c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Maybe it’s their pointy incisors. Or their preference for darkness.

Could be their reputation for literally sucking the life out of their victims.

Whatever it is, vampires don’t have the best reputation.

So you might be surprised to learn that vampires have ethics that prevent them from taking energy (not all seek blood) from people without their knowledge. Or that the witches’ way is one that says you can do what you will, so long as no one’s harmed.

Such are the truths Christine Wicker reveals in “Not in Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic Is Transforming America,” a tome in which the author explores, among other things, the connections between traditional religion and magic.

Indeed, as she writes early on in “Not in Kansas,” “Religion and magical thinking are so intertwined that scholars still argue over where the dividing line is.”

She adds: “Today the Bible is often used in magical workings by people who claim it’s the best spell book ever written. Christo-magic is common in Pentecostal and Holiness traditions, although they would not call it magic. Saint magic is popular among Catholics. Hoodoo, an African American magical system that also calls on Jesus and the saints, is outside-the-church Christo-magic.”

Still, the public relationship between religion and magic seems rocky at best, ranging from dismissal to denouncement.

Research from the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion showed that belief in the paranormal declines with increasing church attendance. Evangelicals are the least attracted to paranormal beliefs of all religious groups, according to the 2006 study.

“Evangelicals tend to be more rational about religion,” Wicker said. “They rely on the word. They’re more kind of linear in their thinking about religion.”

Still, while that study shows evangelicals are among the least likely to believe in paranormal phenomena like haunted houses, astrology or communication with the dead, they are among those who’ve been most outspoken in recent years about things like Halloween celebrations and the Harry Potter series.

When she grew up as a Southern evangelical, “nobody was afraid of Halloween,” Wicker recalled. “We didn’t believe that witches and demons were out there.”

But Mack Morris, pastor of Woodridge Baptist Church in Mobile, Ala., said the paranormal has always been an attraction. Mentions of “familiar spirits,” as Morris noted the King James version calls them, can be found in the Bible.

“It’s not an imaginary thing,” Morris said. “It originated with Satan and his ability to try to have a counterpart.” Everything that God did that was good, the devil always created something to counter it, Morris noted.

But to hear Wicker tell it, those who speak out against such things may affect public perceptions of them.

“As religion ramps up to constrict magic, it gives it legitimacy,” she said.

Some religious communities’ condemnation of particular paranormal practices comes at a time when factors, including globalization and immigration, may, by Wicker’s reading, be contributing to an increase in magical thinking.

There’s been a rise in fantasy magic, Wicker said, citing video games that allow kids to adopt particular personas. She also noted a kind of rebellion against the idea that reason and science can explain everything.

For Wicker, researching and writing about magic increased her respect for ritual and made her more appreciative of the “wondrous nature of life,” not to mention people’s ability to find hope and meaning in their everyday lives.

“I’m sort of in favor of anything that gives people hope” and that “makes them think that life is a grand adventure,” she said. “To some degree, science has tried to get us to feel otherwise.”

At her book’s conclusion, Wicker recalls stepping forward to receive Communion on Christmas Day at Westminster Abbey. Doing so, she found herself feeling connected to God.

“Nothing happened until I took some action,” she writes. “Action and results _ the two go together. You can call it religion, you can call it spirituality, you can call it magic. Maybe what you call it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you don’t settle for being cut off, that you take the power, that you demand the completeness of human experience. … What we must not do _ no matter what the scientists tell us _ is allow ourselves to be cut off from our own experience of life as it presents itself to us. If we do, we will have lost the very ground beneath our feet.”

(Kristen Campbell writes for The Press-Register of Mobile, Ala.)

KRE/PH END CAMPBELL

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