Magick as an Alternative Symbolic: Enacting Transhuman Dialogs

Abstract

This essay examines Neo-Pagan practices of magick and, via Rogers's criteria for a transhuman theory of communication, argues that these practices enact a transhuman dialog that has potential to enhance environmentally sustainable ways of living. Magick helps to re-member immanence in all entities through learning to exercise modes of sensation that have become dormant. Of central importance to the practice of magick is taking eros seriously while expanding awareness beyond the human to the other-than-human. Such sensory experiences and relationships serve to recover the concrete from the dominance of the abstract, eros from the dominance of rationality, the material from the dominance of the ideational, and the natural from the dominance of culture. This essay works to bridge theoretical and practical implications of dialogs with nature by identifying practices that can overcome trained incapacities that block sensual, dialogic relations with the other-than-human world, while also acknowledging limitations in the transformative potential of Neo-Pagan ideologies and practices.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17524032.2011.583261