19
Magic and Mythic Horizons
As Gebser explains, “the magic world is also a world of pars pro toto, in which the part
can and does stand for the whole. For example, Indian communities in the United States do
become little Indias for the members of that community. Through these few streets,
geographical space is transcended and, for the people living there, these Little Indias are India.
This reinforces the sense of unity for the Indians here with the Indians in India. The magic world
is a point like world in which the points can be interchanged for each other. But, this is also the
point at which the magic breaks down. Little India is a mythic image. It cannot be interchanged
with India.
The magic world is also the world in which the human first realizes that she has will and
that that will can confront nature. At this point nature becomes something to be fought and
mastered. As Gebser explains, “Here, in these attempts to free himself from the grip and spell of
nature, with which in the beginning he was still fused in unity, magic man begins the struggle for
power which has not ceased since; here man becomes the maker” (1949/1983, p. 46). In the
magic epoch, there is a sense of spacelessness and timelessness. These elements are not the
restrictive boundaries, as we know them. All things are intertwined and work with each other.
Thus, one can commit an act in this moment and this space and it is perfectly natural for the act
to occur in another time and space. Gebser uses the example of the depiction of the hunt being
the actual hunt. For Indian-Americans, the doing of Indian activities in modern day America is
the same as being in the India of their recollection. In the way that Indian-Americans see it, they
are true Indians, whether they are born in India or not. Their identity as Indians has nothing to
do with the amount of time they lived in India, if ever or whether they are there or not. By
engaging in Indianness through religion, ways of interacting, thought processes, social networks
Convention