenchantment, Magic illustrates the intricate ways in which we have to some extent always been captivated by the allure of the numinous. It demonstrates how magical culture’s tendencies toward secrecy, occlusion, and encryption might provide contemporary artists with strategies of remedial communality, a renewed faith in the invocational power of personal testimony, and a poetics of practice that could boldly question our political circumstances, from the crisis of climate collapse to the strictures of socially sanctioned techniques of medical and psychiatric care. Tracing its various emergences through the shadows of modernity, the circuitries of ritual media, and declarations of psychic self-defence, Magic deciphers the evolution of a “magical-critical” thinking that productively complicates, contradicts and expands the boundaries of our increasingly weird present.

Excerpt from Our Magic: The Art in Magic, the Theory of Magic, the Practice of Magic We do not, for a moment, suggest that what we have written herein represents the last word to be said concerning magic. \on the contrary, we are well aware that our book is but the commencement of a new departure which, We hope, may lead to the full elucidation of our subject, in every particular. The ramifications and extensions of knowledge con nected with magic are so vast in their scope that no single treatise can possibly include all' that a skilled magician ought to know. Consequently, we can claim no more than the production of a book which, in our opinion, serves to indicate, rather than to ex haust, the manifold topics associated with the art, science and practice of magic. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.