Spirituality v. Magic

I am not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (colloquially known as “Mormonism”). I have never been a member and have no plans of joining. I am an extremely content member of PCUSA (Presbyterian Church (USA)) which is a progressive wing of the Presbyterian Church.

However, the history of the Restoration Movement in the United States (which included the LDS church) is very fascinating simply because the LDS church has documented its history expansively. I live in Utah which is geologically beautiful. Beautiful geology plus an unusual religious movement settling in Utah leads to unusual outcomes. In this setting, I have been reading “Early Mormonism and the Magic World View” by D. Michael Quinn, published in Signature Books. Quinn (now deceased) was professor at USC, and he won many book awards in his lifetime.

Utah (Arches National Park)

This particular book is full of information not just about the early American Restoration Movement but also about the intricate association between early colonial America and books on magic. According to the book, a large number of Americans early on in the country’s founding were not religious. Such an idea makes sense. People often lived far, far away from any civilization which included churches.

I was intrigued by this quote from the book… “One traditional distinction is that religion is supplicative and magic coercive in intent. Anthropologist Lucy Mair wrote that ‘the difference between religion and magic…might be epitomized as the difference between communicating with beings and manipulating forces.'”

Whoa. Let’s think about these words.

I’m a religious person so I do pray. When I was much younger, I prayed for specific things to happen…to get a specific toy, to get a girl in school to like me. Weirdly, even before I went down the route of theological studies, I had quit praying for direct intervention by God. I can think of some reasons for this change to have happened.

I really came to understand that many of the stories in the Bible are mythic. Some readers of my blog are probably thinking, “DUH!”, but one would be amazed that even growing up in a highly educated home, people just can accept stories they hear in church. My parents knew these stories and told me these stories, but as I got older, I came to understand that my parents either never believed the stories or really didn’t care if they were real or not.

Moses Crossing the Red Sea

People talk about moments of the “dark night of the soul.” My “night” came about when I dug into the Exodus story only to realize that it didn’t happen. Sure, some small migration of individuals up to the Levant from Egypt may have happened. A small migration may have changed into a legend over time which consisted of millions of migrating Hebrews, but the events of the Exodus didn’t happen. There is zero archeological evidence.

In contrast, there is evidence of the Battle of Thermopylae which also has mythic dimensions, but there is no evidence of the Exodus. Hence, there is no evidence of “manipulating forces” based on all of the Exodus stories (i.e., magic).

Battle of Thermopylae

Second, my job in healthcare. Many people in healthcare take care of dying patients. It is no different in my field. Watching a patient die is especially tough when it happens to a child. Honestly, I’ve seen no miraculous healings, and I have met many, many wonderful families who got blindsided with the death of their child. Many of these families are religious. I have seen no evidence of prayer “manipulating forces” causing miraculous healings (i.e., magic).

So, why do I pray? I had to think about this aspect for my blog today. Let me give you some reasons.

I have tried the agnostic route. It didn’t work for me. Being agnostic or atheist works for many wonderful people, many of whom are my friends. It really didn’t work for me, although in the end, every human probably is agnostic as we can’t prove or disprove God. I guess my genetics, and more importantly, my epigenetics made me who I am when it comes to believing in God.

Bible stories often are mythic. Myth, in my opinion, is different than most fantasy stories. Myths tend to be very old, and although they may have magical qualities, they say something profound about the human condition. Much work on the importance of myth has been done here in the realm of sociology and psychology. See here and here. So, I pray in the setting of myths because ancient stories tell me deep truths about human nature and its relationship to a potential God.

Noah’s Ark

I pray in the setting of process theology which is one of my theological interests. I have posted many times about this type of theology. In other words, I pray that entities accept God’s lure for creativity. God lures; God does not force. As an example, if I pray for a war to stop, then I am praying for all involved combatants (especially their leaders) to hear God’s lure for the good…for war to stop. I realize it can be extremely difficult, especially for humans like myself, to hear God’s lure. In the setting of open & relational theology (which I also have posted about before), I am convinced that this lure is divine love.

Jesus Healing the Blind Man

Finally, perhaps there has been contact with Divinity in the past that makes me think God may exist. I’m a Christian, and if I believe in the hypostatic union (Jesus being fully God and fully man) of the Christ event, then perhaps in the extreme circumstances of God touching our species at specific events, it may be possible for miracles to occur. If miracles have occurred in history because our species has interacted with God, then perhaps praying is a way to communicate with God. I’m not convinced, of course. This idea is just a theological theory. A correlative idea would be in the Hadith when Muhammad had water miraculously gush forth from his hands. Some other ideas such as the Buddha having a massive tongue that could cover his whole face (as described in the Pali Canon) seem less likely. However, I am not going to judge this Buddhism story as I have enough crazy stories in my own religious tradition.

Image made by Gemini Advanced