Superstition and magic are a technique, albeit an illusory one, for controlling the world. The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski discovered in the 1920s that fishermen in the Trobriand islands, off Papua New Guinea, used their own skill and experience close to land, but out at sea deployed magic charms. The more threatening the environment, the greater the reliance on magic; and the upsurge in fantasy, myth and the supernatural in our culture may be a direct consequence of human doubt and stress.
Writing in The Times (2003)