Religion and Magic through Feminist Lenses

Sociology of religion continues to debate ongoing disappearing religiosity in a complex global world. This chapter disrupts the religion-secular binary by centering on magic and recognizing the personal and social impacts of witchcraft, local celebrations and rituals, astrology, tarot, and other forms of divination. Binary assumptions about relations between contemporary institutionalized religion and vernacular spirituality obscure the many ways that magic shapes both cosmology and practice within and outside of religions. While many second-wave feminists idealized secularization as a sign of progress and equality, transnational feminist critiques of colonialist discourse produced a logic that challenges binaries. This chapter explores the critical conversation within feminism to interrogate widespread academic suppression of magic and assumptions about religion. Examining the works of feminist theorists Gloria Anzaldúa, M. Jacqui Alexander, and Omise'eke Natsaha Tinsley suggests how theory and practice integrate spirit and action and provide nuanced perspectives about religion, gender, and power.