Note to Angela Puca, Ph.D

A False Dilemma? The Scholar v Pracitioner Debate

I find the question of your YouTube post way too binary, and pose, mostly rehorically, a counter question: should scholars of magic do what practitioners say?

Now, for the mostly non-rhetorical.

What follows is a depth of nuance even deeper than yours, and which I offer as a third alternative model of investigation into this controversy.

Your title and introductory advertisement suggest that the only scholars of occult research are academics. I know your livelihood depends upon attracting viewers, but these kinds of either/or proclamations are not only common in your billings, but misleading. I say this not just as a constructive critic, but as a huge fan of your brilliant scholarship, which I can authenticate with my membership to your Patreon.

There's a lot of overlap between scholars of majique and its practitioners. (Which reminds me. I've been meaning to ask you for a while if you yourself are practitioner. Are you?). Your introductory advertisement, like a lot of your introductory adverismemts, tend align academic scholarship with the pursuit of truth to the exclusion of that pursuit from non-academic ones. This comes off as academically insular moral chauvinism. And while I agree with your claim that scholarship can challenge historical claims without invalidating religious experience, it's equally true that religious experience can challenge historical claims without invalidating scholarship. Moreover, most non-academic practitioners I know would take offense at what they do being called religious. (I'm not one of them; I prefer the term, but only allow it to get applied to myself with a strictly historical nuance.)

I hold a Master of Science degree from a brick-and-mortar university, and after I graduated in 2003 have remained in deep study not just in subjects my degrees are in, but in a variety of fields, including the occult sciences (Yep! I'm one of those: I contend that occult studies is a scientific field in its own right--supported by the historical record--and that practice, especially when accompanied by the lauded "empirical" magikull diary, often qualify a it as a rigorous scientific endeavor producing substantive data.) I don't teach professionally or publish in academic journals, but my advanced degree confers upon me the right to call myself a scientist. However, in predominantly non-academic circles, I'm often accused of elitism and have been told more than once on social that I come off as condescending and pompously erudite when I'm actually feeling altruistic, humble, and warmly educative. Yet in predominantly academic settings, and since both my degrees are in a social science, I'm considered a "soft" scientist--and since I don't conduct experiments with"rigorous" controls, my opinion, though technically scientific, is seen as lesser than from those who do.

More generally speaking, academia is not an inherently superior form of episteme than anything in the so-called real world, a phrase that always strikes me as an especially egregious instance of the abuse of the appearance/reality distinction. I worked my ass off in college and there was nothing unreal about it. I also usually held down at least s part time job while maintaining a 3.8 GPA.

So the so-called tension between academia and non-academia mostly devolves to fancy ways of poop slinging and territorial pissing. Both arenas are full of people with inferiority complexes, and that's the most important aspect of this tension. And I haven't even touched on the fact that, at least here in the states, the academy is daily facing accusations of being a wealth extraction and exploitation system via the student loan system. When I signed my student loan papers, I had some suspicion, despite growing up being conditioned to believe that everyone deserves an education, that I was being preyed upon. But if they would have told me that even my constitutional right to bankruptcy would be stripped of me as a student loan debtor, I probably wouldn't even have a bachelor's degree today. When I interviewed for graduate school and at the end asked me if I had any questions, I said, "Just one. Do your graduates find jobs?" The director of my program looked me directly in the eyes and said, "Yes." My gut told me he was lying, and my gut turned out to be right. He knew for a fact that my field was flooded. He also knew, like most of his colleagues did, at least here in the states, that he was complicit in a scam keeping the mouth of the academy firmly attached to the teets of the government via the Federal Student Aid pipeline. I add this anecdote to demonstrate why, at least for those of us here in the states, why are leery of anything academic scholars say.

Who decides? We all do.

Who should lead the decision making?

People like me--folks who have experience in both academia and the"real" world, and who approach majique both as a practitioner and a scholar.

Should you do what we say?

Maybe. But whether you're an academic, a non-academic, or both, before you do anything, you should, independent of scholar, practitioner or both statuses, think and decide for yourself. No group or person has a monopoly on scientific research methods, epistemology and/or epistemes, or truth, either the little “t” or big “T” kind. To claim or even imply so is not only morally chauvinistic, but also scientistic, logically--and otherwise--positivist, and historicist.