The Nature of Magic : An Anthropology of Consciousness

This book examines how and why practitioners of nature religion - Western witches, druids, shamans - seek to relate spiritually with nature through 'magical consciousness'.

This book examines how and why practitioners of nature religion - Western witches, druids, shamans - seek to relate spiritually with nature through ''magical consciousness''. ''Magic'' and ''consciousness'' are concepts that are often fraught with prejudice and ambiguity respectively. Greenwood develops a new theory of magical consciousness by arguing that magic ultimately has more to do with the workings of the human mind in terms of an expanded awareness than with socio-cultural explanations. She combines her own subjective insights gained from magical practice with practitioners'' in-depth accounts and sustained academic theory on the process of magic. She also tracks magical consciousness in philosophy, myth, folklore, story-telling, and the hi-tech discourse of postmodernity, and asks important questions concerning nature religion''s environmental credentials, such as whether it as inherently ecological as many of its practitioners claim.