[Buddha-l] sam harris at the aspen institute

[curt]

Joy Vriens wrote:
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> I saw an interesting exhibition on witchcraft and healing in a small town in Auvergne (Chateaugay) today. One of their conclusions was that science took over from witchcraft, not only the objectives but also its less rational aspects. If science takes over irrational objectives like destruction and mass destruction, how rational can it be?
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Was the exhibit based on local accounts of witchcraft and healing? That 
could be very interesting - almost all information available in English 
about "folk traditions" of that sort deal exclusively with (and not too 
surprisingly) England and also with other English speaking people. But 
Gerald Gardner, the guy who is most closely associated with Wicca in 
it's beginnings, claimed to be in contact with "witches" in continental 
Europe. But he claimed lots of things - many of which are highly 
questionable.

And as everyone who has read the first chapter of Rick Fields book "How 
the Swans Came to the Lake" knows, the earliest pioneers of Buddhism in 
the West were all flaky occultists, just like Gerald Gardner.

I've heard of similar theories to the one you refer to - but mostly I've 
heard of people who speculate that is was more the "high" (as in 
"learned") magical traditions (as opposed to the "low" magic of village 
healers and "witches") associated with Hermeticists, Alchemists, etc 
that was "taken over" by the scientists. Frances Yates wrote a 
fascinating book about this: "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic 
Tradition", which is a great read even if you don't buy her theories.

- Curt