Why do I study “made up religions” and “nonexistent magick?” Can I believe my informants? As an Anthropologist of Religion I study what people hold as real, relative to their theoretical frameworks, keeping in mind that these change across cultures and over time. Studying social behaviour gives us insights into the social fabric and often, the anomalous is more revealing than the conventional religious views, when it comes to understanding society. I chose this subject matter because you cannot really understand the world and reality without exploring its fringes, shadows, and occult facets.
Summary
Does it make sense to study made-up religions and something “not real” such as magic and the pagan gods? Let’s break down realness and usefulness in the study of religions.
Hello everyone. I’m Angela and welcome back to my channel. Today’s topic was inspired by a discussion that occurred on Twitter that mirrors quite a few comments and DMs of the past and let’s not forget dinners with family and friends, seasoned by the random relative addressing my research as ‘weirdo stuff’ because there is always going to be someone who is going to challenge my research in one of such ways. I can summarise the various questions that I get asked on the topic of the realness and usefulness of my subject matter into three main ones. Is it useful or valuable to study “made-up religions”? Why do you research something that is not real, such as Magick?
How do you assess the truthfulness or legitimacy of your informants’ experiences or answers? These questions hide underlying assumptions, the most notable being; there are religions which are fabricated, as opposed to those which aren’t. What’s made up is of less value to academic research than what is not. Magick is not real and hence, those who practice magick, that is my informants are delusional so here’s my take on all of this. As I addressed, in one of my publications, people don’t usually acknowledge their idea of the world always underlies a specific philosophical underpinning. The world is never given to you and perceived directly. There is always some kind of interpretation going on which allows the external perceptions to be understood and categorised one way or another. This explains why, at different times in history and across different cultures, the interpretation of the world, of what are real changes dramatically.
In contemporary western countries, the most widespread paradigm is the one based on positivism. This takes its roots in Cartesian dualism and sees our perception of the world as split into two; the solid and measurable versus the material and immeasurable. The positivist worldview aims at getting a positive, certain knowledge of the world. It presupposes that only what is measurable and assessable through the criteria set out by natural science are valid objects of knowledge. If you cannot weigh it or measure it or repeat it systematically it’s not valuable, it’s not true, it’s not real. But can we really assess if something exists or not on the mere basis of measurability and repeatability?
The field of philosophy which deals with the inquiry over the existence of things is called ontology and dates back to Aristotle and his speculations around whether things exist in and of themselves or only in our perception of them. Also, do things exist absolutely, as in for everyone and everything or just relatively as in only for some group of entities, and is their existence a social construct or an innate state independent from anyone’s perceptions? These are all questions that have found different answers over the ages and by different philosophers.
What matters for us here, is that we should not assume that there is one way of assessing the existence of any element of which our experiences comprise as there are many. So back to our question; does magic exist? There is already a video on the channel in which Dr. Jack Hunter tackles the topic. So I suggest you watch that one as well. Whether magic is real or not, from an ontological standpoint, meaning whether it exists outside of our personal belief system depends massively on the philosophical interpretation of reality we choose. And do remember we all have a philosophical underpinning to our perception of the world regardless of our fondness for which one it is.
If you were an empiricist but only admit the realness of what can be perceived through the five senses, whereas if you were an idealist you’d see all phenomena as manifestations of your own consciousness. A Kantian would say the real reality is unknowable and someone whose thoughts were in line with Foucault would deem realness dependent on the social construction of that very concept. My point is that there is no one answer and there it is extremely arrogant, in my opinion, to blatantly say, magick is real or magick is not real, especially when these statements come from people who have no clue of the philosophical underpinning from which their opinion arises and often don’t even acknowledge the fact that they are, in fact, producing thoughts on the basis of one theoretical framework or another. Thus, whether magick is real or not, from a philosophical or ontological point of view depends on the theoretical framework you submit to.
Moving on to the usefulness of studying my subject matter, I have the premise that my current research, is in the field of anthropology of religion. In anthropology we study human experiences and how they relate to, affect, and are dependent on personal, interpersonal belief systems, socio-cultural and political elements, and so on and so forth. As a consequence, understanding religious beliefs and practices, of any kind, will give us insight into the cultural fabric of that one, specific place – as well as the dominant theoretical frameworks and role they play in the society of reference.
Studying social behaviour and interactions is essential to understanding the world. As our world is not only made of things but it is also made of people and people are made of thoughts, beliefs, and meaningful actions. Even, and especially those groups which diverge from the dominant views can help us understand the intricate patterns whereby our inter-subjective reality unfolds because the anomaly has still arisen from and produced by, the same wider cultural network which encompasses both the dominant and the alternative views and beliefs. This should also answer the matter of fabricated religions and gods. Anthropologists and religious studies scholars study all religions as cultural products.
There may be older and more popular religions or spiritualities but there is no belief, in the world, which holds no value to a religious studies scholar. If anything, a new religion can tell us something about the contemporary world and which cultural patterns and ramifications have allowed that religious movement to emerge and take root and a minority religion can enlighten us on certain groups of people and what adhering to an alternative worldview means for a human being in a certain context or whether that specific belief is particularly appealing to certain kinds of individuals and so on and so forth. So, to conclude, it is extremely, extremely fascinating to me, and I did choose this subject matter because you cannot really understand the world and reality without exploring its fringes, shadows, and occult facets.
This is it for today’s video. Hope I answered, exhaustively the questions that were the premises of this video, and let me know whether I did or if there is something missing, and I am happy to answer all of your doubts and questions on the matter. I also welcome your feedback and I actually, really enjoy engaging in conversations in the comments section. So do leave me your thoughts and questions and doubts and everything.
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Bye for now.
REFERENCES
Puca, A. (2018). Scientism and Post-Truth. Two contradictory paradigms underlying contemporary shamanism? Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religion (JBASR). 20, pp.83–99.