He notes that the tra di tional tech niques of in vo ca tion and sa cred for mu lae have been le git i mized by ex is ten tial phi los o phy and hu man po ten tial psy -chol ogy by de scrib ing them as em a na tions of the cre ative imag i na tion, forces of the tran scen dent psy che. Thus magic as ad dress ing ar che types of the col lec tive un con scious. Drury points out, that this ex pla na tion is not shared by many mod ern ma gi cian, who see their pan theon as en ti ties be long ing to an other plane of ex is tence and magic as a vi tal means com mu ni -ca tion with them. He -calls the type of magic aim ing at trans form ing one’s per cep tion of the world from profane to sacred the High Magic, or gnosis.
New the o ries like Rupert Sheldrake’s morpho genetic fields and the ‘new phys ics’ have stim u lated the think ing about the link be tween con scious -ness and per ceived re al ity, with magic and rit u als a prime ex am ple of mind over mat ter is sues. Greg ory Ba teson’s no tion was that rit u als frame our no tion of re al ity and are em bed ded in metacommunicational pat terns. Mod -ern de vel op ments are the re vival of pa gan ism and witch craft in various forms, such as Wicca.
The cyberpa gan move ment, with Mark Pesce and oth ers, started to use internet as a rit ual plat form.
Pesce views witch craft as a re li gion of har mony with your self and the en vi ron ment, har mo niz ing your self with the cy cle of time and be ing able to de -duce what things are ap pro pri ate to the moment.
Pesce uses rit ual and mag i cal rou tines in cyberspace like when he brings a new website on line, be fore it goes pub lic, he places a page of in vo ca tion and bless ing on its root page, to re al ize a sa cred in ten tion for it.
Homeopathy and Radionics can also be re garded as a form of magic.
The un der stand ing of phe nom ena like per cep tion, con scious ness, and the whole no tion of ob served re al ity sheds new light on what magic and thus rit ual can be. The no tions de rived from Quan tum Phys ics, the wave/par ti -cle du al ity, and non lo cal ity now in di cate that the whole uni verse is linked and ‘dancing.’
Ob ser va tion is a fac tor in man i fes ta tion, so magic might be more ‘sci en -tific’ than was ac cepted be fore. This “New Phys ics” idea that the phys i cal uni verse is the prod uct of a “pro cess of con scious ness” is not re ally new; it is also the ba sis of East ern es o teric phi los o phy. I like to add that my view of
“time is the car rier of con scious ness” also points back to the very early hu -man un der stand ing of time as an illusion.
Revealed or human construct
When talk ing about the or i gin of rit ual and ex clud ing the no tion of ex tra ter -res trial in flu ence (which would only per pet u ate the ques tion of or i gin) the ques tion re mains where the in spi ra tion co mes from. Are rit u als, magic, and re li gion re vealed, or are they only hu man con structs, based on deeper psy cho log i cal pro cesses and pro jec tions? Most re li gions claim a di vine in ter -ven tion, some di vine en tity who re vealed the moral codes, holy scrip tures or rit u als. This of ten be came the ba sis of their faith. Bi ble, Koran, Vedas-there are many ex am ples. Al though it is clear that Vedas-there is hu man in flu ence in the trans mis sion, trans la tion, and dis sem i na tion of these texts and tra di -tions, it is be lieved to be di vine rev e la tion. There is also a school of thought be liev ing in some kind of pe ren nial re cord ing of all and ev ery thing, the Akashic re cords, but these are only avail able to some ad vanced souls or in -di vid u als charged with some kind of assignment to “chan nel” or disseminate such information.
What ever the case, I can only re fer to my per sonal ex pe ri ence. It did hap pen to me, that cer tain rit ual move ments (mudra’s) and/or their mean ing were re vealed to me, usu ally in a trance state.
One par tic u lar move ment of the hands ‘came’ to me at some oc ca sion, and I have asked many peo ple what it meant. It took some ten years be fore I re al -ized that it was a gesticulatory bridge be tween the Chris tian and Mus lim pos ture, the way of hold ing the hands prayer. It is the tran si tion be tween hold ing your hands as in prayer and then mov ing them in a sur pris ing cir cu -lar mo tion to ward read ing a book, but keep ing the fin gers con nected when making the move.
An other ges ture trans mit ted: the tra di tional ‘how’ greet ing of Amer i can In -di ans with the palm of the hand fac ing for ward and open to in -di cate ‘peace.’
It be came clear to me that this was re lated to the sign of the full moon, in di -cat ing to oth ers that one was on a pil grim age to honor the an ces tors and
there fore re quested a peace ful pas sage. Hence the hand was not stretched and flat, but slightly bent as to in di cate the circle of the full moon.
I would say that these and other ex pe ri ences were more like touch ing an ex -ist ing body of wis dom than a per sonal rev e la tion and that there is a state of be ing, for me very much re lated to love and con nected ness, where it is eas -ier to tap into this wider and more uni ver sal knowl edge. I could even re late this to mag i cal power, as at that level un der stand ing and power come very close (ya evam veda); they merge as the deeper re la tion ships be come clear.
Chang ing things turns out to hinge on very lit tle ef fort, of ten just putt ing one’s mind to it brings the change.
En ergy fol lows in ten tion, thought man i fests it self in mat ter. Not on the crude level of mak ing ob jects ap pear from no where, but things just hap pen.
Synchronicity is no lon ger ac ci den tal, but the re sult of the magical focus.
Anthropology rationalized: indigenous knowledge
An thro pol ogy, once started with look ing into in dig e nous prac tices turned in ward, and so ci ol ogy and psy chol ogy took over, look ing for mech a nisms and pat terns that were so abun dant in the old wis dom schools like the Vedas and Upanishads.
The sci en tific study of rit ual for a long time was as so ci ated with an thro pol -ogy, at least out side the re li gious theo log i cal sphere. There were rit u al ists and peo ple study ing and re viv ing older mag i cal tra di tion, but they were out side the ac a demic field. Af ter re ject ing the cul tural value of in dig e nous and ab orig i nal peo ple the lat ter half of the twen ti eth cen tury, boosted by the six ties, was a pe riod of em brac ing the es o teric, the hid den. The strange be came pop u lar and the new co lo nial ism, loot ing the third world for in dig e -nous knowledge and touristic enter tainment, started.
The an thro pol o gists be came like pros pec tors, look ing for in ter est ing bits to take home, where so ci ol ogy, psy chol ogy, linguistics and phar ma cists hap -pily used them to un der pin their new insights.
New fields like ethnobotany and ethnopharmacy sprung up, spir i tual tour -ism be came pop u lar, yoga, sweat lodges, med i ta tion, ayahuasca and tan tra were ap pro pri ated, East ern teach ings turned into pop-Bud dhism and Zen, sanyassin sex and sum mers of love, fes ti vals and marihuana.
Look ing over the fences and then ap pro pri at ing what was found hap pened ev ery where in sci ence, med i cine and trade/econ omy. Strangely enough much of what was fig ured out as new and rev o lu tion ary and given in ter est -ing names in sci ence were mech a nisms and pat terns that were pres ent in the old wis dom schools like the Vedas and Upanishads, but dis carded as ir ra -tio nal be cause magic and sci en ce were irreconcilable.
to ward the end of the twen ti eth cen tury in dig e nous knowl edge as op posed to for mal ized sci en tific knowl edge was in creas ingly ac knowl edged as a source of un der stand ing not only the in di vid ual cul tures and hab i tats but of the com plex eco log i cal and so cial chal lenges the world as a whole faced.
The West had to do some thing, di sas ter loomed so why not look a bit fur -ther, al though this mostly was lim ited to ra tio nal, fac tual themes. There was a cer tain pa ter nal is tic be nev o lence, study ing the lo cals was seen as de -vel op ment work, those poor nations needed our superior insights.
In ter na tional and na tional or ga ni za tions, in side and out side gov ern ments (NGOs) were busy ed u cat ing the peo ple, pump ing money into the third world, es tab lish ing West ern in fra struc ture, ed u ca tion and neo-col o niz ing the coun tries they were kicked out fifty or forty years earlier.
This when an thro pol ogy be came part of the in dig e nous knowl edge (IK) wave. Let’s see what these poor peo ple have to of fer, they have sus tained their life styles lon ger than us, they must have some se crets we can use!
For a while the World Bank and many oth ers con sid ered this to be the way to go, both as a ne ces sity (the eco log i cal di sas ter, global warm ing) and as hu man i tar ian duty, the rich help ing the poor (to help them selves was the idea). This by cat a log ing the cul tural wealth, study ing the eth no-di ver sity, vi sual an thro pol ogy, en list ing the lo cals as an thro po log i cal mer ce nar ies, set ting up lo cal uni ver sity branches to study the in dig e nous knowl edge.
Study ing and ‘scientizing’ in dig e nous sys tems in or der that they be `sys -tem at i cally de pos ited and stored for use by de vel op ment prac ti tio ners’
(Brokensha 1995) seems ignoring the cultural (and magical) context.
It was ba si cally col lect ing and sam pling, in the same vein as what J. Frazer did a cen tury be fore, and with the same flaw, not ap pre ci at ing the oth er worldly. In gen eral the study and work con cern ing IK was lim ited to the ra tio nal, had a strong eco log i cal fla vor, it con cerned very lo cal (hab i tat, en vi -ron men tal know l edge, cul ture) and prac ti cal knowl edge, also of a tech ni cal na ture. It was seen as part of the de vel op ment move ment, bring ing progress but in Western clothes.
World Bank: development promotion
There was how ever, if I fol low the World Bank dis cus sions in the nine ties here, not yet an unan i mous per cep tion of the con cept of in dig e nous knowl -edge (IK). Some, like D. War ren see it as knowl -edge that is unique to a given cul ture or so ci ety, the ba sis for lo callevel de ci sion mak ing in ag ri cul ture, health care, food prep a ra tion, ed u ca tion, nat u ralre source man age -ment, and a host of other ac tiv i ties in ru ral com mu ni ties. It con trasts with the in ter na tional knowl edge sys tem gen er ated by uni ver si ties, re search in -sti tu tions and pri vate firms. (Warren, D. M. 1991 “Us ing In dig e nous
Knowl edge in Ag ri cul tural De vel op ment”; World Bank Dis cus sion Pa per No.127. Wash ing ton, D.C.: The World Bank.). J.M. Flavier argued
“In dig e nous Knowl edge is (…) the in for ma tion base for a so ci ety, which fa cil i tates com mu ni ca tion and de ci sionmak ing. In dig e nous in for ma tion sys tems are dy -namic, and are con tin u ally in flu enced by in ter nal cre ativ ity and ex per i men ta tion as well as by contact with external systems.”
(Flavier et al. 1995: “The re gional pro gram for the pro mo tion of in dig e nous knowl edge in Asia”, in War ren, D.M., L.J. Slikkerveer and D. Brokensha (eds) ‘The cul tural di men sion of de vel op ment: In dig e nous knowl edge sys -tems.’ Lon don: In ter me di ate Tech nol ogy Publications.)
El len and Har ris (1996) pro vide char ac ter is tics of in dig e nous knowl edge that are fairly com pre hen sive but lim ited to the ra tio nal and fairly decontextualised. (Ellen, Roy and Harris, Holly (1996) “Con cepts of in dig e nous en vi ron men tal knowl edge in sci en tific and de vel op ment stud ies lit -er a ture - A crit i cal as sess ment”; draft pa p-er East-West En vi ron men tal Linkages Network Workshop, Canterbury).
They listed IK as lo cal, rooted to a par tic u lar place and set of ex pe ri ences, as orally-trans mit ted, or trans mit ted through im i ta tion and dem on stra tion, as em pir i cal, the con se quence of prac ti cal en gage ment in ev ery day life, con stantly re in forced by ex pe ri ence and trial and er ror in sur vival con di -tions. Tra di tion is `a fluid and trans form ing agent with no real end’ when ap plied to knowl edge; ne go ti a tion is a cen tral con cept. They noted rep e ti -tion as a de fin ing char ac ter is tic of tradi-tion even when new knowledge is added constantly.
IK is char ac ter is ti cally shared to a much greater de gree than other forms of knowl edge, but its dis tri bu tion is still segmentary, so cially clus tered and usu ally asym met ri cal. Al though IK may achieve a de gree of co her ence in rit u als and other sym bolic con structs, its dis tri bu tion and lo ca tion is always fragmentary.
Con cern ing the non func tional as pects they note that where IK is at its dens -est and di rectly ap pli ca ble its or ga ni za tion is es sen tially func tional. They ad mit sep a rat ing the tech ni cal from the non- tech ni cal, the ra tio nal from the non-ra tio nal is pro b lem atic as IK is char ac ter is ti cally sit u ated within broader cultural traditions.
Even the in di ca tion ‘in dig e nous’ was and is am big u ous, for it has po lit i cal (co lo nial) con no ta tions and is not well de fined in it self, but is used widely and would ‘na tive’ or ‘ab orig i nal’ be less con tested? The field of IK was also in di cated as eth noecol ogy, `lo cal knowl edge’, `folk knowl edge’, tra -di tional en vi ron men tal (or ecological) knowledge (TEK)’.
But then a cou ple of ma jor cri ses hap pened, the internet bub ble and the fi -nan cial 2008 cri sis, while in the mean time the eco nomic bal ance tipped,
Chi na, Brazil, In dia and other coun tries out grew their sta tus, the de vel op -ing world emerged with a new selfconscious attitude.
In sti tu tions like the World Bank lost in ter est in the no tion of IK, it be came po lit i cally du bi ous and the an thro pol o gists went back to study at home, where new trib al ism, ur ban tribes, groupism, the hip pies and cult move -ments were great sub jects and most of them were not mag i cally in clined, so all so cio log i cal, psy cho log i cal and ra tio nal theories could be applied.
In sti tu tions like the World Bank lost in ter est in the no tion of IK, it be came po lit i cally du bi ous and the an thro pol o gists went back to study at home, where new trib al ism, ur ban tribes, groupism, the hip pies and cult move -ments were great sub jects and most of them were not mag i cally in clined, so all so cio log i cal, psy cho log i cal and ra tio nal theories could be applied.