Faith Doutimiwei
2000505766
History 132
Dr. William Taylor
August 7, 2013
SUMMARY ON CHAPTER 10: THE OCCULTS: PATH TO THE UNKNOWN
Occult is gotten from the Latin word “occulere”, this means to conceal, it can also mean secret or hidden. According to the book, the belief in occultism is more than that of God; the practitioners see themselves as scientists, philosophers and religious leaders. This chapter tells us about the connection between Christianity and occultism, “what is being rejected by the by the occultists according to Whitehead, is the doctrine of atonement and the belief that the unrepentant will be consigned to some sort of eternal punishment.”(Lehmann 376)
Females are the most dominant in the world of witchcraft than the males, and occultism has their practitioners ignorant of the fact that they are occultists i.e. they engage in questioning about strange occurrences like monsters. They believe these things are hidden and cannot be explained ordinarily causing them to have the thought of the existence of the supernatural. Humans have questions that need answers, most of the answers are obvious but they also want to find out what makes the obvious, questions like why does the time of the presence of the sun vary in all places? The answer is because of the spherical shape of the earth, the next question can be, why is the earth spherical? That is when there is belief of existence of unseen beings or supernatural beings that control or operates in the world.
Most of the times there are strange things found and assumptions are made about these things, they could be wrong or right but back when a pulsar was found, scientists thought it to be extraordinary calling it substance of great amusement whereas “a pulsar is a s...
... middle of paper ...
...pirituality of a Christian but there is still the awareness or enlightenment of the surrounding and what could have caused a confusing situation or an unsolved situation. Unlike the occult, decisions are not just made right at the point of discovery of a strange looking object or a strange situation, all their opinion is based on the belief of unseen forces. It gets to a point where all that is going on around them is not considered natural anymore, an example of pulsar mentioned earlier at the beginning.
Citation
Magic, Witchcraft and Religion: An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural by Arthur C. Lehmann and James E. Myers. Fourth Edition (1997), pp 375-420 Published by: Mayfield Publishing Company
Liz, Kelly. “Moving in the Shadows: Violence in the Lives of Minority Women and Children” 10. Stonehocker, Kolbie“Witches, Wiccans and Pagans” Rita Morgan: Daily Life, Not Religion 2012 www.cityweekly.net 11. Annemaire de Waal Malefijt, “Religion and Culture: An Introduction to Anthropology of Religion” The United States of America 1989.
Edward, Bever, 'Witchcraft Prosecutions and the Decline of Magic', Journal of Interdisciplinary History vol.11 no.2 (Autumn 2009)
The Cross-Cultural Articulations of War Magic and Warrior Religion by D. S. Farrer, main purpose of this article is to provide a re-evaluated perspective of religion and magic, through the perspective of the practitioners and victims. Farrer uses examples that range from the following: “Chinese exorcists, Javanese spirit siblings, Sumatran black magic, Tamil Tiger suicide bombers, Chamorro spiritual re-enchantment, tantric Buddhist war magic, and Yanomami dark shamans” (1). Throughout the article, he uses these examples to address a few central themes. The central themes for war magic, range from “violence and healing, accomplished through ritual and performance, to unleash and/or control the power of gods, demons, ghosts and the dead” (Farrer 1).
In all of human history, people have written about inhuman beings, many of which include gods, demons, wizards, sorcerers, sorceresses, and witches. Nowadays mystical beings are seen everywhere in media. Most of society stopped believing in these creatures years ago, but for 17th-century Salem, witchcraft became a living nightmare (Fremon, 1999).
Sabina Magliocco, in her book Witching Culture, takes her readers into the culture of the Neo-Pagan cults in America and focus upon what it reveals about identity and belief in 21st century America. Through her careful employment of ethnographic techniques, Magliocco allows both the Neo-Pagan cult to be represented accurately, and likewise, scientifically. I argue that Magliocco's ethnographic approach is the correct way to go about this type of research involving religions.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. “Wicca.” The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft & Wicca. 3rd ed. 2012. Print.
Witchcraft was used as a requirement of gregarious request because it punished women and strove to prevent any possible females from straying far from the standards. The ...
The thought of magic, witches, and sorcery to be fact is seen as preposterous in modern America. Coincidence is accepted as such and accusations of possession and bewitchment is extinct. When North America was first colonized by Europeans, however, the fear of magic and the like was all too real. Alison Games’s “Witchcraft in Early North America” describes the effects of the Europeans’ on the Native Americans and vice versa. As decades progressed, the ideas on witchcraft of the Spanish and British changed as well. “Witchcraft in Early North America” introduces different beliefs and practices of witchcraft of Europeans before colonization, Native Americans after colonization, the Spanish of New Mexico, and the British Colonies.
Witchcraft is said to be the most widespread cultural phenomenon in existence today and throughout history. Even those who shun the ideas of witchcraft cannot discount the similarities in stories from all corners of the globe. Witchcraft and its ideas have spread across racial, religious, and language barriers from Asia to Africa to America. Primitive people from different areas in the world have shockingly similar accounts of witchcraft occurrences. In most cases the strange parallels cannot be explained and one is only left to assume that the tales hold some truth. Anthropologists say that many common elements about witchcraft are shared by different cultures in the world. Among these common elements are the physical characteristics and the activities of supposed witches. I will go on to highlight some of the witch characteristic parallels found in printed accounts from different parts of the world and their comparisons to some famous fairytales.
The book begins with a brief history of the colonial witchcraft. Each Chapter is structured with an orientation, presentation of evidence, and her conclusion. A good example of her structure is in chapter two on the demographics of witchcraft; here she summarizes the importance of age and marital status in witchcraft accusations. Following this she provides a good transition into chapter three in the final sentence of chapter two, “A closer look of the material conditions and behavior of acc...
Syracuse University Press, 2002. 221-223. The. Sidky, H. Witchcraft, lycanthropy, drugs, and disease: an anthropological study of the European witch-hunts. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1997.
Lehmann A. C. & Myers J. E. Magic, Witchcraft and Religion – An anthropological Study of the Supernatural (Fourth Edition) (Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997)
III. Smithson, Jayne. “Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion.” Class lectures. Anthropology 120. Diablo Valley College, San Ramon 2004.
I. INTRODUCTION The Enlightenment and the emerging of modern rationalism have paved the way to a worldview where the suspicion of witchcraft is not needed to explain the mysterious phenomena of this world. This is not the case in Africa. The belief in the existence of witches, evil persons who are able to harm others by using mystical powers, is part of the common cultural knowledge. Samuel Waje Kunhiyop states, “Almost all African societies believe in witchcraft in one form or another.
“Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.” According to Buddha, everyone needs some form of spirituality to define his or her life and existence. Webster Dictionary defines spiritualism as “a system of beliefs or religious practices based on supposed communication with the spirits of the dead, often times through mediums.” Though this is one general definition of spiritualism, this concept is one that does not hold a conclusive meaning. Each and every single person has the ability and right to create and practice their own idea of spiritualism. From ancient times to present day, the term and practice of spirituality has transformed, particularly from region to region. Despite the discrepancies in practices and overall understanding of this idea, spirituality has had an effect and impact upon all of humanity since the creation of time. This religion that is believed to have been established in the early eighteen hundreds, after two little girls claimed to have the ability to talk to spirits, sparked interest in this spiritual movement, allowing it to spread rather rapidly over many geographical locations. Aside from being recognized as a religion, spiritualism is also believed to be a form of philosophy and a science in which spiritualists believe that there is life after death and try to demonstrate this through the ability of attempting to communicate with those that have passed on. Spiritualism was socially different from other religions in existence at the time because it presented followers with a more tolerant belief system that assimilated the principles and facts from a selection the world's religions. Spiritualism also made it acceptable for women to play a disti...