The Nature of Magic: An Anthropology of Consciousness (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781845200954)

This book examines how and why practitioners of nature religion - Western witches, druids, shamans - seek to relate spiritually with nature through 'magical consciousness'. 'Magic' and 'consciousness' are concepts that are often fraught with prejudice and ambiguity respectively. Greenwood develops a new theory of magical consciousness by arguing that magic ultimately has more to do with the workings of the human mind in terms of an expanded awareness than with socio-cultural explanations. She combines her own subjective insights gained from magical practice with practitioners' in-depth accounts and sustained academic theory on the process of magic. She also tracks magical consciousness in philosophy, myth, folklore, story-telling, and the hi-tech discourse of postmodernity, and asks important questions concerning nature religion's environmental credentials, such as whether it as inherently ecological as many of its practitioners claim.

Author: Susan Greenwood
ISBN-10: 1845200950
ISBN-13: 9781845200954
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Published: 07/01/2005
Pages: 256
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.89lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.24w x 0.56d