Magic and Religion
Undergoing Cogitation
In her excellent book Drawing Down The Moon, Margot Adler looks
at a variety of religions in which magic plays a central role. We
would like to broaden this perspective somewhat, looking at religions
perspectives on magic in the most general sense we can muster.
To begin this process, we have tried to group religions into a couple
of major categories: God Centered, Spirit Centered, and Magic
Centered. Certainly these divisions are both arbitrary and
potentially controversial. But they allow us a way of looking at some
of the more general issues before getting into details of a particular
religious view.
These are religions which look to one or more supreme powers or
beings as the central focus of the religion and usually as the source
of magic. This includes most of the "Western" religions with large
numbers of adherents. Specifically, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all fall into this category.
These religions focus on a spirit or enlightenment that comes from
within the individual. Some of these religions take their focus on
personal growth and enlightenment to a point where they might even be
called "Self Centered" religion, but this comes across with an
unfortunate negative connotation. We place into this category many of
the "Eastern" religions. Buddhism, for
example, and particularly Zen Buddhism, fits
well into this category.
There are really two types of magic-centered religion: nature
based and power based. Since the aspects on which they differ are, in
most cases, a matter of degree rather than principles, we have grouped
them together. We characterize as nature based religions which
believe that there is magical power that can be drawn out from the
earth, from plants, or from animals. Power based religions may
believe (as a sort of special case) that the source of power lies
within people; often, however, the practitioners are attuned to the
importance of nature as well.