Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religionHartland, Edwin Sidney
Religion
Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religion
Hartland, Edwin Sidney
Ethnopsychology; Magic; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
Thus antisocial character is no sufficient test of magic as opposed to
religion. Professor Doutté, dealing with magic as developed in Islam,
adheres generally to the views of Messrs Hubert and Mauss. He
proposes, however, another definition. Quoting with approval the late
M. Marillier’s observation that magic is “the action on the without by
the within,”[80.2] he remarks that the savage has not yet made a
sufficient distinction between subject and object; he does not
differentiate himself from the universe. And he concludes that magic,
invented under the pressure of need, is only the objectivation of
desire under the form of an extended force, singular, bound to
gestures representative of the phenomenon desired and mechanically
producing it. If the savage externalize this magical force so far that
he ends by personifying it, we have the genesis of a god; the god, in
fact, may be a personified _mana_. A god can only be anthropomorphic;
he is the psycho-physical objectivation of man in phenomena.[80.3]
This brings Professor {81} Doutté much nearer to Dr Frazer’s
position, and might form the basis of an _eirenicon_ between them. For
though he is fully aware that much in magic is indistinguishable from
religion, he holds it to be a subsequent development: magic has so far
modelled itself on religion and borrowed its theistic methods of
procedure. It presents itself as an anti-religion. Under Christianity
it reaches its ultimate term with the Black Mass and the cult of the
devil: Islam does not lend itself so well to hideous parody. Yet
Professor Doutté, after flirting with Professor Frazer’s opinion,
comes back to the orthodoxy of the French sociologists: the real
distinction between religion and magic is that the one is social--it
sustains the life of the society; the other applies its rites to
strictly personal ends--it is antisocial. The one is magic lawful and
even obligatory; the other is magic useless or injurious to society,
and it is condemned and interdicted. Islam even recognizes white or
religious magic; the Prophet himself recommended it. Ibn Khaldoûn, a
great Mohammedan jurist, can find, indeed, no solid distinction
between the miracle of the saint and the prodigy wrought by the
sorcerer, save that of the morality of its aim. The test of morality
is what is permitted by the Law. That which is permitted by the Law is
moral; the rest is immoral. It comes to this, then, that a miracle is
legitimate magic, and magic is a forbidden miracle.[81.1]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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