Magic

Magic. The production of effects in the world by actions, often ritualized, whose source of power is not open to observation; or by words, especially by incantation: chants of formulae, which may sound nonsensical to the outsider, may summon the relevant power, or may themselves effect the consequence: they may also be apotropaic. Attempts to define the relation of magic to religion have formed part of the modern study of religion since its inception at the end of the 19th cent., often utilizing the Melanesian concept of mana, power of a supremely effective kind—not simply ‘cause’, but the reason why particular things happen. Thus E. Evans-Pritchard (Witchcraft, Magic and Oracles among the Azande, 1937) held that magic belonged to an interactive world in which it is possible to ask questions which a Westerner would not ask. Thus the Azande are interested in ‘cause-and-effect’, but also ask why events have happened to one person rather than another: magic is a means of interrogation as well as of finding answers.

More recently, this view has been developed further, seeing magic as embedded in religion, where it acts as an organization of context and meaning. In this perspective, magic offers the transformation of circumstances without guaranteeing effects: one consequence or its opposite will still be a demonstration that magic ‘works’, because it confirms the entire context in which a person lives.