Abstract
The paper analyses the thought of Edmund Leach, focusing on those aspects that are relevant to the study of religion. It explains his attempt to combine functionalism with structuralism, showing how Leach attempted to modify the Lévi-Straussian concept of structure by focusing not just on the binary oppositions but on the liminal interstices between them as well, in this way being able to account for the specifically religious aspects of myths much better than Lévi-Strauss was.
Hand in hand with this went Leaches lifelong interest in the concept of power or 'potency' in all the meanings of this term: political, social, sexual, and religious. At the end of the paper it is argued that Leach is interesting for the field of religious studies on account of his ability to combine the "explanatory" and the "interpretive" approach, offering a theory of religion that despite its secular character manages to avoid reductionism.