The Elementary Forms of the Religious LifeDurkheim, Émile
Religion
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
Durkheim, Émile
Cults; Religion; Religion -- Philosophy; Rites and ceremonies; Totemism
Here is how a line of demarcation can be traced between these two
domains.
The really religious beliefs are always common to a determined group,
which makes profession of adhering to them and of practising the rites
connected with them. They are not merely received individually by all
the members of this group; they are something belonging to the group,
and they make its unity. The individuals which compose it feel
themselves united to each other by the simple fact that they have a
common faith. A society whose members are united by the fact that they
think in the same way in regard to the sacred world and its relations
with the profane world, and by the fact that they translate these common
ideas into common practices, is what is called a Church. In all history,
we do not find a single religion without a Church. Sometimes the Church
is strictly national, sometimes it passes the frontiers; sometimes it
embraces an entire people (Rome, Athens, the Hebrews), sometimes it
embraces only a part of them (the Christian societies since the advent
of Protestantism); sometimes it is directed by a corps of priests,
sometimes it is almost completely devoid of any official directing
body.[82] But wherever we observe the religious life, we find that it
has a definite group as its foundation. Even the so-called private
cults, such as the domestic cult or the cult of a corporation, satisfy
this condition; for they are always celebrated by a group, the family or
the corporation. Moreover, even these particular religions are
ordinarily only special forms of a more general religion which embraces
all;[83] these restricted Churches are in reality only chapels of a
vaster Church which, by reason of this very extent, merits this name
still more.[84]
It is quite another matter with magic. To be sure, the belief in magic
is always more or less general; it is very frequently diffused in large
masses of the population, and there are even peoples where it has as
many adherents as the real religion. But it does not result in binding
together those who adhere to it, nor in uniting them into a group
leading a common life. _There is no Church of magic._ Between the
magician and the individuals who consult him, as between these
individuals themselves, there are no lasting bonds which make them
members of the same moral community, comparable to that formed by the
believers in the same god or the observers of the same cult. The
magician has a clientele and not a Church, and it is very possible that
his clients have no other relations between each other, or even do not
know each other; even the relations which they have with him are
generally accidental and transient; they are just like those of a sick
man with his physician. The official and public character with which he
is sometimes invested changes nothing in this situation; the fact that
he works openly does not unite him more regularly or more durably to
those who have recourse to his services.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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