EBOOK Magic: A Very Short Introduction -

EBOOK Magic: A Very Short Introduction

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Wydawnictwo: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780191623882
EAN: A2601ABCEB
Format: 0,0 x 0,0 x 0,0
Oprawa: ...
Stron: 152
Data wydania: 2012
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Defining 'magic' is a maddening task. Over the last century numerous philosophers,        anthropologists, historians, and theologians have attempted to pin down its        essential meaning, sometimes analysing it in such complex and abstruse depth that it        all but loses its sense altogether. For this reason, many people often shy away from        providing a detailed definition, assuming it is generally understood as the human        control of supernatural forces.'Magic' continues to pervade the popular imagination        and idiom. People feel comfortable with its contemporary multiple meanings, unaware        of the controversy, conflict, and debate its definition has caused over two and a        half millennia. In common usage today 'magic' is uttered in reference to the        supernatural, superstition, illusion, trickery, religious miracles, fantasies, and        as a simple superlative. The literary confection known as 'magical realism' has        considerable appeal and many modernscientists have ironically incorporated the word        into their vocabulary, with their 'magic acid', 'magic bullets' and 'magic        angles'.Since the so-called European Enlightenment magic has often been seen as a        marker of primitivism, of a benighted earlier stage of human development. Yet across        the modern globalized world hundreds of millions continue to resort to magic - and        also to fear it. Magic provides explanations and remedies for those living in        extreme poverty and without access to alternatives. In the industrial West, with its        state welfare systems, religious fundamentalists decry the continued moral threat        posed bymagic. Under the guise of neo-Paganism, its practice has become a religion        in itself. Magic continues to be a truly global issue.This Very Short Introduction        does not attempt to provide a concluding definition of magic: it is beyond simple        definition. Instead it explores the many ways in which magic, as an idea and a        practice, has been understood and employed over the millennia.

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