The Search for Meaning through Magic“The academic portrayal of popular magical belief and prac
The Search for Meaning through Magic“The academic portrayal of popular magical belief and practice in early modern Britain often comes across as reductionistic: an exposition of a fundamentally pragmatic system of self-help primarily designed to alleviate material suffering…Historians have long recognized that there was an experiential dimension to learned or ‘high’ magical traditions in early modern Britain, and that this dimension possessed a spiritual significance for practitioners. They readily acknowledge the fact that learned magicians performed rituals in order to facilitate mystical experiences or revelation, and that their attempts to visually encounter spirits could play an integral role in this context. The magical beliefs and practices of common folk in this period, however, are seldom elevated by historians in this way. Such an oversight is deeply illogical.”-Emma Wilby, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (2005) -- source link
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