Persuasions of the witch's craft : ritual magic in contemporary England

Based on the author's doctoral thesis in social anthropology.

Part 1 - Speaking with a different rhythem: 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. 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. 8 The 'child within': a portrait of the practitioners. Part 2 - Listening to the Goddess: new ways to pay attention to the world. 9 Introduction: the magician's changing intellectual habits. 10 Drinking from Cerridwen's cauldron: learning to see the evidence. 11Astrology and the tarot: acquiring common knowledge. 12 Seeing patterns in the jumbled whole: becoming comfortable with new assumptions. Part 3 - Summoning the powers: the experience of involvement. 13 Introduction: working intuitvely. 14 New experiences: meditation and visualization. 15 'Knowing of': language and imaginative involvement. 16 Ritual: techniques for altering the everyday. 17 The varied uses of symbolism. Part 4 - 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. Part 5 Belief and action. 21 Interpretive drift: the slow shift towards belief. 22 Serious play: the fantasy of truth. 23 Final thoughts

'By working close to home, Ms. Luhrmann is able to overcome the huge problems of translation and of commesurability between anthropologist and 'native' and yet produce arguments and conclusions which speak directly to the magic and ritual of more exotic societies and which also undermine some of the stereotypical assumptions about the nature of the Western rationality which are pitted against them.' --Stephen Hugh-Jones

Hardcover