Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)Lang, Andrew
Religion
Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Lang, Andrew
Myth; Mythology; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
(1) Muir, Sanskrit Texts, v. 441, "Incantations from the Atharva Veda".
(2) Taylor's New Zealand; Theal's Kaffir Folk-Lore, South-African
Folk-Lore Journal, passim; Shortland's Traditions of the New Zealanders,
pp. 130-135.
Without multiplying examples in the savage belief that miracles can be
wrought by virtue of physical CORRESPONDANCES, by like acting on like,
by the part affecting the whole, and so forth, we may go on to the
magical results produced by the aid of spirits. These may be either
spirits of the dead or spiritual essences that never animated mortal
men. Savage magic or science rests partly on the belief that the
world is peopled by a "choir invisible," or rather by a choir only
occasionally visible to certain gifted people, sorcerers and diviners.
An enormous amount of evidence to prove the existence of these tenets
has been collected by Mr. Tylor, and is accessible to all in the
chapters on "Animism" in his Primitive Culture. It is not our business
here to account for the universality of the belief in spirits. Mr.
Tylor, following Lucretius and Homer, derives the belief from the
reasonings of early men on the phenomena of dreams, fainting, shadows,
visions caused by narcotics, hallucinations, and other facts which
suggest the hypothesis of a separable life apart from the bodily
organism. It would scarcely be fair not to add that the kind of "facts"
investigated by the Psychical Society--such "facts" as the appearance
of men at the moment of death in places remote from the scene of their
decease, with such real or delusive experiences as the noises and
visions in haunted houses--are familiar to savages. Without discussing
these obscure matters, it may be said that they influence the thoughts
even of some scientifically trained and civilised men. It is natural,
therefore, that they should strongly sway the credulous imagination of
backward races, in which they originate or confirm the belief that life
can exist and manifest itself after the death of the body.(1)
(1) See the author's Making of Religion, 1898.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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