Bewitched. I Dream of Jeannie. The Exorcist. Charmed. Buffy. Dr. Who. Dracula. Dark Shadows. Twilight and The Twilight Zone. Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton. Dresden Files. Harry Potter. The fascination and appeal of magic and supernatural entities pervades societies and cultures. The continuing appeal of these characters is a testimony to how they shape our daydreams and our nightmares, as well as how we yearn for something that is “more” or “beyond” what we can see-touch-taste-feel. Children still avoid stepping on cracks, lovers pluck petals from a daisy, cards are dealt and tea leaves read.

A belief in magic as a means of influencing the world seems to have been common in all cultures. Some of these beliefs crossed over into nascent religions, influencing rites and religious celebrations. Over time, religiously-based supernatural events (”miracles”) acquired their own flavour, separating themselves from standard magic. Some modern religions such as the Neopaganisms embrace connections to magic, while others retain only echoes of their distant origins.

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project seeks to examine issues surrounding the role and use of magic in a wide variety of societies and cultures over the course of human history. People with access to magic or knowledge of the supernatural will also be examined.

Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited on issues on or broadly related to any of the following themes:

~ Magic as “paranormal,” anything alleged to exist that is not explainable by any present laws of science
~ the distinctions between “magic” and “religion” and “science”
~ Magical thinking and the equation of coincidence with causality
~ Folk magic and “traditional” systems of magic
~ “Magick” and “Wicca” as religious systems in modern society
~ Witchcraft in the European context
~ “Witchcraft” and animism in African or Asian contexts
~ Magic as illusion, stagecraft, sleight-of-hand
~ Magic in modern literature (ex. Harry Potter, Harry Dresden, the saga of Middle Earth, the Chronicles of Narnia, etc.) and in traditional literatures (folk or fairy tales, legends, mythologies, etc.)
~ Magic in art and the depiction of magical creatures, practices or practitioners
~ the associations of magic with the “monstrous” or “evil;” does one imply the presence of the other?
~ the portrayal of magic, magical creatures, and magical practices or practitioners on television and in film
~ the roles or uses of magic in video games, on-line communities, role-playing games, subcultural formations and identities
~ the similarities and differences of magical creatures across societies and time periods
~ the interplay of “magic” and “religion” as well as “science”
~ the “sciences” of demonology and angelology
~ the role of divination or prophecy in societies or religions
~ the use of “natural” vs. “supernatural” explanations for world events
~ Magic and the supernatural as coping mechanisms for individuals and societies

The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 1st October 2010. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 4th February 2011. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

The way these and related questions are addressed and answered will have enormous implications for American interests, justice, and world peace in the 21st century.

On balance, it seems reasonable to conclude that both religion and democracy can benefit if the activity of sharing one's faith is both permitted and conducted with respect. But there is much work to do before such a conclusion is broadly accepted.

Table of Contents

Editor's Introduction

Featured Article

Practicing Religious Conversion: Lessons from Neuroscience - Paul N. Markham

Special Features from Sacred Tribes Press

What Mormons Believe About God - John L. Bracht
Introduction to Apologetics, Mission and New Religious Movements - Philip Johnson
From the Occult to Western Esotericism - J. Gordon Melton

Book Reviews

The Kingdom of the Occult - Douglas E. Cowan

Call for Future Articles

"Atheists are also wary of being seen as "projects." Does continued contact and eventual friendship with the Christian in their life depend on them converting?"

"If you want to have influence, I said, you have to be willing to be influenced. If not, I asked, would anyone want to have a conversation with you?"

This book explores Mormon theology in new ways from a scholarly non-Mormon perspective. Bringing Jesus and Satan into relationship with Joseph Smith the founding prophet, Douglas Davies shows how the Mormon 'Plan of Salvation' can be equated with mainstream Christianity's doctrine of the Trinity as a driving force of the faith. Exploring how Jesus has been understood by Mormons, his many Mormon identities are described in this book: he is the Jehovah of the Bible, our Elder Brother and Father, probably also a husband, he visited the dead and is also the antagonist of Satan-Lucifer.

This book offers a way into the Mormon 'problem of evil' understood as apostasy, from pre-mortal times to today. Three images reveal the wider problem of evil in Mormonism: Jesus' pre-mortal encounter with Lucifer in a heavenly council deciding on the Plan of Salvation, Jesus Christ's great suffering-engagement with evil in Gethsemane, and Joseph Smith's First Vision of the divine when he was almost destroyed by an evil force.

Douglas Davies, well-known for his previous accounts of Mormon life and thought, shows how renewed Mormon interest in theological questions of belief can be understood against the background of Mormon church-organization and its growing presence on the world-stage of Christianity.

This book is about Walter, Aaron, Jennifer, and others like them who have practiced meditation under the auspices of a Hindu guru for twenty or more years. It is also about the meditation movements in which they participate: Self-Realization Fellowship, Transcendental Meditation, and Siddha Yoga. These are three of many such movements that, taken together, comprise a new hybrid form of religion. This new religion combines aspects of Hinduism with Western values, institutional forms, modes of teaching, and religious sensibilities. Lying at the conjunction of two worldviews, this phenomenon could be called "Hindu-inspired meditation movements," or HIMMs. Through personal, historical, and cultural lenses, this book explores the contours of Hindu-inspired meditation movements and their implications for American culture.