DEN MAGISKE ILLUSION? En kognitiv tilgang til magiske ritualer

Resumé

The concept of magic is one of the most

contested concepts in anthropology. It has

been criticised as an illusion created by early

anthropology’s primitivist understanding of

other – notably non-European – cultures.

This has led to a general agreement to

abandon the term, if not in praxis then

theoretically. The author questions whether

the concept should be abandoned and instead

he proposes a reformulation based on the

realisation that magic is a broad analytical

category about which one cannot produce

theories. Rather, theories must address the

phenomena observed and categorised as

magic. The author advocates a cognitive

approach to magic and magical ritual based

on the theory of “conceptual blending”

proposed by linguist Gilles Fauconnier and

literary Mark Turner. The theory of conceptual

blending presents a new possibility

to approach the explicitly metaphorical and

metonymic content in magical practices and

spells. Thus, magic is not based on a special

type of causality, but rather in the exploitation

of ordinary cognitive procedures

in special pragmatic circumstances, namely

ritual, in order to achieve a specific result. At

the same time, the author aims to show how

symbolic interpretations are de-emphasised

in magical rituals in order to enhance more

basic processes of meaning construction,

which gives magic a special relation to

institutionalised religion.