“I no longer claim to know anything
But I still have persistent suspicions.
My greatest suspicion holds that
All my suspicions may prove wrong.
Intelligence recognizes
That nothing now seems impossible.
Have a good hearty laugh
And do not dare to mourn me.”
–Robert Anton Wilson
Graeber concludes his piece by explaining that his saying as an anthropologist – like his informants themselves said – that certain spirit-charms probably didn’t work, actually allows for the possibility that other charms might do so. Skepticism about magic is thus a necessary part of its possibility, and we actually take the ‘radically other’ possibilities of our research participants’ worlds more seriously when we recognize that they are often just as hard-to-swallow, inconclusive, weird or paradoxical for our research participants themselves.
“Part of you is like a robot. But part of you is alive, like a growing thing, a tree or a plant.”
“DADA IS NOT DEAD WATCH YOUR OVERCOAT”
–