We've Moved!
Visit SDSU’s new digital collections website at https://digitalcollections.sdsu.edu
Description
The core concept of this thesis is that of a "magical universal language", an idea I've encountered in a vast variety of sources. While I do not draw definitive conclusions about the meanings and implications of this idea, I try to trace the complex connections between our concepts of magic and language. To that end, I develop a definition of language (and all expressive acts) as forms of magic, and a definition of magic as relation, communication, communion, and connection between the Self and the Other. I essentially understand both language and magic as acts which are able to bridge the abysses between dichotomies and form dialogic reciprocal relationships between them, especially the dichotomy of Self and the Other, of Word and World. Crucially, such acts include human language but are not limited to it. A more poetic way of putting this is that both language and magic are expressions of Love, which transcends "Self" and "Other". I reference a wide array of sources ranging from fiction and myth to academic and scientific authors in order to explore a few key points relating to this essential idea. The first is simply that there are deep, complex connections between magic, language, and all acts of expression, connection, communication, and relation. The second is that the magical power of human language can be abused (like all power), because our capacity for abstraction has a shadow side that tends to separate us from the world and all we perceive as "The Other". The third is that the stories and myths we tell about magic suggest a worldview in which all of existence is expressive, in which there is no real "Other" because all is interconnected and united through relation, communication, and communion; in other words, through Love. From this perspective, human language is simply a specialized and abstracted form of existence's infinite expressiveness: the "magical universal language" shared by all beings. Thus, I argue that this worldview refutes the foundational ideology of our civilization (which positions humanity as hierarchically dominant above all else) and implies an ethical, loving engagement with all of existence.
