"Myth, religion and mother right / transleted by Ralph Manheim"

The title of this book is intriguing, but I'm not so sure that it accurately describes the book. He doesn't really define the terms "religion" and "magic" to my satisfaction. The book's big problem is that it lumps Astrology with "magic." Astrology has never claimed to be magic. It has never claimed to have brought anything about, or to have created something from nothing. All the astrologer does is calculate the positions of the planets and stars and then interpret them according to the symbolic meanings attached to them and their relationships to each other, similarly to the way that a psychoanalyst would interpret a dream. The author admits that of all the topics mentioned, astrology was the most difficult for him to write about. The reason it was difficult is that it is not, and never was, "magic," nor has it "declined." It is practiced by millions of people all over the world.

That said, this is a great work of scholarship that I would recommend to any thinking person. At the end of the book, Thomas admits that religion had less to do with the decline of magic than the changeover from a rural to an urban culture and the invention of other methods to achieve those things that magic tried to achieve. An example would be that instead of buying a magic potion to attract a lover's attention, a girl could instead invest in cosmetics and deodorants with the same intention. Oddly, Science was probably less responsible than one would think. He notes that while scientific progress was made in the 17th Century, it was to be another 3 centuries before science really made much difference in alleviating human suffering from disease, which would be a prime reason for one to seek magical aid.

The parts of the book I found most interesting were those dealing with "witches." Witchcraft, I learned, was practiced by those who were powerless in the material realm. Usually they were poor old women who were dependent on the charity of the community. (In the early Protestant Church, believers were morally obligated as individuals to be charitable toward the poor.) If someone refused her food, she would tell them they'd be sorry. Then the person so "cursed," whenever any setback occurred, attributed it to her ill-will. The "curse" was really their guilty conscience. Invariably the accusers of witches were those who were morally in the wrong, not the destitute old "witches."

But what relationship DID religion have with magic? For one thing, it was competition! Probably the biggest influence of religion on magic came with the Reformation. Forms of ritual magic were still practiced by Catholics, but were taboo in Protestantism, which simply said it was nonsense. Perhaps this ultimately was responsible for slowly changing the reputation of the local practitioners of folk magic.

Exhaustively researched, this is a great book that applies the disciplines of sociology, psychology, and anthropology to history. Worth reading despite its 668-page length. Five Stars.