£39.99
Nature of Magic
An Anthropology of Consciousness
Introduction
This book examines how and why practitioners of nature religion - Western witches, druids, shamans - seek to relate spiritually with nature through magical consciousness. Magic and consciousness are concepts that are often fraught with prejudice and ambiguity respectively.
Theory of Magical Consciousness
Greenwood develops a new theory of magical consciousness by arguing that magic ultimately has more to do with the workings of the human mind in terms of an expanded awareness than with socio-cultural explanations. She combines her own subjective insights gained from magical practice with practitioners' in-depth accounts and sustained academic theory on the process of magic.
Scope and Questions
She also tracks magical consciousness in philosophy, myth, folklore, story-telling, and the hi-tech discourse of postmodernity, and asks important questions concerning nature religion's environmental credentials, such as whether it is inherently ecological as many of its practitioners claim.
