ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the Western scholarly engagement with magic, the way that it has been defined around attempts at control, and the importance of language in our understandings of what it is. The chapter argues that there are clearly very close connections between the way that we tend to think of rhetoric and the way we tend to conceptualise magic. The chapter considers the nature of ritual language and the importance of rhetorical elements such as metaphor, patterning, and repetition in the construction and performance of magic. It also explores the theories behind ‘magical thinking’ as a groundwork for later chapters on the link between magic and marketing.
