(W. A. B. C.)
MAGIC[1] (i.e. “art magic”; Lat. ars magica), the general term for the practice and power of wonder-working, as depending on the employment of supposed supernatural agencies. Etymologically the Gr. μαγεία meant the science and religion of the magi, or priests of Zoroaster, as known among the Greeks; in this sense it was opposed to γοητεία (? necromancy) and φαρμακεία (the use of drugs); but this distinction was not universally recognized, and γοητεία is often used as a synonym of μαγεία. There is no general agreement as to the proper definition of “magic,” which depends on the view taken of “religion.”
I.—Nature of Magic
Theories of Magic.—Existing theories of magic may be classified as objective or subjective. The objective school regards magic as a thing by itself, entirely distinct from religion, recognizable by certain characteristics, and traceable to a definite psychological origin. Magic, on this view, is a system of savage science based on imaginary laws supposed to operate with the regularity ascribed to natural laws by the science of to-day. If practices prima facie magical form part of the recognized ritual of religion, it is because the older ideas have persisted and at most assumed a veneer of religion. For the subjective school, on the other hand, only those rites are magical which their practitioners qualify with the name of magic; there is no inherent quality which makes a rite magical; practices based on a belief in the law of sympathy may be religious as well as magical; rites may pass from the category of religion to that of magic when public recognition is withdrawn from them.
a. For E. B. Tylor the distinguishing characteristic of magic is its unreality; it is a confused mass of beliefs and practices, and their unity consists in the absence of the ordinary nexus of natural cause and effect. Under the general head of magic he distinguishes (i) a spiritual and (ii) a non-spiritual element. (i) The former is made up of such rites as involve the intervention of spiritual beings, ghosts of the dead, demons or gods; hence, in Tylor’s view, this form of magic is merely an inferior branch of religion. (ii) The non-spiritual part, but for which the category of magic would be unnecessary, depends on imagined powers and correspondences in nature; it is merely imperfect reasoning, the mistaking of an ideal connexion for a real one. When the American Indian medicine man draws the picture of a deer on a piece of bark and expects that shooting at it will cause him to kill a real deer the next day, he mistakes a connexion which exists only in the mind of the sorcerer for a real bond independent of the human mind.
b. In J. G. Frazer’s view all magic is based on the law of sympathy—i.e. the assumption that things act on one another at a distance through a secret link, due either to the fact that there is some similarity between them or to the fact that they have at one time been in contact, or that one has formed part of the other. These two branches of “sympathetic magic” Frazer denominates “homoeopathic magic” and “contagious magic.” Homoeopathic or imitative (mimetic) magic may be practised by itself, but contagious magic generally involves the application of the imitative principle. (i) One of the most familiar applications of the former is the belief that an enemy may be destroyed or injured by destroying or injuring an image of him. (ii) Under the head of contagious magic are included such beliefs as that which causes the peasant to anoint the weapon with which he has been injured, which, according to Frazer, is founded on the supposition that the blood on the weapon continues to feel with the blood in the body. (iii) Implicitly Frazer seems to distinguish a third kind of magic; “the rain-charm,” he says, “operates partly or wholly through the dead ... in Halmahera there is a practice of throwing stones on a grave, in order that the ghost may fall into a passion and avenge the disturbance, as he imagines, by sending heavy rain.” Here there is no assumption of an invariable course of nature set in motion by magical rites; save that it is coercive and not propitiatory, the practice does not differ from ordinary religious rites.
In his theory of the origin of magic Frazer follows the associationist school. But, as R. R. Marett has pointed out in a criticism of the associationist position, it is proved beyond question that even in the individual mind association by similarity, contiguity or contrast, is but the passive condition, the important element being interest and attention. Frazer assumes that magic has everywhere preceded religion: man tried to control nature by using what he conceived to be immutable laws; failing in this he came to believe in the existence of higher powers whom he could propitiate but not coerce; with this transformation religion appeared on the scene; the priest supplanted the magician, at least in part, and the first blows were struck in the perennial warfare of magic and religion. Frazer recognizes, however, that magical and religious rites are at the present day, and have been in historical times, frequently intermingled; it should be noted that for him religion means propitiation and that he does not recognize the existence of anything beyond magic among the aborigines of Australia. His theory is based on a selection of facts, and not on the whole body of beliefs and rites recognized as magical, among which are many wherein spirits figure. Frazer’s position appears to be that such rites are relatively late and may be neglected in framing a definition of magic. It may be perfectly true that the idea of magic has been progressively extended; but belief in transformation is also for Dr Frazer magical; this belief is certainly primitive; yet sympathy will not explain it, as it should if Frazer’s theory is correct.
c. L. Marillier distinguished three classes of magic: (i) the magic of the word or act; (ii) the magic of the human being, independent of rite or formula, &c.; (iii) the magic which demands at once a human being of special powers (or in a special state) and the use of certain forms. (i) Under the first head he included such rites as mimetic dances, rain-making, disease-making, and sympathetic magic generally. Some of these rites are conceived to affect the course of nature directly, as by influencing winds or the sun, others do so through the intermediary of a god or spirit, who controls the course of nature, and is himself coerced by man with magical acts and incantations. (ii) Other rites cannot be performed by all and sundry: ceremonial purity, initiation or other conditions may be needed to make the charm effective. (iii) Individuals are found who are invested with magical power (mana), whose will rules the universe, whose simple words bring rain or sunshine, and whose presence gives fertility to the fields. Sometimes this power is an attribute of the individual, sometimes it is bound up with the office which he fills. In many cases the magical powers of both men and other objects, animate and inanimate, are put down to the fact that a god resides in them.