the
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effects of witchcraft much more completely eradicated by counter-
witchcraft than is possible in any practical art or craft. Thus
both magic and science show certain similarities, and, with Sir
James Frazer, we can appropriately call magic a pseudo-science.
And the spurious character of this pseudo-science is not hard
to detect. Science, even as represented by the primitive knowledge
of savage man, is based on the normal universal experience
of everyday life, experience won in man's struggle with nature
for his subsistence and safety, founded on observation, fixed by
reason. Magic is based on specific experience of emotional states
in which man observes not nature but himself, in which the
truth is revealed not by reason but by the play of emotions upon
the human organism. Science is founded on the conviction that
experience, effort, and reason are valid; magic on the belief
that hope cannot fail nor desire deceive. The theories of knowledge
are dictated by logic, those of magic by the association of
ideas under the influence of desire. As a matter of empirical fact
the body of rational knowledge and the body of magical lore are
incorporated each in a different tradition, in a different social
setting and in a different type of activity, and all these differences
are clearly recognized by the savages. The one constitutes
the domain of the profane; the other, hedged round by observances,
mysteries, and taboos, makes up half of the domain of
the sacred.
6. Magic and Religion
Both magic and religion arise and function in situations of
emotional stress: crises of life, lacunae in important pursuits,
death and initiation into tribal mysteries, unhappy love and unsatisfied
hate. Both magic and religion open up escapes from
such situations and such impasses as offer no empirical way out
except by ritual and belief into the domain of the supernatural.
This domain embraces, in religion, beliefs in ghosts, spirits, the
primitive forebodings of providence, the guardians of tribal
mysteries; in magic, the primeval force and virtue of magic.
Both magic and religion are based strictly on mythological tradition,
and they also both exist in the atmosphere of the miracu-
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lous, in a constant revelation of their wonder-working power.
They both are surrounded by taboos and observances which
mark off their acts from those of the profane world.
Now what distinguishes magic from religion? We have taken
for our starting-point a most definite and tangible distinction: we
have defined, within the domain of the sacred, magic as a practical
art consisting of acts which are only means to a definite end
expected to follow later on; religion as a body of self-contained
acts being themselves the fulfillment of their purpose. We can
now follow up this difference into its deeper layers. The practical
art of magic has its limited, circumscribed technique: spell,
rite, and the condition of the performer form always its trite
trinity. Religion, with its complex aspects and purposes, has no
such simple technique, and its unity can be seen neither in the
form of its acts nor even in the uniformity of its subject-matter,
but rather in the function which it fulfils and in the value of its
belief and ritual. Again, the belief in magic, corresponding to its
plain practical nature, is extremely simple. It is always the
affirmation of man's power to cause certain definite effects by
a definite spell and rite. In religion, on the other hand, we
have a whole supernatural world of faith: the pantheon of
spirits and demons, the benevolent powers of totem, guardian
spirit, tribal all-father, the vision of the future life, create a
second supernatural reality for primitive man. The mythology
of religion is also more varied and complex as well as more
creative. It usually centers round the various tenets of belief,
and it develops them into cosmogonies, tales of culture-heroes,
accounts of the doings of gods and demigods. In magic, important
as it is, mythology is an ever-recurrent boasting about
man's primeval achievements.
Magic, the specific art for specific ends, has in every one of
its forms come once into the possession of man, and it had to be
handed over in direct filiation from generation to generation.
Hence it remains from the earliest times in the hands of specialists,
and the first profession of mankind is that of a wizard or
witch. Religion, on the other hand, in primitive conditions is
an affair of all, in which everyone takes an active and equiva-
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lent part. Every member of the tribe has to go through initiation,
and then himself initiates others. Everyone wails, mourns,
digs the grave and commemorates, and in due time everyone
has his turn in being mourned and commemorated. Spirits are
for all, and everyone becomes a spirit. The only specialization
in religion—that is, early spiritualistic mediumism—is not a
profession but a personal gift. One more difference between
magic and religion is the play of black and white in witchcraft,
while religion in its primitive stages has but little of the contrast
between good and evil, between the beneficent and malevolent
powers. This is due also to the practical character of magic,
which aims at direct quantitative results, while early religion,
though essentially moral, has to deal with fateful, irremediable
happenings and supernatural forces and beings, so that the
undoing of things done by man does not enter into it. The
maxim that fear first made gods in the universe is certainly not
true in the light of anthropology.
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