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Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England
To find out why reasonable people are drawn to the seemingly bizarre practices of magic and witchcraft, Tanya Luhrmann immersed herself in the secret lives of Londoners who call themselves magicians. She came to know them as friends and equals and was initiated into various covens and magical groups. She explains the process through which once-skeptical individuals--educated, middle-class people, frequently of high intelligence--become committed to the ideas behind witchcraft and find magical ritual so compellingly persuasive.
410 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1989
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628 people want to read
About the author
T.M. Luhrmann
12 books102 followersTanya Marie Luhrmann is currently the Watkins University Professor in the Anthropology Department at Stanford University. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
Tanya Marie Luhrmann (born 1959) is an American psychological anthropologist best known for her studies of modern-day witches, charismatic Christians, and psychiatrists. She received her AB summa cum laude in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard-Radcliffe in 1981, working with Stanley Tambiah. She then studied Social Anthropology at Cambridge University, working with Jack Goody and Ernest Gellner. In 1986 she received her PhD for work on modern-day witches in England, later published as Persuasions of the Witch's Craft (1989). In this book, she described the ways in which magic and other esoteric techniques both serve emotional needs and come to seem reasonable through the experience of practice.
Her second research project looked at the situation of contemporary Parsis, a Zoroastrian community in India. The Parsi community enjoyed a privileged position under the British Raj; although by many standards, Parsis have continued to do quite well economically in post-colonial India, they have become politically marginal in comparison to their previous position, and many Parsis speak pessimistically about the future of their community. Luhrmann's book The Good Parsi (1996) explored the contradictions inherent in the social psychology of a post-colonial elite.
Her third book, and the most widely acclaimed, explored the contradictions and tensions between two models of psychiatry, the psychodynamic (psychoanalytic) and the biomedical, through the ethnographic study of the training of American psychiatry residents during the health care transition of the early 1990s. Of Two Minds (2000) received several awards, including the Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing and the Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology (2001).
Her fourth book, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (March 2012), examines the growing movement of evangelical and charismatic Christianity, and specifically how practitioners come to experience God as someone with whom they can communicate on a daily basis through prayer and visualization.
Other projects she is working on include a NIMH-funded study of how life on the streets (chronically or periodically homeless) contributes to the experience and morbidity of schizophrenia.
Tanya Marie Luhrmann (born 1959) is an American psychological anthropologist best known for her studies of modern-day witches, charismatic Christians, and psychiatrists. She received her AB summa cum laude in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard-Radcliffe in 1981, working with Stanley Tambiah. She then studied Social Anthropology at Cambridge University, working with Jack Goody and Ernest Gellner. In 1986 she received her PhD for work on modern-day witches in England, later published as Persuasions of the Witch's Craft (1989). In this book, she described the ways in which magic and other esoteric techniques both serve emotional needs and come to seem reasonable through the experience of practice.
Her second research project looked at the situation of contemporary Parsis, a Zoroastrian community in India. The Parsi community enjoyed a privileged position under the British Raj; although by many standards, Parsis have continued to do quite well economically in post-colonial India, they have become politically marginal in comparison to their previous position, and many Parsis speak pessimistically about the future of their community. Luhrmann's book The Good Parsi (1996) explored the contradictions inherent in the social psychology of a post-colonial elite.
Her third book, and the most widely acclaimed, explored the contradictions and tensions between two models of psychiatry, the psychodynamic (psychoanalytic) and the biomedical, through the ethnographic study of the training of American psychiatry residents during the health care transition of the early 1990s. Of Two Minds (2000) received several awards, including the Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing and the Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology (2001).
Her fourth book, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (March 2012), examines the growing movement of evangelical and charismatic Christianity, and specifically how practitioners come to experience God as someone with whom they can communicate on a daily basis through prayer and visualization.
Other projects she is working on include a NIMH-funded study of how life on the streets (chronically or periodically homeless) contributes to the experience and morbidity of schizophrenia.
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October 13, 2016
Strong anthropology.
Back in the 1980s, Luhrmann, became involved with one strand of the renascent Western mystery tradition--those associated with witchcraft--in England, doing a participant-observer investigation. This book was her report.
While this is her first book, it is not the first one that I read--I earlier went through her similar investigation of a fundamentalist Christian group. I really enjoyed that book--"When God Talks Back"--and suspect I would have done the same with this book if I had read it first. But in both cases her theoretical orientation and explanation are so similar that the thunder was stolen.
It's still good, though.
Luhrmann sees 2oth-century interest in witchcraft as similar to other religions, in that what is emphasized is play and bricolage, the combining of different traditions and the engagement of the as-if sense: act as if it is true. Generally, I think this is right, but it misses some aspects, and underestimates, ironically, the degree of flexibility in the belief system (for want of a beter phrase).
The book is divided into five sections. The first is a probably-too-long account of the various actors and the place of witchcraft within the Western mystery tradition. The section is too long not because she is too focused, but because she is trying to do too much: sociology and anthropology and intellectual history and personal stories. Probably this was a bit of defensiveness based on when the study was done, with Luhrmann feeling she had to justify her study.
Parts two and three bring old-fashioned p-o anthropological techniques to the group Luhrmann studies: she investigates their underlying assumptions, and how these framing devices influence their interpretation of events. (If you view the world as imbued with magic, you will see causality working differently.) She also discusses "involvement"--the way practices such as meditation, visualization, and the use of the imagination shape how one experiences the world.
Luhrmann mentions the work of Lévy-Bruhl here, but does not draw out the comparison as far as possible. Wouter Hanegraaf's much more recent work is better at this, showing that magical understanding of the universe engages a particular sense of being in the world, participation, that is mostly downplayed in the modern world. It emphasizes empathy and imagination and intuition.
Instead, Luhrmann turns to the notion of cognitive dissonance, which I think does not take her ideas about the flexibility and imagination of her participants far enough. She points out that cognitive dissonance is not necessarily negative--true--and is something engaged in by people who subscribe to all kinds of belief systems--also true--but the negative sense lingers nonetheless. And it underestimates the self-reflection of her participants. It is entirely possible to recognize that one is making distinctions between mental states without being accused of cognitive dissonance.
Paradoxically, at the same time that Luhrmann undersells the flexibility of her participants, she is probably also overselling the plasticity of belief in witchcraft. It is certainly true that there are a range of behaviors, and she is very good at showing the diversity, the variety, tracing the ideas to the very edge. But at the sacrifice of showing the core, the shared beliefs. I never got a sense of the center.
The fourth section butts up against this to an extent, but on my reading, never really filled this lacuna. Here, Luhrmann discusses how witchcraft practitioners justify their actions and beliefs to skeptics. Because witchcraft is a fringe activity, this section mostly focuses on the practitioners's defensiveness--inventing the "magical plane" as a way to save the phenomena--and apologetics--intellectual work more in line with other Mystery traditions. She sees this all as the working out of cognitive dissonance, the explaining away of problems, which, again, seems to keep her from dealing with shared issues among practitioners: they are battling with skeptics to protect some central ideas. What are those?
The final section is the key, and probably should have better informed the introductory matter (and the introductory matter been moved elsewhere, and expanded, to give the sense of the core beliefs). She argues here that witchcraft believers move to their status slowly, through what she calls interpretive drift: over time, as they see their half-formed working assumptions about magic seemingly proved by the world, they become more fully convinced, proceeding haltingly toward full-on engagement.
She calls this--correctly-a type of imaginative play. It is Lévy-Bruhl's participation, the practitioners keeping their minds labile and coming to a different way of being in the world.
And that, after all, is what anthropology is about, understanding different ways of being in the world.
Back in the 1980s, Luhrmann, became involved with one strand of the renascent Western mystery tradition--those associated with witchcraft--in England, doing a participant-observer investigation. This book was her report.
While this is her first book, it is not the first one that I read--I earlier went through her similar investigation of a fundamentalist Christian group. I really enjoyed that book--"When God Talks Back"--and suspect I would have done the same with this book if I had read it first. But in both cases her theoretical orientation and explanation are so similar that the thunder was stolen.
It's still good, though.
Luhrmann sees 2oth-century interest in witchcraft as similar to other religions, in that what is emphasized is play and bricolage, the combining of different traditions and the engagement of the as-if sense: act as if it is true. Generally, I think this is right, but it misses some aspects, and underestimates, ironically, the degree of flexibility in the belief system (for want of a beter phrase).
The book is divided into five sections. The first is a probably-too-long account of the various actors and the place of witchcraft within the Western mystery tradition. The section is too long not because she is too focused, but because she is trying to do too much: sociology and anthropology and intellectual history and personal stories. Probably this was a bit of defensiveness based on when the study was done, with Luhrmann feeling she had to justify her study.
Parts two and three bring old-fashioned p-o anthropological techniques to the group Luhrmann studies: she investigates their underlying assumptions, and how these framing devices influence their interpretation of events. (If you view the world as imbued with magic, you will see causality working differently.) She also discusses "involvement"--the way practices such as meditation, visualization, and the use of the imagination shape how one experiences the world.
Luhrmann mentions the work of Lévy-Bruhl here, but does not draw out the comparison as far as possible. Wouter Hanegraaf's much more recent work is better at this, showing that magical understanding of the universe engages a particular sense of being in the world, participation, that is mostly downplayed in the modern world. It emphasizes empathy and imagination and intuition.
Instead, Luhrmann turns to the notion of cognitive dissonance, which I think does not take her ideas about the flexibility and imagination of her participants far enough. She points out that cognitive dissonance is not necessarily negative--true--and is something engaged in by people who subscribe to all kinds of belief systems--also true--but the negative sense lingers nonetheless. And it underestimates the self-reflection of her participants. It is entirely possible to recognize that one is making distinctions between mental states without being accused of cognitive dissonance.
Paradoxically, at the same time that Luhrmann undersells the flexibility of her participants, she is probably also overselling the plasticity of belief in witchcraft. It is certainly true that there are a range of behaviors, and she is very good at showing the diversity, the variety, tracing the ideas to the very edge. But at the sacrifice of showing the core, the shared beliefs. I never got a sense of the center.
The fourth section butts up against this to an extent, but on my reading, never really filled this lacuna. Here, Luhrmann discusses how witchcraft practitioners justify their actions and beliefs to skeptics. Because witchcraft is a fringe activity, this section mostly focuses on the practitioners's defensiveness--inventing the "magical plane" as a way to save the phenomena--and apologetics--intellectual work more in line with other Mystery traditions. She sees this all as the working out of cognitive dissonance, the explaining away of problems, which, again, seems to keep her from dealing with shared issues among practitioners: they are battling with skeptics to protect some central ideas. What are those?
The final section is the key, and probably should have better informed the introductory matter (and the introductory matter been moved elsewhere, and expanded, to give the sense of the core beliefs). She argues here that witchcraft believers move to their status slowly, through what she calls interpretive drift: over time, as they see their half-formed working assumptions about magic seemingly proved by the world, they become more fully convinced, proceeding haltingly toward full-on engagement.
She calls this--correctly-a type of imaginative play. It is Lévy-Bruhl's participation, the practitioners keeping their minds labile and coming to a different way of being in the world.
And that, after all, is what anthropology is about, understanding different ways of being in the world.
January 21, 2012
This was actually one of the books assigned for my anthropology of Magic and Religion class in college. I had and continue to have major issues with the "research" in this book. That is the kindest word for it.After being presented with accurate anthropological information and much better sources. The professor let myself and another student teach the section on Modern Paganism and Wicca. The first thing we did was tell everyone in the class to throw the book in the garbage. That was the last time anyone in the school used this for anything more than an example of poor research.
December 28, 2020
This was very dry, but interesting enough in its way. Still, I couldn't help but feel that the scope was too big, and I wish the author had dug more deeply into one thing or another rather than trying to cover absolutely everything.
June 4, 2020
3.5 stars. The last section was a little too heavy on the broader discussion of anthropological study and theory for me, but that’s certainly not the author’s fault — it’s just not my cuppa, and why I couldn’t quite give it that last half star. It’s certainly fascinating to read about fieldwork done within communities that border - or are - my own, and to see it through the eyes of a researcher.
November 9, 2023
A very interesting study on how beliefs become persuasive. While the topic is contemporary magic, it has implications for human behavior and thought at large, and it has given me plenty to think about.
The book is well argued, Luhrmann is knowledgable and insightful and there are plenty of sources and a hefty bibliography. It might be dry for the casual reader, but I enjoy the clarity.
The book is well argued, Luhrmann is knowledgable and insightful and there are plenty of sources and a hefty bibliography. It might be dry for the casual reader, but I enjoy the clarity.
May 25, 2022
A potentially cool subject, made dull by the author's droning on and on and on and on...and on. I could zone out for a couple pages and find myself reading about the same point when I eventually refocused. Informative, at least, if you want to know what witches in England were up to 40 years ago.
April 26, 2024
I read this book for novel research, and can't comment on its merits as an anthropological text, but it was great fun! Luhrmann is an excellent writer who deftly explores the tension between logic and affect, and the inexplicably ineffable quality of ritual experience.
August 10, 2024
Fundamental to understanding the modern witchcraft movement from a skeptical perspective. Respectful of the craft, yet true to science. Rich with personal experiences of witchcraft and magic.
June 11, 2014
It was back in the 1980’s that Ph.D candidate Tanya Luhrman left her home in the United States and went to Great Britain in order to study up close the magical communities of England. She lived and practiced magic immersing herself into the environment of the magician. She told them what she was up to and she was accepted although she only rarely brought in a tape recorder, often times jotting down notes after the ritual or mediation or teaching. Among the orders or covens that she was with were Marian Green’s “Green Circle”, the Hornsby Group, Gareth Knight’s group and the Glittering sword.
While she herself did not believe in magic she did have healthy dose of respect for those who did. She went in as an anthropologist seeking to live the life of the community. Her study does not cover paganism per se or devil worship just magic. I am glad that she kept that line very clear. There are some magicians who work with Aruthurian mythos, others with angels and some with planetary powers.
Most of those involved in magical groups tend to be middle class or upper middle class and have a great deal of education under their belt. They are usually employed in the computer industry where creativity and deciphering things can be of use. Some are teachers and others are therapist. What leads them to magic is often a search for more control in their life or some deeper spirituality without joining a new religion or a cult. Many people are led to the magical path after reading fantasy book written by JRR. Tolkien, CS Lewis, Ursula Leguine, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Need I forget to mention that many computer geeks and magi are involved in the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons?
Of course doing a ritual or spell or any other act of magic for that matter puts one in a different world or a different plane of reality. Entering different realities oft times involves spiritual practices like pathworking, mediation and certain breathing exercises. But also included in the techniques are using different names and casting a circle.
While for witches the purpose of magic maybe to alter reality according to their will. Ceremonial magicians are using magic to help evolve humanity. Since the Ceremonial outlook is judeo Christian there is an emphasis on ritual and moral purity. The practitioner should be sinless. In witchcraft no such moral compasses are present.
How to tell if your ritual or spell was effective? That is a good question that often times involve adjusting how you view reality. You can alter your view of reality to make magic look like it worked. This view is very subjective of course. To feel if a ritual is working you might feel your body temperature rise or fall, time might stand still and the watch your are wearing might speed up and tell the wrong time. Sometimes you might see series of coincidences as meaning that your ritual was only partially effective. If your ritual did not work then usually it meant that you did not do something right not that the ritual did not work
Let me finish off by saying that this book though meant to be a study on magic helped clarify where I stood on the issue. It opened my eyes to be aware of self deception and know what magic is really being used for these days. It seems that one viewpoint of magic is that it is supposed to change you not your situation. Of course the only way to change your situation is to change yourself. Perhaps I need to change my self but any non-magical spirituality can do that as well as any self help program. Finding out what is most powerful for me seems to be drawing the power from within like witches do yet the keys to that power lie with the Egyptian deities and Kabballah. I plan on practicing magic for the near future. But now I know the path upon which I must tread.
While she herself did not believe in magic she did have healthy dose of respect for those who did. She went in as an anthropologist seeking to live the life of the community. Her study does not cover paganism per se or devil worship just magic. I am glad that she kept that line very clear. There are some magicians who work with Aruthurian mythos, others with angels and some with planetary powers.
Most of those involved in magical groups tend to be middle class or upper middle class and have a great deal of education under their belt. They are usually employed in the computer industry where creativity and deciphering things can be of use. Some are teachers and others are therapist. What leads them to magic is often a search for more control in their life or some deeper spirituality without joining a new religion or a cult. Many people are led to the magical path after reading fantasy book written by JRR. Tolkien, CS Lewis, Ursula Leguine, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Need I forget to mention that many computer geeks and magi are involved in the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons?
Of course doing a ritual or spell or any other act of magic for that matter puts one in a different world or a different plane of reality. Entering different realities oft times involves spiritual practices like pathworking, mediation and certain breathing exercises. But also included in the techniques are using different names and casting a circle.
While for witches the purpose of magic maybe to alter reality according to their will. Ceremonial magicians are using magic to help evolve humanity. Since the Ceremonial outlook is judeo Christian there is an emphasis on ritual and moral purity. The practitioner should be sinless. In witchcraft no such moral compasses are present.
How to tell if your ritual or spell was effective? That is a good question that often times involve adjusting how you view reality. You can alter your view of reality to make magic look like it worked. This view is very subjective of course. To feel if a ritual is working you might feel your body temperature rise or fall, time might stand still and the watch your are wearing might speed up and tell the wrong time. Sometimes you might see series of coincidences as meaning that your ritual was only partially effective. If your ritual did not work then usually it meant that you did not do something right not that the ritual did not work
Let me finish off by saying that this book though meant to be a study on magic helped clarify where I stood on the issue. It opened my eyes to be aware of self deception and know what magic is really being used for these days. It seems that one viewpoint of magic is that it is supposed to change you not your situation. Of course the only way to change your situation is to change yourself. Perhaps I need to change my self but any non-magical spirituality can do that as well as any self help program. Finding out what is most powerful for me seems to be drawing the power from within like witches do yet the keys to that power lie with the Egyptian deities and Kabballah. I plan on practicing magic for the near future. But now I know the path upon which I must tread.
December 14, 2021
This is, actually, my most favorite book I've ever read. T.M. Luhrmann is a master of sociology (and the current chair of the anthropological sociology department at Standford) due almost entirely to her incredible passion for understanding. Her patience and empathy for drawing out what people think and WHY they think it cannot go unnoticed. Finally, her intelligence in cutting apart what they say and do and digging into a primal understanding of that is what finally makes her a master. This woman has written sociology books on charismatic Christians, the professional psychiatric community itself, post-colonial Indian communities, but this was her first masterpiece.
I had no idea what to expect here when I started this book. I thought I would gain an understanding of the sociology of witches. I was completely right about that. What I didn't expect was that I would gain a deeper understanding of the human soul itself and, by virtue, my own soul: myself. Tanya spent over 5 years actively practicing with the witchcraft covens and magical communities of Northern England. This books gains you an understanding of not just witchcraft (of which you will gain a HIGH understanding) but of ALL religion itself, and not just religion, but all human behavior.
I had no idea what to expect here when I started this book. I thought I would gain an understanding of the sociology of witches. I was completely right about that. What I didn't expect was that I would gain a deeper understanding of the human soul itself and, by virtue, my own soul: myself. Tanya spent over 5 years actively practicing with the witchcraft covens and magical communities of Northern England. This books gains you an understanding of not just witchcraft (of which you will gain a HIGH understanding) but of ALL religion itself, and not just religion, but all human behavior.
April 20, 2013
This ethnography is of contemporary England witch cults that describe why people are drawn to bizarre practices of magic and witchcraft. It is hard to image sometimes that there are still groups in the world that actively practice the ideas of magic and witchcraft, and individuals who believe that they can produce magic and witchcraft. This book is a bit disturbing at times. But the focus is on middle-class, educated people who are involved in secret practices of witchcraft within the modern urban culture.
This is a very different perspective of witchcraft than what many have been exposed to. When we hear about witchcraft, it is in Harry Potter or within studies in histories, fictions, or primitive cultures. We usually don’t think that there are people who exist today that still practice rituals that have not changed through time.
This is a very different perspective of witchcraft than what many have been exposed to. When we hear about witchcraft, it is in Harry Potter or within studies in histories, fictions, or primitive cultures. We usually don’t think that there are people who exist today that still practice rituals that have not changed through time.
March 29, 2014
I reference this book in my book, The Witch's Eight Paths of Power. Part personal odyssey, part anthropological study, this book explores an anthropologist's study of the London occult community and learning the language of the occult. Its primary use to a magickal sort is in examining the process we deliberately induce in ourselves by occult study. Unlike the author, however, I (as a Witch) view this as a valuable process that, rather than creating a "false" absorption of the "superstition" of magick, teaches you what happens to your thought processes when you are learning magickal practice, so that you can speak the language of manifestation more effectively.
October 23, 2012
The Autor did capture the whole world of hermetics as the life goes on, this book in some kind did remind me of Paolo Coelhos Brida. Loved it, loved the picturing of the mysterious trough eyes of an beholder from outside. The negative name it did itself in the social scientist world is only an picture that the world of science did not grow from the middleages. Everything is given from tutor to student only if the ideas are the same in both parts of the tutor student duo. Hopefully T.M.Luhrmann has her followers myself can proud anounce to be part of em.
Alex
Alex
July 14, 2016
An interesting snapshot but not much else. I understand this is often read in college anthropology classes? Drawing Down the Moon is a better pagan overview.
I was kind of interested in her observations about the SFF reading habits of practitioners. Lots of magicians in fandom, lots of magicians who effectively are in magic fandom.
I was kind of interested in her observations about the SFF reading habits of practitioners. Lots of magicians in fandom, lots of magicians who effectively are in magic fandom.
Read
May 5, 2015Didn't finish - not the fault of the book, which is dated but a solid look at a particular place and time in history. Just couldn't get my head in the academic game, too much else on my plate this spring.
Read
January 16, 2009Also used at university studies.
March 21, 2009
Explains how more-or-less sensible people can convince themselves that they can do real magic.
Read
August 19, 2009An excellent study from an anthropologist's point of view.
April 2, 2017
Excellent academic work, clear and interesting.
Read
July 25, 2017Provides a fascinating insight as to what Magicians actually get up to. Luhrmann published in this book much material she had sworn to keep secret.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews