What Is Magic?

Magic or sorcery is the use of rituals, symbols, actions, gestures and language that are believed to exploit supernatural forces.^[1][2][3][4] Modern Western magicians generally state magic's primary purpose to be personal spiritual growth.^[5]

The belief in and the practice of magic has been present since the earliest human cultures and continues to have an important spiritual, religious and medicinal role in many cultures in present times.^[6][7] Magic is sometimes practiced in isolation and secrecy and often viewed with suspicion by the wider community.^[4] In non-scientific societies, perceived magical attack is sometimes employed to explain personal or societal misfortune.^[8]

The concept of magic as a category separate from religion was first widely recognized in Judaism, which derided as magic the practices of pagan worship designed to appease and receive benefits from gods other than Yahweh.^[2] Wouter Hanegraaff argues that magic is in fact "a largely polemical concept that has been used by various religious interest groups either to describe their own religious beliefs and practices or – more frequently – to discredit those of others."^[3]

The foremost perspectives on magic in anthropology are functionalism, symbolism and intellectualism. The term "magical thinking" in anthropology, psychology andcognitive science refers to causal reasoning often involving associative thinking, such as the perceived ability of the mind to affect the physical world (see the philosophicalproblem of mental causation) or correlation mistaken for materialist causation. Psychological theories consider magic a personal phenomenon intended to meet individual needs as opposed to a social phenomenon serving a collective purpose. The belief that one can influence supernatural powers, by prayer, sacrifice or invocation dates back to prehistoric religions and it can be found in early records such as the Egyptian pyramid texts and the Indian Vedas.^[9] Magic and religion are categories of beliefs and systems of knowledge used within societies. Some forms of shamanic contact with the spirit world seem to be nearly universal in the early development of human communities. They appear in various tribal peoples from Aboriginal Australia and Māori people of New Zealand to the Amazon, African savannah, and pagan Europe. In general, the 20th century has seen a sharp rise in public interest in various forms of magical practice and the foundation of several traditions and organisations, ranging from the distinctly religious to the philosophical.

Rituals

Magical rituals are the precisely defined actions (including speech) used to work magic. Bronisław Malinowski describes ritual language as possessing a high "coefficient of weirdness". He states that the language used in rituals is archaic and out of the ordinary. This, in his view, fosters the proper mindset to believe in the ritual.^[10] S. J. Tambiah notes, however, that even if the power of the ritual is said to reside in the words, "the words only become effective if uttered in the special context of other actions."^[11] These other actions typically consist of gestures, possibly performed with special objects at a particular place or time. Object, location, and performer may require purification beforehand. This caveat draws a parallel to the felicity conditions J. L. Austin requires of performative utterances.^[12] By "performative" Austin means that the ritual act itself achieves the stated goal. For example, a wedding ceremony can be understood as a ritual, and only by properly performing the ritual does the marriage occur. Émile Durkheim stresses the importance of rituals as a tool to achieve "collective effervescence" which serves to support the unification of society. On the other hand, some psychologists compare such rituals to obsessive-compulsive rituals, noting that intentional focus falls on the lower level of representation of simple gestures.^[13] This results in goal demotion, as the ritual proceeds to place more emphasis on the ritual itself than on the connection between the ritual and the goal.

Magical symbols

Anthropologists, such as Sir James Frazer (1854–1938), have characterized the implementation of symbols into two primary categories: the "principle of similarity", and the "principle of contagion." He further categorized these principles as falling under "sympathetic magic" and "contagious magic" and asserted that these concepts were "general or generic laws of thought which were misapplied in magic."^[14]

Principle of similarity

The principle of similarity, also known as the "association of ideas", which falls under the category of sympathetic magic, is the thought that if a certain result follows a certain action, then that action must be responsible for the result. Therefore, if one is to perform this action again, the same result can again be expected. One classic example of this mode of thought is that of the rooster and the sunrise. When a rooster crows, it is a response to the rising of the sun. Based on sympathetic magic, one might interpret these series of events differently. The law of similarity would suggest that since the sunrise follows the crowing of the rooster, the rooster must have caused the sun to rise.^[15]Causality is inferred where it might not otherwise have been. Therefore, a practitioner might believe that if he is able to cause the rooster to crow, he will be able to control the timing of the sunrise. Another use of the principle of similarity is the construction and manipulation of representations of some target to be affected (e.g. voodoo dolls), believed to bring about a corresponding effect on the target (e.g. breaking a limb of a doll will bring about an injury in the corresponding limb of someone depicted by the doll).

Principle of contagion

Another primary type of magical thinking includes the principle of contagion. This principle suggests that once two objects come into contact with each other, they will continue to affect each other even after the contact between them has been broken. One example that Tambiah gives is related to adoption. Among some American Indians, for example, when a child is adopted, his or her adoptive mother will pull the child through some of her clothes, symbolically representing the birth process and thereby associating the child with herself.^[16] Therefore, the child emotionally becomes hers even though their relationship is not biological. As Claude Lévi-Strauss would put it: the birth "would consist, therefore, in making explicit a situation originally existing on the emotional level and in rendering acceptable to the mind pains which the body refuses to tolerate...the woman believes in the myth and belongs to a society which believes in it."^[17]

Symbols, for many cultures that use magic, are seen as a type of technology. Natives might use symbols and symbolic actions to bring about change and improvements, much like Western cultures might use advanced irrigation techniques to promote soil fertility and crop growth. Michael Brown discusses the use of nantag stones among the Aguaruna as being similar to this type of "technology."^[18] These stones are brought into contact with stem cuttings of plants like manioc before they are planted in an effort to promote growth. Nantag are powerful tangible symbols of fertility, so they are brought into contact with crops to transmit their fertility to the plants.

Others argue that ritualistic actions are merely therapeutic. Tambiah cites the example of a native hitting the ground with a stick. While some may interpret this action as symbolic (i.e. the man is trying to make the ground yield crops through force), others would simply see a man unleashing his frustration at poor crop returns. Ultimately, whether or not an action is symbolic depends upon the context of the situation as well as the ontology of the culture. Many symbolic actions are derived from mythology and unique associations, whereas other ritualistic actions are just simple expressions of emotion and are not intended to enact any type of change.

Magical language

The performance of magic almost always involves the use of language. Whether spoken out loud or unspoken, words are frequently used to access or guide magical power. In "The Magical Power of Words" (1968) S. J. Tambiah argues that the connection between language and magic is due to a belief in the inherent ability of words to influence the universe. Bronisław Malinowski, in Coral Gardens and their Magic (1935), suggests that this belief is an extension of man's basic use of language to describe his surroundings, in which "the knowledge of the right words, appropriate phrases and the more highly developed forms of speech, gives man a power over and above his own limited field of personal action."^[19] Magical speech is therefore a ritual act and is of equal or even greater importance to the performance of magic than non-verbal acts.^[20]

Not all speech is considered magical. Only certain words and phrases or words spoken in a specific context are considered to have magical power.^[21] Magical language, according to C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards's (1923) categories of speech, is distinct from scientific language because it is emotive and it converts words into symbols for emotions; whereas in scientific language words are tied to specific meanings and refer to an objective external reality.^[22] Magical language is therefore particularly adept at constructing metaphors that establish symbols and link magical rituals to the world.^[23]

Malinowski argues that "the language of magic is sacred, set and used for an entirely different purpose to that of ordinary life."^[24] The two forms of language are differentiated through word choice, grammar, style, or by the use of specific phrases or forms: spells, songs, blessings, or chants, for example. Sacred modes of language often employ archaic words and forms in an attempt to invoke the purity or "truth" of a religious or a cultural "golden age". The use of Hebrew in Judaism is an example.^[25]

Another potential source of the power of words is their secrecy and exclusivity. Much sacred language is differentiated enough from common language that it is incomprehensible to the majority of the population and it can only be used and interpreted by specialized practitioners (magicians, priests, shamans, even mullahs).^[26][27] In this respect, Tambiah argues that magical languages violate the primary function of language: communication.^[28] Yet adherents of magic are still able to use and to value the magical function of words by believing in the inherent power of the words themselves and in the meaning that they must provide for those who do understand them. This leads Tambiah to conclude that "the remarkable disjunction between sacred and profane language which exists as a general fact is not necessarily linked to the need to embody sacred words in an exclusive language."^[25]