Pragmatic Magical Thinking

Ari Freeman is a writer, fortune teller, public wizard and autodidact. He has over twenty years of experience as a performing professional musician, and spent seven years as the apprentice to the Wizard of New Zealand, which involved discussing philosophy, politics and magic out on the streets with an enthusiastic general public. 
Freeman writes about magic and how it can be found in art, science, religion, modern society, as well as the occult and indigenous cultures. His goal is to bridge the gap between magical practitioners and skeptics, towards a world where we can all talk to each other. Ari lives in Christchurch, New Zealand.

• IntroductionCHAPTER 2 - On attentionCHAPTER 3 - A definition of magic for our timesCHAPTER 4 - Useful fictionsCHAPTER 5 - A pragmatist’s approach to scepticismCHAPTER 6 - Memory, narrative, and identityCHAPTER 7 - Believing different things on different days CHAPTER 8 - Outside voices vs. inner voicesCHAPTER 9 - SpiritsCHAPTER 10 - Why you aren’t just your brainCHAPTER 11 - Magic is around us every dayCHAPTER 12 - The origins of modern scienceCHAPTER 13 - The fake war between science and religionCHAPTER 14 - Science’s on and off again relationship with magicCHAPTER 15 - Science, magic, and religion comparedCHAPTER 16 - The origins of Christian fundamentalismCHAPTER 17 - Religion’s suspicion of magic: the witch trialsCHAPTER 18 - The cycle of creativity and inspirationCHAPTER 19 - Ladder cosmologiesCHAPTER 20 -The Kabbalist cosmologyCHAPTER 21 - The chakrasCHAPTER 22 - The sephiroth and chakras comparedCHAPTER 23 - Magic and moralityCHAPTER 24 - SuperstitionCHAPTER 25 - Smart people trapsREFERENCES INDEX

“This intriguing book sets out to launch a conversation about how much of traditional occultism can be understood from within a philosophically literate modern worldview. Thoughtful and refreshingly open-minded, it’s worth a close reading from occultists and rationalists alike.”John Michael Greer, author of The Occult Philosophy Workbook“Ari Freeman has turned the tables. Pragmatic Magical Thinking has taken typical arguments and assumptions used to discredit magic, and used them to justify, explain and actually celebrate magical thinking.”Ramsey Dukes, author of The Little Book of Demons and How to See Fairies“Using tools from science, philosophy, history, and anthropology, Ari Freeman writes on magic from a twenty-first century perspective. He debunks the scientific reductionist view of the world, he believes, and I agree, changing your mind, really can change your reality. Freeman makes his arguments elegantly in this deep, but accessible book. Recommended.”Elisabeth Brooke, author of Goddess Astrology and A Woman’s Book of Shadows