The nature of magic : an anthropology of consciousness

This book examines how and why practitioners of nature religion--Western witches, druids, shamans--seek to relate spiritually with nature through magical consciousness. Greenwood develops a new theory of magical consciousness by arguing that magic ultimately has more to do with the workings of the human mind in terms of an expanded awareness than with socio-cultural explanations. She combines her own subjective insights gained from magical practice with practitioners' in-depth accounts and sustained academic theory on the process of magic. She also tracks magical consciousness in philosophy, myth, folklore and story-telling, and the hi-tech discourse of postmodernity.