Technic and magic : the reconstruction of reality

Federico Campagna

"We take for granted that only certain kind of things exist – electrons but not angels, passports but not nymphs. This is what we understand as 'reality'. But 'reality' varies with each historical era, in turn determiningwhat is possible to do and think. Our contemporary age has embraced a troubling system of reality: technic. Its attempt to capture the world through an 'absolute language' endangers the very foundations of reality, freezing our lives in a state of anguished paralysis. By drawing from Northern and Southern sources - spanning from Heidegger, Junger and Stirner, to Adi Shankara, Ibn Arabi, Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra - Federico Campagna presents magic as an alternative system, capable of reconstructiring the world around the notion of the 'ineffable' at the heart of exitence. With a preface from philosopher Timothy Morton, Technic and Magic reminds us that if we wish to change our world, first we have to change the idea of reality that underlies it."