Magical Realism and the Sociology of Possibility

One thing I’ve also noticed is the gradual loss of the understanding of “imagination” as a category; it can sound a little Reading Rainbow to talk about, but wouldn’t you know imagination is actually an essential part of the human condition. In so far as the words “spirit” or “spirituality” mean anything beyond woo-woo or cliché they must include t... See more

this piece is about belief magic, which Merriam-Webster defines as “the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces” and especially how belief magic is represented in culture. After all, culture, from films to books to art, has always shaped society, just as we shape it.

With sufficient care, that wheelbarrow full of things could become an entire system of meaning, saying truthful things about our world, some of which might have been impossible to say via a more conventionally realistic approach. That system would mean, not by the plausibility or acuity of its initial premise, but by the way it reacts to that premi

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At heart, magic embraces the power that small solidarity networks have to change the world through changing their own perceptions of reality.

At heart , magic embraces the power that small solidarity networks have to change the world through changing their own perceptions of reality .

(2) Our sense of the possible is inextricably tied with our view of reality. My hypothesis is that possibility at present is held back from imagining different, and better, futures by an incredibly complex civilizational process known as European modernity that has been around for the past 521 years (since 1492), and which ever since has aimed to b

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