To find out why reasonable people are drawn to the seemingly bizarre practices of magic and witchcraft, Luhrmann immersed herself in the arcane world of Londoners who call themselves magicians. Her report is as fascinating as the esoteric world itself.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
A groundbreaking study that nimbly interweaves Ms. Luhrmann's own magical adventures with anthropological shoptalk, offering a systematic classification and analysis of modern magic, as well as judicious observations on the nature of belief...A formidable challenge that T. M. Luhrmann's book implicitly poses [is] a rigorous examination of the tenets of our own faith, ideas, dearest intellectual castles, to find just where the foundations lie. To accomplish that would be magic enough for anyone.
--Philip Zaleski (New York Times Book Review )
Raises questions about the way we think, believe, imagine, know, in a most fascinating way.
--Rosemary Dinnage (New York Review of Books )
Anyone who likes to speculate about the nature of belief and the organization of belief systems, to learn about the development and meanings of ritual, and to explore efforts toward creative self-realization will be intrigued with the results of Luhrmann's immersion in the several strains of modern British magic.
--Michele Slung (Washington Post Book World )
Luhrmann has made a major contribution to the study of magic, new religions, and the development of the irrational within a culture that prides itself on rationality.
--Helen A. Berger (Contemporary Sociology )
Such is the strength of Tanya Luhrmann's narrative that, by the end of the book, magic becomes a normal and almost routine activity--just another way of channeling that desire for worship and that appetite for symbolic ritual that human beings seem to possess. Since this is an anthropological study the author has many serious points to make about the relationship between practice and theory.
--Peter Ackroyd (London Times )
This brilliant work provides the most wide-ranging sociological or anthropological investigation to date of the interrelated witchcraft, ceremonial magic, and neo-pagan movements that are becoming increasingly important in both Britain and the United States...No one interested in contemporary spirituality or the social scientific study of religion can afford to miss this book.
--Robert S. Ellwood (Religious Studies Review ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
--Philip Zaleski (New York Times Book Review )
Raises questions about the way we think, believe, imagine, know, in a most fascinating way.
--Rosemary Dinnage (New York Review of Books )
Anyone who likes to speculate about the nature of belief and the organization of belief systems, to learn about the development and meanings of ritual, and to explore efforts toward creative self-realization will be intrigued with the results of Luhrmann's immersion in the several strains of modern British magic.
--Michele Slung (Washington Post Book World )
Luhrmann has made a major contribution to the study of magic, new religions, and the development of the irrational within a culture that prides itself on rationality.
--Helen A. Berger (Contemporary Sociology )
Such is the strength of Tanya Luhrmann's narrative that, by the end of the book, magic becomes a normal and almost routine activity--just another way of channeling that desire for worship and that appetite for symbolic ritual that human beings seem to possess. Since this is an anthropological study the author has many serious points to make about the relationship between practice and theory.
--Peter Ackroyd (London Times )
This brilliant work provides the most wide-ranging sociological or anthropological investigation to date of the interrelated witchcraft, ceremonial magic, and neo-pagan movements that are becoming increasingly important in both Britain and the United States...No one interested in contemporary spirituality or the social scientific study of religion can afford to miss this book.
--Robert S. Ellwood (Religious Studies Review ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
About the Author
Tanya M. Luhrmann is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
She studied magicians, but she didn't understand them.,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (Paperback)
Reading this made it clear that while the author definitely did some research and came to understand some aspects of magic, there was a lot she was woefully ignorant of. Perhaps what was most telling was the attitude she had toward the subject and toward the people she observed, a subtle attitude that demonstrated a lack of respect. For her magic, seemed liked an opportunity to find a subject study it, write about it, and then promptly leave without continuing further work or further engaging the subject and testing her analysis. She apparently only did this study for a year.
On the other hand, this was a good read precisely because in that year she did get very involved in the communities and in magical practice. What I wonder is whether she critically questioned her own values and beliefs and what those brought to the experience and subject she was studying. I'm not convinced in reading this book that she engaged her own attitudes about magic or was willing to suspend disbelief enough to determine if it was a reality or just an approach to life that people bought into.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mistitled book and misguided enterprise,
By D. Riverblue Cloudwalker "Riverblue" (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (Paperback)
First point: the title of the book is inappropriate, since Luhrmann does not focus specifically on Witches: in fact, in reading the book, the sense one gets is that Witches and Witchcraft are peripheral to her study, since she is "researching" and constantly references magic and "magicians," a realm which includes but is certainly not limited to Witches. Much of what she investigates is what she calls the "Western Mysteries", a realm more aligned with hermeticism and ceremonial magic than Witchcraft.
Second point: Luhrmann's very approach to magic itself disqualifies her from being able to learn anything significant about it. One cannot hope to learn anything significant about magic, witchcraft, or the occult arts with a purely intellectual, coldly logical, computer-like "rational" approach. One might as well try to apply pure cold, disembodied computer logic to understand how a work of art is made. One might further say that approaching witchcraft, magic and the occult arts with a resolutely unimaginative, dully unintuitive, unfeeling "logic" is a highly irrational and futile approach, bound to keep the investigator blind, dumb and deaf to his or her subject. A mature intellect is a holistic, embodied intellect, one that is integrated with feminine ways of knowing, and it enables us to know when and how to apply intuition and feeling and other forms of knowing to our subject. Disembodied, cold, excessively masculine intellect is a disease of modern humankind, and it fails utterly to illuminate matters that are appropriately termed "Feminine Mysteries." Many of these things are termed mysteries precisely because they elude "mere" intellectual knowing and explanation: they require a deeper, more profound level of knowing. As Isis said at the temple of Sais, "No human lifts my veil." Those who would discount the realms of magic and witchcraft by dismissing it all as irrational (besides which, can ANY spiritual/religious practice or belief oriented to divine reality thus be termed "rational"?) , must necessarily be confronted by the paradox that many people involved in these practices are very happy, bright, vital, embodied, energetic people who one senses are on a path to developing greater psychological wholeness and integration, while those pursuing a path of pure cold reason often end up depressed, dry, barren, morose, rigid, constricted, psychologically unconscious, and shriveled. Why is that? It's because truth is not a matter of cold, disembodied intellect, nor can it be found in that way.
21 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Condescension of Anthropology,
By WitchGrrl (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (Paperback)
This is the only book I've read in the past five years that I haven't finished. I stopped reading in disgust. Luhrmann is extremely patronizing to the population she's writing about, neopagans, and it drove me crazy. I also felt like she missed the point of what it is that we do. Most neopagans don't consider themselves as magicians primarily, and much of the ritual we do is not to create material results. Her point is that magic does not create material results but we act as though it does. I don't think either of those are necessarily true, and even if they were true, they're beside the point of a spiritual path. In Luhrmann's defense, the anthropology tradition has a long and venerated history of holding itself loftily above the people it studies. So perhaps it's not entirely her fault. But I don't think that redeems the book. I wouldn't recommend it.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
|
|
