Since then the spiritualising of Magic and the despiritualising of Religion are both real processes of evolution, it may be difficult, or even impossible, to say of any given magical practice, without particular knowledge of its history, whether it is primitive or residuary. Sir E. B. Tylor writes: “Charm formulas are in very many cases actual prayers, and as such are intelligible. Where they are merely verbal forms, producing their effect on nature and man by some unexplained process, may not they, or the types they were modelled on, have been originally prayers, since dwindled into mystic sentences?”[296] The circumstances of each case must guide our judgment. What shall we say, for example, of the addresses to spirits in Melanesia, where it is difficult to find in any dialect a word for prayer, “so closely does the notion of efficacy cling to the form of words employed”?[297] Are spells there rising into prayers, or prayers sinking back into spells?
§ 5. Spirits know Magic, teach it, and inspire Magicians
Ghosts know Magic, because they knew it in the flesh; and, by analogy, similar knowledge is likely to be attributed to spirits that are reputed never to have been in the flesh. As fear exalts all the powers of a ghost above his former reach, it may be expected to raise his magical powers, especially if he had already been famous in that way. And, generally, it does so; but, exceptionally, we read that, among the Lengua Indians (west of the Paraguay), whilst any man may attempt Magic, professional “witch-doctors” are numerous and powerful; yet they are not credited with extraordinary powers after death.[298] Elsewhere, however, the dead magician does not forget his art. Where Shamanism prevails and the power of Magic or Sorcery attains its greatest social importance, the spirit of a dead shaman makes some advance toward deification. Among the Buryats, dead shamans are worshipped with prayer and sacrifice.[299] According to the Kalevala, the famous collection of Finnish poetry, in Tuonela (Hades), whither all dead shamans descend, their wisdom and magical power accumulate, exceeding that of any living adept; so that even Väinämöinen, the wizard hero, goes down to learn there the magical words he does not know.[300]
Spirits, knowing Magic, also teach it, and make magicians and prophets. In South-East Australia, the profession of wizard may be hereditary in the eldest son; or obtained through initiation by another wizard—(a corpse is dug up, its bones pounded for the neophyte to chew; he is plastered with excrement, etc., till he becomes frenzied, his eyes bloodshot, his behaviour maniacal);[301] or a man may become a wizard by meeting a spirit who opens his side and inserts quartz-crystals, etc.; or by deriving power from Daramulun; or by sleeping at a grave, where the deceased opens him, and takes out and replaces his bowels. Here we have a list of the most usual ways in which magical powers can anywhere be acquired—by inheritance, by tuition, by the aid of ghosts or spirits; and it suggests the hypothesis that at first the magic art was inherited, or learnt from a former wizard; and that, with the growth of Animism, it became in some cases preferable, because more impressive (and cheaper), to acquire it from a ghost or spirit. For this is more probable than that, at the early stage in which Animism exists in South-East Australia, retrogradation should have taken place; so that the making of wizards, formerly ascribed only to spirits, should in some cases have been remitted to inheritance or to professional tuition. That in spite of the greater prestige that may attach to a diploma obtained from spirits, the right of practising by inheritance or by tuition often still persists, though, no doubt, due in part to dull conservatism, may also be understood by considering family and professional motives. There are heavy fees for teaching witchcraft, besides the profits made in some tribes by selling the control of familiar spirits; the profession is lucrative, and a wizardy family has an interest in its monopoly; which must be impaired, if any man who loses himself in the bush may come back with some cock-and-bull story about a ghost and his new metaphysical insides, and straightway set himself up with the equivalents of a brass plate and red lantern. Among the Boloki on the Congo, the careers of blacksmith and witch-doctor are open only to the relatives of living adepts. At least, practically (but for a few exceptionally cunning and rascally interlopers who creep and intrude and climb into the fold), the office of witch-doctor is hereditary: a father trains his son, and will train (for a large fee) any youth whose family has already produced a witch-doctor. But a candidate without family connexion is told that he must first kill by witchcraft all the members of his family, as offerings to the fetich of that branch of the profession to which he aspires.[302]
Not only the spirits of primitive Animism, but likewise the gods of maturer Religions, know and teach Magic. In the Maori mythology, Tumatauenga, one of the first generation of gods, determined incantations for making all sorts of food abundant and for controlling the winds, as well as prayers to Heaven suited to all the circumstances of human life; and the god Rongotakawin, having shaped the hero Whakatau out of the apron of Apakura, taught him Magic and enchantments of every kind.[303] Prof. Rhys tells us that the Welsh god Mâth ab Mathonwy, or Math Hên (the ancient), was the first of the three great magicians of Welsh Mythology; and he taught Magic to the culture hero, Gwydion ab Dôn, with whose help he created a woman out of flowers.[304] The Teutonic equivalent of Gwydion is Woden, or Othin; and he too was a magician, “the father of spells,” who acquired his wisdom by gazing down into the abyss, whilst he hung nine nights on the tree, an offering to himself (and in other ways); and, in turn, he teaches Siegfried the omens.[305] He also taught the northern people shape-changing, and by spells controlled fire and the winds.[306] In Egypt Magic was taught by Thoth, in Babylonia by Merodach, and in Japan by Ohonomachi the earth-god. Indeed, whence, unless from divine beings, could this precious wisdom be obtainable?
Spirits also inspire or possess the magician, so that through him, as their mouthpiece or instrument, prophecies are uttered or wonders wrought. We have seen that in South-East Australia the rites of initiation to wizardry by a wizard, without the aid of spirits, cause a candidate to become frenzied or maniacal. With the growing fashion of animistic interpretation, such behaviour is (along with insanity) put down to possession by a spirit. The common beliefs that a man’s soul can slip in and out of him and that a man may reincarnate the spirit of an ancestor, facilitate this idea of possession. Dreams concerning spirits also promote the belief that a miracle-monger owes to them his supernatural powers. The Tunguses of Turnkhausk say that the man destined to be a shaman sees in a dream the devil performing rites, and so learns the secrets of his craft. Among the Trans-Baikal Tunguses, he who wishes to become a shaman declares that such or such a dead shaman appeared to him in a dream, and ordered him to be his successor; and he shows himself crazy, stupefied and timorous. The Yakut shaman is preordained to serve the spirits, whether he wishes it or not: he begins by raging like a madman, gabbles, falls unconscious, runs about the woods, into fire and water, injures himself with weapons. Then an old shaman trains him.[307] On the Congo, a man may become a wizard by claiming to be the medium of a dead man; and a medium falls into a frenzy, shouts, trembles all over, his body undulates, sweat breaks out, foam gathers on his mouth, his eyeballs roll: he speaks an archaic language if he knows one.[308] In Santa Cruz (Melanesia), prophecy is practised by men whose bodies are taken possession of, and their voices used, by ghosts: they foam at the mouth, writhe, are convulsed as if in madness; and the mad, too, are believed to be possessed.[309] Similarly the Pythoness: the behaviour of the possessed is everywhere the same. But as the same behaviour marks the youth training for a wizard before the theory of possession or inspiration has been adopted, it is plain that the animistic theory does not create the phenomena, but is merely, at a certain stage of thought, the inevitable explanation of them.
Facility of falling into frenzy may be the test of fitness for wizardry; the Bokongo professor who trains a pupil, beats his drum, shakes his rattle, and tries to drive the fetich-power into him; if the pupil remains stolid, he is disqualified; but if he sways to the music of the drum, jumps about like a madman, etc., he passes.[310] These antics at first astonish the beholder, strengthen the faith of patients in the witch-doctor, and of the witch-doctor in himself, and often have a sort of hypnotic fascination for both him and them; and they gain in value under Animism by being also proofs of supernatural assistance or control: and being an essential mark of the adept at certain stages of the art’s development, they are sometimes induced by rhythmic drumming, singing and dancing, sometimes by fastings or drugs.
“Black Magic” is, at first, merely the use of Magic for anti-social purposes; very early a distinction is recognised between wizards who cause disease and those who cure it.[311] “Black” and “white” wizards are sometimes at open strife.[312] When tribal gods come to be recognised, “black” wizards are those who are assisted or inspired by inferior gods or demons, who may be opponents and rivals of the high gods. Hence the same god who, whilst paramount, aids or inspires in an honourable way, may, if deposed or superseded, become the abettor of Black Magic—as happened to our own gods, and to others, before and after the coming of Christianity; for the ancient divine sources of power and prophecy became devils and witch-masters. The magicians of our Middle Ages, of whom Faustus is the type, were “black” and, in the spirit of Shamanism, pretended to rule the devils; but, overshadowed by Christianity, they—at least in popular belief—bought their power at a price.
§ 6. Spirits operate by Magic
Spirits may operate through men whom they possess, or by their naked soul-force, or by words (that is, by spells), or by merely thinking: