Beyond (Irresolvable) Causal Opacity: The Instrumental Logic of Magical Rituals

The cognitive science of religion has predominantly framed ritual as goal-demoted and causally opaque, serving primarily affiliative functions. This paper challenges this dominant framework, arguing that it fails to account for magical rituals, which are explicitly goal-oriented from the practitioner's perspective. I propose the "folk-technology model," which treats magic not as symbolic or opaque action but as an instrumental, problem-solving practice. The paper critiques the concept of "irresolvable causal opacity" by presenting three lines of evidence: first, the natural/supernatural dichotomy that underpins the concept of irresolvability is a modern Western construct often absent in the societies in question; second, many magical practices are underpinned by detailed, if scientifically inaccurate, causal theories; and third, the apparent lack of articulated theory among laypeople often reflects practical knowledge and a social distribution of expertise rather than inherent opacity. The folk-technology model is further supported by widespread ethnographic evidence of instrumental tinkering, efficacy testing, and pragmatic adaptation in practices ranging from Azande oracles and Melanesian cargo cults to contemporary AI divination. This reframing challenges classic dichotomies between technical and performative action, generates novel, testable predictions about the structure of magical systems, and revitalizes intellectualist theories of magic within a modern cognitive and (cultural) evolutionary context.