Marketing, Rhetoric and Control

6Magic, Sympathy, and Language

In the previous chapters, I have slowly been building an argument that marketing, in all its manifestations, can be seen to be a rhetorical discipline—one concerned with the persuasive control of the flow of people and resources, and most of all, attention.

Deep in the roots of rhetoric, however, there is a connection to something else that also seeks to control people, resources, and attention—magic. Magical practices use words and symbols in attempts to effect change in the world—the object of that change might be someone’s mind (in the sense of a change of affections, a common goal of love spells, for example), a natural process (the healing of a disease or, indeed, the inculcation of sickness in someone), a ...