contagious magic

execution

first theory of totemism

human sacrifice

law of contiguity

law of similarity

law of sympathy

lost rationality

magic

magic - science - religion

our debt to the savages

recognition

religion

superstition

sympathetic magic

totemism

nationality

Scottish

occupation / innovator as

anthropologist

innovator in the field of

comparative religion

folklore

mythology

British

mythographer

historian

classical scholar

scientific organization

German Archaeological Institute

scientist

Royal Society

Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences

theologian

British Academy

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

anthropology

ethnology

culturology

history of religions

is on our radar. Try again later or consider contributing!

is the form human sacrifice takes when a nation becomes civilized. Human sacrifice is not dropped altogether but rather confounded with the execution of those wretches as would be put to death at any rate.

For when a nation becomes civilized, if it does not drop human sacrifices altogether, it at least selects as victims only such wretches as would be put to death at any rate. Thus the killing of a god may sometimes come to be confounded with the execution of a criminal. James G. Frazer

is the idea of deposit the external soul for safe keeping in a particular plant or animal... but since the animals or plants of a single species are difficult to distinguish, the savage 'does not know which the dear one is,' and is 'obliged to spare them all from fear of injuring one' thus creating the totemistic relationship.

if one accepted the primitive belief in an external soul, then it was rational to deposit it of safe keeping in a particular plant or animal... but since the animals or plants of a single species are difficult to distinguish, the savage 'does not know which the dear one is,' and is 'obliged to spare them all from fear of injuring one' thus creating the totemistic relationship (Frazer 1900:I, 351, 417) in Stocking 'malinowski 14)

is not dropped when a nation becomes civilized. Rather it is transformed and confounded with the execution of those wretches as would be put to death at any rate.

is, in superstitious magic, the idea that 'objects which have been in contact, but since ceased to be so, continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. This of course is an example of metonymy.

superstition is 'those actions which are destined to produce special effects through the application of two laws of sympathetic magic the law of similarity and the law of contiguity.' The Law of similarity describes a 'like produces like' relationship... essentially, magic through metaphor. The Law of contiguity refers to the idea that 'objects which have been in contact, but since ceased to be so, continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed( )' This of course is an example of metonymy.

is, in superstitious magic, the notion of a 'like produces like' relationship... essentially, magic through metaphor.

is the notion that magic conducted sound reasoning from false principles rather than out of mere irrationality.

The surviving irrational residue of behavior that had once been soundly reasoned, albeit (like that of Locke's madmen), from false principles. (stocking 'malinowski' p14)

James Frazer thought that magic was a 'pseudo-science'.

's second principle is that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed.

The second principle of magic: things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. James G. Frazer

Magic is the bastard sister of science. James Frazer

is, as a political goal, coming to displace redistributive struggles in economic globalization.

We are facing, then, a new constellation in the grammar of political claims making and one that is disturbing on two counts. First, this move from redistribution to recognition is occurring despite or because of an acceleration of economic globalization, at a time when an aggressively expanding capitalism is radically exacerbating economic inequality. In this context, questions of recognition are serving less to supplement, complicate and enrich redistributive struggles than to marginalize, eclipse and displace them. I shall call this the problem of displacement. Second, today's recognition struggles are occurring at a moment of hugely increasing transcultural interaction and communication, when accelerated migration and global media flows are hybridizing and pluralizing cultural forms. Yet the routes such struggles take often serve not to promote respectful interaction within increasingly multi-cultural contexts, but to drastically simplify and reify group identities. They tend, rather, to encourage separatism, intolerance and chauvin ism, patriarchalism and authoritarianism. I shall call this the problem of reification. (Frazer 2007 : 108)

is a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.

By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life. James G. Frazer

is submitting to a higher power which directs or controls the course of nature and of human life'.

a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.'

is a belief arising from men mistaking the order of their ideas for the order of nature, and hence imagined that the control which they have, or seem to have, over their thoughts, permitted them to have a corresponding control over things.

Frazer said, 'men mistook the order of their ideas for the order of nature, and hence imagined that the control which they have, or seem to have, over their thoughts, permitted them to have a corresponding control over things' (Frazer, in Freud p137)

is those actions which are destined to produce special effects through the application of two laws of sympathetic magic the law of similarity and the law of contiguity.

Superstition is 'those actions which are destined to produce special effects through the application of two laws of sympathetic magic the law of similarity and the law of contiguity.' The Law of similarity describes a 'like produces like' relationship... essentially, magic through metaphor. The Law of contiguity refers to the idea that 'objects which have been in contact, but since ceased to be so, continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed( )' This of course is an example of metonymy.

is a class of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious respect, believing that there exist between him and every member of the class an intimate and altogether special relation.

a class of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious respect, believing that there exist between him and every member of the class an intimate and altogether special relation. (James G. Frazer, Totemism, 1887) 'the totem protects the man, and the man shows his respect for the totem in various ways, by not killing it if it be an animal, and not cutting or gathering it if it be a plant.'(1).

James FrazerThinkers

James Frazer