17.10.2021

“Neuro-Habits: Rewire Your Brain to Stop Self-Defeating Behaviors and Make the Right Choice Every Time” by Peter Hollins

Magick Matters

"Small daily acts to change your brain chemistry and structure -- so you can be in control at all times. Sometimes it feels like we are living out lives on autopilot, powerless to change what we are doing. But we’re not powerless, we just need to rewire our brains so that the right thing is the easy thing. Do you feel lazy, slow, unmotivated, or apathetic? Understand your brain and you will solve all of your problems. Neuro Habits gets directly to the root of all behavior: the human brain. We will explore the quirks of the brain that create habits from both a psychological and neurological perspective, and what we can do about it. This...>>

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17.10.2021

“Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition” by Yvonne P. Chireau

Magick Matters

"Black Magic looks at the origins, meaning, and uses of Conjure―the African American tradition of healing and harming that evolved from African, European, and American elements―from the slavery period to well into the twentieth century. Illuminating a world that is dimly understood by both scholars and the general public, Yvonne P. Chireau describes Conjure and other related traditions, such as Hoodoo and Rootworking, in a beautifully written, richly detailed history that presents the voices and experiences of African Americans and shows how magic has informed their culture. Focusing on the relationship between Conjure and Christianity, Chireau shows how these seemingly contradictory traditions have worked together in a complex and complementary fashion to provide spiritual...>>

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17.10.2021

“The Long Life of Magical Objects: A Study in the Solomonic Tradition” by Allegra Iafrate

Magick Matters

This book explores a series of powerful artifacts associated with King Solomon via legendary or extracanonical textual sources. Tracing their cultural resonance throughout history, art historian Allegra Iafrate delivers exciting insights into these objects and interrogates the ways in which magic manifests itself at a material level. Each chapter focuses on a different Solomonic object: a ring used to control demons; a mysterious set of bottles that constrain evil forces; an endless knot or seal with similar properties; the shamir, known for its supernatural ability to cut through stone; and a flying carpet that can bring the sitter anywhere he desires. Taken together, these chapters constitute a study on the reception of the figure of...>>

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17.10.2021

“Brujas: The Magic and Power of Witches of Color” by Lorraine Monteagut

Magick Matters

"There is a new kind of witch emerging in our cultural consciousness: the bruja. Witchcraft has made a comeback in popular culture, especially among feminists. A growing subculture of BIPOC witches, led by Afro-Caribbean immigrants, Indigenous Americans, and other witches of color, is reclaiming their ancestral traditions and contributing their voices to the feminist witchcraft of today. Brujas chronicles the magical lives of these practitioners as they develop their healing arts, express their progressive politics, and extend their personal rituals into community activism. They are destigmatizing the “witch” of their ancestries and bringing persecuted traditions to the open to challenge cultural appropriation and spiritual consumerism. Part memoir, part ritual guide, Brujas empowers readers to decolonize their...>>

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16.10.2021

“Reality and Its Order” by Werner Heisenberg

Magick Matters

"Available here for the first time in English, Reality and Its Order is a remarkable philosophical text by Werner Heisenberg, the father of quantum mechanics and one of the leading scientists of the 20th century. Written during the wartime years and initially distributed only to his family and trusted friends, the essay describes Heisenberg’s philosophical view of how we understand the natural world and our role within it. In this volume, the essay is introduced by the physicist Helmut Rechenberg and annotated by the science historian Ernst Peter Fischer. The content, particularly within its historical context, will be of great interest to many physicists, philosophers and historians of science."...>>

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