ABSTRACT
Rudolf Otto argues for the superiority of religion over magic, and this has been a prevailing belief for much of Western society throughout its history. James Frazer (1854–1941) along with Auguste Comte (1798–1857) and Edward Burnett Tyler (1832–1917) argued in turn for science’s replacement of religion. The social evolutionists took their inspiration from Charles Darwin and have bequeathed their critique of religion to such modern-day secular thinkers as Christopher Hitchens, Anthony Grayling and Richard Dawkins. Even someone like Keith Thomas in the foreword to his Religion and the Decline of Magic can refer to “[a]strology, witchcraft, magical healing, divination ancient prophecies, ghosts and fairies [as] now all rightly disdained by intelligent persons.” 1
