Religion and Magic: One and the Same

Magic or religion: it is all one. Theologians themselves dispose of the matter by calling everything they do an act of religion, including even such operations as bedizening themselves with high-sounding titles and dignities, superior to any ever claimed by Christ, and laying taxes upon the faithful for their own aggrandizement; if that is how they feel about it, let them have their way. Their earliest forerunners, we may be sure, wasted no time upon such bandying with words. They were aware of no difference between magic and religion, but practised both with easy consciences. 

--H. L. Mencken Treatise on the Gods, 1930

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