Contemporary ritual magic works as "self-building" through the embodied extension of conceptual metaphors — the elements are cultivated as bodily, metaphorically structured experience rather than believed-in abstractions; the thesis positions the practice in a methodological middle way between debunking and supernatural belief.

— In our words · Source: Experiencing the Elements: Self-Building Through the Embodied Extension of Conceptual Metaphors in Contemporary Ritual Magic (David Riley Campbell)