Bruce Charlton's Notions

I once spent the night entirely alone in the ancient structure of Durham Castle, comprising scores of empty hallways, passages and a hundred-plus bedrooms; the kitchens, Feasting Hall; and both an underground Norman Chapel with peculiarly eroded primitive...

Over at my Inklings blog, and by reference to The Notion Club Papers; I suggest that JRR Tolkien implicitly displayed a (perhaps) surprisingly positive attitude to that approach deployed by the British tradition of Christian White Magical Societies.

I began to notice recently that I could not get the caps off bottles of drinks, which remained tethered to the bottle, until I cut them with strong scissors, or tore them free by main force. Otherwise it was nigh impossible to pour the drink because...

From a strictly metaphysical perspective, I guess that the important thing is to recognize what we are assuming in an "it just is" way, and what is secondarily explained in terms of these assumptions.
If this is achieved to some extent; I think we can then compare metaphysical "systems" or schemes, and then there is a basis for choosing between them....