Harrison Edmunds (reading) Magic

 The Spell of the Sensuous starts with the author explaining how he got a grant to explore different types of magic and their possible uses in medicine. This caught me off guard because I don’t see how he would get a scientific grant for studying magic due to its nature as something thought not to be real. He mentions sleight of hand in the same breath as healing rituals which actually makes me take the rituals less seriously as it is common knowledge that stage magicians are not really magic. Why would he make the connection to a magic that is fake with a magic that is hoped to be something real? I can see how he would be given a grant to study the techniques and rituals of a religion, but not how one would be given to research magic.

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