Money Wisdom #300

Magic, then is about realizing one's intentions (whatever those may be) by acting on the world. It is not a matter of people's intentions and creative capacities being projected out into it and appearing to those people in strange alienated forms. If anything, it's just the opposite. To phrase the matter in appropriately nineteenth century terms: if religion is the way in which people project (imaginary) human personalities and purposes onto (real) natural forces, then magic would have to be a matter of taking real human personalities and purposes and arming them with imaginary natural powers.

 David Graeber Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value (2001) p.240