More Pictures of China
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In October 2011 our little group: Sonia, Craig, Wendy and Richard visited Brazil. We entered Brazil from Argentina near the Iguassu Falls.
Easter /'eestuh/. noun
[Middle English ester, Old English eastre, originally, name of goddess; distantly related to Latin aurora dawn, Greek eos; related to east]
Macquarie Dictionary
I'm not very good with anniversaries so Easter might take me by surprise, were it not for the Moon - waxing gibbous last night. Easter inconveniently moves about with the Moon, unlike Christmas. And like Christmas, retailers give us plenty of advanced warning. For many weeks the chocolate bilbies have been back in the supermarket - along with the more traditional eggs and rabbits.
Professor Courtenay Raia lectures on science and religion as historical phenomena that have evolved over time; starting in pre-history. She goes on to examine the pre-1700 mind-set when science encompassed elements of magic; how Western cosmologies became 'disenchanted'; and how magical traditions have been transformed into modern mysticisms.
The lectures raise a lot of interesting issues. For example in Lecture 1, dealing with pre-history, it is convincingly argued that 'The Secret', promoted by Oprah, is not a secret at all, but is the natural primitive human belief position: that it is fundamentally an appeal to magic; the primitive 'default' position.
But magic is suppressed by both religion and science. So in our modern secular culture traditional magic has itself been transmogrified, magically transformed, into mysticism.