ABSTRACT
The Prologue sets out the three aims of the book. The first is to become a ‘bridge of communication’ between First Nations indigenous ‘magical-practising’ or ‘shamanic’ worldviews and largely rationalized Western cultures. Holding a mirror to this rationalization, the volume offers an alternative framework for developing a specifically Western magical perception by using the work of artist and poet William Blake, a contemporary critic of the eighteenth-century Age of Reason. Three specific examples of the ways in which magical consciousness can offer insights into central issues of relationships with the environment and First Nations peoples, damaging interpersonal dynamics, and mental health show why ‘magic works’.
