Some who have specialized in folklore and anthropology are very pessimistic as to the degree in which the scientific outlook upon nature is replacing the more primitive attitude associated with magic. One of the greatest authorities upon primitive beliefs and customs writes as follows: "We seem to move on a thin crust which may at any moment be rent by the subterranean forces slumbering below.... Now and then the polite world is startled by a paragraph in a newspaper which tells how in Scotland an image has been found stuck full of pins for the purpose of killing an obnoxious laird or minister, how a woman has been slowly roasted to death as a witch in Ireland, or how a girl has been murdered and chopped up in Russia to make those candles of human tallow by whose light thieves hope to pursue their midnight trade unseen." The danger to civilization foreseen by the specialist in uncouth customs is undoubtedly exaggerated, but his warning should remind us that education has a very valuable function to perform in training an ever increasing number in scientific habits of thought.
One of the assumptions which underlie magic is the idea that two things are connected in nature because they are like one another. Space is not looked upon as a barrier to this connection. So far as can be seen, anything can affect anything else; and the slightest suggestion of such a relation leads to the belief in its reality. There is almost entire absence of any conception of systematic testing: any accidental association may lead the savage to be assured of an important sign. Thus, if a man went out hunting and saw a rabbit cross his path, and then had bad luck, he would be sure that a rabbit is a sign of bad luck. Moreover, since individuals were on the lookout for hoodoos, they would not tempt providence a second time. This example illustrates the psychology rather than the sociology of the process. It must be remembered that social groups developed what we call superstitions by way of social contagion and suggestion. The laughing acquiescence of the present in hoodoos, mascots and lucky objects cannot be traced back to the credulity of any one individual. Such things come to pass by a process of accretion just as does the belief that a particular house is haunted.
Most writers on the subject classify magic into two kinds, imitative and contagious. These varieties are then carried back to two principles which seem to govern the association of ideas. Imitative magic follows the law of association by similarity, while contagious magic is based on the law of contiguity. To those who have studied psychology this classification will present no difficulties. To others a word of explanation is, perhaps, necessary. Our minds connect things or acts which are similar (the principle of similarity) and those which are experienced or thought of together (principle of contiguity). Connections are thus made between things and, since the principles are so liberal, almost anything can be connected with anything else. It is this liberality which is alien to science. Let us glance at some examples of both kinds of magic.
The most familiar instance of imitative magic is the device by means of which an individual hopes to injure or kill an enemy. A figure of the enemy is made and this is then stuck full of pins or else burned before a slow fire. "In ancient Babylonia it was a common practice to make an image of clay, pitch, honey, fat, or other soft material in the likeness of an enemy, and to injure or kill him by burning, burying, or otherwise ill-treating it." This practice occurs in the highlands of Scotland to-day as well as in Mexico, Italy, China and other countries. Rossetti's poem, Sister Helen, has made this example of imitative magic fairly familiar to those who would probably never otherwise have heard of it.
"Why did you melt your waxen man,
Sister Helen?
To-day is the third since you began."
"The time was long, yet the time ran,
Little brother."
"Oh, the waxen knave was plump to-day,
Sister Helen;
Now like dead folk he has dropped away!"
"Nay now, of the dead what can you say,
Little brother?"
There are many other curious instances of imitative magic. A Bavarian peasant in sowing wheat will sometimes wear a golden ring, in order that the corn may have a fine yellow color. Similarly, in many parts of Germany and Austria, the peasant imagines that he makes the flax grow tall by dancing or leaping high, or by jumping backwards from a table. Telepathic action, or action at a distance, was constantly believed in. The hunter's wife abstained from spinning for fear the game should turn and wind like the spindle and the hunter be unable to hit it.
While imitative magic works through fancied resemblance, contagious magic is based on the principle that what has once been together must remain forever after in a sympathetic relation, so that what is done to one affects the other. In Sussex some forty years ago a maid servant remonstrated strongly against the throwing away of children's cast teeth, affirming that should they be found and gnawed by any animal, the child's new tooth would be, for all the world, like the teeth of the animal that had bitten the old one. It was quite the custom in former years to anoint the sword which wounded a man instead of the wound itself. In Bryden's play, The Tempest, Ariel directs Prospero to anoint the sword which wounded Hippolite and to wrap it up close from the air. Footprints, pieces of clothing, pictures, locks of hair, all are connected with the individual and what is done to them reacts on the individual no matter where he is.
At first, mankind resorted to magic as naturally as we resort to the information given us by science. There was nothing nefarious about it. Not to use all the precautions in your power and employ all the means you could think of was simply foolish. As time went on, however, socially approved magic became distinguished from black magic or that which it was wrong to resort to. But magic, like every other activity, tended to become specialized. Certain persons seemed to possess more power than others, and, since no one could tell what was impossible, what appear to us the most absurd claims were put forth. Things were believed because they were impossible. It was under the encouragement of this "will to believe" that magic flourished until the slow growth of civilization and the awakening reason of man cast doubts upon it.
To study the more technical developments of magic is extremely interesting. Magicians as a class evolved a lore which was looked upon by the uninitiated as occult and mysterious. The mass of the people did not know of any bounds which could be set to their power. They and their deeds were shrouded in darkness and surrounded by all the gruesome associations which the awe-struck imagination could conjure up. Such was the case especially when magic became outlawed as an underhand means of obtaining things. But magic had by then fallen on evil days. It was not yet disbelieved but simply condemned because it did not fit in with the dominant religious and social order. The exact relation of religion and magic is a somewhat complex problem which we must postpone for a while.
The orient was always the fertile home of magic: here it reached its more technical developments. In Lucian we read of the reputed power of the Chaldean wise men who were able to recite spells which would move even the gods. All through the East this esoteric science existed. In Egypt the magicians claimed to be able to compel the highest gods to do their bidding. By this time magic had, however, passed beyond its more primitive character. So far as it involved signs and acts, these were of a highly symbolic type. Geometrical figures of intricate construction, phrases consisting of apparently meaningless words or of words supposed to have a peculiar significance, and the names of gods or demons were used with appropriate ceremonies. Many of these magical formulae have come down to us. They are spells which are supposed to constrain even the highest gods.