Some questions about magic and religion

Question: What does the term "Magic" mean to you?

It is sometimes suggested that magic is a way in which people can gain the feeling that they can be personally involved with both natural, super-natural, and super-human energies and events, in order to be active participants in their own 'fate'. 

That seems a bit sad and limited to me, and I am a strong believer in free will, not in 'fate' per se. 

I think what we term 'magic' is the attempt to engage with that which is unseen, the intangible, and that this has more to do with vision and wisdom, rather than manipulation and fakery.

Question: Did the Christian Church ever "perform magic"?

The Christian Church before the Enlightenment tolerated 'natural' magic, that is, that which involved energies inherent in nature or the products of nature. 

Certain beliefs and practices within the churches very much blur the purported boundaries between magic and religion, for example, the belief in transubstantiation, the creation of 'holy oil' and 'holy water', the use of the sign of the cross, the veneration of relics of the saints, speaking in tongues, snake handling, faith healing, and prayers for healing and divine vengeance. 

Question: Is Magik Different from Religion?

I have always thought that there are some elements of religion which are 'magical', and that that is right and proper: religion is about intangible stuff, that which is beyond and/or within, not that which is sensory/tangible, and magic deals exactly with that realm, although it may involve artefacts which are tangible and sensory, as does religious practice.

In some current reading, however, I have been disappointed with certain reductionist statements, for example, that religions "serve to give people a sense that the energies we feel and the events we experience are not chaotic or unfathomable but have a cause, if not a reason'".

Similarly, a summary statement on magic (that it "gives humans a feeling that they can be personally involved with these energies and events, not merely as passive recipients, but actively, with the ability to influence them in ways to benefit humanity, or at least individual humans") is merely reductionist.

However, I am inclined to agree that a 'magician' may be "a religious functionary who operates as a power and communications expert, crisis manager, miracle healer, and all-purpose therapist and agent of worried, troubled, and troublesome souls" although I think that religious "functionaries" themselves have more than that to offer: not just "yet another way to be active participants in their own fate" (yes, reductionism strikes again!) but, far more positively, we, I hope, indicate and demonstrate how humans can interact with the Divine for the good of the whole creation, in which the Divine in-dwells.

So I would suggest that, while magic and religion can and do have blurred and over-lapping edges, religion - or perhaps more accurately, faith - is greater than magic.