The Makings of the Magical Mind: The Nature and Function of Sympathetic Magical Thinking

Abstract

Although the word magic is common in both scholarly and lay discourse, the variety of things to which it refers is far-reaching, ranging from a social institution characteristic of traditional societies, to sleight-of-hand or parlor tricks, to belief in unconventional phenomena such as UFOs and ESP, to sloppy thinking or false beliefs, and even to a state of romance, wonder, or the mysterious. One must at least entertain the possibility that there is no true category here at all. Instead, the term "magic" in current usage has become a label for a residual category – a garbage bin filled with various odds and ends that we do not otherwise know what to do with.