Final Essay

The end of the semester (and my entire college journey) is finally here, and looking back, I have come a long way since the beginning of this course. Speaking candidly, I was not sure how much I would learn from this class before the semester. The interest was there, but I wondered how we could spend an entire semester talking about Salem (which obviously was an important part of the course but not nearly the entirety of it). While I learned so much more than can be encapsulated into five things, here is my attempt.

My first (and potentially the most prominent) takeaway from this class is how treatment of the supernatural has evolved and transformed across centuries. Much of this I learned from our discussions over A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, a book that did an exceptional job of walking through history and examining how magic affected different cultural groups, religions, and classes of people. It was astounding to learn how heavily many early cultures relied on magic for guidance, healing, direction, and explanations. Magic was the way of life for these people, and they would have felt lost without it. Religion and magic were not mutually exclusive--magic was a first-hand witnessing of the divine impacting the world. Over time, as cultures began to interact and conquer, many ways of life were eliminated. As movements such as the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment occurred, the heavy reliance on magic dwindled for many people. The supernatural was no longer needed as an explanation for previously mysterious concepts such as weather and healing. Many people, especially those in the Western world, turned to logic and science as a guide for decision making. Despite all of this, magic has remained present in cultures everywhere. Supernatural concepts today may not be treated the same way as they used to, but they remain prevalent in religion, media, and everyday life for billions of people.

The second thing I learned in this class is the numerous connections across cultures relating to magic. Cultures thousands of miles away from each other have shared similar beliefs regarding magic, rituals, sacrifices, and religious deities. As peoples clashed, fought, and interacted, new hybrid belief systems were created. An example would be Kabbalah's presence in many subsequent belief systems such as Hermeticism. This concept also revealed to me how other systems present today, such as political structures, socioeconomic classes, and organizations are purely blends of the past, influenced by many groups of people. While this is not necessarily relevant to the occult, it was an important lesson I learned.

I personally have always been a fan of Norse mythology, and it was rewarding to study that history further while also doing so through a supernatural lens. I learned to identify many overlaps between some of the Norse supernatural beliefs/customs and those of other cultures--even cultures that were on the other side of the planet! For example, the Norse gods were believed to leverage magic in a similar manner to that of the Aztec gods--both in negative (black magic) and positive (healing) contexts.

The third major takeaway is that the cause of the events of Salem cannot be fully understood without having experienced it firsthand. We spent a great amount of time studying the theorized causes of the trials: mass hysteria, "othering," fear, personal gain, distrust, and even moldy bread. All of these things likely made a contribution to the tragic events that occurred in 1692, but the ongoing discussion amongst scholars about how it happened leads me to believe that the only way to fully understand how the trials became a reality would be to experience it while it was happening. Students such as myself often have a tendency to view events like these with extreme egocentrism, shielding us from understanding the full extent of the event. In this case, the culture, beliefs, and series of events in Salem make it difficult to avoid studying them with this perspective. While this does not mean the trials should not be studied, it means one should recognize that it may be difficult to fully understand why they occurred.

Fourthly, I learned how relevant the supernatural is to my own life. Throughout the semester I noticed many things in my life relevant to magic and enjoyed thinking about them in the context of what I have learned. Even last week I went to see the movie The Northman and made so many connections between the rituals performed in the movie and those we discussed in class. I have written blog posts relating what we have learned to things I have seen in my life, including weather, stage magic, and emoji spells! Of course, drawing these connections has made learning the concepts so much more engaging for me. I have seen connections between our content and my selection of media, music, my ideas and explanations, my other classes, and my Christian faith. I was ready to have fun and enjoy this class, but I was unaware of how it would directly impact me and how I think about daily life.

In a similar spirit to my fourth point, the last thing I will take away from this class is a newfound, shifted perspective on many of the things I experience. I have learned valuable lessons about past and present cultural groups, belief systems, and customs. This will allow me to put into perspective the new groups of people I meet and be more inquisitive about their values, priorities, and day-to-day practices. I can view references to the supernatural with informed context about their roots and implications. The historical events we studied will provide me value in the sense that I can prevent myself from engaging in the same mistakes made by others such as those in Salem--even in much different situational contexts than those we studied. As mentioned earlier, the occult is going nowhere, so the relevance of this class will provide perspective to me for the rest of my life.

While those five things are a high level overview of what I learned, I will find much smaller lessons from this class impacting and helping me throughout my life. This course was a phenomenal piece of my final semester of college, and I am confident the concepts I learned will pay dividends down the line.