1st Edition

Rethinking the Anthropology of Magic and Witchcraft Inherently Human

By Phillips Stevens, Jr. Copyright 2024
194 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

194 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

194 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book introduces students to the anthropology of magic and witchcraft, terms widely used but with no widely accepted definitions. It takes a new approach to this area within the anthropology of religion, demonstrating that the bases for these beliefs and alleged practices are inherent in human cognition and psychology, even instinctual, and likely rooted in our evolutionary biology. It shows... Read more

Preface

1.    Introduction

2.   Anthropology and Cultural Reality         

3.   The Supernatural

4.   Magic, Inherently Human

5.   The Principles of Magic in Mystical/Ritual Contexts

6.   Witchcraft (and Sorcery): Inherently Human

7.   The Witch is a Composite of Fundamental Fears and Fantasies

8.  Dark Shamans and Child-Eating Satanists; Summary Conclusions

Glossary

Index

Biography

Phil Stevens received his BA from Yale in English in 1963, then worked for three years with the Peace Corps in Nigeria. He entered the graduate anthropology program at Northwestern University, returned to Nigeria for dissertation research, and received his PhD in 1973. During 48 years with the anthropology department at SUNY, Buffalo, he conducted further research in Nigeria and the Caribbean, received two awards for teaching and an honorary Nigerian chieftaincy title, and wrote many publications in anthropology and African studies. He is the editor of Routledge’s 4-volume Anthropology of Religion: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, 2011.