1) Yes, it was a pretty common thread in science fiction to have psychic characters and powers without considering them "unscientific," all the way through the early to mid 90s, at least (Star Trek: the Next Generation continued to have some psychic characters, like Deanna Troi the empath, and psychics were a major part of Babylon 5). What it looks like happened to me is that psychic phenomena went from something researchers could investigate right here and now, to something that sci-fi could talk about as far off and speculative, to being regarded as pure fantasy.
2) I haven't read their work, but that certainly sounds like much of what is going on in magic, though I suspect there are other factors (as you allude to in your next point).
3) Yes, exactly! I didn't get into egregores here, as it seemed like it might be too much of a tangent, but that is one of the things that contributes to my belief that ritual, symbolism, and language are not merely or wholly arbitrary. They might be largely arbitrary, but even if so, that doesn't automatically mean you shouldn't take them seriously.
4) Thanks for these! I had seen he had a few more books on magic, which doesn't exactly surprise me. Given some of what he says in Spellcraft, the titles of his later books, and the timing, it looks like he was an early adopter of the Wiccan/Neopagan alternative spirituality wave that JMG has described so well, since the usual "take off point" folks point to is the publication of Drawing Down the Moon and The Spiral Dance on Halloween, 1979, a year after Spellcraft came out. If I'm right that he's primarily operating in the Wiccan space, those books might be less interesting to me, but he's a good enough writer and interesting enough thinker that it might be worthwhile nonetheless.
Re: Spellcraft
Thanks for stopping by!
1) Yes, it was a pretty common thread in science fiction to have psychic characters and powers without considering them "unscientific," all the way through the early to mid 90s, at least (Star Trek: the Next Generation continued to have some psychic characters, like Deanna Troi the empath, and psychics were a major part of Babylon 5). What it looks like happened to me is that psychic phenomena went from something researchers could investigate right here and now, to something that sci-fi could talk about as far off and speculative, to being regarded as pure fantasy.
2) I haven't read their work, but that certainly sounds like much of what is going on in magic, though I suspect there are other factors (as you allude to in your next point).
3) Yes, exactly! I didn't get into egregores here, as it seemed like it might be too much of a tangent, but that is one of the things that contributes to my belief that ritual, symbolism, and language are not merely or wholly arbitrary. They might be largely arbitrary, but even if so, that doesn't automatically mean you shouldn't take them seriously.
4) Thanks for these! I had seen he had a few more books on magic, which doesn't exactly surprise me. Given some of what he says in Spellcraft, the titles of his later books, and the timing, it looks like he was an early adopter of the Wiccan/Neopagan alternative spirituality wave that JMG has described so well, since the usual "take off point" folks point to is the publication of Drawing Down the Moon and The Spiral Dance on Halloween, 1979, a year after Spellcraft came out. If I'm right that he's primarily operating in the Wiccan space, those books might be less interesting to me, but he's a good enough writer and interesting enough thinker that it might be worthwhile nonetheless.
Thanks again for your comment!
Jeff