Wiccanomics?

Abstract

This paper looks at the doctrines of ‘Wicca’, or what might be termed as pagan or white magic by its adherents, in terms of the economics of religion. The primary focus of the paper is the issue of the degree of product differentiation involved from established religion in terms of two things: the concept of God (or deities) and the ideas of sin. The main contribution of the paper is that it presents (for the first time ever, so far as the author is aware) an economic analysis of the doctrine of a ‘rebound’ effect of any attempts to do harm to other people through the practice of magic. Some basic microeconomic concepts suggest that the moral force of this rebound law is a difficult one to sustain except under very unreasonable assumptions.

Keywords:

• Wicca
• economics of religion
• spells
• distribution

Notes

1 Witch-hunts were partly justified on the claim that the Bible insisted that all witches should be put to death. However, this may have been a matter of linguistic confusion from the word for witch essentially meaning ‘poisoner’ (see Scott 2001).

2 That is, someone who crosses, in popular parlance, from white into black magic.