Thomas appears most convinced by the idea that over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries English people developed a belief in their own capacity to help themselves thus rendering the everyday power of magic redundant. Technological advances, such as improvements in agriculture, firefighting, and complex mechanisms of banking and insurance, also improved life expectancy and reduced misfortunes. The author also notes the importance of scientific and philosophical revolutions resulting in a widespread belief in natural rather than supernatural laws, which Christian theology successfully integrated with the rise, for example, of natural theology. Thomas shows that Christianity shed magical elements, such as a belief in the ability of idols to intervene in human affairs, while developing new theologies that kept up with contemporary intellectual thought and technology.
He also demonstrates the malleability of religion.
The popularity of the holistic system of astrology, however, which seemed to do both, provides a counterpoint to this distinction. Thomas points to a fundamental difference in function between religion and magic: religion offered an explanation of human existence while magical practices commonly addressed specific temporary problems. The question of why magic declined but religion endured underpins the book. This balanced study offers explanations and arguments while also acknowledging their weaknesses. Yet the widespread use of non-religious magic before the Reformation tempers this conclusion. The transition from Catholicism to Protestantism, which stripped Christianity of its magical power to provide believers protection from misfortune, he argues, explains the boom in magical beliefs in the early sixteenth century. Religion and the Decline of Magic provides a detailed account of how and why people practiced an eclectic systems of belief in early modern England. These competing systems of belief shared the ethical assumption that difficulty struck those who deserved it, and thus operated as systems of social control during this period. While alcohol and tobacco provided an escape, Keith Thomas argues that astrology, magic, and religion offered all levels of society a way to make sense of human misfortune. Political and religious discord, disease, famine, fire, and death afflicted the lives of the English population between 15.
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