Customer Reviews

Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural

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I truly believe the book is too expensive for its quality and lenght, and you can find it used at very cheap prices and in extremelly good conditions, the one I bought was really as good as new and I only paid USD12.
I think the description of the book is a little misleading since I was expecting something like MArvin Harris, Diamond or Robert Wright analyzes on the existence of spirituality and it turned out to be a compilation of essays. True, most of them are really interesting and if you are not subscribed to LStore via university it is quite difficult to find these papers by themselves. The selected authors are like the divas of anthropology and I think that the book is nice to have as a consultation tool whenever you feel like wandering into certain topics.

I had to read this for an Anthropology class (Magic Witchcraft and Religion) and got so much out of it. Not only did my perspectives on some things change but I got a deeper understanding of the mechanics behind religion's role in society.

Some of the articles were very funny too especially the one on the Simpson's as social commentary.

I also had to read this book for a beginning anthropology class, and at first thought I'd have to drop the class because it was such a miserable book to read. There were a few sprinkled 'interesting' articles, but in retrospect, I did find myself sharing some interesting tidbits of information with friends, and I can look on it now (some three years later) with the fondness we look on past dental visits or childbirth (it wasn't so bad afterall).
Definitely not a book for the casual reader, though.
It was also 'fun' to look up some of the authors on the internet, and find out just how kooky they are. (One of the American Anthropologists who turned shaman, especially.) It gave a bit of perspective on what they wrote.