Editing Magic (supernatural) (section)

====Conceptual development====
According to anthropologist [[Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard]], magic formed a rational framework of beliefs and knowledge in some cultures, like the [[Azande people]] of Africa.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hum |first1=Lynne L. |last2=Drury |first2=Nevill |title=The Varieties of Magical Experience: Indigenous, Medieval, and Modern Magic |date=2013 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-0419-9 |page=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_7BmacKsEYoC&pg=PR9 |access-date=14 May 2020 |language=en}}</ref> The historian [[Owen Davies (historian)|Owen Davies]] stated that the word magic was "beyond simple definition",{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=2}} and had "a range of meanings".{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=113}} Similarly, the historian Michael D. Bailey characterised magic as "a deeply contested category and a very fraught label";{{sfn|Bailey|2018|p=8}} as a category, he noted, it was "profoundly unstable" given that definitions of the term have "varied dramatically across time and between cultures".{{sfn|Bailey|2006|p=2}} Scholars have engaged in extensive debates as to how to define magic,{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=3}} with such debates resulting in intense dispute.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=1}} Throughout such debates, the scholarly community has failed to agree on a definition of magic, in a similar manner to how they have failed to agree on a definition of religion.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=1}} According with scholar of religion [[Michael Stausberg]] the phenomenon of people applying the concept of magic to refer to themselves and their own practices and beliefs goes as far back as late antiquity. However, even among those throughout history who have described themselves as magicians, there has been no common ground of what magic is.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=7}}

[[African magic|In Africa]], the word magic might simply be understood as denoting management of forces, which, as an activity, is not weighted morally and is accordingly a neutral activity from the start of a magical practice, but by the will of the magician, is thought to become and to have an outcome which represents either [[Good and evil|good or bad (evil)]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LNlt1AnERAIC&q=African+Magic&pg=PA63 |first=J. |last=Ki-Zerbo |title=Methodology and African Prehistory |volume=92, issues 3–102588 |publisher=James Currey |date=1990 |isbn=0-85255-091-X |page=63|access-date=2015-12-26 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uMv0CAAAQBAJ&q=African+Magic&pg=PT548 |author=[[Molefi Asante|Molefi Kete Asanti]] |title=Encyclopedia of African Religion |publisher=SAGE |date=2008-11-26 |isbn=978-1-5063-1786-1 |access-date=2015-12-26 }}</ref> Ancient African culture was in the habit customarily of always discerning difference between magic, and a group of other things, which are not magic, these things were [[Traditional African medicine|medicine]], [[African divination|divination]], [[Witchcraft#Africa|witchcraft]] and sorcery.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EPHTAwAAQBAJ&q=African+medicine+man+magic&pg=PA27 |first=M. |last=Labahn |title=A Kind of Magic: Understanding Magic in the New Testament and Its Religious Environment |publisher=A&C Black |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-567-03075-7 |page=28|access-date=2015-12-26 |volume=306 |series=European Studies on Christian Origins}}</ref> Opinion differs on how religion and magic are related to each other with respect development or to which developed from which, some think they developed together from a shared origin, some think religion developed from magic, and some, magic from religion.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GQXHBQAAQBAJ&q=African+Magic&pg=PT38 |author=M. Konaté Deme |title=Heroism and the Supernatural in the African Epic |publisher=Routledge |date=2010|isbn=978-1-136-93264-9 |page=38|access-date=2015-12-26 |series=African Studies}}</ref>

Anthropological and sociological theories of magic generally serve to sharply demarcate certain practices from other, otherwise similar practices in a given society.{{sfn|Bailey|2006|p=8}} According to Bailey: "In many cultures and across various historical periods, categories of magic often define and maintain the limits of socially and culturally acceptable actions in respect to numinous or occult entities or forces. Even more, basically, they serve to delineate arenas of appropriate belief."{{sfn|Bailey|2006|p=9}} In this, he noted that "drawing these distinctions is an exercise in power".{{sfn|Bailey|2006|p=9}} This tendency has had repercussions for the study of magic, with academics self-censoring their research because of the effects on their careers.{{sfn|Blain|Ezzy|Harvey|2004|pp=118–119}}

Randall Styers noted that attempting to define magic represents "an act of demarcation" by which it is juxtaposed against "other social practices and modes of knowledge" such as religion and science.{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=25}} The historian Karen Louise Jolly described magic as "a category of exclusion, used to define an unacceptable way of thinking as either the opposite of religion or of science".{{sfn|Jolly|1996|p=17}}

Modern scholarship has produced various definitions and theories of magic.{{sfn|Bailey|2006|p=3}} According to Bailey, "these have typically framed magic in relation to, or more
frequently in distinction from, religion and science."{{sfn|Bailey|2006|p=3}} Since the emergence of the [[study of religion]] and the [[social science]]s, magic has been a "central theme in the theoretical literature" produced by scholars operating in these academic disciplines.{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=3}} Magic is one of the most heavily theorized concepts in the study of religion,{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012|p=164}} and also played a key role in early theorising within anthropology.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=21}} Styers believed that it held such a strong appeal for social theorists because it provides "such a rich site for articulating and contesting the nature and boundaries of modernity".{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=21}} Scholars have commonly used it as a foil for the concept of religion, regarding magic as the "illegitimate (and effeminized) sibling" of religion.{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=6}} Alternately, others have used it as a middle-ground category located between religion and science.{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=6}}

The context in which scholars framed their discussions of magic was informed by the spread of European colonial power across the world in the modern period.{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=61}}
These repeated attempts to define magic resonated with broader social concerns,{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=8}} and the pliability of the concept has allowed it to  be "readily adaptable as a polemical and ideological tool".{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=9}} The links that intellectuals made between magic and those they characterized as primitives helped to legitimise European and Euro-American imperialism and colonialism, as these Western colonialists expressed the view that those who believed in and practiced magic were unfit to govern themselves and should be governed by those who, rather than believing in magic, believed in science and/or (Christian) religion.{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=14}} In Bailey's words, "the association of certain peoples [whether non-Europeans or poor, rural Europeans] with magic served to distance and differentiate them from those who ruled over them, and in large part to justify that rule."{{sfn|Bailey|2018|p=89}}

Many different definitions of magic have been offered by scholars, although—according to Hanegraaff—these can be understood as variations of a small number of heavily influential theories.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012|p=164}}

=====Intellectualist approach=====
[[File:Edward Burnett Tylor.jpg|upright|thumb|right|Edward Tylor, an anthropologist who used the term magic in reference to sympathetic magic, an idea that he associated with his concept of animism]]
The intellectualist approach to defining magic is associated with two British [[Anthropology|anthropologists]], [[Edward Tylor]] and [[James G. Frazer]].{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012|pp=164–165}} This approach viewed magic as the theoretical opposite of [[science]],{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=2012|1p=165|2a1=Otto|2a2=Stausberg|2y=2013|2p=4}} and came to preoccupy much anthropological thought on the subject.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=4}} This approach was situated within the evolutionary models which underpinned thinking in the social sciences during the early 19th century.{{sfn|Davies|2012|pp=14–15}} The first social scientist to present magic as something that predated religion in an evolutionary development was [[Herbert Spencer]];{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=15}} in his ''A System of Synthetic Philosophy'', he used the term magic in reference to [[sympathetic magic]].{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|pp=16–17}} Spencer regarded both magic and religion as being rooted in false speculation about the nature of objects and their relationship to other things.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=17}}

Tylor's understanding of magic was linked to his concept of [[animism]].{{sfnm|1a1=Davies|1y=2012|1p=15|2a1=Bailey|2y=2018|2p=15}} In his 1871 book ''Primitive Culture'', Tylor characterized magic as beliefs based on "the error of mistaking ideal analogy for real analogy".{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=2006|1p=716|2a1=Hanegraaff|2y=2012|2p=164}} In Tylor's view, "primitive man, having come to associate in thought those things which he found by experience to be connected in fact, proceeded erroneously to invert this action, and to conclude that association in thought must involve similar connection in reality. He thus attempted to discover, to foretell, and to cause events by means of processes which we can now see to have only an ideal significance".{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2006|p=716}} Tylor was dismissive of magic, describing it as "one of the most pernicious delusions that ever vexed mankind".{{sfnm|1a1=Cunningham|1y=1999|1p=18|2a1=Davies|2y=2012|2p=16}} Tylor's views proved highly influential,{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=16}} and helped to establish magic as a major topic of anthropological research.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=15}}

[[File:JamesGeorgeFrazer.jpg|upright|thumb|right|James Frazer regarded magic as the first stage in human development, to be followed by religion and then science.]]
Tylor's ideas were adopted and simplified by James Frazer.{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=2006|1p=716|2a1=Davies|2y=2012|2p=16}} He used the term magic to mean sympathetic magic,{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=2006|1p=716|2a1=Bailey|2y=2018|2pp=15–16}} describing it as a practice relying on the magician's belief "that things act on each other at a distance through a secret sympathy", something which he described as "an invisible ether".{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2006|p=716}} He further divided this magic into two forms, the "homeopathic (imitative, mimetic)" and the "contagious".{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2006|p=716}} The former was the idea that "like produces like", or that the similarity between two objects could result in one influencing the other. The latter was based on the idea that contact between two objects allowed the two to continue to influence one another at a distance.{{sfnm|1a1=Cunningham|1y=1999|1p=19|2a1=Hanegraaff|2y=2006|2p=716}} Like Taylor, Frazer viewed magic negatively, describing it as "the bastard sister of science", arising from "one great disastrous fallacy".{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=19}}

Where Frazer differed from Tylor was in characterizing a belief in magic as a major stage in humanity's cultural development, describing it as part of a tripartite division in which magic came first, religion came second, and eventually science came third.{{sfnm|1a1=Cunningham|1y=1999|1p=19|2a1=Hanegraaff|2y=2006|2p=716|3a1=Davies|3y=2012|3p=16|4a1=Bailey|4y=2018|4pp=15–16}} For Frazer, all early societies started as believers in magic, with some of them moving away from this and into religion.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=20}} He believed that both magic and religion involved a belief in spirits but that they differed in the way that they responded to these spirits. For Frazer, magic "constrains or coerces" these spirits while religion focuses on "conciliating or propitiating them".{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=20}} He acknowledged that their common ground resulted in a cross-over of magical and religious elements in various instances; for instance he claimed that the [[sacred marriage]] was a fertility ritual which combined elements from both world-views.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|pp=20–21}}

Some scholars retained the evolutionary framework used by Frazer but changed the order of its stages; the German ethnologist [[Wilhelm Schmidt (linguist)|Wilhelm Schmidt]] argued that religion—by which he meant [[monotheism]]—was the first stage of human belief, which later degenerated into both magic and [[polytheism]].{{sfn|Davies|2012|pp=18–19}} Others rejected the evolutionary framework entirely. Frazer's notion that magic had given way to religion as part of an evolutionary framework was later deconstructed by the folklorist and anthropologist [[Andrew Lang]] in his essay "Magic and Religion"; Lang did so by highlighting how Frazer's framework relied upon misrepresenting ethnographic accounts of beliefs and practiced among indigenous Australians to fit his concept of magic.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=17}}

=====Functionalist approach=====
The functionalist approach to defining magic is associated with the French [[sociology|sociologists]] [[Marcel Mauss]] and [[Emile Durkheim]].{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=2006|1p=716|2a1=Hanegraaff|2y=2012|2p=165}}
In this approach, magic is understood as being the theoretical opposite of religion.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012|p=165}}

Mauss set forth his conception of magic in a 1902 essay, "A General Theory of Magic".{{sfnm|1a1=Davies|1y=2012|1p=18|2a1=Bailey|2y=2018|2p=16}} Mauss used the term magic in reference to "any rite that is not part of an organized cult: a rite that is private, secret, mysterious, and ultimately tending towards one that is forbidden".{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=2006|1p=716|2a1=Hanegraaff|2y=2012|2p=165}} Conversely, he associated religion with organised cult.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=47}} By saying that magic was inherently non-social, Mauss had been influenced by the traditional Christian understandings of the concept.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2006|p=717}} Mauss deliberately rejected the intellectualist approach promoted by Frazer, believing that it was inappropriate to restrict the term magic to sympathetic magic, as Frazer had done.{{sfnm|1a1=Cunningham|1y=1999|1p=47|2a1=Hanegraaff|2y=2006|2p=716}} He expressed the view that "there are not only magical rites which are not sympathetic, but neither is sympathy a prerogative of magic, since there are sympathetic practices in religion".{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=47}}

Mauss' ideas were adopted by Durkheim in his 1912 book ''[[The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life]]''.{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=2006|1p=716|2a1=Davies|2y=2012|2p=17}} Durkheim was of the view that both magic and religion pertained to "sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden".{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=44}} Where he saw them as being different was in their social organisation. Durkheim used the term magic to describe things that were inherently anti-social, existing in contrast to what he referred to as a Church, the religious beliefs shared by a social group; in his words, "There is no Church of magic."{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=2012|1p=165|2a1=Davies|2y=2012|2pp=17–18}} Durkheim expressed the view that "there is something inherently anti-religious about the maneuvers of the magician",{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012|p=165}} and that a belief in magic "does not result in binding together those who adhere to it, nor in uniting them into a group leading a common life."{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=44}} Durkheim's definition encounters problems in situations—such as the rites performed by Wiccans—in which acts carried out communally have been regarded, either by practitioners or observers, as being magical.{{sfn|Bailey|2006|p=4}}

Scholars have criticized the idea that magic and religion can be differentiated into two distinct, separate categories.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|pp=5–6}} The social anthropologist [[Alfred Radcliffe-Brown]] suggested that "a simple dichotomy between magic and religion" was unhelpful and thus both should be subsumed under the broader category of [[ritual]].{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=49}} Many later anthropologists followed his example.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=49}}
Nevertheless, this distinction is still often made by scholars discussing this topic.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|pp=5–6}}

=====Emotionalist approach=====
{{Further|Magical thinking|Psychological theories of magic}}
The emotionalist approach to magic is associated with the English anthropologist [[Robert Ranulph Marett]], the Austrian [[Sigmund Freud]], and the Polish anthropologist [[Bronisław Malinowski]].{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=23}}

Marett viewed magic as a response to stress.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=24}} In a 1904 article, he argued that magic was a cathartic or stimulating practice designed to relieve feelings of tension.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=24}} As his thought developed, he increasingly rejected the idea of a division between magic and religion and began to use the term "[[magico-religious]]" to describe the early development of both.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=24}} Malinowski similarly understood magic to Marett, tackling the issue in a 1925 article.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|pp=28–29}} He rejected Frazer's evolutionary hypothesis that magic was followed by religion and then science as a series of distinct stages in societal development, arguing that all three were present in each society.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=29}} In his view, both magic and religion "arise and function in situations of emotional stress" although whereas religion is primarily expressive, magic is primarily practical.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=29}} He therefore defined magic as "a practical art consisting of acts which are only means to a definite end expected to follow later on".{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=29}} For Malinowski, magical acts were to be carried out for a specific end, whereas religious ones were ends in themselves.{{sfn|Bailey|2006|p=4}} He for instance believed that fertility rituals were magical because they were carried out with the intention of meeting a specific need.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=29}} As part of his [[Structural functionalism|functionalist]] approach, Malinowski saw magic not as irrational but as something that served a useful function, being sensible within the given social and environmental context.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=22}}

[[File:Sigmund Freud, by Max Halberstadt (cropped).jpg|upright|thumb|Ideas about magic were also promoted by Sigmund Freud.]]
The term magic was used liberally by Freud.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=61}} He also saw magic as emerging from human emotion but interpreted it very differently to Marett.{{sfn|Cunningham|1999|p=25}}
Freud explains that "the associated theory of magic merely explains the paths along which magic proceeds; it does not explain its true essence, namely the misunderstanding which leads it to replace the laws of nature by psychological ones".{{sfn|Freud|Strachey|1950|p=83}} Freud emphasizes that what led primitive men to come up with magic is the power of wishes: "His wishes are accompanied by a motor impulse, the will, which is later destined to alter the whole face of the earth to satisfy his wishes. This motor impulse is at first employed to give a representation of the satisfying situation in such a way that it becomes possible to experience the satisfaction by means of what might be described as motor [[hallucination]]s. This kind of representation of a satisfied wish is quite comparable to children's play, which succeeds their earlier purely sensory technique of satisfaction. [...] As time goes on, the psychological accent shifts from the ''motives'' for the magical act on to the ''measures'' by which it is carried out—that is, on to the act itself. [...] It thus comes to appear as though it is the magical act itself which, owing to its similarity with the desired result, alone determines the occurrence of that result."{{sfn|Freud|Strachey|1950|p=84}}

In the early 1960s, the anthropologists Murray and [[Rosalie Wax]] put forward the argument that scholars should look at the magical worldview of a given society on its own terms rather than trying to rationalize it in terms of Western ideas about scientific knowledge.{{sfn|Davies|2012|pp=25–26}} Their ideas were heavily criticised by other anthropologists, who argued that they had set up a [[false dichotomy]] between non-magical Western worldviews and magical non-Western worldviews.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=26}} The concept of the magical worldview nevertheless gained widespread use in history, folkloristics, philosophy, cultural theory, and psychology.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=27}} The notion of [[magical thinking]] has also been utilised by various psychologists.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=107}} In the 1920s, the psychologist [[Jean Piaget]] used the concept as part of his argument that children were unable to clearly differentiate between the mental and the physical.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=107}} According to this perspective, children begin to abandon their magical thinking between the ages of six and nine.{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=107}}

According to [[Stanley Tambiah]], magic, science, and religion all have their own "quality of rationality", and have been influenced by politics and ideology.{{sfn|Tambiah|1991|p=2}} As opposed to religion, Tambiah suggests that mankind has a much more personal control over events. Science, according to Tambiah, is "a system of behavior by which man acquires mastery of the environment."{{sfn|Tambiah|1991|p=8}}

=====Ethnocentrism=====
The magic-religion-science triangle developed in European society based on evolutionary ideas i.e. that magic evolved into religion, which in turn evolved into science.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012|p=165}} However using a Western analytical tool when discussing non-Western cultures, or pre-modern forms of Western society, raises problems as it may impose alien Western categories on them.{{sfnm|1a1=Otto|1a2=Stausberg|1y=2013|1p=6}} While magic remains an [[Emic and etic|emic]] (insider) term in the history of Western societies, it remains an [[Emic and etic|etic]] (outsider) term when applied to non-Western societies and even within specific Western societies. For this reason, academics like Michael D. Bailey suggest abandoning the term altogether as an academic category.{{sfn|Bailey|2018|p=27}} During the twentieth century, many scholars focusing on Asian and African societies rejected the term magic, as well as related concepts like [[witchcraft]], in favour of the more precise terms and concepts that existed within these specific societies like [[Juju]].{{sfn|Bailey|2018|p=19}} A similar approach has been taken by many scholars studying pre-modern societies in Europe, such as [[Classical antiquity]], who find the modern concept of magic inappropriate and favour more specific terms originating within the framework of the ancient cultures which they are studying.{{sfnm|1a1=Hutton|1y=2003|1p=104|2a1=Bailey|2y=2018|2p=20}} Alternately, this term implies that all categories of magic are ethnocentric and that such Western preconceptions are an unavoidable component of scholarly research.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=6}} This century has seen a trend towards emic ethnographic studies by scholar practitioners that explicitly explore the emic/etic divide.{{sfn|Blain|Ezzy|Harvey|2004|p=125}}

Many scholars have argued that the use of the term as an analytical tool within academic scholarship should be rejected altogether.{{sfnm|1a1=Hutton|1y=2003|1p=103|2a1=Styers|2y=2004|2p=7|3a1=Otto|3a2=Stausberg|3y=2013|3p=1|4a1=Bailey|4y=2018|4p=3}}  The scholar of religion [[Jonathan Z. Smith]] for example argued that it had no utility as an [[etic]] term that scholars should use.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012|p=166}} The historian of religion [[Wouter Hanegraaff]] agreed, on the grounds that its use is founded in conceptions of Western superiority and has "...served as a 'scientific' justification for converting non-European peoples from benighted superstitions..." stating that "the term magic is an important object ''of'' historical research, but not intended ''for'' doing research."{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012|pp=167–168}}

Bailey noted that, as of the early 21st century, few scholars sought grand definitions of magic but instead focused with "careful attention to particular contexts", examining what a term like magic meant to a given society; this approach, he noted, "call[ed] into question the legitimacy of magic as a universal category".{{sfn|Bailey|2006|p=5}} The scholars of religion Berndt-Christian Otto and [[Michael Stausberg]] suggested that it would be perfectly possible for scholars to talk about [[amulet]]s, [[curse]]s, healing procedures, and other cultural practices often regarded as magical in Western culture without any recourse to the concept of magic itself.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=11}} The idea that magic should be rejected as an analytic term developed in anthropology, before moving into [[Classical studies]] and [[Biblical studies]] in the 1980s.{{sfn|Hutton|2003|p=100}} Since the 1990s, the term's usage among scholars of religion has declined.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012|p=166}}