The Occult Life of Things

The Occult Life of Things PDF Author: Fernando Santos-Granero
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816528745
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Native peoples of the Amazon view objects, especially human artifacts, as the first cosmic creations and the building blocks from which the natural world has been shaped. In these constructional cosmologies, spears became the stings of wasps, hammocks became spiderwebs, stools became the buttocks of human beings. A view so antithetical to Western thought offers a refreshing perspective on the place and role of objects in human social life—one that has remained under-studied in Amazonian anthropology. In this book, ten scholars re-introduce objects to contemporary studies of animism in order to explore how various peoples envision the lives of material objects: the occult, or extraordinary, lives of “things,” whose personas are normally not visible to lay people. Combining linguistic, ethnological, and historical perspectives, the contributors draw on a wealth of information gathered from ten Amerindian peoples belonging to seven different linguistic families to identify the basic tenets of what might be called a native Amazonian theory of materiality and personhood. They consider which objects have subjective dimensions and how they are manifested, focusing on three domains regarding Amazonian conceptions of things: the subjective life of objects, considering which things have a subjective dimension; the social life of things, seeing the diverse ways in which human beings and things relate as subjectivities; and the historical life of things, recognizing the fact that some things have value as ritual objects or heirlooms. These chapters demonstrate how native Amazonian peoples view animals, plants, and things as “subjectivities” possessing agency, intentionality, and consciousness, as well as a composite anatomy. They also show how materiality is intimately linked to notions of personhood, with artifacts classified as natural or divine creations and living beings viewed as cultural or constructed. The Occult Life of Things offers original insights into these elaborate native ontologies as it breaks new ground in Amazonian studies.

The Occult Life of Things

The Occult Life of Things PDF Author: Fernando Santos-Granero
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816528745
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
Native peoples of the Amazon view objects, especially human artifacts, as the first cosmic creations and the building blocks from which the natural world has been shaped. In these constructional cosmologies, spears became the stings of wasps, hammocks became spiderwebs, stools became the buttocks of human beings. A view so antithetical to Western thought offers a refreshing perspective on the place and role of objects in human social life—one that has remained under-studied in Amazonian anthropology. In this book, ten scholars re-introduce objects to contemporary studies of animism in order to explore how various peoples envision the lives of material objects: the occult, or extraordinary, lives of “things,” whose personas are normally not visible to lay people. Combining linguistic, ethnological, and historical perspectives, the contributors draw on a wealth of information gathered from ten Amerindian peoples belonging to seven different linguistic families to identify the basic tenets of what might be called a native Amazonian theory of materiality and personhood. They consider which objects have subjective dimensions and how they are manifested, focusing on three domains regarding Amazonian conceptions of things: the subjective life of objects, considering which things have a subjective dimension; the social life of things, seeing the diverse ways in which human beings and things relate as subjectivities; and the historical life of things, recognizing the fact that some things have value as ritual objects or heirlooms. These chapters demonstrate how native Amazonian peoples view animals, plants, and things as “subjectivities” possessing agency, intentionality, and consciousness, as well as a composite anatomy. They also show how materiality is intimately linked to notions of personhood, with artifacts classified as natural or divine creations and living beings viewed as cultural or constructed. The Occult Life of Things offers original insights into these elaborate native ontologies as it breaks new ground in Amazonian studies.

The Secret Life of Things

The Secret Life of Things PDF Author: Mark Blackwell
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 9780838756669
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
This collection enriches and complicates the history of prose fiction between Richardson and Fielding at mid-century and Austen at the turn of the century by focusing on it-narratives, a once popular form largely forgotten by readers and critics alike. The volume also advances important work on eighteenth-century consumer culture and the theory of things. The essays that comprise The Secret Life of Things thus bring new texts, and new ways of thinking about familiar ones, to our notice. Those essays range from the role of it-narratives in period debates about copyright to their complex relationship with object-riddled sentimental fictions, from anti-semitism in Chrysal to jingoistic imperialism in The Adventures of a Rupee, from the it-narrative as a variety of whore's biography to a consideration of its contributions to an emergent middle-class ideology.

Vital Enemies

Vital Enemies PDF Author: Fernando Santos-Granero
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292774818
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Analyzing slavery and other forms of servitude in six non-state indigenous societies of tropical America at the time of European contact, Vital Enemies offers a fascinating new approach to the study of slavery based on the notion of "political economy of life." Fernando Santos-Granero draws on the earliest available historical sources to provide novel information on Amerindian regimes of servitude, sociologies of submission, and ideologies of capture. Estimating that captive slaves represented up to 20 percent of the total population and up to 40 percent when combined with other forms of servitude, Santos-Granero argues that native forms of servitude fulfill the modern understandings of slavery, though Amerindian contexts provide crucial distinctions with slavery as it developed in the American South. The Amerindian understanding of life forces as being finite, scarce, unequally distributed, and in constant circulation yields a concept of all living beings as competing for vital energy. The capture of human beings is an extreme manifestation of this understanding, but it marks an important element in the ways Amerindian "captive slavery" was misconstrued by European conquistadors. Illuminating a cultural facet that has been widely overlooked or miscast for centuries, Vital Enemies makes possible new dialogues regarding hierarchies in the field of native studies, as well as a provocative re-framing of pre- and post-contact America.

The Art of the Occult

The Art of the Occult PDF Author: S. Elizabeth
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
ISBN: 0711254168
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
A visual feast of eclectic artwork informed and inspired by spiritual beliefs, magical techniques, mythology and otherworldly experiences. Mystical beliefs and practices have existed for millennia, but why do we still chase the esoteric? From the beginning of human creativity itself, image-makers have been drawn to these unknown spheres and have created curious artworks that transcend time and place – but what is it that attracts artists to these magical realms? From theosophy and kabbalah, to the zodiac and alchemy; spiritualism and ceremonial magic, to the elements and sacred geometry – The Art of the Occult introduces major occult themes and showcases the artists who have been influenced and led by them. Discover the symbolic and mythical images of the Pre-Raphaelites; the automatic drawing of Hilma af Klint and Madge Gill; Leonora Carrington's surrealist interpretation of myth, alchemy and kabbalah; and much more. Featuring prominent, marginalised and little-known artists, The Art of the Occult crosses mystical spheres in a bid to inspire and delight. Divided into thematic chapters (The Cosmos, Higher Beings, Practitioners), the book acts as an entertaining introduction to the art of mysticism – with essays examining each practice and over 175 artworks to discover. The art of the occult has always existed in the margins but inspired the masses, and this book will spark curiosity in all fans of magic, mysticism and the mysterious.

Awakened Mind (Master Class Series)

Awakened Mind (Master Class Series) PDF Author: Mitch Horowitz
Publisher: Gildan Media LLC aka G&D Media
ISBN: 1722520094
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
UNLOCK THE POWERS OF YOUR MIND IN THIS CONCISE, ENJOYABLE COURSE In 10 simple and straightforward lessons, PEN Award-winning historian and explorer of alternate realms Mitch Horowitz surveys the most persuasive ideas and techniques from within the positive-mind tradition, and shows how to use them in your life. This succinct course teaches you: How to change your thoughts in 30 days The seven daily practices that make a difference in your life How to use affirmations effectively How to turn the Golden Rule into a source of power Why your thoughts make things happen MITCH HOROWITZ, One of today’s most literate voices in self-help, is a PEN Award-winning historian and the author of books including Occult America; The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality and One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life. Mitch has written on everything from the war on witches to the secret life of Ronald Reagan for The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Salon, and Time. The Washington Post says Mitch “treats esoteric ideas and movements with an even-handed intellectual studiousness that is too often lost in today’s raised-voice discussions.” Mitch is a monthly columnist for Science of Mind magazine. Visit him at www.MitchHorowitz.com and @MitchHorowitz

Austin Osman Spare

Austin Osman Spare PDF Author: Phil Baker
Publisher:
ISBN: 1583947167
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Austin Osman Spare is the definitive biography of the controversial occultist and artist, an enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world whose work was both hailed as genius and decried as immoral decadence. As George Bernard Shaw reportedly said, "Spare's medicine is too strong for the average man." Trained as a draughtsman, Spare enjoyed early acclaim when, at the age of seventeen, his work was shown at the Royal Academy in London. But his star soon declined; Spare went underground, falling out of the gallery system to live in poverty and obscurity. After a brief association with Aleister Crowley, he became absorbed in occultism and sorcery, voyaging into inner dimensions, while developing his own magical philosophy of pleasure, obsession, and the subjective nature of reality. All the while, Spare continued to produce extraordinary art, and held his exhibitions outside of the conventional art world, in London pubs. Today Spare is both forgotten and famous, a cult figure whose modest life has been much mythologised since his death; the world's largest Spare collection is held by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. Biographer Phil Baker separates fact from myth, providing wide-ranging insights into Spare's art and mind, reconnecting him with the art community that ignored him and exploring the rich tapestry of the culture that surrounded him, interweaving the birth of psychoanalysis, the historiography of the occult, and the British class system. This richly readable and illuminating biography, containing 50 black and white and 8 color photographs of Spare's art, takes us deep into the strange inner world of this enigmatic artist.

A Magick Life

A Magick Life PDF Author: Martin Booth
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780340718063
Category : Magicians
Languages : en
Pages : 507

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Book Description
"A Magick Life is a detailed and extensively researched biography, a uniquely unbiased study of one of the twentieth century's most charismatic, misinterpreted and controversial figures, a brilliant polymath whose considerable intellect and talent were crushed by his self-destructiveness."--Back cover

The Occult

The Occult PDF Author: Colin Wilson
Publisher: Watkins Publishing
ISBN: 9781842931073
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 795

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Book Description
Colin Wilson’s classic work is an essential guide to the mind-expanding experiences and discoveries of the occult in the 20th century. He produces a wonderfully skillful synthesis of the available material—one that sees the occult in the light of reason and reason in the light of the mystical and paranormal. The result is a wide-ranging survey of the subject that provides a comprehensive history of magic, an insightful exploration of our latent powers, and a journey of enlightenment. “I am very impressed by this book, not only by its erudition but…above all for the good-natured, unaffected charm of the author whose reasoning is never too far-fetched, who is never carried away by preposterous theories.”—Sunday Times

The Price Guide to the Occult

The Price Guide to the Occult PDF Author: Leslye Walton
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 0763693901
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
From the author of The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender comes a haunting maelstrom of magic and murder in the lush, moody Pacific Northwest. When Rona Blackburn landed on Anathema Island more than a century ago, her otherworldly skills might have benefited friendlier neighbors. Guilt and fear instead led the island’s original eight settlers to burn “the witch” out of her home. So Rona cursed them. Fast-forward one hundred–some years: All Nor Blackburn wants is to live an unremarkable teenage life. She has reason to hope: First, her supernatural powers, if they can be called that, are unexceptional. Second, her love life is nonexistent, which means she might escape the other perverse side effect of the matriarch’s backfiring curse, too. But then a mysterious book comes out, promising to cast any spell for the right price. Nor senses a storm coming and is pretty sure she’ll be smack in the eye of it. In her second novel, Leslye Walton spins a dark, mesmerizing tale of a girl stumbling along the path toward self-acceptance and first love, even as the Price Guide’s malevolent author — Nor’s own mother — looms and threatens to strangle any hope for happiness.

The Sworn Book of Honorius

The Sworn Book of Honorius PDF Author: Honorius of Thebes
Publisher: Nicolas-Hays, Inc.
ISBN: 0892546301
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
As the title testifies, students were sworn to secrecy before being given access to this magic text, and only a few manuscripts have survived. Bits of its teachings, such as the use of the magic whistle for summoning spirits, are alluded to in other texts. Another key element of its ritual, the elaborate “Seal of God,” has been found in texts and amulets throughout Europe. Interest in The Sworn Book of Honorius has grown in recent years, yet no modern translations have been attempted—until now. Purporting to preserve the magic of Solomon in the face of intense persecution by religious authorities, this text includes one of the oldest and most detailed magic rituals. It contains a complete system of magic including how to attain the divine vision, communicate with holy angels, and control aerial, earthly, and infernal spirits for practical gain. Largely ignored by historians until recently, this text is an important witness to the transmission of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism to European Hermeticists.