ABSTRACT
Religion is one of the ways humankind responds to difficulties of human life - uncertainty, injustice, suffering, death. By its very nature it can provide only problematic solutions because it appeals to a transcendent which at best seems hidden. The two International Social Survey Program religion modules have items about magic, science, and mysticism. However, perhaps because its steering committee had forgotten about Bronislaw Malinowski, it did not provide items for the latter two in both surveys and recommended the magic items only as "options". Magic is alive and well, indeed flourishing in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe. Moreover it is growing; 40 percent of those born in the 1920s were high on the magic score as opposed to 60 percent of those born in the nineteen seventies. In the 1998 International Social Survey Program module, two items were inserted that purported to measure the respondents' attitudes towards science.
