Photo illustration by Mark Riechers. Original images by Ramiro Pianarosa and Meg Jerrard (CC0)
Years ago, the animist philosopher David Abram was a sleight-of-hand magician who wanted to learn from the "traditional magicians" of Asia. So he apprenticed with a powerful shaman in Nepal, who seemed to have the ability to transform into a raven. What Abram experienced was its own life-changing kind of magic.