A meaty chapter I've split into two parts.

“Over the centuries a collection of basic magical and mystical axioms
has surfaced in culture after culture throughout the world, even in
cultures that were totally isolated. These we can, and will, call the
laws of magic. Like the law of gravity or the law of diminishing
returns these are not legislative acts (as some theologians have tried
to make them) but rather they are descriptions of the ways that
phenomena in a field – in this cases magic – seem to interact and
behave.” - Issac Bonewits

“But these laws are purely descriptive laws...Kepler gives no reason
why his laws should be as they are. The observation and recording of
laws is the first step in scientific procedure. Science begins by
hunting for uniformities amongst natural phenomena. The scientific man
finds, for instance....unsupported stones fall to the ground. In this
way he introduces a sort of order into whole groups of happenings. And
this sort of knowledge if often quite sufficient for practical
purposes. Indeed, in many cases of great practical importance science
has not yet advanced beyond this knowledge.” - Sullivan, The
Limitations of science

In his first chapter, Isaac Bonewits makes his greatest contribution.
This first chapter has the most meat and gristle on the bone and must
be chewed carefully and thunk'ed about, then chewed upon some more.
Whatever else may be poo-poo'ed about Bonewits, his "Laws of Magic"
are an excellent contribution to the field.

The Laws of Magic (henceforth abbreviated as LoM) owe a lot to
Frazer's observations on sympathetic magic from _The Golden Bough_ and
Frazer's modernist approach to examining ancient religions.

IMHO, each law should be examined separately and each is a full
discussion onto itself. Implicit in each one is a wealth of
information on how we human beings approach our sensual data and
symbolize our models of the world. Some of the laws seem like a
logical misstep (like the Law of Words of Power), but even if its a
common logical misstep, doesn't it still have presence in the minds of
human beings? And if it has presence, cannot one exploit that
presence?

On 23 May, 17:58, Kisai gmail.com> wrote:

That seems senseable. I'll continue the whistle-stop tour, but we'll
postpone the discussion.

(x-post)

On 22 May, 21:30, Chade newsguy.com> wrote: