Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. Let’s start by talking about magic.
Closely associated with religion is magic, although some writers feel it is separate from religion and others see it as a part of religion. Magic involves the manipulation of physical objects to achieve supernatural ends. As anthropologists studied non-Western cultures around the world, they often reported on the use of magic in these cultures. Anthropologist H. H. Turney-High, in his book General Anthropology, defines magic as:
“An attempt to produce desirable results by bringing the supernatural power under human control.”
Anthropologist Scott Atran, in his book In Gods We Trust, writes:
“Magic is usually practiced precisely in situations where no mundane causal sequence of actions and events is known to affect an outcome that is both personally relevant and socially desired.”
In other words, if a person does certain actions, in the correct way, in the correct order, and at the correct time, then certain things should happen. Magic may be seen as a way in which humans attempt to control the universe by a set of actions. If a certain ritual, for example, is done correctly, then it will cause a certain result in the natural world. Magic does not depend on an appeal to gods, spirits, deities, or other entities: it is seen as a simple cause-and-effect action. Anthropologists Ernest Schusky and T. Patrick Culbert, in the textbook Introducing Culture, write:
“In this sense, magic parallels science; the world is a natural one of cause-and-effect relationships. The magician, like the scientist, seeks mastery of the causes in order to produce desired effects.”
Ethnographies of hunting and gathering peoples as well as horticultural societies often describe the magical rites related to the procurement of food. Among the horticultural people of the Trobriand Islands, Branislaw Malinowski, in a 1922 essay republished in Sacred Realms: Essays in Religion, Belief, and Society, reports that magic is:
“…a series of rites performed every year over the gardens in rigorous sequence and order.”
Branislaw Malinowski also writes:
“Magic is undoubtedly regarded by the natives as absolutely indispensable in the welfare of the gardens.”
In his ethnography Ulithi: A Mirconesian Design for Living, William Lessa writes about the difference between magic and religion:
“If it can be said that religion is largely dependent on ‘whom’ you know, then it can be said that magic relies on ‘what’ you know, for it is knowledge of the suitable thing to do that brings about the results intended. And so the prospective practitioner must undergo training at the hands of a person versed in the art he wants to acquire.”
William Lessa also reports:
“Magic is a form of property known only to those who have been given a right to share it by virtue of training, friendship, and the payment of gifts.”
Magic does not need to invoke the aid of a supernatural entity. In her discussion of magical deposits at the Turkish archaeological site of Çatalhöyük, Carolyn Nakamura, in her report in Religion in the Emergence of Civilization: Çatalhöyük as a Case Study, writes:
“Magic seeks to effect direct action—through intentional speech acts or acts of doing—action that does not necessarily require an intermediary source. So magic can provide an important pathway or outlet for human agency and creativity in which religious or other social forms structure and constrain human action and belief.”
Writing about Ancient Egyptian magic, Barbara Mertz, in Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt, lists the activities that would be considered by modern scholars to fit into the category of magic:
“… cursing (including killing); curing; erotic magic; agriculture (including weather); divination; resurrection.”
With regard to magic among the people of Ulithi, a Pacific Island, ethnographer William Lessa reports:
“The ends for which magical techniques are a means are more egocentric than those of religion. Magic has less effect in supporting the moral order than in satisfying an immediate specific objective on the part of the magician himself, his client, or the society he may be called upon to serve. The magician is little concerned with the ethical system as such.”
While religion may include magic, there are a number of scholars who feel that not all magic is associated with religion. Magic does not always involve invoking a god and if religion is defined as having a god as a central focus, then magic is not considered as a religious activity. Margot Adler, in Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshipers, & Other Pagans in America Today, writes:
“We have seen that most Witches and Neo-Pagans do not link ‘magic’ with the ‘supernatural.’”
She also writes:
“Those who do magic are those who work with techniques that alter consciousness in order to facilitate psychic activity.”
In other words, the use of magic, as Adler is describing it, seems to be associated with shamanism and its use of altered states of consciousness.
In his classic 1922 work on magic and religion, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, Sir James Frazer writes:
“If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed.”
Law of Similarity
The Law of Similarity is based on the belief that there exists a connection between similar things or acts. Thus, doing something to one object will have a similar effect on its likeness. It assumes that things that resemble each other can also influence each other. According to the Law of Similarity one can make a small statue of a distant enemy, run a needle into it, and cause pain in the enemy. Frazer and others also refer to this as Homeopathic or Imitative Magic.
Ancient cave paintings depicting animals may be an example of Imitative Magic used in the animistic hunting rituals of Paleolithic hunters. By performing rituals based on the Law of Similarity they would call the animals to them and thus help ensure a successful hunt. Similarly, in agricultural societies, young couples would copulate in the fields as a way of reminding nature of the need for fertility.
In ritual caves in the Grand Canyon area of the American Southwest, Archaic hunters of some 5,000 years ago would place split-twig figurines which had been pierced by miniature spears.
Curses which are intended to kill or injure people in ancient Egypt used Imitative Magic. Barbara Mertz explains:
“The cursing texts were written on rough pottery bowls or figurines which were then flung down and smashed to bits. The inscriptions name the enemies whose lives are to be broken as the bowls are smashed.”
Archaeologists have also uncovered evidence of curses in ancient Greece. About 2300 years ago curses were cast into a public well at the edge of the Kerameikos necropolis in Athens. In an article in Archaeology, Benjamin Leonard reports:
“Several of the tablets were folded and pierced with nails, while others were fashioned in the shape of livers or coffins. A particularly malediction condemns an allegedly promiscuous newlywed named Glykera and her vulva.”
The use of imitative magic to bring about harm can be seen among the Murngin, an Australian Aboriginal group. In his classic 1937 ethnography A Black Civilization: A Study of an Australian Tribe, W. Lloyd Warner reports:
“The person (or persons) who is interested in destroying another mixes up a number of colors and paints the image of his intended victim on a large stone.”
When the picture is complete, a fire is laid under the stone. When the stone breaks because of the heat, the soul of the victim will scream in pain. W. Lloyd Warner reports:
“It is believed that in one or two days after the stone breaks the victim will wake up from his sleep and feel very weak and ill, that his body will swell up, he ears grow large and his nose run with blood, that his elbows and nails will split and his skin and testes crack. The man will walk around one year or more before he dies.”
A variation of the rock painting magic among the Murngin is image whipping. W. Lloyd Warner explains:
“Another form of magic is to draw an image and then go over the whole of the body, naming each part and using the name of the intended victim. The image is then whipped with strings.”
Law of Contagion
The Law of Contagion is based on the belief that objects that had once been in contact always remain in contact and thus a change in one will result in the change in the other. Robert Anderson, in his book Magic, Science, and Health: The Aims and Achievements of Medical Anthropology, writes:
“A mystical connection was thought to remain in force between an individual and things that had once been a part of, or attached to, the body.”
Another example of contagious magic is found in the American Southwest where Archaic hunters of some 5,000 years ago would place the remains of Pleistocene-age mountain goat (Oreammos harringtoni) and bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) with split-twig animal figurines in ritual cave sites. In an article in American Antiquity, Nancy Coulam and Alan Schroedl report:
“Under principles of contagious magic, placing miniature split-twig figurines next to larger Pleistocene animals would result in an increase in the Holocene game animals represented by the figurines and would thus magically ensure the food supply of the figurine makers.”
Nancy Coulam and Alan Schroedl also report:
“Under the principle of contagious magic, placing split-twig zoomorphic figurines in proximity or contagious association with the larger Pleistocene fauna would magically result in an increase in the size of the animals represented by the figurines.”
In Micronesia, H.G. Barnett, in his ethnography Being a Paluan, describes the role of the magician:
“For a price, they used their knowledge to cast spells upon the enemies of their clients or employed counter-magic to break the spell of other magicians. Contagious magic seems to have been most popular. With this a magician effected his purpose through the use of some object that had been in intimate association with his victim, such as an article of clothing, a hair, or, most frequently, his cast-off betel quid.”
In making a love potion, for example, the use of something that had once belonged to the person sought, such as a piece of hair or clothing, enables the potion, via the Law of Contagion, to act upon the person.
Law of Opposites
In some instances, magic may use what some call the Law of Opposites: opposite objects have a connection and thus what affects one can affect the other. For example, in order to bring rain, the ceremony may focus on dry earth or sand.
Word Magic
Word magic involves the magical use of words and names. Some words are seen as having magical properties or power. In his 1934 textbook An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Robert Lowie writes:
“Spells—mere words recited or sung for their supernatural value—represent another type of magic.”
Regarding word magic, S.I Hayakawa and Alan R. Hayakawa, in their book Language in Thought and Action, write:
“…the notion that, by saying things repeatedly or in specified ceremonial ways, we can cast a spell over the future and force events to turn out the way we said they would.”
Joseph Williams, in his book Origins of the English Language: A Social and Linguistic History, writes:
“The Egyptians, for example, gave everyone two names, a public name and a secret one; they believed if someone knew a person’s real name, he would have power over the person. In other cultures, word-magic takes the form of taboos against uttering the name of a god, or the name of certain relatives, or even words that sound like those words.”
In an entry in The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Joe Edward Barnhart writes:
“Some versions of magic are a bet that words variously arranged can have a significant impact on whatever forces or beings affects human life. Words may in many cases combine with bodily movements that are also believed to be efficacious despite there being no apparent contact with the reality to be influenced.”
An example of word magic in modern religions is given by George Wells who writes in an article in Free Inquiry:
“It is official Catholic teaching that when, at the Eucharistic celebration, the priest speaks the words of consecration, the substance of the bread and the wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ. It is thus supposed that the mere pronunciation of words in the ritual situation can effect a change in the character of material objects.”
Word magic is also closely associated with tabooed words—words which are not supposed to be spoken in certain social contexts. Tabooed words include the irreverent use of sacred names and obscene language. By avoiding these words, speakers are attempting to avoid any bad consequences resulting from the magic of saying the word. In his book The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, psychologist Steven Pinker writes:
“Incantations, spells, prayers, and curses are ways that people try to affect the world through words, and taboos and euphemisms are ways that people try not to affect it.”
Magical Charms, Amulets, Fetishes
Another form of magic found in many different cultures involves the use of magical charms or fetishes. Nancy Coulam and Alan Schroedl write:
“By definition, a fetish is an inanimate object that an individual uses to obtain magical or supernatural power. The fetish may be a natural object such as a stone, feather, animal part, or it may be a constructed object. Among hunter-gatherers and incipient agricultural societies, hunters or shamans manufacture or use fetishes that symbolize animals as a means of gaining supernatural power over the animal represented by the object.”
According to one display on religions in ancient Scotland in the National Museum of Scotland:
“It was important to have magic on your side in a world where luck, both good and bad, was a force affecting your life. People wore charms and amulets to bring good luck and ward off evil.”
Shown above are some Roman magical amulets on display in the National Museum of Scotland. According to the display: “The phallus was a popular symbol believed to guard against the evil eye and encourage fertility. It was depicted on amulets and everyday objects such as lamps.”
The magical powers of amulets and charms had many sources. In some cases, it was felt that ancient items had special powers; sometimes it was the shape of the object that gave it power; sometimes it was the material itself. It is not uncommon to find that some amulets obtain their power from their phallic shape. Objects associated with animals are felt to have special powers which are related to the strengths of these animals.
Amulets and other magic symbols are important in traditional Chinese religion. In his book Chinese Religion: An Introduction, Laurence Thompson writes:
“Charms and amulets were universally employed, placed in the home and worn on the person. Guardian figures were painted on the gates, and walls were paced across the entranceways beyond, in both temples and homes, to keep out evil spirits.”
Religious emblems may also serve as magical amulets. For example, popular European mythology (including modern movies) depict the Christian cross as an amulet that wards off vampires. In some Christian traditions, wearing the emblem of certain saints is thought to keep the wearer from harm.
Prayer?
Prayer is an important part of many religious traditions and there are some who feel that prayer is a form of magic. In his book The Transcendental Temptation, philosopher Paul Kurtz writes:
“Prayer is surely a form of magic; it is the residual belief of a primitive mind that one can influence the deity who controls nature and one’s destiny. It is hoped that the deity will respond to our prayers and sacrifices.”
Prayers often seem to be a form of word magic: if the words are uttered in a certain ritualistic way, then the desired results will follow.
Summary
In his book Ritual: A Very Short Introduction, Barry Stephenson writes:
“Magic is often identified in ritual studies as a broad category of ritual, including rites associated with hunting, exorcism, divination, fertility, spells, and healing. The term refers to a set of practices, the aim of which is to bring about certain changes or conditions in groups, individuals, or nature, where the changes are held to be the result of these acts.”
Magic—the rote recitation of incantations and/or performance of certain rituals intended to bring about some desired result—has probably been an integral part of human behavior for thousands of years. Magic has also been, and continues to be, an important part of most religions, ranging from the animism of hunting and gathering societies, to the organized monotheistic religions that are common today.
Open Thread
This is an open thread—all comments are welcome.
