For reasons I can't disclose, I have nothing to do at work at this
moment, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share a paragraph from
the book that I'm reading (and may, in the fulness of time, actually
finish). It's "The Spell of the Sensuous" by David Abram.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679776397/qid%3D906155997/002-2582446-9909448
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The most sophisticated definition of "magic" that now circulates
through the American counterculture is "the ability or power to alter
one's consciousness at will." No mention is made of any _reason_ for
altering one's consciousness. Yet in tribal cultures that which we call
"magic" takes its meaning from the fact that humans, in an indigenous
and oral context, experience their own consciousness as simply one form
of awareness among many others. The traditional magicaian cultivates an
ability to shift out of his or her common state of consciousness
precisely in order to make contact with the other organic forms of
sensitivity and awareness with which human existence is entwined. Only
by temporarily shedding the accepted perceptual logic of his culture can
the sorcerer hope to enter into relation with other species on their own
terms: only by altering the common organization of his senses will he be
able to enter into a rapport with the multiple nonhuman sensibilities
that animate the local landscape. It is this, we might say, that defines
a shaman: the ability to readily slip out of the perceptual boundaries
that demarcate his or her particular culture--boundaries reinforced by
social customs, taboos, and most importantly, the common speech or
language--in order to make contact with, and learn from, the other
powers in the land. His magic is precisely this heightened receptivity
to the meaningful solicitations--songs, cries, gestrues--of the larger,
more-thatn-human field.
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Make of it what you will and enjoy.
-KMO