Anthropology of ConsciousnessAbstractVolume 13, Number 1, March-June 2002, pages 42-59 How Magic Works: New Zealand Feminist Witches' Theories of Ritual Action Kathryn
Rountree The paper draws on three years' fieldwork and twelve years' familiarity with feminist witches in New Zealand. These women are thoughtful and articulate about their magical practice, and it is their theories about how magic works and the function of ritual-making which are the paper's central concern. Scholarly theories and debates about magic and ritual have frequently been dichotomously constructed: science versus magic, the symbolists versus the intellectualists, causality versus participation, ritual as action versus belief as thought, and so on. The witches who are the focus of this study do not explain their ritual practice in such dichotomized terms. Their spells, for example, incorporate expressive, dramatic and aesthetic components and values, along with an explicit instrumental purpose. For these witches, magic is not anti-science or pseudo-science: it sits alongside science as another way of addressing a problem. The paper discusses feminist witches' theories and practices in the light of anthropological theories about ritual and magic, explores the role of symbols and energy in magic, and demonstrates how these witches use ritual for empowerment and healing. |
copyright 2004 American Anthropological Association |