[Buddha-l] Re: Magic

[curt]

Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:
> Chan Fu schreef:
>>
>> I enjoy both my mental kalideoscope and others',
>> but I usually revert to chocolate in the end... :-)
>>
> To all you warlocks, witches, witchmasters, satanists, theosophists, 
> etc. if there's some room left in your mental kaleidoscope, you can 
> have your pick in the
> http://rapidshare.com/files/34678777/encyclopedia_of_occultism.zip
> If you want some real data about witchcraft and magic, try 
> Evans-Pritchard: /Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. 
> /This tells you that witchcraft has nothing to do with the bourgeois 
> cliché of a kind of religious Robin Hoodism, but is noting more then 
> the symptom of a sick society.
>
All societies (regardless of how "sick" they may or may not be) have 
various kinds of magic/sorcery/witchcraft - "black", "white", but mostly 
shades of gray - or possibly even in color.

To get a nuanced, sympathetic, but still objective and scholarly look at 
"real" witchcraft/socery/magic, try the writings of Timothy Knab - 
especially his "A War of Witches", which is possibly the best book of 
this fascinating genre (your know - where the anthropology graduate 
student becomes a shaman's apprentice while doing fieldwork).

The "bourgeois cliche of a kind of religious Robin Hoodism" is just 
another straw man - let's throw it on the fire along with "protestant 
buddhism".

- Curt