21.09.2021

“The Thing About Religion: An Introduction to the Material Study of Religions” by David Morgan

Magick Matters
"The Thing About Religion: An Introduction to the Material Study of Religions" by David Morgan
"Common views of religion typically focus on the beliefs and meanings derived from revealed scriptures, ideas, and doctrines. David Morgan has led the way in radically broadening that framework to encompass the understanding that religions are fundamentally embodied, material forms of practice. This concise primer shows readers how to study what has come to be termed material religion—the ways religious meaning is enacted in the material world. Material religion includes the things people wear, eat, sing, touch, look at, create, and avoid. It also encompasses the places where religion and the social realities of everyday life, including gender, class, and race, intersect in physical ways. This interdisciplinary approach brings religious studies into conversation with art...>>
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21.09.2021

“Materiality and the Study of Religion: The Stuff of the Sacred” edited by Tim Hutchings and Joanne McKenzie

Magick Matters
"Materiality and the Study of Religion: The Stuff of the Sacred" edited by Tim Hutchings and Joanne McKenzie
"Material culture has emerged in recent decades as a significant theoretical concern for the study of religion. This book contributes to and evaluates this material turn, presenting thirteen chapters of new empirical research and theoretical reflection from some of the leading international scholars of material religion. Following a model for material analysis proposed in the first chapter by David Morgan, the contributors trace the life cycle of religious materiality through three phases: the production of religious objects, their classification as religious (or non-religious), and their circulation and use in material culture. The chapters in this volume consider how objects become and cease to be sacred, how materiality can be used to contest access to public...>>
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21.09.2021

“Mask of the Sun: The Science, History and Forgotten Lore of Eclipses” by John Dvorak

Magick Matters
"Mask of the Sun: The Science, History and Forgotten Lore of Eclipses" by John Dvorak
"They have been thought of as harbingers of evil as well as a sign of the divine. Eclipses—one of the rarest and most stunning celestial events we can witness here on Earth—have shaped the course of human history and thought since humans first turned their eyes to the sky. What do Virginia Woolf, the rotation of hurricanes, Babylonian kings and Einstein’s General Theory Relativity all have in common? Eclipses. Always spectacular and, today, precisely predicable, eclipses have allowed us to know when the first Olympic games were played and, long before the first space probe, that the Moon was covered by dust. Eclipses have stunned, frightened, emboldened and mesmerized people for thousands of years. They were...>>
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21.09.2021

“Manual of Psychomagic: The Practice of Shamanic Psychotherapy” by Alejandro Jodorowsky

Magick Matters
"Manual of Psychomagic: The Practice of Shamanic Psychotherapy" by Alejandro Jodorowsky
"A workbook for using symbolic acts to heal the unconscious mind • Provides several hundred successful psychomagic solutions for a wide range of specific psychological, sexual, emotional, and physical problems, from stuttering, eczema, and fears to repressed rage and hereditary illnesses • Details how practitioners can develop unique psychomagic solutions for their patients • Explains how psychomagic bypasses the rational mind to work directly with the unconscious for quicker and more enduring change Traditional psychotherapy seeks to unburden the unconscious mind purely through talk and discussion. Psychomagic recognizes that it is difficult to reach the unconscious with rational thought. We should instead speak directly to the unconscious in its own language, that of dreams, poetry, and symbolic acts....>>
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