Recollections

(UCLA History 2D Lectures 1 & 2)

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.

You may wish to start at Lecture 2 as this may give a better flavour of the issues discussed.  If either is of interest, the whole series is accessible from the YouTube link.

This series is strongly recommended despite its obvious technical shortcomings, only partly due to images being blurred or removed to avoid copyright infringement.

Each lecture lasts for over an hour so you may want to use the slider to hop ahead or back.   I found a good technique is to listen to the sound only while doing something else. You can easily stop and/or back up.

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