The Notion of Magic

Abstract

Social science contains two main traditions as to the nature of magic: With Tylor and Frazer, magic is superstition-an evolutionarily early stage of science, inadequate and misleading. With Durkheim, magic is immoral and anti-social: where religion solidifies the group, magic is individualistic. Both traditions thus proceed, not by an analysis of the lives of peoples where magic plays a significant role, but rather by invidious comparison with a major institution of Western society (science, religion). Ethnographers have repeatedly noted that the theoretical dichotomies of magic/science and magic/religion simply are not in accord with the actualities of social life of non-Western peoples. Malinowski responded to these criticisms by a persuasive rhetoric that glosses logical fallacies. Contemporary writers of texts on religion repeat and refine the traditional dichotomies without applying them to the data. Reviewing the situation, theorists from Radcliffe-Brown to Kluckhohn have advocated discarding the magic/religion dichotomy. Max Weber perceived that a distinctive feature of Western civilization is a hostility to magic rooted in Judaeo-Christian religion. The Waxes argue that the invidious characterizations of magic which have dogged social science are a manifestation of this hostility. They agree with Sigmund Mowinckel that magic is best comprehended, not as rite or cult, but as a world view quite different from the rational views of the world distinctive of Judaeo-Christian religions or Western science.

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