Magic (supernatural)

03 Oct 1994 12:02

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This is a very hard to define subject, though an extremely important one historically...

Some queries: Cross-culturally/historically, how much conscious fraud have magicians engaged in? How much unconscious self-deception? Cross-culturally/historically, what does skepticism and debunking look like? How weird were skeptics, given that they were very much in the minority?

See also:
• Alchemy
• Astrology
• Demonology
• Mircea Eliade
• Early Modern Europe
• History of Science
• Psychoceramics
• Religion
• the Renaissance
• Shamanism
• Superstition
• Wisdom of the East
• the Witch-Craze

Recommended:
• James Frazer, The Golden Bough [Yes, I know there are problems here!]
• Anthony Grafton, Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa
• Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. II, History of Scientific Thought, chapter on "Pseudo-Sciences and the Sceptical Tradition"
• Wayne Shumaker, The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance: A Study in Intellectual Patterns

To read:
• Luck, Arcana Mundi
• Marcel Mauss, A General theory of Magic