Book Review: My Years of Magical Thinking
We live in an age of enchantment. Over the last thirty years or so there has been a gathering tide of interest in magic, from popular culture to the academy. Esoteric and Pagan studies are both rapidly expanding fields, and magic, far from having declined or been relegated to the marginal or countercultural, is now increasingly being shown to be a key influence in many aspects of contemporary culture, from the arts to the sciences. Indeed, many of the key figures associated with the so-called Age of Enlightenment have been shown to have had a deep engagement with the occult, ranging from Descartes’ interest in Kabbalah to Newton’s writings on Alchemy. 1 Magic is being celebrated and explored in ways undreamt of by those who uncritically accepted Keith Thomas’ pronouncement in the 1970s that magic had “declined”. Rather than attempting to explain away or banish the occult back to its supposedly marginal status, there is an increasing focus, in a wide range of disciplines – from history to cognitive neuroscience – to explore magic’s affects and possibilities. Surfing the crest of this occultural zeitgeist comes Lionel Snell’s new book, My Years of Magical Thinking. Continue reading »
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