A Cognitive Theory Of Magic

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A Cognitive Theory of Magic

Jesper Sørensen
A Cognitive Theory of Magic Book PDF

Author : Jesper Sørensen
Publisher : Rowman Altamira
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 0759110409

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A Cognitive Theory of Magic by Jesper Sørensen Pdf

Magic is a universal phenomenon. Everywhere we look people perform ritual actions in which desirable qualities are transferred by means of physical contact and objects or persons are manipulated by things of their likeness. In this book S rensen embraces a cognitive perspective in order to investigate this long-established but controversial topic. Following a critique of the traditional approaches to magic, and basing his claims on classical ethnographic cases, the author explains magic's universality by examining a number of recurrent cognitive processes underlying its different manifestations. He focuses on how power is infused into the ritual practice; how representations of contagion and similarity can be used to connect otherwise distinct objects in order to manipulate one by the other; and how the performance of ritual prompts representations of magical actions as effective. Bringing these features together, the author proposes a cognitive theory of how people can represent magical rituals as purposeful actions and how ritual actions are integrated into more complex representations of events. This explanation, in turn, yields new insights into the constitutive role of magic in the formation of institutionalised religious ritual.

Sound and Communication

Annette Wilke,Oliver Moebus
Sound and Communication Book PDF

Author : Annette Wilke,Oliver Moebus
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 1137 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2011-01-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9783110240030

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Sound and Communication by Annette Wilke,Oliver Moebus Pdf

In Hindu India both orality and sonality have enjoyed great cultural significance since earliest times. They have a distinct influence on how people approach texts. The importance of sound and its perception has led to rites, models of cosmic order, and abstract formulas. Sound serves both to stimulate religious feelings and to give them a sensory form. Starting from the perception and interpretation of sound, the authors chart an unorthodox cultural history of India, turning their attention to an important, but often neglected aspect of daily religious life. They provide a stimulating contribution to the study of cultural systems of perception that also adds new aspects to the debate on orality and literality.

Experiencing the Impossible

Gustav Kuhn
Experiencing the Impossible Book PDF

Author : Gustav Kuhn
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2019-03-12
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780262039468

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Experiencing the Impossible by Gustav Kuhn Pdf

How the scientific study of magic reveals intriguing—and often unsettling—insights into the mysteries of the human mind. What do we see when we watch a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat or read a person's mind? We are captivated by an illusion; we applaud the fact that we have been fooled. Why do we enjoy experiencing what seems clearly impossible, or at least beyond our powers of explanation? In Experiencing the Impossible, Gustav Kuhn examines the psychological processes that underpin our experience of magic. Kuhn, a psychologist and a magician, reveals the intriguing—and often unsettling—insights into the human mind that the scientific study of magic provides.Magic, Kuhn explains, creates a cognitive conflict between what we believe to be true (for example, a rabbit could not be in that hat) and what we experience (a rabbit has just come out of that hat!). Drawing on the latest psychological, neurological, and philosophical research, he suggests that misdirection is at the heart of all magic tricks, and he offers a scientific theory of misdirection. He explores, among other topics, our propensity for magical thinking, the malleability of our perceptual experiences, forgetting and misremembering, free will and mind control, and how magic is applied outside entertaiment—the use of illusion in human-computer interaction, politics, warfare, and elsewhere. We may be surprised to learn how little of the world we actually perceive, how little we can trust what we see and remember, and how little we are in charge of our thoughts and actions. Exploring magic, Kuhn illuminates the complex—and almost magical—mechanisms underlying our daily activities.

Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period

Mika S. Pajunen,Jeremy Penner
Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period Book PDF

Author : Mika S. Pajunen,Jeremy Penner
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 516 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2017-07-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9783110449266

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Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period by Mika S. Pajunen,Jeremy Penner Pdf

When thinking about psalms and prayers in the Second Temple period, the Masoretic Psalter and its reception is often given priority because of modern academic or theological interests. This emphasis tends to skew our understanding of the corpus we call psalms and prayers and often dampens or mutes the lived context within which these texts were composed and used. This volume is comprised of a collection of articles that explore the diverse settings in which psalms and prayers were used and circulated in the late Second Temple period. The book includes essays by experts in the Hebrew bible, the Dead Sea scrolls, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and the New Testament, in which a wide variety of topics, approaches, and methods both old and new are utilized to explore the many functions of psalms and prayers in the late Second Temple period. Included in this volume are essays examining how psalms were read as prophecy, as history, as liturgy, and as literature. A variety methodologies are employed, and include the use of cognitive sciences and poetics, linguistic theory, psychology, redaction criticism, and literary theory.

Mind, Morality and Magic

Istvan Czachesz,Risto Uro
Mind Morality and Magic Book PDF

Author : Istvan Czachesz,Risto Uro
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2014-10-14
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781317544401

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Mind, Morality and Magic by Istvan Czachesz,Risto Uro Pdf

The cognitive science of religion that has emerged over the last twenty years is a multidisciplinary field that often challenges established theories in anthropology and comparative religion. This new approach raises many questions for biblical studies as well. What are the cross-cultural cognitive mechanisms which explain the transmission of biblical texts? How did the local and particular cultural traditions of ancient Israel and early Christianity develop? What does the embodied and socially embedded nature of the human mind imply for the exegesis of biblical texts? "Mind, Morality and Magic" draws on a range of approaches to the study of the human mind - including memory studies, computer modeling, cognitive theories of ritual, social cognition, evolutionary psychology, biology of emotions, and research on religious experience. The volume explores how cognitive approaches to religion can shed light on classical concerns in biblical scholarship - such as the transmission of traditions, ritual and magic, and ethics - as well as uncover new questions and offer new methodologies.

Magic in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean

Nina Nikki,Kirsi M.J. Valkama
Magic in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Book PDF

Author : Nina Nikki,Kirsi M.J. Valkama
Publisher : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2020-12-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9783647522180

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Magic in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean by Nina Nikki,Kirsi M.J. Valkama Pdf

Magic in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean: Cognitive, Historical, and Material Perspectives brings together articles with the shared conviction that the category of magic remains useful in religious studies and provides new insights to biblical and related texts and artifacts. Historically, magic has been considered in both scholarly and popular discourse to be questionable, obscure, and potentially subversive. 19th century scholars of religion viewed magical beliefs and practices as primitive and inferior compared to Judeo-Christian forms of worship, which were considered true "religion". More recently, the category has been defended especially by scholars of the cognitive science of religion, who find it useful for delineating a set of beliefs and practices fundamental to all forms of religion. The volume joins current scholarship in refraining from using the concept as an othering device and in arguing that it can still serve as a helpful analytical tool. In addition to analyzing the discourse on magic in both ancient literature and modern scholarship, the articles provide individual examples of how literary and material culture attest to the existence of magical beliefs and practices in sources from the Ancient Near East to the Byzantine Period. The book is divided into three parts. The contributions in the first part approach magic from the theoretical perspective of cognitive studies, ritual studies, and cultural evolution, while the rest of the book focuses on how magic and magicians are understood in ancient sources. The second part discusses a specific set of textual material dealing with blessings and curses. The third part of the volume discusses the world of various destructive celestial beings, from which one and one's loved ones had to be defended, as well as the multitude of protective beings such as angels.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual

Risto Uro,Juliette Day,Rikard Roitto,Richard E. DeMaris
The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual Book PDF

Author : Risto Uro,Juliette Day,Rikard Roitto,Richard E. DeMaris
Publisher : Oxford Handbooks
Page : 753 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780198747871

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The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual by Risto Uro,Juliette Day,Rikard Roitto,Richard E. DeMaris Pdf

Scholars of religion have long assumed that ritual and belief constitute the fundamental building blocks of religious traditions and that these two components of religion are interrelated and interdependent in significant ways. Generations of New Testament and Early Christian scholars have produced detailed analyses of the belief systems of nascent Christian communities, including their ideological and political dimensions, but have by and large ignored ritual as an important element of early Christian religion and as a factor contributing to the rise and the organization of the movement. In recent years, however, scholars of early Christianity have begun to use ritual as an analytical tool for describing and explaining Christian origins and the early history of the movement. Such a development has created a momentum toward producing a more comprehensive volume on the ritual world of Early Christianity employing advances made in the field of ritual studies. The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual gives a manifold account of the ritual world of early Christianity from the beginning of the movement up to the end of the fifth century. The volume introduces relevant theories and approaches; central topics of ritual life in the cultural world of early Christianity; and important Christian ritual themes and practices in emerging Christian groups and factions.

Theoretical and Empirical Investigations of Divination and Magic

Jesper Sørensen,Anders Klostergaard Petersen
Theoretical and Empirical Investigations of Divination and Magic Book PDF

Author : Jesper Sørensen,Anders Klostergaard Petersen
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2021-05-03
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004447585

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Theoretical and Empirical Investigations of Divination and Magic by Jesper Sørensen,Anders Klostergaard Petersen Pdf

In Theoretical and Empirical Investigations of Divination and Magic ten leading scholars of religion provide up-to-date investigations into these classic domains from historical, anthropological, cognitive, philosophical and theoretical perspectives.

Textual, Comparative, Sociological, and Cognitive Approaches

Peter Antes,Armin W. Geertz,Randi R. Warne
Textual Comparative Sociological and Cognitive Approaches Book PDF

Author : Peter Antes,Armin W. Geertz,Randi R. Warne
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 505 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2008-12-19
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9783110211719

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Textual, Comparative, Sociological, and Cognitive Approaches by Peter Antes,Armin W. Geertz,Randi R. Warne Pdf

Since its founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

Defining Magic

Bernd-Christian Otto,Michael Stausberg
Defining Magic Book PDF

Author : Bernd-Christian Otto,Michael Stausberg
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2014-09-11
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781317545040

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Defining Magic by Bernd-Christian Otto,Michael Stausberg Pdf

Magic has been an important term in Western history and continues to be an essential topic in the modern academic study of religion, anthropology, sociology, and cultural history. Defining Magic is the first volume to assemble key texts that aim at determining the nature of magic, establish its boundaries and key features, and explain its working. The reader brings together seminal writings from antiquity to today. The texts have been selected on the strength of their success in defining magic as a category, their impact on future scholarship, and their originality. The writings are divided into chronological sections and each essay is separately introduced for student readers. Together, these texts - from Philosophy, Theology, Religious Studies, and Anthropology - reveal the breadth of critical approaches and responses to defining what is magic. CONTRIBUTORS: Aquinas, Augustine, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Dennis Diderot, Emile Durkheim, Edward Evans-Pritchard, James Frazer, Susan Greenwood, Robin Horton, Edmund Leach, Gerardus van der Leeuw, Christopher Lehrich, Bronislaw Malinowski, Marcel Mauss, Agrippa von Nettesheim, Plato, Pliny, Plotin, Isidore of Sevilla, Jesper Sorensen, Kimberley Stratton, Randall Styers, Edward Tylor

Women of Ice and Fire

Anne Gjelsvik,Rikke Schubart
Women of Ice and Fire Book PDF

Author : Anne Gjelsvik,Rikke Schubart
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 344 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2016-04-07
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781501302923

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Women of Ice and Fire by Anne Gjelsvik,Rikke Schubart Pdf

George R.R. Martin's acclaimed seven-book fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire is unique for its strong and multi-faceted female protagonists, from teen queen Daenerys, scheming Queen Cersei, child avenger Arya, knight Brienne, Red Witch Melisandre, and many more. The Game of Thrones universe challenges, exploits, yet also changes how we think of women and gender, not only in fantasy, but in Western culture in general. Divided into three sections addressing questions of adaptation from novel to television, female characters, and politics and female audience engagement within the GoT universe, the interdisciplinary and international lineup of contributors analyze gender in relation to female characters and topics such as genre, sex, violence, adaptation, as well as fan reviews. The genre of fantasy was once considered a primarily male territory with male heroes. Women of Ice and Fire shows how the GoT universe challenges, exploits, and reimagines gender and why it holds strong appeal to female readers, audiences, and online participants.

The Routledge History of Medieval Magic

Sophie Page,Catherine Rider
The Routledge History of Medieval Magic Book PDF

Author : Sophie Page,Catherine Rider
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 550 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2019-01-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317042754

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The Routledge History of Medieval Magic by Sophie Page,Catherine Rider Pdf

The Routledge History of Medieval Magic brings together the work of scholars from across Europe and North America to provide extensive insights into recent developments in the study of medieval magic between c.1100 and c.1500. This book covers a wide range of topics, including the magical texts which circulated in medieval Europe, the attitudes of intellectuals and churchmen to magic, the ways in which magic intersected with other aspects of medieval culture, and the early witch trials of the fifteenth century. In doing so, it offers the reader a detailed look at the impact that magic had within medieval society, such as its relationship to gender roles, natural philosophy, and courtly culture. This is furthered by the book’s interdisciplinary approach, containing chapters dedicated to archaeology, literature, music, and visual culture, as well as texts and manuscripts. The Routledge History of Medieval Magic also outlines how research on this subject could develop in the future, highlighting under-explored subjects, unpublished sources, and new approaches to the topic. It is the ideal book for both established scholars and students of medieval magic.

Magical Consciousness

Susan Greenwood,Erik D. Goodwyn
Magical Consciousness Book PDF

Author : Susan Greenwood,Erik D. Goodwyn
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2015-08-20
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317517207

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Magical Consciousness by Susan Greenwood,Erik D. Goodwyn Pdf

How does a mind think magically? The research documented in this book is one answer that allows the disciplines of anthropology and neurobiology to come together to reveal a largely hidden dynamic of magic. Magic gets to the very heart of some theoretical and methodological difficulties encountered in the social and natural sciences, especially to do with issues of rationality. This book examines magic head-on, not through its instrumental aspects but as an orientation of consciousness. Magical consciousness is affective, associative and synchronistic, shaped through individual experience within a particular environment. This work focuses on an in-depth case study using the anthropologist’s own experience gained through years of anthropological fieldwork with British practitioners of magic. As an ethnographic view, it is an intimate study of the way in which the cognitive architecture of a mind engages the emotions and imagination in a pattern of meanings related to childhood experiences, spiritual communications and the environment. Although the detail of the involvement in magical consciousness presented here is necessarily specific, the central tenets of modus operandi is common to magical thought in general, and can be applied to cross-cultural analyses to increase understanding of this ubiquitous human phenomenon.

Field Manual for the Archaeology of Ritual, Religion, and Magic

C. Riley Augé
Field Manual for the Archaeology of Ritual Religion and Magic Book PDF

Author : C. Riley Augé
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2022-07-08
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781800735040

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Field Manual for the Archaeology of Ritual, Religion, and Magic by C. Riley Augé Pdf

By bringing together in one place specific objects, materials, and features indicating ritual, religious, or magical belief used by people around the world and through time, this tool will assist archaeologists in identifying evidence of belief-related behaviors and broadening their understanding of how those behaviors may also be seen through less obvious evidential lines. Instruction and templates for recording, typologizing, classifying, and analyzing ritual or magico-religious material culture are also provided to guide researchers in the survey, collection, and cataloging processes. The bulleted formatting and topical range make this a highly accessible work, while providing an incredible wealth of information in a single volume.

Mystery and Secrecy in the Nag Hammadi Collection and Other Ancient Literature: Ideas and Practices

Christian H. Bull,Liv Lied,John D. Turner
Mystery and Secrecy in the Nag Hammadi Collection and Other Ancient Literature Ideas and Practices Book PDF

Author : Christian H. Bull,Liv Lied,John D. Turner
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 561 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2011-10-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004212077

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Mystery and Secrecy in the Nag Hammadi Collection and Other Ancient Literature: Ideas and Practices by Christian H. Bull,Liv Lied,John D. Turner Pdf

Drawing on a wide array of sources, this anthology sets out to analyze the concepts of mystery and secrecy that occur in the ritual and rhetoric of antique Mediterranean religion, with an emphasis on Gnosticism, Christianity, and Paganism.