Magick Matters

17.02.2021

“System: The Shaping of Modern Knowledge” by Clifford Siskin

Magick Matters
"System: The Shaping of Modern Knowledge" by Clifford Siskin
"The role that “system” has played in the shaping and reshaping of modern knowledge, from Galileo and Newton to our own “computational universe.” A system can describe what we see (the solar system), operate a computer (Windows 10), or be made on a page (the fourteen engineered lines of a sonnet). In this book, Clifford Siskin shows that system is best understood as a genre—a form that works physically in the world to mediate our efforts to understand it. Indeed, many Enlightenment authors published works they called “system” to compete with the essay and the treatise. Drawing on the history of system from Galileo's “message from the stars” and Newton's “system of the world” to ...>>
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17.02.2021

“The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms” by Marcus Chown

Magick Matters
"The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms" by Marcus Chown
"Every breath you take contains atoms forged in the blistering furnaces deep inside stars. Every flower you pick contains atoms blasted into space by stellar explosions that blazed brighter than a billion suns." Thus begins The Magic Furnace, an eloquent, extraordinary account of how scientists unraveled the mystery of atoms, and helped to explain the dawn of life itself. The historic search for atoms and their stellar origins is truly one of the greatest detective stories of science. In effect, it offers two epics intertwined: the birth of atoms in the Big Bang and the evolution of stars and how they work. Neither could be told without the other, for the stars contain the ...>>
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16.02.2021

“The Magicians Trilogy” by Lev Grossman

Magick Matters
"The Magicians Trilogy" by Lev Grossman
"The Magicians Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams may have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined . . . The Magicians is one of the ...>>
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16.02.2021

“Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World” by Tara Isabella Burton

Magick Matters
"Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World" by Tara Isabella Burton
"A sparklingly strange odyssey through the kaleidoscope of America's new spirituality: the cults, practices, high priests and prophets of our supposedly post-religion age. Fifty-five years have passed since the cover of Time magazine proclaimed the death of God and while participation in mainstream religion has indeed plummeted, Americans have never been more spiritually busy. While rejecting traditional worship in unprecedented numbers, today's Americans are embracing a kaleidoscopic panoply of spiritual traditions, rituals, and subcultures -- from astrology and witchcraft to SoulCycle and the alt-right. As the Internet makes it ever-easier to find new "tribes," and consumer capitalism forever threatens to turn spirituality into a lifestyle brand, remarkably modern American religious culture is undergoing a revival ...>>
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