MAGIC: A TALE OF TWO CONTRASTS: JAMES FRAZER AND E.E. EVANS-PRITCHARD (PART 1)

 Two theorists of magic – Sir James Frazer and Edward Evan (E.E.) Evans-Pritchard lived in the United Kingdom during the first half of the Twentieth Century. However, Frazer (1854-1944) was a product of Victorian England. Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) came of age after the First World War, during a time of great upheaval.

 

Like his cohorts of Victorian England, Frazer embraced the social theory of Evolutionism. Derived from Charles Darwin’s theories of biological change, Evolutionism was the dominant thought in anthropology until the First World War. According to Evolutionism, all cultures are homogenous, and evolved in three stages – “savagery, barbarism, and civilization.” (Note 1.) This theory was based on the assumption that the “human mind everywhere was similar” – called “psychic unity.” Therefore, all cultures advanced through the three stages, such that the tribal societies of Australia would eventually become like the civilized societies of Europe.

 

Frazer, a person of his time, did not question the assumptions of Evolutionism. He lived during the era of Western dominance and imperialism. The European empires assumed the responsibility to civilize the backward societies of their colonies, including China and India.

 

Based on his assumption of the “psychic unity of humans,” Frazer gathered his information from various missionaries in the field. Then, he assembled the data, analyzed and compared cultures. As the first to study religion as an academic field, Frazer regarded it to be a social activity that could be compared across disparate cultures.

 

Living during the Industrial Revolution, Frazer believed that science was the end-point of civilized societies. Possessing a subtle anti-religiosity, he thought that magic and religion were stepping stones to rational thinking. Frazer claimed that “magic is a false and bastard science.”

 

According to Frazer, “savages” could not understand the difference between the natural and the supernatural. To explain this thinking, he constructed the “Law of Sympathy.” Frazer broke this law down into two parts – the “Law of Similarity” and the “Law of Contagion.” (Note 2.) The first said that “things that are alike are the same.” The latter said that “a thing once in contact will remain in contact even after the connection is severed.” For Frazer, magic was a ruder phase of the mind – i.e. “primitive.”

 

According to Frazer, as a culture matured, it would move into more abstract thinking and embrace religion. He said, “magic attempts to compel the power of the universe; religion supplicates them.” Religion is “a slight and partial acknowledgement of powers superior to man.” Therefore, religion was a stepping stone to the “wisdom of science” from “the follies of magic!” (Emphasis is Frazer’s.)

 

Notes:

Note 1. The terms used by Frazer such as “savages” or “primitives” are from Evolutionism.

Note 2. Frazer’s laws of magic were later codified by practicing wizards.

 

Works Used:

Bowie, Fiona, “The Anthropology of Religion: An Introduction.” 2008. PDF. https://www.academia.edu/331603/Anthropology_of_Religion.

Davis, Owen, ed. “The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft & Magic.” Oxford University Press: Oxford. 2017.

Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evans, “Social Anthropology and Other Essays.” Free Press: New York. 1966.

Frazer, James, “The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead.” The Gifford Lectures. https://www.giffordlectures.org/lectures/belief-immortality-and-worship-dead.

— The Worship of Nature.” The Gifford Lectures. https://www.giffordlectures.org/lectures/worship-nature.

Hutton, Ronald, “The Witch.” Yale University Press: New Haven. 2017.

—, “A Framework for the Study of European Magic.” Grey School of Wizardry Class Materials. Dell.Urgano, Ombra, “The Development of European Magic.”

Long, Heather and Kelly Chakov, “Social Evolutionism.” University of Alabama. 2022. https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/social-evolutionism/.

Moro, Pamela, “Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Magic.” International Library of Anthropology. 2022. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1915.

Porth, Eric, Kimberley Neutzling and Jessica Edwards, “Functionalism.” University of Alabama. 2022. https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/functionalism/.