Daniel O'Keefe

Who is Daniel O'Keefe?

Daniel Lawrence O'Keefe was an editor at Reader's Digest, author, and the inventor of Festivus, an annual secular holiday now celebrated on December 23. His son, Dan O'Keefe, was a writer for the Seinfeld television show and incorporated the family holiday into an episode of the program, and in 2005 published The Real Festivus.

O'Keefe published the book Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic in 1982. The Los Angeles Times Book Review called this book "a spectacular synthesis of sociology, anthropology, and psychoanalysis... a tour de force of accessible scholarship." The New York Times Book Review called it "a powerful explication of how deeply magic is embedded in society," and Commonweal dubbed it "a potential classic."