Lecturi mai vechi și mai noi ale fenomenului magico-ritual
Older and newer approaches regarding the magical ritual phenomenon

Summary/Abstract: The last decades have brought a completely new perspective on magic and witchcraft and allowed an interdisciplinary research, developed on two levels: in situ magic – within the rural space of the magical religious beliefs, but also urban magic belonging to industrialized environments where the rituals have been recreated from the traditional ones, now guarded within the collective memory. An interesting area of research was based upon the relationship with religion, science, and medicine. Closer to us, modern day sociologists have demonstrated that for the contemporary man the experience of modern reality is not enough anymore, thus he strives to seek also the closeness of the unreal.Beyond labels and tags, one should also notice that the magical religious ritual has the same departure point: an appeal to the „magical solution” is still performed in the case of an „abnormal situation”; practices have remained as scenario, the intent and the purpose are the same, however, the ingredients, the props or the communication means have been adapted to the modern day reality (coals have been replaced by matches, card games by software, words with media ads); the authority of magic still comes from faith, received as an individual and social phenomenon and the essence of magic resides in the possibility of action over a great distance and presents similarity and magical contagion as its foundation. An analysis of the magical ritual phenomenon suggests that magic and its principles are conserved just as interest for magic practices; one can speak only about some visible influences or adaptations; the image of the witch is still that of a holder of infinite power.

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