ABSTRACT
In his Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, rst published in 1912, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim systematically contrasted magic with religion. Magic, he contended, was individualistic, designed to achieve ends that did not bene t the whole society. ‘ ere is no church of magic,’ Durkheim
declared. Magic could not be practised as a central rite appealing to the broad society. By de nition, it was marginal and anti-social. e possibility of ‘white magic’, such as that practised today by followers of Wicca in central London and other parts of Europe and North America,1 was le out of consideration. For Durkheim magic was necessarily black.
