RePresenting Magic, UnDoing Evil: Of Human Inner Light and Darkness

Book excerpt: This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2012. The chapters assembled in this e-Book are a taste of an ongoing discussion on evil and magic which promises to last as long as ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’ and while the realisation that ‘magic is believing in yourself: if you can do that, you can make anything happen’ does not become a global motto. The first group of chapters, collected in Part I, addresses the ethics and effects of translating magic into literary representations, as well as real-life current practices, of creativity and personal change on the one hand, and of the harmful, malevolent infliction of pain on a third party on another, thus challenging the boundaries of the cultural binary constructions of magic as either good or evil. In Part II, the second group of chapters examines several philosophical, theological, historical, literary, political and pop culture attempts towards understanding different meanings, and kinds, of evil, thus broadening our perception of what evil is and how it has been theorized from Plato to contemporary international politics. This is our time, our call, our responsibility, to undo evil by carrying the magical torch of good to the next station – so that good, as if by magic, can also become contagious among the human kind.