Not In Kansas Anymore Read Online Free PDF

witch. Almost all holidays have pagan progenitors, and most people know it, but that doesn’t diminish their enthusiasm one whit.
    The first stories parents tell their little ones are of magical enchantments, fantasy tales in which witches cast spells and orphan girls have fairy godmothers. They are wise to tell such tales early and often, according to some of civilization’s best thinkers. Myths are so vital to citizens of a republic that they ought to be the beginning of literary education, Plato believed. Myths and fairy tales are “models for human behavior” that give meaning and value to life, said Mircea Eliade, whose studies of such stories are classic works. Children deprived of fairy tales may be stunted in psychological development so that becoming secure, well-functioning adults is much more difficult, according to psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, who believed the stories speak a language that matches children’s inner worlds better than any realistic story ever could. From the lessons of fairy tales they learn to deal with their fears and aggressions. In unconscious, deep-seated ways, they learn that life will have hard challenges that they can triumph over and that shrinking from such difficulties will restrict life to less than it ought to be, wrote Bettelheim. Good wins in the end, effort is rewarded, and evil is punished—if not by other humans, then through magical laws that support right decisions and valiant efforts. All those lessons give children a sense that life will work out well for them, that it is destined to.
    â€œOur positive feelings give us the strength to develop our rationality; only hope for the future can sustain us in the adversities we unavoidably encounter,” Bettelheim wrote. People who don’t getenough fairy tales in their childhood are likely to revert to magical thinking as teens or young adults in an attempt to get the psychic balance and sense of purpose that these stories impart to the unconscious mind.
    Could that be why so many people are taking up magic now? Maybe. The good doctor had another theory. He thought that in times of great stress and insecurity people revert to the kind of magical thinking that is common in childhood and primitive cultures. For him, quite obviously, belief in any kind of divinity or force that benefits humankind is deviant, childlike thinking.
    Philosopher and psychologist William James wasn’t so sure about that. He suspected that powers and forces not yet acknowledged by science might be active on the earth. He thought that belief in things greater than ourselves could have definite benefits, especially for those he called the sick-minded, among whom he counted himself.
    The healthy-minded person looks at life with optimism and is able to hold his own against the ills of the world, clearly understanding himself to be separate from most of them and able to chart his own course, said James. Following Bettelheim’s thinking, we might say that the healthy-minded person has internalized the heroes and demons of the magical (or unconscious) world and found his place among the strong, the beautiful, and the wise. Whether his actions and attributes actually place him in such company isn’t nearly as important as whether he thinks they do, because it is his belief in himself that makes him healthy and effective.
    James’s sick-minded person, on the other hand, needs the second birth promised by religious life. He is depressive, fearful, too sensitive, morbidly fixated on illness, death, and failure. He needs a new outlook so that he can forge through life with hope and confidence. He looks for something outside himself, some transformation. It is for him that religion may be vitally important—and a true pathtoward fulfillment as a human being—says James. As we shall see in the stories that follow, the same might be said of magic, especially in a time when the authority and truth of religion are under