Punishments and sacrifices, magic and prayer, judgment and evaluation - many fundamental human activities are directly connected to religion. They are at the center of Marcel Mauss' writings on the sociology of religion, which are more than just preliminary works for the religious sociology of his famous uncle Émile Durkheim: they are milestones in the social and cultural sciences. In them, one learns not only about processes of sacralization but also about the societal origins of the magical and the religious in general. The volume includes the most important sociological studies of religion, which address topics such as prayer, sacrifice, magic, criminal law, and the relationship between rituals and emotions. The afterword by Stephan Moebius provides a systematic overview of Mauss' sociology of religion.