Misconceptions of Magic

Magic is a word that has many different meanings among different people. Commonly in the past anything that was not understood was referred to as magic. Back before modern medicine or chemistry these practices were believed to be forms of magic. In David Abram's book The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More Than Human World he writes, "we no longer describe the shamans' enigmatic spirit-helpers as the 'superstitious claptrap of heathen primitives' - we have cleansed ourselves of at least that much ethnocentrism; yet we still refer to such enigmatic forces, respectfully now, as 'supernaturals' - for we are unable to shed the sense, so endemic to scientific civilization, of nature as a rather prosaic and predictable realm, unsuited to such mysteries" (Abram, 1996).

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In the past the attitude that people had towards those who had practices that were different were often misunderstood. Within Europe these people were often labelled heretics and were accused of things that weren't even included in their practices. And these Europeans that travelled to other locations witnessed cultures with different practices. These people were frequently labelled as heathens or savages. Granted it wasn't only Europeans that were guilty of misrepresenting peoples with different spiritual and medical practices, but the common theme is that many of them did not even attempt to understand these practices. They were dismissed simply for being different.

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Now, there may not be merely as many cases of public denouncing or burning of people. But I find that many people can still be dismissive towards practices and ideas that are different from their own. What's interesting is that long ago medical practices that were alchemical or scientific in nature were considered to be falsehoods. But now it seems that more people are dismissive of any medical practices that aren't derived from the hard sciences. While it is important to ask questions and it's understandable to be skeptical of anything, not putting in an effort to understand a practice that is different from your own is harmful to our understanding of others.

I must admit that this post is not particularly sixth sense oriented, but it's something that came to mind while I read Spell of the Sensuous. I felt that it was an important enough topic that would be worth posting about despite not a direct relation to the senses. Though I may go so far as to say that my point is to maintain the 'sense' of human understanding.