Magical thinking in various forms is a cultural universal and an important aspect of religion.
Magic is prevalent in all societies, regardless of whether they have organized religion or more general systems of animism or shamanism.
Religion and magic became conceptually separated with the development of western monotheism, where the distinction arose between supernatural events sanctioned by mainstream religious doctrine (miracles)
and magic rooted in folk belief or occult speculation.
In pre-monotheistic religious traditions, there is no fundamental
distinction between religious practice and magic; tutelary deities
concerned with magic are sometimes called hermetic deities or spirit
guides.
Magical practices in prehistory
Anthropological and psychological perspectives
It is a postulate of modern anthropology, at least since early 1930s, that there is complete continuity between magic and religion.
Functional differences between religion and magic
Early sociological interpretations of magic by Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert emphasized the social conditions in which the phenomenon of magic develops.
According to them, religion is the expression of a social structure and
serves to maintain the cohesion of a community (religion is therefore
public) and magic is an individualistic action (and therefore private).
Ralph Merrifield, the British archaeologist credited as producing the first full-length volume dedicated to a material approach to magic,
defined the differences between religion and magic:
"'Religion' is used to indicate the belief in supernatural or spiritual
beings; 'magic', the use of practices intended to bring occult forces
under control and so to influence events; 'ritual', prescribed or
customary behaviour that may be religious, if it is intended to placate
or win favour of supernatural beings, magical if it is intended to
operate through impersonal forces of sympathy or by controlling
supernatural beings, or social if its purpose is to reinforce a social
organisation or facilitate social intercourse".
In 1991 Henk Versnel argued that magic and religion function in
different ways and that these can be broadly defined in four areas:
Intention - magic is employed to achieve clear and immediate goals for
an individual, whereas religion is less purpose-motivated and has its
sights set on longer-term goals; Attitude – magic is manipulative as the
process is in the hands of the user, “instrumental coercive
manipulation”, opposed to the religious attitude of “personal and
supplicative negotiation”; Action – magic is a technical exercise that
often requires professional skills to fulfil an action, whereas religion
is not dependent upon these factors but the will and sentiment of the
gods; Social – the goals of magic run counter to the interests of a
society (in that personal gain for an individual gives them an unfair
advantage over peers), whereas religion has more benevolent and positive
social functions.
This separation of the terms 'religion' and 'magic' in a
functional sense is disputed. It has been argued that abandoning the
term magic in favour of discussing "belief in spiritual beings" will
help to create a more meaningful understanding of all associated ritual
practices.
However using the word 'magic' alongside 'religion' is one method of
trying to understand the supernatural world, even if some other term can
eventually take its place.
Religious practices and magic
Both magic and religion contain rituals.
Most cultures have or have had in their past some form of magical tradition that recognizes a shamanistic
interconnectedness of spirit. This may have been long ago, as a folk
tradition that died out with the establishment of a major world
religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, or it may still co-exist with that world religion. Coptic Christians were writing magical spells from the 1st to 12th centuries.
Names of the gods
There is a long-standing belief in the power of true names, this often descends from the magical belief that knowing a being's true name grants power over it.
If names have power, then knowing the name of a god regarded as
supreme in a religion should grant the greatest power of all. This
belief is reflected in traditional Wicca,
where the names of the Goddess and the Horned God - the two supreme
deities in Wicca - are usually held as a secret to be revealed only to
initiates. This belief is also reflected in ancient Judaism, which used
the Tetragrammaton (YHWH, usually translated as "Lord" in small caps) to refer to God in the Tanakh. The same belief is seen in Hinduism, but with different conclusions; rather, attaining transcendence and the power of God is seen as a good thing. Thus, some Hindus chant the name of their favorite deities as often as possible, the most common being Krishna.
Magic and Abrahamic religion
Magic and Abrahamic religions have had a somewhat checkered past. The King James Version of the Bible included the famous translation "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus 22:18), and Saul
is rebuked by God for seeking advice from a diviner who could contact
spirits. On the other hand, seemingly magical signs are documented in
the Bible: For example, both the staff of Pharaoh's sorcerers as well
as the staff of Moses
and Aaron could be turned into snakes (Exodus 7:8-13). However, as
Scott Noegel points out, the critical difference between the magic of
Pharaoh's magicians and the non-magic of Moses is in the means by which
the staff becomes a snake. For the Pharaoh's magicians, they employed
"their secret arts" whereas Moses merely throws down his staff to turn
it into a snake. To an ancient Egyptian, the startling difference would
have been that Moses neither employed secret arts nor magical words. In
the Torah, Noegel points out that YHWH does not need magical rituals to
act.
The words 'witch' and 'witchcraft' appear in some English
versions of the Bible. One verse that is probably responsible for more
deaths of suspected witches than any other passage from the Hebrew
Scriptures (Old Testament) is Exodus 22:18. In the King James Version, this reads: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." The precise meaning of the Hebrew word mechshepha (root kashaph) here translated as 'witch' and in some other modern versions, 'sorceress', is uncertain. In the Septuagint it was translated as pharmakeia, meaning 'pharmacy', and on this basis, Reginald Scot claimed in the 16th century that 'witch' was an incorrect translation and poisoners were intended.
