Understand magical thinking, and you will understand why the 20th century age of reason has lead us to a "post-truth" society.
We are taught to deny, demonise or even glamorise magic - rather than ever admit to thinking magically. But it is every bit as fundamental to human nature as science, religion or art.
Faced with the growing popularity of alternative healing, astrology and the New Age, people ask: "whatever happened to the Enlightenment?" They assume that "The Enlightenment" marked a break with a superstitious past; it was a forward leap for humanity after which any return to magical thinking would be regressive, or even impossible. It was a forward step, but it began by looking back two millennia to the Classical era, and re-discovering the foundations on which to build a culture of science and humanism that is considered to be the high point in human achievement.
The classical era was itself a high point in human culture, but it only spanned five centuries. The following, Roman, era saw a resurgence of magical thinking and laid the foundations for alchemy, astrology, alternative healing, and much of today's magical ideas and practices. Pontius Pilate famously asked "what is truth?" and two thousand years later postmodernist philosophers are raising similar questions.
Is the revival of magical thinking just a natural evolution of thought, to be expected after five centuries of rationalism?
The author was brought up in the materialist 1950s and educated in that sceptical Enlightenment tradition to become a Cambridge mathematics graduate. Despite that, he became increasingly interested in magic and the occult and is now recognised as an authority on the subject. So how is it possible to shift from our knowledge of scientific reality to an acceptance of magic? The book describes the author's own subjective experience of how that evolved over his lifetime.
Parts One and Two outline some of the important influences on his thinking and Parts Three and Four expand on CP Snow's idea of two cultures (Art and Science) to propose four cultures: Art, Science, Religion and Magic. Part Five looks at the conflicts and misunderstandings between cultures and reasons why magic gets a raw deal, or is simply denied as a culture.
Part Six summarises the case and the Part Seven looks at contemporary trends and assumptions to show that the rise in magical thinking goes far deeper than just the visible popularity of astrology columns and alternative healing. A penultimate chapter provides practical suggestions for those willing to explore the value of magical thinking - or simply wanting to survive in a post-truth world.
Lionel Snell is a contemporary English magician, publisher and author on magic and philosophy. Since 1972 he has written and published several books noted for their impact on late 20th-century magic and humour. Under the pen name Ramsey Dukes he has a popular YouTube channel of short videos on magic-related topics. He was brought up in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds and won a series of scholarships, plus government grants, that took him to Clifton College, Bristol, then Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated as a pure mathematician, then took a Diploma in Education before teaching mathematics at Eton College, a Waldorf school and a further education college. While at Cambridge he studied rare works of Aleister Crowley and other occult writers in the University library and worked with a number of Crowley's ex-disciples. His books on magic and virtual reality have won him an enthusiastic and faithful readership among a wide circle of alternative groups, notably fans of avant-guard rock music and graphic novels. His writing is recognised as being significantly different from most radical occult thinking, which tends to either glamourize or demonize magic. In addition to long experience with radical alternative cultures, the author has for many years worked freelance as ghost writer for ICT companies and organizations, churning out press releases, video scripts, booklets and educational articles.
Ramsey Dukes is the most well known pen name of Lionel Snell, the book's author
