The Embodied Logic of Magic

The standard model of the cognitive science of religion “puts all its eggs in the basket” of supernatural agents. This has resulted in the neglect or denial of nonpersonal and nonagentive powers and meanings with respect to magic, for both magical thinking and practice, for hunter-gatherer, ancient, and contemporary manifestations of magic. Embodied cognition offers a corrective to the standard model’s assumptions about magic. It recognizes the very obvious bodily involvement in rituals involving magic. It recognizes that not all patterns in the natural world involve conscious intention by agents and that all societies acknowledge the reality of some of those patterns. The paper analyzes imitative/sympathetic, contagious, divination, apotropaic—warding off evil, healing, transformation of status, and some Christian sacramental rituals. It evidences the highly significant role that magic rituals enlisting nonpersonal and nonagentive processes have played in religions through the ages.