20 Religion and Magic

Gulsan Khatoon

Contents

Introduction

1.Definition of religion

2.Explanatory theory of religion:

2.1 Animism

2.2 Animatism

2.3 Naturism and Manaism

3.Functional theory of religion

4.Magical practices in prehistory

5.Magic: meaning, types and principles

6.Religious practices and

Magic Summary

Learning outcomes

After studying this module:

You shall be able to understand the explanatory and functional theories of religion
You will learn the different types of religion prevailing among the primitive society.
You will learn about the magical practices in prehistoric period.
You will be able to understand the different types of magic and the principles underlying.

The primary objective of this module is:

To give a basic understanding to the students about magic and religion.
It also attempts to provide an informative background about the different types of religious practices and also types of magic based on certain principles

INTRODUCTION:

“Religion” has an inherent and unchanging meaning; it has suggested the pursuit of the Holy Grail, an unending quest for a desirable something lying perpetually in the distance. A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, world views that relate humanity to an order of existence. Many religions have narrative, symbols and sacred histories that aim to explain the meaning of life, or the universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people may derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred life style. Anthropologists have commonly called religion a “cultural universe”, one of the many things, including marriage, incest prohibitions, the family, and the social organization, found everywhere in the world. No society ever observed has failed to display something readily identifiable to scholars as religion. Magic is the use of rituals, symbols, actions, gestures and language that are believed to exploit supernatural forces. The belief in and the practice of magic has been present since the earliest human cultures and continues to have an important spiritual, religious and medicinal role in many cultures today

DEFINITION OF RELIGION:

According to the philologists Max Muller, “the root of the English word “religion”, the Latin “religo”, was originally used to mean only reverence for God or the Gods, carefully pondering of divine things, piety”

The typical dictionary definition of religion refers to a “belief in, or the worship of , a God or Gods” or the “Service and worship of God or the supernatural.”

Edward Burnett Tylor defined religion as “the belief in spiritual being”.

The anthropologist Clifford Greetz defined religion as a “ system of symbol which acts to establish powerful pervasive, and long lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing, these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic”.

The sociologist Emile Durkheim, in his seminal book The Elementary forms of the Religious life, defined religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things”

EXPLANATORY THEORIES OF RELIGION

Anthropological theories of religion have been concerned mainly with examining the content of various conceptions of the supernatural as prevalent in different societies at different times. The earlier anthropologists also trace the evolution of religion from cruder into developed forms. Recent theories concentrate on outlining the functions of religion.

2.1 ANIMISM

Tylor’s conjectural arguments ran as follows. Primitive man had certain experiences; in his dreams he engaged in various types of activities even while he was sleeping; he met his dead ancestors in dreams and had hallucinatory experiences about them, and other beings, while he was awake; he heard the echoes of his own voice; he saw his own reflection in ponds, pools and rivers; and he failed to disentangle himself from his shadow. Even while he was having these understandable (to him) experiences, something of a much deeper import must also have happened periodically and sets the primitive man’s mind thinking: people must have died. This catastrophe must have been a great challenge. It was thus that the belief in such an unseen thing, or power which kept people alive when it was in them, and made them dead when it left their bodies, emerged. Such a thing, or power, is called “soul”. But how was it that sleep, so very like death, was not death, and how was it that people had all these various experiences in dreams, and while awake, heard echoes and saw shadows and reflections? Tylor say’s primitive man must have thought there must be two souls in a human being; a free soul which could go out of him and have experiences, and a body soul which if it left the body resulted in its death. The former may have been associated with and represented by breath and shadow, the latter by blood and head. Primitive man must have come to the conclusion that when the body soul left the body permanently, the person concerned died; and his soul became a ghost or spirit.

So, Tylor believed that an attitude of awe and reverence towards these intangible and non-material spiritual beings forms the core of the earliest form of primitive religion. These spiritual beings are not under our control, and have, therefore, to be propitiated lest should do harm, and in order that they may render help. Thus ancestor worship was the earliest temples. Animism consists of such a belief in the role of spiritual beings in human life; it is a kind of polytheism. Tylor believed that in course of time there was evolutionary development in religious beliefs and forms, and the progress was from polytheism towards monotheism.

2.2 ANIMATISM AND MANAISM

Tylor’s earliest critics said that animism is a later development in the history of religion. They postulated a pre-animistic stage when religious belief supposedly consisted mainly in the belief that everything has life and is animate. Prominent among these writers were Preuss and Max Muller. The latter’s name is associated with the theory of naturism. More recently, Marett evolved a special form of animatist theory which he called manaism. Marett said that the entire religious life of the primitive is born out of their belief in a certain ununderstandable, impersonal, non-material, and unindividualized supernatural power which takes abode in all the objects, animate and inanimate, that exist in the world. It lies more or less beyond the reach of the senses, but is manifested as physical force or such other excellences as man can think of in himself, others and also in objects around him. It may differ in intensity, the degree in which it is present in a person or an object, but in essence it is always the same. Such a set of beliefs Marett called animatism or manaism after the term mana used by Malanesians to designate this force. Majumdar’s description and analysis of the conception of bonga among the Ho falls in line with Marett’s theory of primitive religion. Some North American tribes call this power orenda. It is elsewhere known as aren and wakua.

2.3 NATURISM

Max Muller said that the earliest form of religion must have been the worship of objects of nature; and evidence in support of such a view has come in from archaeological excavations conducted in Egypt and elsewhere. It is maintained that an attitude of awe or love and reverence towards objects of nature is born as a result of a “diseased” mind which invests lifeless things with life and all the power that is associated with life. This error of mind is, according to this theory, born out of defective language. Such linguistic errors as the sun rises and sets, or thunder sends rain, or the tree bear flowers and fruits, give rise to belief in some power inherent in the suns, thunder, trees, etc.

So far as it is maintained that objects of nature were worshipped, no difficulty arises; evidence in favour of such a practice is heavy, But any claim to such worship being the earliest form of religion, or the explanation given, is not convincing. There is no proof to show that various conceptions follow linguistic expression about the same. On the contrary, linguistic expressions may follow certain already existent ideas.

The merit and usefulness of these various theories emerges when they are taken together, as each of them expresses some essential truth regarding primitive religion.

FUNCTIONAL THEORIES OF RELIGION

Malinowski and Radcliff Brown have given functional explanation of primitive religion. Malinowski points out with reference to the Trobriand Islanders, that religion is intimately connected with various emotional states, which are states of tension. For example, quite a few of their magical and religious practices centre round the fishing expeditions. These are the outcome of the state of fear which a possible disaster on the seas give rise to. Similarly, hate, greed, anger, love etc., may arise due to various situations in a man’s life. These situations create stresses and strains and, if permitted to exist over a long period of time, frustrate all action. A human being has to be an acting individual; and normal action is not possible in an emotionally upset state of existence. Religion is made use of in such a situation as a tool of adaptation; its purpose is to purge the human mind of its stress and strain, i.e., it is cathartic in its action. In other words, religion has the function of bringing about a readjustment between man and the supernatural in upset states of existence. It is a device to secure mental and psychical stability in an individual’s life.

Radcliffe-Brown takes a different stand. The function of religion, he says, is not to purge fear and other emotional strains from the human mind, but to instill a sense of dependence in it. He says that, ultimately, the survival of the group is more important than that of the individual; and if the latter has to make some sacrifices it is in his own interest to do so, because without social survival individual survival is not possible. However, the individual does not seem to realize this always, and he seeks to chart out an individual course of action. If each individual were to do this there would be utter confusion and chaos and no organized activity would be possible. Adherence to a norm of behavior is essential in terms of social survival; and it is fear of supernatural control and punishment, as also the anticipation of support in the case of socially approved conduct, that brings about this adherence. Therefore, the function of religion is to create a twofold feeling of dependence on society and thereby obtain the individual’s concurrence with the social norms, the ultimate aim being social survival. The function of religion is the contribution it makes to that total activity which is designed to perpetuate society.

Radcliffe- Brown’s and Malinowski’s sociological explanations are derived, in part, from Durkheim’s theory of religion. Durkheim says that religious notions are born and conceived of when we find the social group collecting together for festivals and other social gatherings. Social life on such occasions is at its in tensest, and impresses the human mind with the transcendentalism and omnipotence of the group. It is conceived of as the source of all that man has and all that man is. Religion is the recognition of the superiority, moral and physical, of the collective over the individual.

MAGICAL PRACTICES IN PREHISTORY

Appearing from aboriginal tribes in Australia and New Zealand to rainforest tribes in South America, Bush tribes in Africa and pagan tribal groups in Western Europe and Britain(as personified by Merlin, based on Welsh prophet Myrddin Wyllt), some form of shamanism and belief in a spirit world seems to be common in the early development of human communities. According to Joseph Campbell, the ancient cave paintings in Lascaux may have been associated with “the magic of the hunt.” Much of the Babylonian and Egyptian pictorial writing characters appear derived from the same sources.

Although indigenous magical traditions persist to this day, very early on some communities transitioned from nomadic to agricultural civilizations, and with this shift, the development of spiritual life mirrored that of civic life. Just as tribal elders were consolidated and transformed into monarch and bureaucrats, so too did shamans and adepts evolve into a priestly caste.

This shift is not in naming alone. It is at this stage of development that highly codified and elaborate rituals, setting the stage for formal religions, began to emerge, such as the funeral rites of the Egyptians and the sacrifice rituals of the Babylonian, Persian, Aztec, and Maya Civilizations.

MAGIC: MEANING, TYPES AND PRINCIPLES

Magic is the use of rituals, symbols, actions, gestures and language that are believed to exploit supernatural forces. The belief in and the practice of magic has been present since the earliest human cultures and continues to have an important spiritual, religious and medicinal role in many cultures today. Magic is often viewed with suspicion by the wider community, and is sometimes practiced in isolation and secrecy. In non-scientific societies, perceived magical attack is sometimes employed to explain personal or societal misfortune.

On the basis of evidence collected from all part of the world, Frazer found that magical formulae are based on two principles:

(i) Like products like; and
(ii) Once in contact always in contact.

He has reduced these principles into laws. The first he calls the law of similarity, and the magic associated with it homeopathic, imitative or mimetic magic. The second is called by him the law of contact, or contagion, and the magic associated with it contagious magic. On these two principles are based all the various magical rites found in primitive society. All types of magic are labeled sympathetic by Frazer, because he considers them to be based on the principle of sympathy between cause and effect. Magic, like modern science, is based on the observation of, and experimentation on, cause-effect phenomena.

Frazer sums up these conclusions in a diagram:

FIGURE-1 Explanation of magic according to Frazer

Example of magical practices: In Chota Nagpur some tribal groups believe the thunder, with its rumbling noise, is the direct cause of rain. Therefore, when they want rain they go to a hill top, sacrifice a hen or a pig, and then start flinging down stones, rocks and boulders down the hill, expecting rain to follow the rumbling noises created by their action, just as it follows thunder. The Ho light fires expecting rain to come out of the cloud of smoke that is raised to the skies. These are cases of homoeopathic magic. So also was the human sacrifice of the Khond. It is believed that as tears roll down the sufferer’s eyes, and blood gushes forth from his wounds, so will rain come. A similar belief connecting tears with rain was the basis of a now-banned ceremony of the Tehri-Garhwal Rawaltas who used to make a person suffer an ordeal as a consequence of which tears would stream out of his eyes, and even on occasions cause death by strangulation.

Frazer’s collation of sorcery and taboo in the two types of magical behavior has been widely followed folk explanation of both that confirms his insight is plentiful. Frazer’s own analogy of science and medicine, however, stood in his way. One of the most famous passages from The Golden Bough runs:

Magic is a spurious system of natural law as well as fallacious guide of conduct; it is a false science as well as an abortive art. Regarded as a system of natural law, i.e., as statement of the rules which determine the sequences of events throughout the world, it may be called theoretical magic; regarded as a set of precepts which human beings observe in order to compass their ends, it may be called practical magic. At the same time it is to be born in the mind that the primitive magician knows only magic on its practical side; he never analyzes the mental process on which his practice is based, never reflects on its abstract principle involved in his actions.

Frazer said that savages perceived sympathies between things and expressed the idea in terms of the “Law of Sympathy”. He was then able to show that there were two kinds of “Sympathy”. There was sympathy based on observable similarity, such as that between gold and jaundice; and there was sympathy based on contact. Frazer called these the two sub types of the law of sympathy. Therefore he created a scheme in the form of a genealogy.

FIGURE-2: SYMPATHETIC MAGIC

RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND MAGIC

Both magic and religion contain rituals. Typically, there is a recognition that rituals do not always work; rather, it is thought to simply increase the likelihood of the desired result coming to pass. While many rituals focus on personal communion with the divine and spiritual purification, others often seek “magical” favorable results, such as healing or good luck in battle.

Most cultures have or have had in their past some form of magical tradition that recognizes a shamanistic interconnectedness of spirit. This may have been long ago, as a folk tradition that died out with the establishment of a major world religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, or it may still co-exist with that world religion.

Likewise, both can be divided by the effects they produce into perception and material changes. That is, whether prayer or some type of spell is used, it can either bring about an actual change (material) or a change in the way the subject feels (perception). The same prayer, for something to be “cooler” could therefore either actually raise the temperature, or simply alter the praying subject and any other targets feeling of the temperature. This is not to say that perception changes are not “real” as it could be used in healing to numb the sensation of pain, allowing healing to take place more easily.

Religion and magic are two ways of tiding over crises. Primitive man must have had to face the realities of life. He did so with his belief in some superior power, or powers, either by trying to coerce it into service, i.e., by magic, or by praying and offering worship to it, i.e., by the religious approach. Both magic and religion are tools of adaptation, the objective being to help man out of difficult situations and relieve his tensions. The two approaches seem to have always existed together and sometimes they come so near each other as almost to blend into each other. However, it is believed that the magical approach is the more primitive. Man must have resorted to supplication only after his ego driven magical approach failed to produce results invariably.

Summary

The earliest anthropological theory about primitive religion, seeking to trace its origins and explain it, was given by Edward Burnet Tylor. He said that although the origin appears to be multiple, yet there is only one idea underlying it, viz., belief in the soul (anima); hence the name animism for this theory. More recently, Marett evolved a special form of animatist theory which he called manaism. Marett said that the entire religious life of the primitive is born out of their belief in a certain ununderstandable, impersonal, non-material, and unindividualized supernatural power which takes abode in all the objects, animate and inanimate, that exist in the world. It lies more or less beyond the reach of the senses, but is manifested as physical force or such other excellences as man can think of in himself, others and also in objects around him. It may differ in intensity, the degree in which it is present in a person or an object, but in essence it is always the same. Such a set of beliefs Marett called animatism or manaism after the term mana used by Malanesians to designate this force. Naturism is a form of religion where an attitude of awe or love and reverence towards objects of nature is born as a result of a “diseased” mind which invests lifeless things with life and all the power that is associated with life. This error of mind is, according to this theory, born out of defective language. Such linguistic errors as the sun rises and sets, or thunder sends rain, or the tree bear flowers and fruits, give rise to belief in some power inherent in the suns, thunder, trees, etc.

Closely related to magic are most forms of religious supplication, asking the divine for aid. Perhaps the most famous form is prayer, which is ordained by many religions as a spiritual duty, even apart from any effects on the outside world. Both magic and religion contain rituals. Typically, there is a recognition that rituals do not always work; rather, it is thought to simply increase the likelihood of the desired result coming to pass. While many rituals focus on personal communion with the divine and spiritual purification, others often seek “magical” favorable results, such as healing or good luck in battle. Most cultures have or have had in their past some form of magical tradition that recognizes a shamanistic interconnectedness of spirit. This may have been long ago, as a folk tradition that died out with the establishment of a major world religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, or it may still co-exist with that world religion.

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