Magic has been an important term in western history and continues to be an essential topic in the modern study of religion, anthropology, sociology, and cultural history. Defining Magic is the first volume to assemble key texts which examine the nature of magic, establish its boundaries and key features, and explain its working. The Reader brings together seminal writings from antiquity to today. The texts have been selected on their strength in defining magic as a category, their impact on future scholarship, and their originality. The writings are divided into chronological sections with each essay separately introduced for student readers. Together, these texts - from Philosophy, Theology, Religious Studies, and Anthropology - reveal the breadth of critical approaches and responses to defining what is magic.

Many regard religious experience as the essence of religion, arguing that religious narratives and rituals are always secondary to the original experience. However, the concept of 'experience' itself has come under increasing fire from a range of critics and theorists. Including essays from those who assume the existence and possible universality of religious experience and those who question its rhetoric, the Reader presents approaches from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives: philosophy, literary and cultural theory, history, psychology, anthropology, feminist theory, as well as writings from within religious studies. With each essay separately introduced with information on its historical and intellectual context, the Reader enables students to explore religious experience as rhetoric created to authorize social identities. Bringing together both classic and contemporary writings, the book will be an invaluable introduction to students of religion, as well as sociology and anthropology.