Okay, so you best bets, for modern scholarly theoretical sources, are going to be Ariel Glucklich's "The End of Magic" (1997); Antoine Faivre; Jung's "Psychology and Religion," "Psychology and The Occult"; Mircea Eliade's "The Sacred and the Profane."
All of these tend to look at magic from an academic investigation of the practitioner's perspective, and not some supposedly "pure objective" stance, outside of and apart from their actual material. I investigate them, in some detail, in my thesis: http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04212008-153843/
You may also want to check out J.Z. Smith's "Imagining Religion," for the contextualisation of belief systems (though Smith doesn't like the use of the term "Magic," and argues specifically against it.)
Best of luck.
--Damien Williams
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On shaded wings drift
FireDark discoveries
Soul Architecture.
--- On Sun, 10/25/09, Helen Frisby <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: Helen Frisby <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Theory of Magic
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Sunday, October 25, 2009, 7:20 AM
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> First of all, I'm new(ish) to this list, so may I
> introduce myself - my name is Helen Frisby, I'm based in
> the UK and my main research interest at
> present is the history of death and dying.
>
>
>
> In particular at the moment I'm trying to clarify my
> thinking on the magical elements in English
> folklore. This arises out of my recent work on the
> folklore of death & dying in C19th Yorkshire. Which
> leads onto a request, as I'm struggling to find
> material on the theory of magic and would be grateful for
> your help.
>
>
>
> I've come across Frazer's classification of magic
> into 'sympathetic' and 'contagious',
> 'positive' and 'negative' (Golden
> Bough), but apart from that most scholarly work seems
> to focus on rationalising the workings of magic rather than
> describing it from the user's perspective, eg
> Mauss's General Theory of Magic. I'd be
> really grateful if anybody could please point me
> toward sources on a similar line to that of Frazer -
> can be earlier or later than Frazer, ideally English-based.
>
>
>
> With thanks and best wishes,
>
>
>
> Helen
>
> New Windows 7: Simplify what you do
> everyday. Find the right
> PC for you.
>
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