Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft

To find out why reasonable people are drawn to the seemingly bizarre practices of magic and witchcraft, Tanya Luhrmann immersed herself in the secret lives of Londoners who call themselves magicians. She came to know them as friends and equals and was initiated into various covens and magical groups. She explains the process through which once-skeptical individuals—educated, middle-class people, frequently of high intelligence—become committed to the ideas behind witchcraft and find magical ritual so compellingly persuasive. This intriguing book draws some disturbing conclusions about the ambivalence of belief within modern urban society. Contents: Acknowledgements Part I — Speaking with a different rhythm: magicians in the modern world     1. What makes magic reasonable?     2. Initiation ritual: my introduction to the field     3. Journey to Aquarius: the sociological context of magical groups         Recent history     4. The goat and the gazelle: witchcraft     5. Meditations on the Tree of Life: the Western Mysteries     6. Space between the worlds: ad hoc ritual magic     7. The Old Ways: non-initiated paganism         Satanism     8. The ‘child within’: a portrait of the practitioners         The novels         Chaos and control in the practical literature         Portrait of the practitioners Part II — Listening to the Goddess: new ways to pay attention to the world     9. Introduction: the magician’s changing intellectual habits         The ideas behind magical practice     10. Drinking from Cerridwen’s cauldron: learning to see the evidence     11. Astrology and the tarot: acquiring common knowledge     12. Seeing patterns in the jumbled whole: becoming comfortable with new assumptions Part III — Summoning the powers: the experience of involvement     13. Introduction: working intuitively         Introduction     14. New experiences: meditation and visualization         Meditation         Mystical states         Visualization     15. ‘Knowing of’: language and imaginative involvement         The ritual         Discussion group         Discussion     16. Ritual: techniques for altering the everyday     17. The varied uses of symbolism         The phenomenology of symbols         The creation of mytho-poeic history         Symbolism as a language of selfhood         Secret knowledge         Appendix: core texts in magical practice Part IV — Justifying to the sceptics     18. Introduction: coping with the dissonance     19. The magical plane: the emergence of a protective metaphor     20. In defence of magic: philosophical and theological rationalization         The realist position         Two worlds         Relativist         Metaphorical         Theology Part V — Belief and action     21. Interpretive drift: the slow drift towards belief     22. Serious play: the fantasy of truth     23. Final thoughts         Why magicians practice magic: the romantic rationalist’s religion         What we learn: anthropological approaches Bibliography Index