In Harmonium

Being in the main the musings of a Symbolic Anthropologist

Music, Magic and Social Movements

| August 6, 2008

Of all the areas I have studied, probably the furthest removed from the consensual reality (i.e. “normal culture”) of North America is that of Magic. Were many of my colleagues studied Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, in order to get a handle on how cultures conceptualized and formalized technologies of the mind, I was more [...]

Myth, music and (group) motivation

| August 3, 2008

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. “The Scottish Play”, Act 5, Scene 5 To pleasant songs my work was erstwhile given, and bright [...]

When politics becomes asymmetric, symbolic warfare

| August 1, 2008

The personal is political Carol Hanish (?) I don’t usually write about politics. This isn’t because I don’t have strong political beliefs (I do) but, rather, because I prefer to devote my time and energies to other things. This wasn’t always the case, as a few of my close friends know, and I like to [...]