neptunesdolphins | Entries tagged with magic

Ronald Hutton (1953-, U.K.) in his essay, “Framework for the Study of European Magic,” observed that the materials from Mesopotamia showed “no sign that human beings were believed to be capable of coercing deities… without divine help.” He continues that the peoples of Mesopotamia “made a practice of timing important actions in harmony with heavenly bodies.” Moreover, they had an acute fear of witchcraft (i.e. “magic employed secretly and maliciously by other human beings.”) A few years later, writing in “The Witch” in 2017, Hutton noted that magic was a part of official religion in Mesopotamia. Since the peoples of that region made no distinction between religion and magic, both were a part of their daily lives.

Hutton’s later perception agrees with the various experts of Mesopotamia – Thorkild Jacobsen (1904-1993, Demark), Jeremy Black (1951-2004, U.K.) and Anthony Green (1956-2012, U.K.). Knowledgeable about the cultures of this region, these three Assyriologists stated that the various cultures believed that the world to be numinous and immanent for the Spirits were indwelling. For example, a Babylonian would have regarded the Burning Bush differently from Moses. They would have recognized as Moses did that the God, who was separate from the Bush. However, they would also have worshipped the Bush as a place where the God resided at one time. For a Babylonian, a God could reside in an object without their power diminishing elsewhere. In the mind of a Babylonian, a statue (or bush) could be a repository of the God but not be the God. Therefore, in Mesopotamia, the capture of the statue of a city’s God would be a calamity.

Within the cultures of Mesopotamia, magic consisted of asking for intercession with the Gods (and other Beings). Rituals could involve redirecting a potentially bad event or bringing comfort and healing. Before doing any ritual, divination was used for learning what the person was dealing with. (Divination was also considered to be magic.)

If the signs from the divination were ominous, the ritual of Namburbu (“the undoing of potential evil”) was conducted. In this ritual, people would apologize to the various Gods (known and unknown). Since people could disrupt the order of the universe accidentally, the Surpu (“burning”) would be conducted. This ritual was for the “undoing of unknown ‘sins.’” (Note 1.) During this ritual, a person would peel and onion while reciting their actions, and then feed the fire with the peelings. Once the onion was burnt, the person became “right with the universe.” In the case of illness, a medical magician (Asipu) would divine the problem and address the demons of the illness in the name of the Gods.

My definition of magic is that it how a person participates in the Cosmos with the Holy Powers. For me, magic and religion are the same, since they both entail participation in the ecology of the Cosmos. Therefore, I feel aligned with the Mesopotamian sense of magic. As they did, I believe that we all live under the same universal laws (Gods, Humans, spirits). Sometimes we inadvertently disrupt the order and things happen. One way of setting things right is through offerings and prayers.

For example, when I sustained my brain injury, I did make offerings for healing. Since the injury was a random event, I could have, earlier, disrupted the ecology of the Cosmos, quite by accident. My usual practice is to do divination before deciding what action to take. By conducting rituals and prayers, I have recovered from the trauma of what happened to me. I still have the injury but I now feel “right with the Universe.” Thus, my sense of magic fits well into the cultures of Mesopotamia.

Notes:

Note 1. In Mesopotamian cultures, a “sin” is an “act or omission of offending the Gods and disturbing the world order.” Prayer can undo “sin.”

Works Used:

Bairgent, Michael, “Astrology in Ancient Mesopotamia.” Bear and Co.: Rochester (VT). 1994.

Black, Jeremy and Anthony Green, “Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia.” University of Texas: Austin. 1992.

Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Ebeling, J., Flückiger-Hawker, E., Robson, E., Taylor, J., and Zólyomi, G., “The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature,” Oxford University. 2006. http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/,

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

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.”

Jacobsen, Thorkild, “The Treasures of Darkness.” Yale University Press: New Haven. 1976.

Koutrafouri, Vasiliki G. and Jeff Sanders, eds. “Ritual Failure: Archaelogical Perspectives.” Sidestone Press: Leiden. 2013.

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

Van Buylaere, Greta, Daniel Schwemer, et. al. “Sources of Evil: Studies in Mesopotamian Exorcistic Lore.” Koninklijke Brill NV: Leiden. 2018.

Current Mood: busy

Defining magic can be problematic since it is hard to pin down concretely. In 1911, Sir James Frazer, attempted a modern definition for magic. Frazer said “Magic attempts to compel the powers of the Universe; religion supplicates them.” Bronislaw Malinowski, a noted anthropologist, refined Frazer’s definition in 1930. He wrote “Magic is a practical art consisting of acts, which are only means to a definite end.” Then Malinowski explained, “religion, in contrast, is a body of self-contained acts being themselves the fulfillment of their purpose.” This approach has become the default for many years.

This separation of magic from religion has been long embedded in Western intellectual thought. When monotheistic religions became dominant in the West, the two became separate. Christianity absorbed positive magic as being “official religion.” Rituals such as prayers for healing or Roman Catholic Mass were religious, since their results were miracles of God.

In contrast, magic, which was focused on the individual, was not about pleasing or placating God. Instead, the individual directs the various spirits to do their bidding. Therefore, magic, in having specific aims, was manipulative. In summary, magic was about achieving venial ends like receiving more money whereas religion was about noble ends such as prayers to end a plague.

The problem with the traditional definition is that it cannot be applied to non-Western cultures or to ancient ones. Noted academic of Greco-Roman magic, Richard Gordon declared that this approach was unusable. He said that people in Roman times regarded magic differently than what Frazer had thought. Gordon observed that the people conducted the rituals did so for their own purposes. These could range such as asking the Gods to look favorably on the State or to have their soldiers achieve victories. He proposed a new approach that he called “ritual power.”

There were still problems with Gordon’s approach as it still assumed that magic was done alone and in secret. Therefore, other scholars proposed a different approach. Expanding on Richard Gordon’s ideas, they said that magic was what ancient and medieval cultures regarded it to be. For example, the Greeks determined magic to be more transgressive, usually to harm other people. In contrast, Egyptians thought of magic in two ways- “heka” which ensured the harmony of the cosmos, while “akha” came from the Beings of the Underworld. Meanwhile, the Romans regarded anything done against the communal good to be magic. Again, the split between magic and religion defaulted to Frazer’s original ideas.

The third alternative to the traditional definition was first suggested by (David) Emile Durkheim, the French sociologist. Considered the “Father of Modern Sociology,” Durkheim wrote that religion was “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things… in one single moral community.” He continued that magic “was not directed towards the gods or sacred things.” Durkheim felt that each society would define what was either magic or religion. Thus, the definition of magic would be made by the culture itself and not by academics.

This approach has problems as well. What each culture decided was transgressive (i.e. magic) differed across time and cultures. What was considered to be magic in Egyptian society of the First Dynasty was changed by the time of Cleopatra. Meanwhile, how could scholars discuss magic across dissimilar cultures? If the definition kept shifting, then the study of magic would be comparing apples with acorns.

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.

Greer, John Michael, “The Occult Book.” Sterling: NY. 2017.

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.”

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

Current Mood: sore

In contrast, Evans-Pritchard, in his fieldwork, stressed that the observer of a culture needs to be neutral in their assessments. He wrote of being tolerant of other societies. According to Evans-Pritchard, the ethnographer had to divorce themselves from their own cultural expectations to study other cultures.

The dominant theory that Evans-Pritchard learned was Structural Fundamentalism, which was developed in opposition to Evolutionism. Developed by Bronislaw Malinowski and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (Note 3.), this theory maintained that each society is a holistic integrated system sustained by individuals. The interlocking series of relationships within each society functioned as a system to keep it from disintegrating. Therefore, each culture has its own internal logic.

Evans-Pritchard first did his fieldwork, in the 1930s in Southern Sudan, among the Azande and Nuer. When he was with both peoples, Evans-Pritchard participated in their daily lives such as oracle taking. Keenly aware that he was an outsider, Evans-Pritchard knew he could not know how these Africans thought. Therefore, he learned the language of the people he was living with. Through their language, Evans-Pritchard could grasp important concepts of the Azande and Nuer.

When Evans-Pritchard started his fieldwork in Africa, the world had changed from Frazer’s time. The First World War destroyed European confidence and shattered empires. The pointless chaos of the First World War exposed the inanity of the Victorian mindset.

During the Second World War, Evans-Pritchard served in the African Resistance against Italy. In North Africa, with the Arab tribes, he engaged in guerilla warfare. From that vantage point, he witnessed the dismantling of the British Empire and the rise of the African nations.

Studying various religions in the 1950s and 1960s, Evans-Pritchard believed that religion was not constructed for either sociological or psychological reasons. He said that those reasons are what non-believers theorized about “alien” religions. Evans-Pritchard thought that people formed religions based on their perception of reality. Religion and magic were rational and logical ways of engaging with the world.

In his writings, Evans-Pritchard separated sorcery from witchcraft. He defined sorcery as magic that caused harm. In contrast, witchcraft was used to air and resolve social tensions. He wrote that “good magic judges and acts only against criminals. Bad magic slays one of the parties without regards to the merit of the case.” Evans-Pritchard defined a “witch” as a person suspected of practicing prohibited forms of magic. In contrast, “sorcerers” actively engaged in using magic for ill. His definitions reflect both British and African sensibilities.

Frazer and Evans-Pritchard agreed that magic was separate from religion. Magic was a result of how people dealt with their environment. Frazer thought that a person misinterpreted the natural world, while Evans-Pritchard that it was a logical response. However, both men believed that science would render magic useless. In that they reflected British sensibilities about the supremacy of technology and progress.

Notes:

Note 3. Evans-Pritchard knew both men.

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/.

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.