Portrait of the author as a happy man by Vanessa Sinclair
One of the first premises of magico-anthropology is that “Magic is.” Exactly what it is, is another story; and one that has filled my life with joy and wonder. No matter where you look, you’ll find magic. Even supposed “anti-magic” people are immersed in it. I would even go so far as to say that everyone is involved in magic to some degree, or at least involved in magical thinking.
The relationship between an individual’s acknowledgement of this magic in general and his/her conscious integration of it is, according to me, an indicator of mental health and intelligence. That’s why adamant deniers of the “dark side” (whatever that means) are often just monotheistically compensating for their own fears by scapegoating others/the “other.” This rabid form of monotheism can also include other blind faiths, such as empiricism.
People who sport a more holistic and tolerant approach usually have an easier time acknowledging magic in the inner as well as the outer. And they’re usually a lot more prone to mind their own business – which has always been, is, and always will be a sign of higher intelligence. When you’re busy living a life filled with amazing phenomena and strange twists and turns, you simply have no time or energy to deal with pinpointing other people’s supposed weaknesses or faults. This is also a relationship bordering on an absolute equation: if you see someone obsessed with pointing fingers, rest assured they are exactly whatever they accuse the others of.
No matter what, magico-anthropology is a vast field of research and study, and it’s a joy to see how even conservative environments like academia are now opening up to a greater and more flexible understanding in regard to this endlessly fascinating area.
One angle or perspective that will always be central to magico-anthropology is the occultural one. We can’t understand any human era och region without looking at its culture. All other aspects are fickle and malleable when you look at them as isolated features; i.e. within a culture (politics, economics, etc). Only the strictly cultural expressions remain as valid memes in any greater human story (literature, art, music, architecture, etc). And how that specific culture looks at magic is indicative of its greatness and potential to stay alive beyond the scope of immediate temporality.
Although my recent book Occulture – The unseen forces that drive culture forward is basically an anthology of the most recent years’ lectures and essays, I’m now very happy to re-read it and see that it holds up well as a singular thought-form or attitude. It’s an attitude permeated not so much by a programmatic dogma of saying, “See, I was right, look at all this magic…” I prefer an attitude of awe and wonder saying, “Woweee, this is indeed amazing; let’s keep looking further and deeper and higher…”
Regardless if you’re looking at something distinctly occult in culture or something that carries magic more or less unconsciously (like a great deal of children’s tales, for instance), to me it’s clear that occulture is merging with the mainstream BIG TIME. Why this is, is something I intend to keep looking at and writing about. Occulture – The unseen forces that drive culture forward may be the follow-up to my Reasonances (Scarlet Imprint, 2014) but it’s even more a precursor or prequel to the next/upcoming volume of lectures and essays I’m currently preparing. I hope you’ll find Occulture inspiring and speculative enough to get your own critical thinking going. Because that’s how we progress as humans: we think about things in new ways. We think about things in magical ways.
OCCULTURE post publishing acknowledgements: Warm thanks for supporting my work are due Margareta Abrahamsson, Sofia Lindström-Abrahamsson, Jon Graham, everyone at Inner Traditions, Peder Byberg, Jack Stevenson, Lea Porsager, Bjarne Salling Pedersen, Peter Steffensen, Pam Grossman, Jesse Bransford, William Koch, Morbid Anatomy, Michael Moynihan and Annabel Lee Moynihan, Andrew M. McKenzie, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Gabriel McCaughry, Thomas Tibert, Alkistis Dimech, Peter Grey, Thorsten Soma, Jonas Plöger, Claus Laufenburg, Susanne Witzgall, Kerstin Stakemeier, Dariusz Misiuna, Katarzyna Drenda, Helena Malewska, Bartosz Samitowski, Krzysztof Azarewicz, Ania Orzech, Vera & Stojan Nikolich, Marko Štefan-Poljak, Andreas Kalliaridis, Fredrik Söderberg, Ida Månson, Elisabeth Punzi, Torben Hansen, Rasmus Hungnes, and Martin Palmer. Extra special thanks are due Vanessa Sinclair, to whom this book is lovingly dedicated.
You can order your copy of the book HERE
