References:
References:
Tanya Luhrmann, a senior researcher at Cambridge, addresses the neglected population of magician and witchcraft practitioners of contemporary London in her book, Persuasions of Witch’s Craft. Even thought there were couple of discrepancies in her book, Luhrmann provides valuable anthropological insight to different practices of witchcraft, explains why females are interested in magic, and analyzes what drives a well-educated and adjusted individual in London to join these practices?…
During this time, many Christians believed that certain people were known to have the ability to harm people because the devil gave them powers. This belief became very popular during the 1300s to 1600s. There were thousands of people who were blamed to be involved in witch craft, most of them were women.…
Paul Stoller’s eventual understanding and practicing of magic is the result of his acceptance and immersion in the world of the Songhay as a full-fledged member of the community. If Stoller had maintained his objective anthropological distance, his belief system would have never changed, and he would have never acquired the knowledge and acceptance of Songhay magic. It is not coincidence that when he begins to feel most accepted amongst the tribe parallel the moments when he starts to believe in their sorcery as not only real, but something so powerful he is at first afraid to understand it more thoroughly. In order to fully embrace Songhay magic, the limiting view of a white, outsider anthropologist, and all of the rigid beliefs that accompany that position had to be shed. Not only because that identity restricted his physical access to the information necessary to the study of sorcery, but because it also mentally distanced him, making his acceptance of their sorcery impossible. For Stoller, the transition from anthropologist outsider to student of Songhay sorcery was only plausible as he became increasingly accepted as a member of the community. It created the comfort and support required to loosen his lifelong training and beliefs, and allowed him to truly accept a different way of thinking, as he was himself living it. Although there are other factors that lead to Stoller’s gradual acceptance which are important to his overall shift, this change in his position within the Songhay community is at the crux of his transition. If he had continued to be a “good” anthropologist, his knowledge of Songhay sorcery would have been unreliable and impractical, as he would not have been able to experience it.…
Evolutionary Factor– Helping others may have inherited to our parents and it can passed along to the future generations. We help specially to those in the family or relatives or close by us. This they called “kin selection (Hamilton, 1964).” Some are friends, members of the church, and sometimes strangers. Maybe because we have seen that our parents helping those who are in need. “It is also increased the chances that you might get help later, and the chances of survival will increased.” For example: one of the family member can't be able to drive to work because for some reason, maybe something happen to the car, or the doctor recommended not to drive in a week and no one can bring to his/her work place and you are the available person to do that. And helped him/her until will go back to his/her own feet. And you are thinking that maybe someday if you are in that situation, someone will…
Effective altruists recognize that the worth of anyone is equal to their own and believe that everyone should work towards good (Singer, 2015 p. 82). Through this reasoning, effective altruists are not influence by strong emotions to help out a single, recognizable person, but are motivated to reach out to the most number of people as they can even if these people were to remain anonymous. Their minds operate so that they prioritize helping out more people rather than a smaller group (Singer, 2015, p.82). In short, in this chapter, Singer emphasizes that actions must be grounded in the reasoning of working for the good of as many people as…
It is the human desire to feel their power that motivates them to be cruel and inflict pain upon both themselves and others.…
In the old time the African people use some spells to take the sympathy of the bad spirits, so that they did not harm them. Now these spells are using to control the bad spirit. The practitioners of the voodoo magic can control the bad spirits and the souls to achieve their goal. The folk magic spells are the words which were used by the people…
Witchcraft among the Azande is an integral part of everyday life. From highly involved communal practices to individual daily life, witchcraft and such happenings can take place at any time and to anyone. During his time among the Azande, Evans Pritchard originally thought of the Azande’s belief in witchcraft as naïve, believing that all mishaps were caused by bewitchment instead of taking personal responsibility. I personally find this interesting as it is a fine example of how people universally do not typically take responsibility for their misfortunes; instead they blame it on another. Why is this? Well, think to yourself, have you ever been stuck in traffic cursing at everyone else’s poor driving? The answer is probably yes because most people do not turn inwards towards themselves to see a potential problem. This is because we are sensory beings designed to sense and experience the world outside of ourselves. Turning inwards and seeing ourselves as the problem naturally is not something we as individuals do, this takes years or even a lifetime of fulfillment and maturity to realize. But this is further than I want to take us for now. Let us get back to our authors interpretation of Azande witchcraft and how his understanding of this topic changed the more time he spent among the Azande people.…
What is evil? Is it characterized by a desire to cause hurt or harm, “an evil mood”? What causes people to do evil? The strong feelings of hatred and dislike that builds up in all of us or simply that all our emotions are constantly on the dark side for such a long period of time. What is right from wrong when the hate in our hearts makes us all make terrible mistakes and commit evil. The writings of Confucius say, “There is no light without darkness, no positive without negative, no good without evil.” Throughout the history of humanity, humans have committed inconceivable and unthinkable acts of cruelty towards one another. From the brutal wars during the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans, to the modern area of ethnic cleansing and genocide one cannot help but wonder what is the root cause of this evil. Unthinkable numbers of human life has been lost in every corner of the world from the genocides in Armenia and Nazi Germany to the guerilla wars in Vietnam and Cambodia and presently to the devastating conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sudan. Evil is a learned behavior which is illustrated in dictators, school violence, and classical novels such as Lord of the Flies by William Golding and Night by Elie Wiesel.…
Two types of magick exist. White Magick is performed for good purposes; Black Magic is performed for ill purposes. The terms white and black are taken from early Persian concepts of good and evil, the Sun and Light being Ahura--Mazda or all good and it's counterpart being Darkness, Ahriman or all-evil. (Buckland, a prominent Witch within the Wiccan community, maintains in his Complete Book Of Witchcraft…
Whether we want to believe it or not there is evil in all of us. The mind thinks and controls our bodies in ways that we would never think possible until it happens. We laugh at racist jokes, gossip about others actions, cheat on tests, and on the larger note murder and rape other human beings. People think that a racist joke is harmless but what they do not realize is that that one joke could escalate to become dehumanizing a certain group of people. Whether it is on a small scale or a larger one, evil is still evil. I’ve learned on the journey I took through The Lucifer Effect that I do things because other people want me to do them and I want to be accepted by other people.…
Rags transformed into gowns, pumpkins into carriages, and mice into chauffeurs—people often associate magic with impossible grandeur and grand impossibilities. They associate it with fantasy. But magic lingers. It hides in the unexpected: in my phone that never breaks (despite being run over, submerged, and frozen), in my friend’s dog that always manages to raid the refrigerator, and in my uncle who always parallel parks in two moves. People who don’t believe in magic have yet to encounter it. They have yet to meet Ata.…
A child’s need for magic is strong. And with magic a child becomes creative. They develop a part of themselves that they have never experienced before. The child has a world of their own and they discover new wonders in which they will take with them as they become…
From human nature, there can be either a good or evil will. Human nature comes with the gift of free will, which allows us humans to express our own personal, independent choices based on our own rational thoughts. With the ability to orient our lives in any direction that we choose to, those with both good will and evil will exist. One cannot have both a good and evil will; those with an evil will are actively trying to disharmonize the world, while the good willed keep everything in harmony.…
Humans have a wide array of emotions. The most complex of our emotions are the feelings of love and hate. We are able to feel compassion, envy, patience and even indifference. All together, the words mentioned may not be noted as a blessing, to some it may be considered a curse. Many people would say these two emotions are completely the opposite of one another but others might say that they are almost exactly alike. I guess some people believe that they are linked to each other because they both lead us to the same kind of crazy behavior .Throughout history love and hate has defined human kind; there has been many wars fought for the love in our hearts and many more for the hatred in our souls.…