The End of Magic

Throughout human history, magic has been as widely and passionatelypracticed as religion, but, while religion continues to flourish, magic stumbleson the verge of extinction. It is excoriated by mainstream churches andridiculed by science; even anthropologists and scholars of religion reduce magicto disguised superstition. What is magic; what does it do? Why do people believein magic?In The End of Magic, Glucklich finds the answers to these questions in thestreets of Banaras, India's most sacred city. While conducting his fieldwork,Glucklich discovered hundreds of magicians still practicing ancient magicaltraditions. These charismatic and savvy practitioners demostrate that magic isseldom a matter of superstition or belief. They treat Hindu and Muslim patientsof every caste and sect, people who set aside sectrian beliefs and castedistinctions in their urgent search for health.In order to gain a new understanding of magic in general, Glucklich describesand interprets Banarsi magical rites and those who participate in them. Hecontrasts his own findings with the major theories that have explained (orexplained away) magic over the last century. These theories, he argues, allignore an essential sensory phenomenon which he calls "magical consciousness":an extraordinary, though perfectly natural, state of awareness through whichmagicians and their clients perceive the effects of magic rituals. As thepractice of magic dwindles, Glucklich's breakthrough theory of the phenomenonshould appeal to skeptics and believers alike among the fields of anthropologyand religious studies.

Ariel Glucklich is Assistant Professor at Ponoma College and Lecturer at the Hebrew University to which he received a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship.