Money, Magic and the Imagination
I find ritual money burners fascinating because even though I get the reasoning behind setting fire to banknotes it still sparks a revulsion in me, and that’s interesting. I suppose it speaks to the power of money and how it’s programmed my brain to respect it.
Anyway, here’s an account of visiting the Bank of England in London and burning the new King Charles notes on their first official day of issue, which also serves as a handy introduction to the value of “magic” in the 21st century.
I’ll add a disclaimer. You aren’t required to believe any of this. There’s a difference between magic and religion. Religion’s a set of beliefs that are seen as sacrosanct, eternal, beyond question, while magic is playful and imaginative. Magic is experimental spirituality. You take on a belief, act upon it, and then see if it makes any difference to the world or not. That was the motivation behind our actions. We were performing them, not out of dogma, not out of certainty, but out of playful engagement with the spirit of ritual, as an experiment, to see where it might lead.
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