Chapter VI: The Relations Between Magic and Animism (1)

§ 1. THE QUESTION OF PRIORITY

Magic and Animism now everywhere flourish side by side, or in confused association, and, by those who believe in them, are not discriminated as they may be by a spectator. As to their origin, we have seen that both of them are prehistoric; it is useless to inquire about it amongst believers (who can only tell you that they learnt these things from their forefathers), or to look for any sort of direct proof. In Chapter IV. I mentioned general considerations in favour of the priority of Magic; but said nothing of the opposite opinion, that Animism is prior and Magic derivative: an opinion held by many and, amongst them, by Wundt, whose treatment of the problem claims attention.

Prof. Wundt holds that the idea of the soul is older than Magic and has three principal sources: (1) the gebundene Seele, or Körperseele (consciousness as an attribute of the body), is immediately given, without the need of any reflection, as a result of perception-associations; for thinking, feeling and willing are constant elements of a living body.[261] The influence of this idea is seen in the practices of making offerings to the dead at their tombs, of preserving the body itself, of treating the blood and various parts of the body as vehicles of the soul, the use of hair and nail-parings in sorcery, and so forth. By contact, this soul can be transfused into other things. But the freie Seele, a being differing from and opposed to the body, is suggested (2) by breath and by the cessation of the body’s living functions with the last breath—the Hauchseele; and also (3) by dreams and visions—the Schattenseele. This third conception gradually subordinates the other two, and has the chief part in the development of Animism and Mythology.[262] As to sorcery (Zauber), it is, at first, always attributed to the human will; inasmuch as this is the original type of causation. Ordinary events raise no question of causes for the Naturmensch; but only extraordinary occurrences do so, such as sickness and death. Even pain or death from wounds is a matter of course, for the antecedents are visible to him; but pain or death from sickness has no such customary antecedent; so to explain them he imagines an enemy who can operate at a distance by sorcery. Sorcery he conceives of as an operation of one soul upon another; either directly, or indirectly by various appliances, such as pantomimic injury by means of an image. Pantomime is at first believed to affect the victim’s soul, and so to cause sickness in his body; but the oftener such rites are repeated, the more the intervention of the soul is obscured. For in many-linked associations, especially where the first and last links stand as means and end, the middle links are apt to disappear; and since these are, in this case, ideas about the soul, there remains, after their loss, the indefinite idea of some incomprehensible action at a distance by means of the pantomime: it is then no longer Sorcery but Magic. Similarly, a fetich, or a talisman or amulet (which differs from a fetich only in not being the object of a cult), originally owes its power to an indwelling spirit, but may degenerate into a magical object.[263] Magic, therefore, is always derivative and secondary; and Animism is entirely independent of Magic.[264]

This theory is worked out with Prof. Wundt’s usual comprehensiveness and methodical clearness; and the exposition abounds with interesting discussions; but it has not convinced me. The Körperseele, as an attribute of the body, is, surely, not a soul at all. Customary perception of other men interpreted by self-consciousness, with the habitual treatment of others (and of ourselves by others) as conscious bodies—making it difficult to conceive that a corpse is really dead—no doubt influences animistic rites; for even though the soul seen in dreams may be believed to live, having the consciousness of its former body in dreamland, yet some consciousness seems to remain with the body in the grave. Many rites performed at a tomb, however, may also be understood in relation to a belief that the soul, though having a separate existence as seen in dreams, still desires to reinhabit its body, or to protect its buried treasures, and therefore, though its new home be far away, frequently returns and haunts the neighbourhood of its tomb, and will certainly return if summoned. But it is not until the soul seen in dreams has become an object of popular belief, that any idea can be formed of a body-soul—or more properly of a soul within the body, and thence of a soul-stuff of the body—which leaves the body at death (and under other conditions) as the vehicle of consciousness. This soul-stuff which leaves the body at death may easily come to be identified with the breath, but not until the discussion of dreams has given rise to the belief in a separable soul. The fact that in cold weather the last breath (or any other!) may appear for a moment as a vapour, and is never seen again, cannot by itself suggest a separate persistent existence like that of the soul; and over a considerable part of the earth such a vapour is seldom formed by the breath. The Körperseele and the Hauchseele, therefore, are not independent sources of Animism, but are entirely dependent for their imaginary existence upon the Schattenseele, upon the growth of a belief in a separable soul as seen in dreams.

As to Sorcery, it may be defined as Magic practised with the aid of spirits; and since its existence implies that a belief in spirits and their influence has already formed itself, it may also be believed to operate, in the first place, on the souls of its victims and so, in the second place, on their bodies. Then, as Prof. Wundt explains, a process of retrogradation sometimes occurs, in the course of which the spirits are forgotten, and only the mechanical rites remain as a residuum of bare Magic. Similarly, a fetich sometimes becomes a merely magical talisman or amulet. This is hardly disputable; but it does not prove that the degeneration of Sorcery is the _only_ source of Magic, or that Magic has not (for the most part, indeed,) another, independent origin. The issue is difficult to argue upon the ground of facts, because magical practices are of such high antiquity. If, for example, one should urge that the intichiuma ceremonies of the Arunta are not, so far as we have evidence, designed to operate by spiritual power upon the souls of the emu or the witchettygrub, but directly to promote by Magic the fertility of these objects, it might be replied that such, indeed, may be their present character, but that the original intention must have been to promote fertility by first influencing their souls, and that this has been forgotten. Or, again, if one should point to the little stones—tied up in bark and believed by the Kaitish to be stores of evil Magic—as having no mark of the fetich, no character to indicate that their power is due to spirits, so that they seem to be merely magical, the answer would be ready, that by long use and retrogradation they may have ceased to be fetiches, but that a good theory requires them to have been of that nature aforetime. Thus any case of apparently bare Magic may be treated as a residuum of lapsed Animism; or, should its origin be recent and ascertainable, it may still be said to have been constituted by analogy with such residua.

We are driven, therefore, to rest the argument upon the psychological conditions of such beliefs. Is the nature of the human mind, so far as we can interpret it at the savage level, such that the belief in Animism necessarily precedes and (later) gives rise to the belief in Magic; or is it possible to indicate conditions that may independently give rise to Magic? According to Prof. Wundt, as I have said, Sorcery precedes Magic and, at first, is always attributed to human volition, because this is the original type of causation. Contrary to Hume’s doctrine (he says), the ordinary course of events does not excite in the savage the idea of causation, or the need of explanation. Customary series of events belong to those matter-of-course properties of things which he, eben wegen ihrer Regelmässigkeit, unmöglich hinweg denken kann.[265] It is the unusual occurrences—accidents, storms, drought (where rain is much desired) and especially sickness and death—that awaken in him the need of causal explanation. He is accustomed to pain from wounds, where he sees the conditions on which they always follow; but the pain of disease has no such antecedents, and he supplies the gap in routine by free associations, imagining that this pain also must be the work of some enemy. For in the regular course of events there is for him only one region in which an effect appears notwendig verknüpft mit dem Vorausgehende: namely, that of his own voluntary actions. The connexion is, indeed, only a matter of fact; but it includes the sensations and feelings of his own power über den Eintritt des Ereignisses. This, as Berkeley saw (says Prof. Wundt), is the true origin of the notion of causality; though the true principle of causality requires the elimination of this subjective ground of its origin.[266]

It is true, of course, that the savage has no definite idea of the principle of causation; but he has obscure ideas of all its chief marks—the need of some antecedent for every event, regularity of connexion, and proportionality; and probably, in the depths of his mind, the abstract principle has made some progress toward maturity. (_a_) The ground or source of such ideas, according to Hume, is customary experience; and that such experience includes its own causation (and, therefore, needs no explanation) is proved by Prof. Wundt’s contention that it is the unusual which first demands causal explanation; because there the familiar causation is missing; so that the savage tries to fill up the lacuna, as best he can, according to the type of what is usual. But (_b_), according to Prof. Wundt, there is in the regular course of events only one region in which the idea of causation (though illusory) first arises: namely, our own actions, in which we are aware of our own power over the beginning of the event. And no one, I suppose, doubts that the notion of power is derived originally from the consciousness of our own exertions[267]: read, by sympathy, into the actions of other men and animals and, by empathy, into the movements of trees, stones, winds and waters. All this, however, occurs so early in the individual and in the race (probably in the higher animals) that, before the need of causal explanation is felt, the world is seen as if pervaded by forces, which are manifested in _every_ usual course of events and not merely in voluntary actions. Again (_c_), power is only one character of the primitive belief in causation: another, not less important, is uniformity; and the study of our own actions is notoriously unfavourable for the discovery of uniformity. Without any obvious reason for it, our visceral activities can hardly be controlled at all; compound reflexes (such as yawning, sneezing, laughing, weeping) are very imperfectly controlled; our habitual actions, once started, go on of themselves, and often begin without (or contrary to) our wishes, especially gestures and expressions; in fatigue control flags, in disease is often lost;[268] we do not always give the same weight to the same motives, nor fulfil our intentions whether good or bad. But if the relation of will to action is not apparently uniform, it cannot be seen to be necessary; so that volition is generally regarded as the peculiar region of caprice. This is very important in Animism. But, further (_d_), were the connexion between volition and movement more constant than it is, it would still be most improbable that ideas of causation should be chiefly drawn from our consciousness of it; for the interest of action lies not in the mere control of our own movements, or power over the beginning of events, but in the attainment of our ends; and there is no department of nature in which the failure of connexion is nearly so impressive. It is because of this failure that the savage becomes fascinated by ideas of magical and (later) of spiritual aid. Finally (_e_), no control is exercised by the will over pain—headache, colic, rheumatism, etc.; yet we are told that the savage, when so afflicted, refers his sufferings at once to the will of some enemy operating at a distance. Such inferences are not primitive, but the result of a long growth of superstitions. Among Australian aborigines, disease and natural death are generally believed to be caused by the magical practices of an enemy, not merely by his will.

We are not, then, obliged to infer that, because volition is the type of necessary connexion, Sorcery, or any other form of Animism, preceded Magic. On the other hand, there are conditions that may have given rise independently to a belief in Magic. The savage has frequent experience of regular trains of event which, for want of analytic ability, he does not clearly understand, but which exist in his mind as types determining his apprehension of other sequences. When two interesting events happen about the same time, the later recalls the earlier; because the impression of the earlier, having been deep, perseverates, and is apt to be re-excited by almost any occurrence. An association is then formed between them, and obtains as strong a hold upon the mind as less interesting ones can by many repetitions. The man judges them to be connected; and expects the coincidence to repeat itself as usual occurrences do; and the more vividly the more he desires or fears it. Such expectations, together with the idea of invisible force and the oppression of mystery, by degrees establish the belief in Magic. Probably no traveller amongst wild peoples, or observer of the unsophisticated at home, will think that too much stress is here laid upon the power of coincidence to create general expectations. Even the Chaldean priests (we are told) had grasped but imperfectly the idea of causation. “When two events had been noticed to happen one after another, the first was the cause of the second. Hence their anxiety to record the phenomena of the heavens and the occurrences that took place after each.”[269] The Egyptians, says Herodotus, “whenever a prodigy takes place, watch and record the result; then, if anything similar ever happens again, they expect the same consequences.”[270] They had merely reduced to a system the universal practice of unanalytic minds.

§ 2. MAGIC AND RELIGION

The origin of Magic, then, is independent of Animism; and in the history of human thought Magic probably preceded Animism as an imaginary agent in the explanation and control of interesting and obscure events. Sir J. G. Frazer, in the _History of the Kingship_ and in the _Magic Art_,[271] says that Magic, as a means of gratifying one’s desires, is prior to Religion conceived of as a means of attaining one’s ends by the propitiation of spirits. This is a much narrower contention than that Magic is prior to Animism (which perhaps he does not maintain), and it is proportionally more defensible. Whilst the priority of Magic to Animism seems to me to have some low degree of probability, the priority of Magic to Religion, as the propitiation of spirits, seems probable in a much higher degree; since we have plain information that both the Australians and the Indians of Guiana practise Magic extensively and also believe in ghosts and spirits without propitiating them.[272]

On the other hand, Sir J. G. Frazer’s explanation of _how_ Religion superseded Magic is questionable. He conjectures “that a tardy recognition of the inherent falsehood and barrenness of magic set the more thoughtful part of mankind to cast about for a truer theory of Nature and a more fruitful method of turning her resources to account. The shrewder intelligences must in time have come to perceive that magical ceremonies and incantations did not really effect the results which they were designed to produce,” and the wizard inferred that, “if the great world went on its way without the help of him or his fellows, it must surely be because there were other beings, like himself, but far stronger, who, unseen themselves, directed its course.”[273] To these he addressed himself, and sought by prayer what he had formerly hoped to obtain by Magic. Such is Sir J. G. Frazer’s suggestion, offered tentatively, and (surely) not agreeing well with the facts which he has set before us. For he has shown that no amount of experience can discredit Magic, generally, in untutored minds; that certain kinds of Magic are sometimes pushed into the background by Religion, but never forgotten; whilst other kinds of Magic become fused with Religion itself and constitute an essential factor in its rites; so that they are indeed few who can be said to have betaken themselves to Religion _instead_ of Magic. Besides, the only ground upon which a penetrating mind, that had discarded Magic as discredited by experience, could resort by preference to the worship of spirits must be that experience showed prayer and sacrifice to be more efficacious than Magic in attaining our ends. Is there reason to think that (lucky coincidences apart) this has ever happened? Must we not rather say that, whether one relies on Magic or on Religion, experience of failure counts for almost nothing? So many excuses are at hand.

The matter presents itself to me in this way: at first, belief in Magic arises as a means of obtaining good and averting evil. Grounded, as Sir E. B. Tylor says,[274] in the desire “to discover, to foretell, and to cause events,” it is irresistibly attractive by its power of increasing one’s confidence, of making sure.

Secondly, at some stage after the rise of Animism, religious practices are added to the magical, to make assurance doubly sure, just as one magical practice may be added to another, a rite to a spell. At this stage, there is no sense of opposition between Magic and Religion. That, in fact, they are opposed in their nature, as an invariable to a capricious force, even if this difference were appreciated by savages, need not prevent their co-operation; for Magic is known to be a tendency that may fail of the effect desired, either by the counteraction of superior Magic, or by imperfection in the rites; and one sees no reason why a spirit should not be supplicated to supplement the imperfect rites, or to frustrate the superior Magic. To supplicate the intervention of spirits, once they are fully believed in, is an act so simple and natural, that we may wonder how it should ever be omitted where Animism prevails. For what can be more spontaneous than to ask the aid of one’s father or friend, and why not ask the spirits disembodied as freely as those in the flesh? In Melanesia not every ghost is worshipped (as not having _mana_); but a man in danger may call upon his father, grandfather or uncle: his nearness of kin being sufficient ground for it.[275] Certainly: and that this is not always done where ghosts are rife can only be because it is believed that the less one has to do with them the better! Probably, this consideration restrains for ages the early impulses to pray. Primitive man anticipates the advice of Confucius: “Pay all respect to spiritual beings, but keep them at a distance.”[276]

Thirdly, certain forms of Magic come, after a time, to be discountenanced or punished: black Magic, because it is anti-social and criminal; other forms of Magic, when carried on by private practitioners, because they infringe the monopoly of supernatural power that has now been claimed by dynasties and priesthoods; or (in other words) because the public gods are jealous of all competitors. Legitimate Magic has now been incorporated with Religion. And the power of Religion becomes greater than that of Magic without Religion, not only by the support of the influential classes, but also because Religion, whether as worship of the public gods or as sorcery or devil-worship, afflicts the human mind with peculiar terrors; and, again, because Religion, should it clarify morally and æsthetically, appeals more and more to the affections—to the family affections and to loyalty. The impersonality of pure Magic sets it (as it does Science) at a great disadvantage in this competition.

Finally, whilst the failures of Magic always need to be excused,—as by a mistake in the rites or by the opposition of stronger Magic,—Religion brings with it a new excuse for failure, namely, the caprice of the spirits or gods propitiated. At their pleasure they may reject the prayers and sacrifices. Persistence in such conduct on their part is sometimes met by banishment, deprivation of rank, or other punishment—the civilised methods of China; at other times by praying louder and sacrificing more extravagantly, in the style that culminated in Mexico together with the power of barbaric priesthood. Still the gods may be obdurate; and, probably, to excuse the failure of propitiation by the caprice of the gods was, from the first, looked upon as an eligible device:[277] not observing that the caprice of the gods was incompatible with the security of their worshippers; and, therefore, in conflict with that desire of security which is the root of the whole supernatural structure, whether magical or religious. This conflict must have consequences.

Religion, then, very probably, is of later growth than Magic; but whether Animism, as a belief in separable (or separate) spirits, human or other, is later or not than Magic, there is insufficient evidence. At any rate, their origins are independent. Perhaps my own preference for the priority of Magic depends, partly at least, on the convenience of that view in arranging the following considerations.

§ 3. IDEAS AND PRACTICES OF MAGIC ADOPTED BY ANIMISM

(_a_) Fundamental in Magic, wherever practised, is the idea of force, invisible and intangible, which can operate at a distance without any visible or tangible vehicle. The idea may have been formed (as we have seen) by analogy with several natural phenomena, such as the wind, radiant heat, sound, odour, and it is involved in a savage’s beliefs concerning the efficacy of charms, rites and spells. When a man dies, he lies speechless and motionless, no longer exerts his accustomed force in any way; but, if seen in a dream, he still speaks and acts, perhaps wrestles with the dreamer. Here, then, is that force which had deserted the body: it is visible and tangible in dreams only, or perhaps sometimes by twilight; or to gifted seers, or to dogs or pigs. The force exerted by the ghost or spirit is the same thing as force magical, except in one character: its action is capricious, depending on the good or ill will of the ghost or spirit; whereas purely magical forces have uniform tendencies. Magic, then, prepares and partially develops this idea of mysterious force, without which the appearance of a dead man in a dream, after his body has been buried or burnt, would have no reality or practical consequences for the living. Comparison with shadows and reflections could not lend reality to dreams; for they require the presence of the body, and themselves have no mechanical significance. Their association with the spirit or ghost probably follows the use of their names to describe the dream-imagery, which cannot at first have a name of its own. The same names being used for shadow or reflection and for spirit or dream-soul, the things are in some measure identified; and then the idea of force may be associated with shadows and reflections; so that the falling of a shadow upon a man may injure or slay him.

Magic-force and spirit-force being the same thing, the question whether _mana_ is a magical or animistic notion is misleading. It will be conceived of by different tribes in one way or the other, according to the relative prevalence in one or the other tribe of the animistic or of the magical mode of explanation.

(_b_) It is reasonable to expect that, as the ghost-theory spread, the magical force of things should sometimes be conceived of as spiritual; so that amulets and talismans would come to be regarded as owing their virtue either to a controlling spirit, or to an indwelling spirit peculiar to each: in the latter case the charm is a fetich. When a charm is thus considered, its efficacy is no longer expected to be uniform, but depends on the mood of the indwelling or controlling spirit. The fact that its efficacy, though formerly presumed to be uniform, never was so, favours the new interpretation; and this having been accepted, a cult (or a discipline) of the spirit is apt to follow. Thus the magician becomes a sorcerer or a priest.

In North Central Australia, short sticks or bones are used for pointing at an enemy and directing magical force against him. Only the Guangi and other tribes of the Gulf coast manufacture dead men’s bones (femur or fibula) into pointers; but these are traded southward, and are considered more potent than other pointers.[278] A stick, then, is the primitive talisman, often “sung” with a spell in Alcheringa words, which the operator himself does not understand; and it acts by pure magic. The dead man’s bone is more potent, at first perhaps only because it is more oppressively gruesome and terrifying; we are not told that it carries the power of its former owner’s ghost; but how near the thought must be! In South-East Australia, pointing with the bone (human fibula) is very common; in pointing you name your victim and say how he is to die; but that the efficacy of the rite does not depend upon a spirit is shown by this, that, when pointing, you tie a cord of human hair (attached to the bone) tightly around your upper arm, in order to drive blood into the bone. In other rites, however, in which the fat of a dead man is used, the ghost of the dead is believed to assist the operation; for a man’s fat, especially kidney-fat, is the seat of his prowess and other virtues.[279] An easy extension of ideas by analogy would interpret a rite in which a dead man’s bone is used, and which is on that account more potent, as owing its superior potency to the assistance of the dead man’s ghost. It seems easy; but resistance to the progress of explanation is not peculiar to the civilised mind.

Again, in South-East Australia, a _bulk_—a pebble, usually black and roundish—is carried by wizards as a powerful talisman. A native dreamt of seeing two ghosts by his camp fire, and, on waking, found a _bulk_ where they had stood.[280] How could such an impressive experience fail to raise a belief in a connexion between ghosts and _bulks_: both so attractive to the imagination, and alike mysterious and powerful? Many such situations must strongly indicate an extension of the ghost-theory, once it has been formed, to explain the influence of charms and rites. A time comes with some tribes when the activity and ubiquity of spirits is so much a matter of course that every mysterious power is apt to be ascribed to their presence. If a person or thing was originally taboo, either by inherent virtue or by force of a spell or curse—a talisman dangerous to every one who violated its sanctity—Animism explains the danger by the wrath of a protecting spirit. A boundary having long been taboo, a spirit is imagined to protect the boundary, and becomes the god Terminus. Diseases, at first attributed to Magic, are later explained by Animism; so that whilst an Australian wizard is content to suck a magically implanted stone or splinter from his patient’s body, a priest of the Dyaks, having sucked out a similar object, calls it a spirit.[281] The wonder is that at this stage of thought any purely magical power can survive.

(_c_) An Omen is regarded as giving warning of some event, although between event and omen there is no traceable connexion—in this resembling many magical operations; and at first omens may have been always so conceived of, and only by degrees distinguished from charms and spells. But in most parts of the world omens have come to be treated as divine or spiritual premonitions; and the marks which distinguish omens from the rest of Magic are such as to favour a growth of the belief that they are sent by spirits. This subject, however, is so extensive that a separate chapter must be given to it.

(_d_) Inasmuch as spells addressed to any object tend to the personification of it, the personified object may, as the ghost-theory gains strength, acquire an indwelling or controlling spirit, and the spell addressed to it may become a prayer. Not that this is the only way in which prayer may originate; for (as remarked above) nothing can be simpler or less in need of explanation than the invoking of the spirit of one’s relatives (the ghost-theory having been established) to help one or, at least, not to persecute. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to suppose that this was often attempted, and not persisted in for want of obtaining an answer; so that a long tentative age preceded the settled custom of prayer. Nor is it easy to see how belief in the efficacy of prayer (beginning in this way) could ever have been established, unless it were confirmed by coincidence—just like Magic. However, the earliest form of prayer and of spell (whichever may have been the earlier) being the same—a simple expression of desire—whence prayer and spell have been differentiated, it may be impossible to decide whether a given ejaculation belongs to one class or to the other. Thus Mr. R. W. Williamson tells us that, amongst the Mafulu of New Guinea, when fishing in the river Aduala, the fishers, after forming a weir, but before fixing their net, all join in a sort of prayer or invocation to the river: “Aduala, give us plenty of fish that we may eat well.”[282] But he expressly says that, whilst they believe certain parts of the river, such as a waterfall or deep pool, to be haunted by spirits, they do not believe this of the river itself,[283] and that generally their Animism is very backward. The ejaculation, therefore, seems to be a spell. Compare with it the Jakun spell to bring monkeys within shooting distance:

“Come ye down with souls enchanted,
Monkeys, by my spells enchanted.”[284]

If, then, the original form of prayer and of spell is often the same, the sole difference between them lies in the intention of the speaker. One of the Kurnai, to stop the gales, cried: “Let the West Wind be bound,”[285] and this is evidently a command and a spell; but if he regarded the wind as controlled by a spirit, a change of tone would make it a prayer. Still, whether with the spread of Animism a spell shall become a prayer, must depend upon whether the spirit addressed is believed to be the more easily importuned or coerced.

The taboo that often attaches to the names of the dead and of other spirits may easily have been derived from the magical practice of summoning by name, or of naming the victim of a rite. To call a living man by name draws his attention and often brings him to the spot; a magical naming is (from the temper of Magic) uniformly effective; so that to avoid such control names are kept secret; and when ghosts are believed in, naming has the same power over them and is, therefore, extremely dangerous. Hence, in Sorcery (a dangerous art), to introduce the names of spirits into spells is to secure their presence and assistance: and, in prayer, to use the true name of the spirit or god addressed may be indispensable; the worshipper’s intention is not enough.

(_e_) With the spread of Animism, magical rites often become religious. This may occur by simply adding the invocation of a spirit to a magical rite (as a spell may be added) in order to strengthen it—the two actions remaining quite distinct; or some degree of fusion may take place, obscuring more or less the original character of the practice. The Kai (Papuans of northern New Guinea) “make rain” by muttering a spell over a stone, and at the same time calling upon Balong and Batu to drive away Yondimi, a woman who holds up the rain; and when rain enough has fallen, they strew hot ashes on the stone, or put it in the fire, to stop the rain.[286] The animistic invocation, being omitted from the process of stopping the rain, seems to be merely adscititious to the making of it. Again, “When rain is badly wanted in the Oraon country, the Oraons of each village fix a day for the rain-making ceremony. On the morning of the appointed day, the women of the village, with the wife of the village priest or Pahan at their head, proceed to the village spring or tank, and there, after ablution, each woman fills her pitcher with water, and all proceed in a body to a sacred pipar-tree.... On their arrival at the sacred tree, all the women simultaneously pour the water in their pitchers over the root of the tree, saying ‘May rain fall on the earth like this.’ The wife of the village priest now puts marks of vermilion, diluted in oil, on the trunk of the tree. After this the women depart, and the Pahan or village priest proceeds to sacrifice a red cock to the god Baranda at the spot.... In this case, apparently, by direct alliance, sacrifice and the anointing of the tree with vermilion have been superimposed upon what was once, perhaps, purely a ceremony of imitative magic.”[287] Mr. Warde Fowler tells us that an ancient Iguvian document contains instructions for the lustration of the people before a campaign: the male population assembled in its military divisions; around the host a procession went three times; at the end of each circuit there was prayer to Mars and to two female associates of his power, to bless the people of Iguvium and to curse their enemies: and he observes that religion has here been imposed upon the original magic-ceremony. For the idea must have been that, by drawing a magic circle around the host, it would be protected in the enemy’s country against hostile magic by being rendered holy. “A later and animistic age would think of them (the soldiers) as needing protection against hostile spirits, of whose ways and freaks they were, of course, entirely ignorant.” Hence the prayer to Mars.[288]

Similarly, rites connected with seed-time and harvest, originally magical, become religious, as beliefs grow up in spirits of the rice, or corn, or vine, or in gods of agriculture or fertility. Thus, as magical power is the same thing as spiritual power, magical practices may be not merely the antecedents but even the foundations of religious practices. Long after the development of Animism, magical practices are maintained by natural conservatism; if priests exist, they try, of course, to annex such practices to the worship of their god; and if the annexation is accomplished, whether by priestly management or by a popular movement, no incongruity may be felt for a long time between the uniformity of Magic and the caprice of Animism; the whole celebration is called Religion, and becomes suffused with religious feeling.

§ 4. RETROGRADATION

On the other hand, in all these cases, the animistic interpretation of the power of fetiches, omens, prayers, rites, whether original (as Prof. Wundt holds) or acquired, may be lost, and a magical interpretation alone remain. For one’s mind becomes so engrossed with objects or practices (such as fetich-things or prayers) that are regarded as necessary to the gratification of any masterful desire, that not only irrelevant ideas, but any ideas not indispensable to the connexion between the objects or practices and the gratifications, may be forgotten; and as objects or practices acquire interest in themselves, even the gratifications formerly desired may be forgotten. Just as such means as money or books, business or study, may become ends to the exclusion of further enjoyments, so images or rites, at first subsidiary to the obtaining of demonic aid in love or revenge, may be cared for with a fervour that excludes the thought of any intervening means to those ends (especially such means as a capricious spirit who may fail one), and may even be employed under a vague fear or discomfort in the omission of them, when no particular purpose is any longer remembered. On the principle of least effort, we attend only to what is necessary.

(_a_) A saint’s finger-joint may at first be treasured as a fetich having the power of the saint to save from shipwreck; after a time it may be carried as an amulet without any thought of the saint’s interposition; whilst the evil to be averted is more and more vaguely imagined. Seeing that spiritual and magical agencies are the same invisible, unintelligible force, how easy to interchange them!

(_b_) Similarly omens, from being divine messages, each relating to a particular undertaking, may come to be merely occurrences that encourage or discourage a man, or a tribe, at any time; because, by tradition, they are lucky or unlucky. Or practically the same result may be reached by philosophy: as with those Stoics who explained that omens are prophetic not as sent by the gods, but as involved in the same procession of fatal events. Fate, before any laws of nature had been discovered, was nothing but all-comprehensive Magic: which left out or mediatised the gods, because, in a philosophical consideration of the world, they are worse than useless.

(_c_) As to prayers, in any rational conception of them, the form of words conveying them cannot matter to a god, as long as they are piously meant and devoutly meditated. Yet everywhere there has been a tendency to reduce them to strict formulæ, any departure from which may, it is feared, impair their efficacy. So far as this occurs, their operation is magical; they have become spells. Such is the result of custom, with mental inertia too dull to think; of an irreligious temperament, getting quickly through an uncongenial task; of a superstitious unimaginative spirit, afraid to omit any traditionary means of safety and for whom a praying-wheel is the way of peace. To rob prayer of its religious meaning, there is the ever-present example of the magical spells that operate by their own force. A form of words, whether magical or supplicatory, that has been among the antecedents of a time of peace or of gain, seems to be amongst its causes, and is repeated that such a time may continue. Of the countless cases in which prayers have degenerated into spells, none is more instructive than the one recorded by Dr. Rivers in his account of the dairy-ritual of the Todas. The prayers offered during this ritual are uttered in the throat, so that the words are undistinguishable; and they are divided into two parts: first, a list of sacred beings and objects mentioned by sacred names, much of it unintelligible; and, secondly, a petition for the protection and welfare of the buffaloes: the former is now the more important; the latter is apt to be slurred over, or perhaps omitted.[289] Of the Roman public prayers, Mr. Warde Fowler says: “The idea that the spoken formula (derived from an age of Magic) was efficient only if no slip were made, seems to have gained in strength instead of diminishing, as we might have expected it to do with advancing civilisation.”[290] To justify the belief in formulæ it may be asserted that the gods themselves prescribed them: an excuse for the superstitious dread of altering what is traditionary, and for the persuasion that the form itself has mysterious virtue.

(_d_) That other religious ceremonies, repeated from age to age, have the same tendency as prayers to become dead forms from which the spirit of communion or devotion has departed—though under favourable conditions it may return from time to time—is too well known; and if in their emptiness they are still believed somehow to serve their purpose, it can only be as magical rites. One may be surprised to find at what an early stage of culture this tendency is fully realised. William Ellis, the celebrated missionary, says of the people of Raiatea: “The efficacy of their [religious] services consisted in the rigid exactness with which sacred days were kept, and religious ceremonies performed, without the least regard to the motives and dispositions of the devotees.... In their idol-worship, however costly the sacrifice, and however near its close the ceremony might be, if the priest omitted or misplaced any word in the prayers, or if his attention was diverted by any means so that the prayer was broken, the whole was rendered unavailing: he must prepare other victims and repeat his prayers over from the commencement.”[291] How this concern for details must be a relapse into magical notions may be read in the account of rites to stop the rainfall in Torres Straits; where (we are told) if the wizard omit any detail, the rain continues.[292] Perhaps the notion of the perfect definiteness of causation (though not consistently adhered to in other matters) arose from this meticulous anxiety of superstition: it also, however, furnishes excuses for failure both to priests and wizards.

(_e_) In Magic there must be something deeply satisfying to the average mind: it precedes Religion, supplies the basis and framework of religious practices, and remains when Religion is in ruins; and when people change their Religion, they retain their Magic. Among the Fijians,[293] those who were Christianised lost their dread of witchcraft last of all the relics of their heathenism. Among the Cherokees, “Gahuni, like several others of their Shamans, combined the professions of Indian conjuror and Methodist preacher.”[294] In Norway, after the general acceptance of Christianity, Lapland witchcraft was still valued. The victory of the insurgents at Stiklestad, where St. Olaf fell, was thought to have been due to the magic armour of reindeer-skin that Thore Hund had brought from Lapland; though all St. Olaf’s men wore the cross upon helmet and shield.[295]

Since then the spiritualising of Magic and the despiritualising of Religion are both real processes of evolution, it may be difficult, or even impossible, to say of any given magical practice, without particular knowledge of its history, whether it is primitive or residuary. Sir E. B. Tylor writes: “Charm formulas are in very many cases actual prayers, and as such are intelligible. Where they are merely verbal forms, producing their effect on nature and man by some unexplained process, may not they, or the types they were modelled on, have been originally prayers, since dwindled into mystic sentences?”[296] The circumstances of each case must guide our judgment. What shall we say, for example, of the addresses to spirits in Melanesia, where it is difficult to find in any dialect a word for prayer, “so closely does the notion of efficacy cling to the form of words employed”?[297] Are spells there rising into prayers, or prayers sinking back into spells?

§ 5. SPIRITS KNOW MAGIC, TEACH IT, AND INSPIRE MAGICIANS

Ghosts know Magic, because they knew it in the flesh; and, by analogy, similar knowledge is likely to be attributed to spirits that are reputed never to have been in the flesh. As fear exalts all the powers of a ghost above his former reach, it may be expected to raise his magical powers, especially if he had already been famous in that way. And, generally, it does so; but, exceptionally, we read that, among the Lengua Indians (west of the Paraguay), whilst any man may attempt Magic, professional “witch-doctors” are numerous and powerful; yet they are not credited with extraordinary powers after death.[298] Elsewhere, however, the dead magician does not forget his art. Where Shamanism prevails and the power of Magic or Sorcery attains its greatest social importance, the spirit of a dead shaman makes some advance toward deification. Among the Buryats, dead shamans are worshipped with prayer and sacrifice.[299] According to the _Kalevala_, the famous collection of Finnish poetry, in Tuonela (Hades), whither all dead shamans descend, their wisdom and magical power accumulate, exceeding that of any living adept; so that even Väinämöinen, the wizard hero, goes down to learn there the magical words he does not know.[300]

Spirits, knowing Magic, also teach it, and make magicians and prophets. In South-East Australia, the profession of wizard may be hereditary in the eldest son; or obtained through initiation by another wizard—(a corpse is dug up, its bones pounded for the neophyte to chew; he is plastered with excrement, etc., till he becomes frenzied, his eyes bloodshot, his behaviour maniacal);[301] or a man may become a wizard by meeting a spirit who opens his side and inserts quartz-crystals, etc.; or by deriving power from Daramulun; or by sleeping at a grave, where the deceased opens him, and takes out and replaces his bowels. Here we have a list of the most usual ways in which magical powers can anywhere be acquired—by inheritance, by tuition, by the aid of ghosts or spirits; and it suggests the hypothesis that at first the magic art was inherited, or learnt from a former wizard; and that, with the growth of Animism, it became in some cases preferable, because more impressive (and cheaper), to acquire it from a ghost or spirit. For this is more probable than that, at the early stage in which Animism exists in South-East Australia, retrogradation should have taken place; so that the making of wizards, formerly ascribed only to spirits, should in some cases have been remitted to inheritance or to professional tuition. That in spite of the greater prestige that may attach to a diploma obtained from spirits, the right of practising by inheritance or by tuition often still persists, though, no doubt, due in part to dull conservatism, may also be understood by considering family and professional motives. There are heavy fees for teaching witchcraft, besides the profits made in some tribes by selling the control of familiar spirits; the profession is lucrative, and a wizardy family has an interest in its monopoly; which must be impaired, if any man who loses himself in the bush may come back with some cock-and-bull story about a ghost and his new metaphysical insides, and straightway set himself up with the equivalents of a brass plate and red lantern. Among the Boloki on the Congo, the careers of blacksmith and witch-doctor are open only to the relatives of living adepts. At least, practically (but for a few exceptionally cunning and rascally interlopers who creep and intrude and climb into the fold), the office of witch-doctor is hereditary: a father trains his son, and will train (for a large fee) any youth whose family has already produced a witch-doctor. But a candidate without family connexion is told that he must first kill by witchcraft all the members of his family, as offerings to the fetich of that branch of the profession to which he aspires.[302]

Not only the spirits of primitive Animism, but likewise the gods of maturer Religions, know and teach Magic. In the Maori mythology, Tumatauenga, one of the first generation of gods, determined incantations for making all sorts of food abundant and for controlling the winds, as well as prayers to Heaven suited to all the circumstances of human life; and the god Rongotakawin, having shaped the hero Whakatau out of the apron of Apakura, taught him Magic and enchantments of every kind.[303] Prof. Rhys tells us that the Welsh god Mâth ab Mathonwy, or Math Hên (the ancient), was the first of the three great magicians of Welsh Mythology; and he taught Magic to the culture hero, Gwydion ab Dôn, with whose help he created a woman out of flowers.[304] The Teutonic equivalent of Gwydion is Woden, or Othin; and he too was a magician, “the father of spells,” who acquired his wisdom by gazing down into the abyss, whilst he hung nine nights on the tree, an offering to himself (and in other ways); and, in turn, he teaches Siegfried the omens.[305] He also taught the northern people shape-changing, and by spells controlled fire and the winds.[306] In Egypt Magic was taught by Thoth, in Babylonia by Merodach, and in Japan by Ohonomachi the earth-god. Indeed, whence, unless from divine beings, could this precious wisdom be obtainable?

Spirits also inspire or possess the magician, so that through him, as their mouthpiece or instrument, prophecies are uttered or wonders wrought. We have seen that in South-East Australia the rites of initiation to wizardry by a wizard, without the aid of spirits, cause a candidate to become frenzied or maniacal. With the growing fashion of animistic interpretation, such behaviour is (along with insanity) put down to possession by a spirit. The common beliefs that a man’s soul can slip in and out of him and that a man may reincarnate the spirit of an ancestor, facilitate this idea of possession. Dreams concerning spirits also promote the belief that a miracle-monger owes to them his supernatural powers. The Tunguses of Turnkhausk say that the man destined to be a shaman sees in a dream the devil performing rites, and so learns the secrets of his craft. Among the Trans-Baikal Tunguses, he who wishes to become a shaman declares that such or such a dead shaman appeared to him in a dream, and ordered him to be his successor; and he shows himself crazy, stupefied and timorous. The Yakut shaman is preordained to serve the spirits, whether he wishes it or not: he begins by raging like a madman, gabbles, falls unconscious, runs about the woods, into fire and water, injures himself with weapons. Then an old shaman trains him.[307] On the Congo, a man may become a wizard by claiming to be the medium of a dead man; and a medium falls into a frenzy, shouts, trembles all over, his body undulates, sweat breaks out, foam gathers on his mouth, his eyeballs roll: he speaks an archaic language if he knows one.[308] In Santa Cruz (Melanesia), prophecy is practised by men whose bodies are taken possession of, and their voices used, by ghosts: they foam at the mouth, writhe, are convulsed as if in madness; and the mad, too, are believed to be possessed.[309] Similarly the Pythoness: the behaviour of the possessed is everywhere the same. But as the same behaviour marks the youth training for a wizard before the theory of possession or inspiration has been adopted, it is plain that the animistic theory does not create the phenomena, but is merely, at a certain stage of thought, the inevitable explanation of them.

Facility of falling into frenzy may be the test of fitness for wizardry; the Bokongo professor who trains a pupil, beats his drum, shakes his rattle, and tries to drive the fetich-power into him; if the pupil remains stolid, he is disqualified; but if he sways to the music of the drum, jumps about like a madman, etc., he passes.[310] These antics at first astonish the beholder, strengthen the faith of patients in the witch-doctor, and of the witch-doctor in himself, and often have a sort of hypnotic fascination for both him and them; and they gain in value under Animism by being also proofs of supernatural assistance or control: and being an essential mark of the adept at certain stages of the art’s development, they are sometimes induced by rhythmic drumming, singing and dancing, sometimes by fastings or drugs.

“Black Magic” is, at first, merely the use of Magic for anti-social purposes; very early a distinction is recognised between wizards who cause disease and those who cure it.[311] “Black” and “white” wizards are sometimes at open strife.[312] When tribal gods come to be recognised, “black” wizards are those who are assisted or inspired by inferior gods or demons, who may be opponents and rivals of the high gods. Hence the same god who, whilst paramount, aids or inspires in an honourable way, may, if deposed or superseded, become the abettor of Black Magic—as happened to our own gods, and to others, before and after the coming of Christianity; for the ancient divine sources of power and prophecy became devils and witch-masters. The magicians of our Middle Ages, of whom Faustus is the type, were “black” and, in the spirit of Shamanism, pretended to rule the devils; but, overshadowed by Christianity, they—at least in popular belief—bought their power at a price.

§ 6. SPIRITS OPERATE BY MAGIC

Spirits may operate through men whom they possess, or by their naked soul-force, or by words (that is, by spells), or by merely thinking:

(_a_) When a man is possessed by a spirit, it is the soul-force of that spirit which has entered him and taken command of his voice or limbs; and we have seen that this soul-force is the same as force magical. The spirit’s action is the same as that of the _bugin_ or wizard, who boasted of having entered a horse and galloped off.[313]