6.1 Rejection of Magic
No one has addressed primitive beliefs in magic and superstition as well as Sir James Frazer, author of The Golden Bough. This was the first definitive description of the myriad explanatory techniques and coping mechanisms that pre-scientific people used to make sense of their world. Rather than using empirical methods of observation, hypothesis, test, and measurement, the long standing unsophisticated, intuitive methods they used to explain how the universe worked invoked what would today be called magic. These people found patterns in the world based on associations of ideas in the mind, either through similarity or proximity. According to Frazer, “the order on which magic reckons is merely an extension, by false analogy, of the order in which ideas present themselves to our minds.” Primitive societies, succumbing to this way of reasoning, relied on what he called “sympathetic magic” to explain events in the world. Two sub-categories of these phenomena subsumed the bulk of primitive magical thought:
- Law of Similarity (“like” produces “like”). This is the basis of voodoo, images, effigies, idols, and holy statues. Charms based on the Law of Similarity may be called Homeopathic of Imitative Magic. The Mandrake root, which resembles a man's form, is supposed to have magical properties. Rhinoceros horn, which bears a striking resemblance to a body part of virile male, is used as an aphrodisiac. Primitive cave paintings depicting of successful hunting scenes were thought to insure a successful outcome to the real hunt. Mistletoe was used in pre-modern times as a cure for epilepsy. It does not fall to the ground because it is rooted on the branch of a tree. It would seem to follow as a consequence that an epileptic cannot fall down as long as he carries a piece of mistletoe. Such a train of reasoning would probably be regard even now as reasonable by a large portion of humanity.
- Law of Contact (or Contagion) is based on the idea in which things that have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. Charms based on the Laws of Contact are called Contagious magic. Our abhorrence at the idea of wearing a piece of clothing previously worn by a mass murderer, or receiving a blood transfusion from a violent criminal are demonstrations of this law at work. Relics of saints, or fragments from the “true cross” can supposedly transfer spiritual energy. A lucky shirt or lucky ritual such as crossing your fingers invoke the Law of Contact. Charms made from fingernail clippings, hair and other discards from a target of magic are frequently used.
Magic is a spurious system of natural law as well as a fallacious guide of conduct. It is more akin to a false science than a false religion. Magical systems attempt to express, explain, and exploit causality through an association of ideas – the first through similarity in form, the second in similarity of position. Magical thinking commits the mistake of assuming that things which resemble or were near each other are somehow the same or have some unseen but real connection and causal relationship. The magician believes he can produce an effect merely by imitating it (law of similarity), or that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact (law of contact).
There are countless examples of sympathetic magic in primitive and not-so-primitive societies – far too many to list here. But here is a sampling from The Golden Bough:
Among the Esquimaux boys are forbidden to play cat’s cradle, because if they did so their fingers might in later life become entangled in the harpoon-line... Here the taboo is obviously an application of the law of similarity... as the child’s fingers are entangled by the string in playing cat’s cradle, so they will be entangled by the harpoon line when he is a man and hunts whales. Again, among the Huzuls of the Carpathian Mountains the wife of a hunter may not spin while her husband is eating, or the game will turn and wind like the spindle, and the hunter will be unable to hit it. Here again the taboo is clearly derived from the law of similarity… In some of the East Indian islands any one who comes to the house of a hunter must walk straight in; he may not loiter at the door, for were he to do so, the game would in like manner stop in front of the hunter’s snares and then turn back, instead of being caught in the trap. For a similar reason it is a rule with the Toradjas of Central Celebes that no one may stand or loiter on the ladder of a house where there is a pregnant woman, for such delay would retard the birth of the child ... Malays engaged in the search for camphor eat their food dry and take care not to pound their salt fine. The reason is that the camphor occurs in the form of small grains deposited in the cracks of the trunk of the camphor tree. Accordingly it seems plain to the Malay that if, while seeking for camphor, he were to eat his salt finely ground, the camphor would be found also in fine grains; whereas by eating his salt coarse he ensures that the grains of the camphor will also be large … The chief product of some parts of Laos, a province of Siam, is lac. This is a resinous gum exuded by a red insect on the young branches of trees, to which the little creatures have to be attached by hand. All who engage in the business of gathering the gum abstain from washing themselves and especially from cleansing their heads, lest by removing the parasites from their hair they should detach the other insects from the boughs. Again, a Blackfoot Indian who has set a trap for eagles, and is watching it, would not eat rosebuds on any account; for he argues that if he did so, and an eagle alighted near the trap, the rosebuds in his own stomach would make the bird itch, with the result that instead of swallowing the bait the eagle would merely sit and scratch himself
The list of examples goes on and on. In Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, there is a scene where one of the soldiers objects to having his drawn likeness captured in a sketchbook. He rejects being compared to a superstitious native, but cannot otherwise account for his extreme reluctance. The implication is that, like the "savages" they are pursuing, he feels danger from sympathetic magic associated with a book containing his picture over which he has no control.
In our own lives, we subscribe to many superstitions and magical belief systems. Recently, the system called “The Law of Attraction”, popularized in the motion picture, “The Secret” encouraged visualization of desired outcomes to cause the outcomes to occur. This is more than just positive thinking – it is literally magic. The Law of Similarity, again, is at work here: a mental image of a thing is somehow similar to the thing itself. Also, we use homeopathic medicine when we believe water retains a “memory” of a curative agent that once was in it - this is the Law of Contact at work. And how many of us, normally rational in most of our decisions, continue to take large varieties of supplements and herbal remedies based on a recommendation or foggy personal recollection, and refuse to stop taking it in the face of proof that they don't work?
Science avoids magical explanations in favor of empirical observations, hypotheses, and experimentation. But we all seem to have weak areas where we let primitive magic drive our decisions.
