[burnished]

'Everything happens for a reason' is a pretty common example of magical thinking that you might be more familiar with. Basically when someone favors a magical principal over cause and effect when describing the world.

I don't think it would make sense to say religion in general is magical thinking, a lot of religion can be moral or legal precepts or an explanation of the world that is rooted largely in cause and effect. There is clearly some magical thinking at play when you get into specifics but personally I'm not sure where we would say it enters play: is the belief in a final tallying magical thinking when it is justified by the belief that there exists an entity capable and willing? Not sure.