Lecture. What is magic from the perspective of religious studies?

Lecture. What is magic from the perspective of religious studies?

Date: September 26, 2026, 1:00 PM

Format: Offline (Plato's Cave) + Online (Zoom)

Duration: Up to 2 hours

Recording: Yes, provided to all participants

Language: Ukrainian

If you wish to receive only the lecture recording, please register via the "online participation" option.

Magic seems like one of the most self-evident concepts in the study of religion. But what exactly do we call magic? Does it exist as a universal phenomenon inherent to various cultures, or is it primarily a concept shaped by the European intellectual tradition?

For over a century, scholars have offered vastly different answers. Magic has been viewed as a specific type of thinking, as erroneous associations, as a private and antisocial practice, as a way to overcome emotional tension, or as a tool for interacting with the world.

In this lecture, we will trace how the scientific understanding of magic has evolved—from classical 19th-century theories to modern religious studies.

We will discuss:

• Edward Tylor and James Frazer and the classical opposition between magic, religion, and science;

• Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, and Bronisław Malinowski alongside sociological and functional approaches to magic;

• Robert Marett and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, who focused on emotions and specific ways of perceiving the world;

• E. E. Evans-Pritchard and the rejection of a universal definition of magic in favor of analyzing specific cultures;

• The critique of Eurocentric theories of magic in the second half of the 20th century;

• Wouter Hanegraaff's concept, which proposes viewing magic as a specific type of practice involving interaction with reality that extends beyond the empirically defined world.

We will also separately discuss why magic did not disappear with modernity and science, but continues to thrive in contemporary culture. And why understanding it may require focusing not so much on a belief in the supernatural, as on the experience of mystery.

Lecturer: Vitalii Shchepanskyi — PhD in Philosophy, religious scholar, founder of the Telegram channel "Obrantsi dukhiv" (Chosen of the Spirits).