What is magic?
The Giants at home base. Players pay homage to Wizard
of Oz "Dorothy's heel clicking" by tapping the sides of their
shoes with the bat. Some can actually be heard mumbling,
“there’s no place like home… there’s no place like home.”
Sympathetic Magic?
Anxiety theory of religion
Supernatural?
Tlingit halibut hooks were carved with images
that were symbolic of supernatural
relationships that could help aid in the
dangerous job of fishing for halibut.
Animism and Nurit Bird-
Religious and spiritual categories?
David?
Hitler apparently loved leather shorts. If you were
asked to wear Hitler’s shorts, how would you feel
about putting them on?
What is colonialism?
European colonial mindset?
What is neocolonialism?
Supernatural
Anxiety theory of religion
People in all cultures have ideas about the
Religion is based on belief and invokes
supernatural and have ways to interact with the
supernatural. People in all cultures talk about
supernatural beings: gods, spirits, ghosts, etc.
People in all cultures are concerned with
supernatural power and have patterned rituals to
help people get through climactic moments in their
supernatural powers. Rather than using
coercive spells as in magic, religion works
through prayers that beseech the supernatural.
When a situation is unpredictable, dangerous,
lives.
overwhelming or considered terribly important
The term supernatural or supranatural pertains to
supernatural help.
entities, events or powers regarded as beyond
nature, in that they lack a clear scientific
explanation. Religious miracles are typical of such
supernatural claims, as are spells and curses,
divination, the belief that there is an afterlife for the
for the future, people are likely to ask for
Magic and religion (prayer) are probably both
used in different circumstances by most
people.
Magic
While early thinkers believed magic was not
rational or scientific, when anthropologists observe
‘magic’ in action, it often has scientific results.
Anxiety theory of magic concludes that people will
use their scientific technology as far as it will
extend and then resort to magic or religion to
reduce anxiety.
Magic helps people feel a sense of control in
circumstances that are dangerous or important, but
which they cannot control.
Magic invokes supernatural powers through words
or other acts that are thought to automatically
coerce the supernatural. It is based on faith rather
than scientific proof.
dead, and innumerable others.
Other types of religious categories
Animism according to Nurit Bird-David:
-
Polytheism: the belief in many gods, having
human or animal-like forms and strong
personalities.
mental confusion or wrong perceptual guesses.”
-
Animatism: the belief that there are other types of
spiritual forces that are more impersonal existing in
the universe and which can be concentrated in an
individual or an object but are not inherent in the
object; they merely reside there.
Cognitive skills have evolved within and for a social
kind of engagement. They are socially based.
-
We employ these social skills, irrespective of
been in contact remain in some sense always in
contact. (Thus wearing Hitler’s shorts seems
abhorrent)
We do not first personify other entities and then
The law of similarity- a fundamental and real
We personify them as, when, and because we
socialize with them
-
The law of contagion- objects that have once
whether they involve humans or other beings.
socialize with them
-
Monotheism: the belief in one god.
sympathetic magic. (pg. 336 of text book)
socially based cognitive skills, not by ‘survival’ of
Animism: imbues all of nature, animate and
inanimate, with vital spiritual powers.
Animation of things is “engendered by human
Principals of three laws of magic are called
connection exists between similar things or acts,
such as doing something to one object will have a
Recognizing a conversation with a counter-being –
similar affect on its likeness. (people don’t want to
which amounts to accepting it into fellowship rather
eat fudge that looks like dog poop)
than recognizing a common essence – makes that
being a self in relation with ourselves.
The law of opposites- the reverse of the law of
similarity, this law states that opposite objects or
acts have a connection, and that what affects one
can affect the other.
Neocolonialism is the extension of colonialism but
through corporations, industrialization complexes, and
modernization efforts – most of which benefit the
original Euro-American economic complexes much
more than they benefit Third World nations.
1) In neocolonialism the corporate colonial power
declares that continuation of its dominance, through
economic progress, is a “necessary evil” if the Third
World nation is to develop and modernize. Corporations
declare that they are helping people in other countries
progress and become more civilized, more like
Europeans or Americans.
2) The question is, are corporations really helping other
people, or are they taking resources and exploiting
cheap labor as colonists did before? Is this colonialism
without responsibility to the people in these countries?
The idea of European superiority was necessary in order to
get most people to believe in and participate in colonialism,
the industrial revolution and even capitalism.
Because if you were going to accumulate wealth through
industry, you need raw resources and you need cheap labor.
And if you are going to go out and take other people’s lands
and resources and harness their labor, you needed a good
reason.
Colonialism is the active possession of a
foreign territory and the maintenance of
political domination over that territory.
Euro-American colonialism between the 16th
and 20th centuries was on a different
magnitude than colonialism at any other time.
That reason became a belief that Europeans were more
civilized, more intelligent, more moral and more creative. It was
their duty to teach the rest of the world how to live, and
especially to teach them how to be Christians.
It seemed only logical to make one’s self and one’s country
wealthy while you were in the process of civilizing and
Christianizing the heathens who didn’t know enough to make the
most intensive use of their resources. Civilizing and
Christianizing was, of course, considered necessary for the sake
of progress.
European colonialism has been called
development of the west, degradation of the
rest. Its purpose was to extract resources and
harness indigenous labor to facilitate
industrialization and a capitalist system for
European accumulation of wealth and power.