The Next Step in Religion: An Essay toward the Coming Renaissance

by Roy Wood Sellars

The story of Faust reflects very well the notion of magic existing in Europe during the Middle Ages. The reader will call to mind the scene in which Faust calls up the Earth-Spirit. Devotees of Victor Hugo will remember the description given in his Notre-Dame of Dom Claude's cell and this ecclesiast's unsuccessful attempts to use the hammer of Ezekiel. The important thing was to discover the magic word which this famous rabbi pronounced as he struck upon the nail with his hammer.

We have frequently called attention to the close connection supposed to exist between name and thing. The name is a genuine part of the nature of the thing. It was this assumption which lay at the root of the more involved magic of spells and incantations. "This is why every ancient Egyptian had two names," writes F. C. Conybeare, "one by which his fellows in this world knew him, and the other, his true or great name, by which he was known to the supernal powers and in the other world." He who possessed knowledge of the name of another had him to that extent in his power. Fear of such an eventuality led many nations to conceal the true name of their god. That is why the real name of the god of the Hebrews is a matter of conjecture to us, and why the Romans had an important deity whose name is completely lost. In an old Egyptian legend, the goddess Isis asks herself this question, "Cannot I, by virtue of the great name of Ra, make myself a goddess and reign like him in heaven and earth?" This conception reminds us of the passage in Matthew, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Again, in Mark, we have this corresponding passage, "John said unto him, Teacher, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbade him, because he followed us not." Thus names were things to conjure with in a literal sense. How few of those who read these verses understand their real meaning, that they involved a belief in the magic of names! In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter performs a miracle simply by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Is it necessary to remark that such cures as were possibly performed were due to suggestion of the sort for which ecstatic religious faith prepares the way?

In pre-scientific times, diseases were regarded as the effect of spirits or demons. Death, itself, is considered the work of a malignant agent. It is unnatural and magical. Savages often address diseases respectfully as Grandfather Smallpox. Jesus heals a woman and speaks of her as "a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has bound these eighteen years past." This address is in accord with the beliefs of that day everywhere. That the early Christians held similar views is no matter for surprise. They were children of their age.

Religion and magic were long bound up with one another. It is useless to ask which came first, for they are not mutually exclusive in the beginning. Only as an ethical monotheism, with a high respect for the personality and power of the deity worshiped, develops, is the magical element rejected. There are few religions, even to-day, which do not contain magical elements, and the farther back in time we go, the more conspicuous is the presence of incantations and ritual acts imputed to have a mysterious efficacy. Man had sore need of help, and so he adopted all the means which accident, fancy and ignorance suggested. If certain acts gave him the mana of his god or brought pressure to bear upon a supernatural agent, so much the better. Much of early liturgy is a mingling of spell and prayer, and it is strictly true that much of Christian liturgy bears traces of this origin. The following example shows this intertwining of higher and lower elements: In the blessing of the baptismal water on the eve of Epiphany, a custom prevalent in the earlier Church of Rome, the priest, while praying to God to sanctify the water, dipped a crucifix thrice into it, recalling in his prayer the miracle described in Exodus, the sweetening of the bitter water with wood; then followed antiphonal singing describing Christ's baptism in Jordan, which sanctified the water. "We appear to have here," writes L. D. Farnell, "a combination of the great typical forms of the immemorial religious energy, prayer pure and simple, the potent use of the spiritually charged object, the fetish (in this case the crucifix), and an intoned or chanted narrative which has the spell-value of suggestion."

It has been suggested by certain investigators that magic is nearer science than religion. It is the attempt of man to compel things to do what he desires. In religion, on the other hand, man proclaims his helplessness and his utter dependence upon spiritual powers. There can be little doubt that this difference exists and comes more and more to the front. But it is not until religion evolves into spiritual prayer and communion and away from ritual processes that the separation takes place. Few events are more interesting than the gradual rejection of magic by religion. But does not this rejection involve a similar rejection of science? Here, again, we meet the inevitable compromise. White magic is distinguished from black magic. We shall have more to say of this relationship later.

Only after countless centuries of mistake did the intellect of man discover the actual relations in nature in such a way as to be able to use them with certainty. Subjective associations were then replaced by tested causal connections. Faith in mere imitative acts was lost, and it was finally realized that patient research was a pre-condition of the control of man's environment. Time, alone, could show what was possible and what was impossible.

We have pointed out that, as religion became more idealistic in its conception of deity, magic tended to drop into the background. Moral motives were considered the sole motives capable of moving him to beneficent action. Prayer came to be thought of as a petition for the good, and it was even admitted that this omniscient being knew better than the petitioner what was best. We who have been brought up in the Christian belief have been too much inclined to belittle the character and intellect of races with a different heritage. It may be well, then, to point out that problems which are being thrashed over to-day in Christian communities were discussed and answered in much the same way by other peoples in less enlightened times. Ancient Greece reached the spiritual level expressed in the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done." The prayer of Socrates was: "Grant me to become noble of heart." The prayer of Epictetus was: "Do with me what thou wilt: my will is thy will: I appeal not against thy judgments." Is this not the inevitable deduction from an ethical monotheism? Any noble believer in a good god would look at prayer in this way. It is not surprising, then, that the more philosophic adherents of early Christianity questioned the validity of prayers for favors. Take away the support of science, with its healthy scotching of superstition, from the mind of the modern Christian and I doubt whether he would rise to higher ethical levels than any of his forbears.

But the growth of moral idealism in religion does not involve the rational overthrow of magic. So long as all the events in the world are not assigned directly to God as the sole active agent at work, the basis of magic remains. Moral idealism condemns only black magic, that is, an immoral use of magical powers. But moral condemnation is not a rational denial of the existence of magic. Carried to its logical extreme, ethical monotheism could discredit magic only by substituting personal for impersonal agency, and then proclaiming a monopoly of personal agency. It is evident, then, that science, rather than religion, has been the real foe of magic, because it grappled with it empirically, and in a detailed fashion, in the midst of the here and now of human events. Ethical monotheism is abstract, deductive and dogmatic. What was necessary was a critical movement at once concrete, inductive and empirical. Religion develops only the moral reason and tends to leave the wider reaches of reason an uncultivated field. Hence the traitor of superstition was never far from it, thunder as the preacher would from the pulpit. Victory over darkness requires the spread of light into every nook and cranny of the human soul.

The age-long conflict has passed its crisis. Yet all too few willingly give their whole-hearted allegiance to the ideals and methods of science. The struggle upward from primitive ignorance and superstition to the conception of slow-working impersonal agency has been toilsome and tiring, and the germs of sullen revolt are in more breasts than we often suppose. Man's hold on the good is frail; let us seek to strengthen it and to widen its grasp. Laudation of the practical applications of science is not enough. All are ready to be healed and to be made the masters of nature. Too few are willing to accept the implications of natural science and press on toward a philosophy conflicting with the ideas of the universe cherished by their fathers.