在世俗化的衝擊之下，台灣民間信仰產生了一些新的現象，如「宗教的市場化」、「靈力的似真性危機」以及「民間信仰的文化化」等。在實作的層面上，它給民間信仰帶來的問題是，使「廟宇經營」成為各廟宇及信徒不得不面對的問題；在理論的層面上，它改變了民間信仰在社會整合中所扮演的角色，並使「宗教治理」成為影響整體民間信仰發展的重要因素。而民間信仰研究中既有的理論觀點在處理這新的社會整合與宗教治理問題時已有所不足。本文提出「靈力經濟」這個新的概念來面對此一挑戰，將民間信仰看成是一個交換的場域，分析其運作邏輯。本文指出，靈力是需要人去生產的，它是一個社會關係運作下的資源動員活動。透過「靈力生產」這個概念，我們可以將社會整合看成是資源動員的過程及其結果，而靈力生產模式的改變反映的是社會變遷中社會關係型態的改變。另一方面，本文對靈力經濟的分析，提供了有關諸種「宗教治理」技術背後的文化邏輯，使我們能夠在一個地方知識的基礎上討論宗教治理問題。本文指出，由於靈力大小的判準是社會性的、公共性的，使得神明靈不靈的認定有其客觀的基礎---金錢與人氣的積累。在這樣的基礎上，靈力生產活動才能進行。又靈力經濟有兩個重要特徵，首先是「消費就是生產」；其次是靈力經濟必須要有「婉飾」才能運作。

Because of the impact of secularization, new phenomenon such as “marketization of religion”, “crisis of the authenticity of magical power”, and “making temple activities into cultural festival” came into existing among Taiwan’s folk religion. On the practical side, this new phenomenon gave temples and believers an inevitable problem: “temple management”. On the theoretical side, they reconfigure the role of folk religion in social integration and make “the governmentality of religion” a significant factor for the development of the folk religion. These are challenges for established theories on Taiwan’s folk religion. This article proposes “the economy of magical power” as a new perspective to face these challenges. It regards folk religion as an field of exchange and analyzes its logic. This article points out, the magical power of gods needs to be produced by people. It is a process of mobilization of resource as the consequence of the management of social relations. Via the concept of “the production of magical power”, we can take the social integration as the process and result of the mobilization of resource. And the change of the mode of the production of magical power is the reflection of the change of the form of social relation. In the other hand, the analysis of the economy of the magical power reveals the cultural logics on which the various technics of the governmentality of religion are based. This makes us be able to discuss to the problem of religious governmentality on the ground of local knowledge. This article points out, because the measurement of the magnitude of magical power is of social and public, the estimation of whether a god is “ling” （efficacious） or not gets an objective ground---the accumulation of money and worshipers. And therefore, the production of the magical power is possible. There are two characteristics of the economy of magical power. The first is “consuming is producing”. The second is that “euphemism” is necessary for the operation of the economy of magical power.