Magic and Religion

A series of scholarly essays surveys comparative evidence about religion, magic, and ritual while warning against overbold theorizing. The author advances a tentative view that elevated religious notions may precede and become lowered through social change, examines the idea of borrowed deities, and offers detailed criticisms of rival accounts of sacrificial kingship and ritual regicide. Other chapters analyse taboos, fire-walking, the alleged mortality of gods, and specific rites such as the Sacæa and Purim, and present regional studies and puzzles like Australian and South African beliefs and cup-and-ring marks, combining ethnographic examples with methodological reflection.