Academic definitions of magic — the attempts by anthropologists, historians, religious studies scholars, and philosophers to define what magic is — show up across my work as a reference point he engages with rather than dismisses. The definitions matter because they shape how magic is studied, funded, and understood by institutions.
The range of academic definitions
The scholarly literature on magic runs from Frazer's turn-of-the-20th-century evolutionary framing (magic as failed proto-science) through Mauss's structuralist approach, through the Frankfurt School's reading of magic as enchantment versus disenchantment, through contemporary religious studies and the esoteric studies field (Wouter Hanegraaff and others).
Each definition does different work. Frazer reduces magic to primitive confusion; Mauss locates it in social structure; contemporary esoteric studies tries to take the practitioner seriously as a category.
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Why it matters to the practitioner
Most working magicians ignore academic definitions because the definitions often miss what actually happens in practice. But the definitions shape the institutional field magic exists inside — how it is taught (or not), how it is funded for research, how it is represented in mainstream media.
My engagement with the scholarly literature across my catalog is a practitioner's move: read what the academics say, keep what is useful, drop what misses the point, and build the operational framework the academics have not yet caught up to.
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How to engage with the literature
- Read the primary sources (Frazer, Mauss, Eliade, Hanegraaff, Asprem, Pasi) rather than secondhand summaries.
- Notice which definitions locate magic inside the practitioner's subjective experience and which locate it outside.
- Keep the definitions as analytical tools, not as the truth.
- Build your own operational definition from practice, and use the academic definitions as a dialogue partner.
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Working notes
You do not need the academic literature to do magic. You need it if you want to operate in spaces where the academic framing dominates — universities, funded research, mainstream publishing, therapeutic contexts adjacent to clinical practice.
The accurate theories tend to come from people who‘ve actually decided to observe and/or practice magic, even if only for a short time.
— Taylor Ellwood, Multi-Media Magic
Academic definitions sit alongside my own definitional work across my catalog. Pair with the esoteric studies literature (Hanegraaff, Asprem, Pasi), with the anthropological tradition (Mauss, Evans-Pritchard), and with contemporary practitioner-scholars.
Source books: Multi-Media Magic