Short Abstract:

The long history of human relations with the sentient universe and later on with deities has yet to be written.

Long Abstract:

Currently, a useful distinction has been made between immanence (designating a sentient, enchanted universe) and transcendence (the emergence of deities operating beyond the human sphere) (Strathern 2019, Sahlins 2022). I have used a similar distinction, but prefer the terms magic and religion (Gosden 2021). Both magical and religious practices unfold at a series of entangled temporal scales, with magical practices perhaps as old as Homo sapiens and religion probably coming into the world a little over 7000 years ago, after which they exist in tension with each other. I will briefly lay out my starting point for explication of these histories in Material Engagement Theory and enactive signification. But I am most interested in attempting to sketch some long-term histories, looking also at the cultural influence of transcendent theories in the recent period, where they might also be echoed in the so-called ‘invisible hand of the market’.

References

Gosden, C. 2021. The History of Magic. London: Viking.

Sahlins, M. 2022. The New Science of the Science of the Enchanted Universe. An Anthropology of Most of Humanity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Strathern, A. 2019. Unearthly Powers. Religious and Political Change in World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.