I have been asked this a number of times, but no, I don't mind it, at all.
I want to teach magical theory within academia, because I feel that the academy's treatment of magic is disingenuous at best and hypocritically appropriating at worst. Disciplines within the academy take components of magical theory-- ideas and concepts which have been around for thousands of years-- and "discover" them, much like Columbus and Cortez "Discovered" the Americas.
Part of what I want is to expose the process of conceptual appropriation, not to stop it, per se, but to make it more genuine. If we can say, at the base of it, "Hey, i got this idea from a Borges story," or "Just so you know, there's this thing called Indra's Net, and it gave me a wacky idea," then we can deal with Many Worlds Theory and Leibnizian Monads more honestly.
We've gotten this far by surreptitiously using magical thought and theory in building the applications of our conceptions; I want to see what we can do when we acknowledge it.
And that means railing against the academy, and it means teaching and talking to people who are disinclined to see the similarities between their sacrosanct theories and methods and those they deride. Does that make sense?
no subject
I want to teach magical theory within academia, because I feel that the academy's treatment of magic is disingenuous at best and hypocritically appropriating at worst. Disciplines within the academy take components of magical theory-- ideas and concepts which have been around for thousands of years-- and "discover" them, much like Columbus and Cortez "Discovered" the Americas.
Part of what I want is to expose the process of conceptual appropriation, not to stop it, per se, but to make it more genuine. If we can say, at the base of it, "Hey, i got this idea from a Borges story," or "Just so you know, there's this thing called Indra's Net, and it gave me a wacky idea," then we can deal with Many Worlds Theory and Leibnizian Monads more honestly.
We've gotten this far by surreptitiously using magical thought and theory in building the applications of our conceptions; I want to see what we can do when we acknowledge it.
And that means railing against the academy, and it means teaching and talking to people who are disinclined to see the similarities between their sacrosanct theories and methods and those they deride. Does that make sense?