Magic and the Supernatural - Lancaster University

Magic and Practical Agency
Brian Feltham
Abstract
My chapter draws on the ideas from moral philosophy in order to explore the ways
in which ethics and practical deliberation have a space for magical ideas and
practices. 1 I am interested in the way magical concepts and practices can be used to
transform our subjective experience of the world. As practical agents, our capacity
to view the world as meaningful, and to act accordingly, is informed by our
practices and constituted by our subjective orientation towards the world. The
practice of magic carries with it not only the conceptual apparatus for interpreting
the world, but also the rituals for transforming our own subjective appreciation of
the world. Magic may be able to offer access to a kind of meaning that is not
ethical, or at least not easily interpretable on a human scale. The contact with
something transcendent and other is often experienced as awe - and it may be
exhilarating in a productive way, conducive to well-being; but it can also be
experienced as dread, which helps capture something of the peculiar nature of
supernatural evil.
Key Words: Ethics, Kierkegaard, Machen, magic, meaning, practical reason,
spiritual experience, value.
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1. Introduction
I hereby promise not to use the word ‘cyclopean’ in this chapter (after this
sentence). There is magic in this. Perhaps it is necessary to assume that you take
me up on my promise - perhaps the promise doesn’t bind unless it is accepted - but
otherwise, with mere use of words I have altered the moral landscape. I haven’t
moved any mountains, but I have just made it wrong for me to use a certain word
in this chapter.
This chapter explores the extent to which we can understand features of our
practical agency (our capacity to deliberate about how to act) in terms of magical,
willed, transformation and also to see how magical practices might be seen to
enrich our lives as practical agents. I shall be interested in the ways in which
magical practices can alter our situation with respect to values and reasons. To
make things interesting (and truer, I think, to ethical discourse) I shall assume at
least a modicum of objectivity: that it is possible to be mistaken in our valuebeliefs.
My focus is chiefly on ritual magic considered broadly: from a simple act of
concentrated will to casting a circle with a group of fellow practitioners. I shall not