Magic, Science and Religion
Spring 2012
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Brief Overview of the History of the
Anthropology of Religion
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19th Century setting
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Tylor and Animism
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RR Marett and Animatism
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George Frazer and Magic
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Holistically
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Objectively
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Relativistically
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Comparatively
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Interdisciplinary
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Focus on Ethnography
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Methodologically and theoretically diverse
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Intellectual
Functional
Interpretive
Psychological
Sociological
1) The study origin
◦ Evolutionism
2) The study of function
◦ Functionalism (psychological and sociological)
3) The study of meaning
◦ Phenomenology, interpretative, symbolist approach
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Industrial revolution
Individualist world view
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Much light will be
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American (upstate New York)
Lawyer, businessman, politician (state)
Kinship and social structure – cross-cultural
As an attorney talked with Iroquois
League of the Iroquois (1851)
Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human
family(1871)
Early proponent of theory that American Indians
had migrated from India in ancient times
Darwin Origin of Species ( 1859)
Unilinear social evolutionary theory
Ancient Society (1877)
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“History of the human race is one in source,
one in experience and one in progress.”
“Psychic unity of man” – one direction
One universal order of cultural evolution
Savagery/Barbarism/Civilization
Social Darwinism
Human societies have gone through this evolution
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Lower, middle, upper
◦ Matrifocal/gynocentric
◦ Primarily promiscuity – no knowledge male role in
conception
◦ Equality, not stratified, no hierarchy
◦ Collectivism/cooperation – no private property
◦ Hunter-gatherer
◦ Magical thinking – considered illogical
◦ Animistic
◦ Fire, bow, pottery
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Lower, middle, upper
Beginning of human family
Tribal organization
Polygamy
Polytheism
Agrarian: domestication of animals
Metalworking
Criticism: Mormons practice polygamy. How
will they fit in This model?
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Lower, middle, upper
Monogamy, monotheism
Stratification, hierarchy
Competition, capitalism, private property
Development of alphabet and writing
Criticism:
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Europeans/Westerners positive
Engels – Private Property and the State, The
Origin of the Family
Engels said Morgan proved Marx: collectivism
is the original state
Criticized as speculative, ethnocentric
Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and others (
20th century) proved Morgan wrong based on
their field work.
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French, founder of social science (along with
Karl Marx and Max Weber)
Statistical study of society
Elementary Forms of Religious Life
Religion provides model OF society:
 If society changes, religion changes
 Spirit world as reflection of society
Totemism, the earliest form of religion
Function of religion: Social order
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French philosopher, anthropologist
Posited two basic mindsets: Primitive, western
How Natives Think (1910)
Magic: pre-logical, mystical
Irrational, aversion to reasoning
For those magically oriented, no fact is purely
physical
Don’t distinguish supernatural
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First modern anthropologist , visited Mexico, Zuni.
Primitive culture (1871)
Animism was oldest form of religious life: every living
thing has a soul/spirit and everything is living
Totemism
Polytheism
Monotheism
◦ Soul alive in living being, spirit leaves
◦ Need to understand dreams
◦ Evolutionary approach to religion
◦ Intellectualist interpretation of religion
◦ ( Sir Evans Pritchard)
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The Golden Bough (12 volumes)1890
Science, magic and religion (sharp distinction)
Types of Magic: similarity and contagious
Critique: Intellectualist approach
Language of magic is diff from science
Magic defies logic
Stanley Tambiah: with the study of Azande,
critiqued Frazer’s evolutionary theory.. )
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THE GOLDEN BOUGH: A STUDY IN
COMPARATIVE RELIGION traced the evolution
of human behavior, ancient and primitive
myth, magic, religion, ritual, and taboo. The
study appeared first in two volumes in 1890
and finally in 12 volumes in 1911-15. It was
named after the golden bough in the sacred
grove at Nemi, near Rome.
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Sympathetic magic, also known as imitative
magic, is a type of magic based on imitation
or correspondence
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Contagious Magic: whatever is done to the
one must similarly affect the other. Thus the
logical basis of Contagious Magic,…is a
mistaken association of ideas.
It is assumed to unite distant objects and to
convey impressions from one to the other.
For example, between a man and his hair or
nails; so that whoever gets possession of
human hair or nails may work his will, at any
distance, upon the person from whom they
were cut.
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Magic > religion > science
Magic is logically more primitive than religion
because
◦ the conception of personal agents
(religion) is more complex than the
similarity or contiguity of ideas
(magic).
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Australian aborigines > the most primitive only magic
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Studied myths from 400 South and north
American societies
Myth is structured as language
“ The story of Asdiwal”
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Social conditions responsible for religion
Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Max Weber (1864 – 1920)
Polish, from Austria-Hungary, moved to Britain
Invented participant observation – made everything
different, questions different
The goal of ethnographer is: “to grasp the native's point of
view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world.”
—Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Dutton 1961 ed., p. 25.
Papua New Guinea; Trobriand Islands
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Looked at religion and culture in terms of their
purpose in satisfying basic human needs.
culture satisfies individual needs, both
material (food, shelter, clothing,etc) and
psychological (through magic and religion,
i.e. myths, ritual,etc.).
◦ EX: he stressed that magic is a logical system that
people turn to in times of uncertainty or emotional
stress.
◦ Magic functions to provide control and certainty in an
otherwise uncertain world.
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Religion and magic are sacred vs Science is
profane
Religion serves to reduce anxiety and
reinforces order.
Reduce emotional stress
Magic and religion as practical and rational
responses that were used only when empirical
and scientific reason failed to provide
reassurances for the facts of life.
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Magic: A performance, means to a particular
end and the power of language.
The amalgam of rituals: practical living.
Two functions: psychological and sociological
Examples p. 73
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Religion: A response to the fear of loss like
death.
Religion is an end in itself.
Religion as the appeal to a higher power.
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1.The spell, or actual words used
“The power of words in establishing a
permanent human relation” p. 80
2. The ritual, a stereotyped sequence of
symbolic acts
3. The moral condition of the ritual performer
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Both science and Magic serve instrumental
purposes, as opposed to religion. Malinowski
observed that magic, science and religion,
coexisted side by side in Trobriand society.
Healing rituals, because they are means to an
end.
Harvest rituals associated with productivity
Rituals for self improvement, better human
relationships p. 80
Pragmatic role of magic
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Involves providence and immortality p. 69
Main function: the satisfaction of the
physical, psychological and social needs of
peoples, through an appeal to a higher
power.
Festivals: Commemorations of society.
Satisfaction of individual and social needs.
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A practice grounded on observed
relationships. Science attempts to control
natural chains of causation, and is based on
experimentation, the validity of certain
principles and theoretical speculation.
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Functionalist: “What do people use it for?”
Every society has magic, science & religion
All simple societies use science, experiment:
make a net, does it work?
When things get difficult, pray
When things get desperate, use magic, an
individual way to deal with the unknown
Satisfaction of primary, secondary and
tertiary (integrative) needs
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Clifford Geertz
Emphasis on meaning, “reading social life as
a literary text, ”but in a way grounded in
fieldwork (interpretive anthropology)
for Geertz, the anthropological study of
religion is two- fold: “an analysis of the
system of meanings embodied in the symbols
which make up the religion” and “the relating
of these systems (of meaning) to socialstructural and psychological processes.”
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“Religion is a system of symbols which acts to
establish powerful, pervasive, and long- lasting
moods and motivations in men by formulating
conceptions of a general order of existence and
clothing these conceptions with such an aura of
factuality that the moods and motivations seem
uniquely realistic”.
Religion as a cluster of symbols.
Symbols: anything, which signifies something else?
(pictures, words, text, things)
Symbols as “extrinsic sources of information” –
information about belief, cosmology, etc. that are
outside individual psychology, but interact with
individual psychology through society and culture.
Symbols as “models of and models for reality” model
of reality in that symbols are an interpretation of
reality (the way things are) symbols represent reality;
model for reality in that symbols manipulate reality,
structure social systems (the way things should be).
Religion provides meaning to human existence.
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Etic (outsider’s) and emic ( insider’s)
perspective
Famous work on witchcraft among the
Azandes in Southern Sudan
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Universality of spiritual exp may be grounded
in a shared human biology
The role of Anthropologists is to practice
cultural relativism