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Contents 1 Ritual 2 Witchcraft 3 Magic Vs. Religion 4 Typology of Magic 5 Comments

Ritual

Stereotyped, repetitive behaviour, either religious or non-religious, that uses symbols to communicate meaning.

Religious rituals usually involve spiritual beings, and some beneficial result is desired. It is usually they, no the person performing the ritual, who are thought of as able to bring about their outcome. Magic, in contrast to religious ritual, is designed to bring about some desired practical result without the intervention of spirits. A magician attempts to take directs control over some part of nature or of other people.

Frazer considered magic to have more in common with science than with religion. Instead of relying on spirits to grant what people wish, the magician attempts, like the scientist, to manipulate the laws of nature to achieve the desired result.

Frazer proposed that people first enter a magic stage, seeking to manipulate objects and events without the help of spirits. When their attempts inevitably failed, they turned in hope to spirits to provide them with the things they desired, and the age of religion was born. Much later, sceptical individuals realised that religion could not provide all the answers they needed, and this led to the birth of science.

He distinguished between 2 types of magic, imitative (or homeopathic) magic, where one imitates the desired effect and it happens.

E.g. Th Azande prick the stalks of bananas with the teeth of crocodiles, hoping that the fruits will be as abundant as crocodiles" teeth.

Then, there is contagious magic- one obtains some object that was once in contact with someone (e.g. clothing) and does something to it in the belief that this action will affect the person with whom the object was once in contact.

Cross culturally, it is common for the hair or nail clippings removed from an individual as part of the separation phase of a rite of passage to be carefully hidden lest some enemy get hold of them and burn them in a ritual of contagious magic designed to injure those from whom they were cut.

Rite of passage- a ritual marking a culturally significant change in an individual"s life cycle, such as birth, puberty, marriage, old age and death.

Witchcraft

Witches "originate" from the inquisition- 16th century. They were defined as non-believers in God. Women were most commonly accused of being witches.

Malinowski

To prove that "primitive" people could distinguish between fact and fiction, between technology and magic, Malinowski explained how complex were the technical skills for activities such as gardening, sailing, fishing that Trobrianders controlled. According to Malinowski, when Trobrianders fish in the lagoon, the men never resort to fishing magic because the waters there are relatively calm. But when they take their canoes into the open seas, they turn to magic as protection from the hazards of strong winds and rainstorms. It is only when confronted by situations they can't control, because their pragmatic skills are inoperable, that Trobrianders, out of psychological stress, turn from technology to magic.

Gmelch observed the use of superstition in baseball. He discovered a whole series of rituals, taboos, and sacred objects that together form a complex of "pitcher magic"; tugging one's cap between pitches, touching the resin bag after each bad pitch etc.

He demonstrated that Malinowski was right- in baseball, magic is most prevalent in situations of chance and uncertainty.

Magic Vs. Religion

'Magic - A pseudo- scientific agent automatically bringing about desired end (i.e. a "scientific" performance to control certain aspects of nature over which we have no control).

Religion- Worship of and subjugation to divine beings / relationship with cosmos / extension of human relationships beyond the human sphere.

According to Frazer ("The Golden Bough" 1911-15), magic developed into religion.

Typology of Magic

Sympathetic (Law Of Sympathy) : Homeopathic/ Imitative magic

(Law of Similarity) Contagious magic (Law of Contact)

Law of Sympathy (Sympathetic Magic)- Sir James Frazer's explanation for the logic underlying magic, sorcery, and shamanism. He thought that tribal peoples believed that anything ever connected with a person, such as hair or blood, could be manipulated to influence that person. Things act on each other at a distance through a secret sympathy (e.g. Pre-enactment of childbirth in Somalia with a smile).

Law of participation- the assumption that a thing can participate in or be part of two or more things at once. Identified by Levy-Bruhl as the principle underlying his concept of prelogical thought.

Magic can be divided into the theoretical (magic as a pseudo-science) and the practical (magic as a pseudo-art).

Practical magic: Positive magic- (sorcery / charms) "Do this in order for x to happen".

Negative magic- (taboos) "Don't do this or x will happen"

The Masai use visual magic; pole on top of house- so will look up and not see the house.

Malinowski- magic supplies primitive man with a number of ready-made ritual arts which enable him to use practical techniques to bridge the gaps to impossible tasks.

How does magical thinking differ from Western Scientific thinking?

"Magical Thinking" reflects a kind of model of a universe far more deterministic than ours, a universe where things do not just happen by chance or accident. In such a universe, death, illness and crop failure call for explanation.

Magic, then, represents human attempts to manipulate chains of cause and effect between events that to us are unrelated, in ways to us that are irrational.

How is magic a psychological adaptation?

Some forms of magic, like the widespread New Guinea custom of men sticking reeds up their nostrils to induce bleeding- in symbolic imitation of menstruation- are physiologically harmful and sometimes cause fatal haemorrhaging . But all are deeply meaningful to those who enact these practices. Further, even though such practices may or may not be in themselves medically efficacious, they may nevertheless have a benefit physiological effect owing to neurological and immunological responses that are regulated by these emotions.

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