Doug,

You get hung up on particular words and miss the forest for the trees. You completely disregarded my post. Let me try again. Religion deals with the supernatural, which distinguishes it from science (or in the case of societies before the Scientific Revolution with empiricism), but is also different from magic in a couple of ways. Religion approaches the supernatural (gods, spirits, etc.) as a suppliant, i.e. “Please God, let this happen.” Religion also involves belief as in Tertulian’s saying “credo quia absurdum” “I believe it, even if it is absurd.”

Magic, on the other hand, is like empiricism in that (1) it deals in evidence and (2) attempts to manipulate both the natural and the supernatural to achieve results. It differs from religion in that it is not suppliant and it differs from empiricism (“science”) in that “science” excludes the supernatural from consideration. Magic proceeds logically. That is why we have a couple of “laws” that we can use to analyze magical procedures. The Law of Similarity says that things and procedures that are similar will have similar effects. For example, heart-shaped flowers will be medicines for the heart, sticking pins in a wax image of your enemy will cause him/her pain in that area, making children cry before sacrificing them to the Rain God will make it rain, farmers croaking like frogs will bring rain (because usually frogs croak before rain, etc. The Law of Contact says that objects that have been in contact with or belong to someone have a connection that can be used magically. For example, making love potions involves using the hair of the person whom you want to make fall in love, Hawaiian (and other royalty) saved and buried their cut hair, fingernails (and even excrement) in a secret place so that their enemies could not use them to harm them in a magical way. These are “beliefs” but also “intellectual” in that, within the scope of believing in magic, the achieving of an objective is deduced logically.

Magic, but not religion, is like ‘science” falsifiable in principle. However, magicians do take steps to prevent this, because there are always outs. Incantations are supposed to be recited flawlessly. Thus, if the potion or procedure works, it “proves” that the magic worked. If the potion or procedure does not work, then, obviously, the incantation was not recited properly, the chicken was not killed at the right time, the ingredients were not the right ones, etc.

What Malinowski found in his study on the Trobriand islanders, and what subsequent studies have confirmed is that, when the process involved a large amount of control, for example making canoes or when the cause was clearly natural (overexposure to the sun, being wounded in war) there was not a lot of magic associated with the process. However, if the particular process involved a lot of uncertainty (fishing, crops, illnesses with no obvious cause) then a lot of magic was employed. There is a funny study that applies this to baseball. Fielding, which is primarily a matter of skill had very few “superstitions” and rituals associated with it, but hitting (where you can get unexplained slumps) had a ton of rituals (not stepping on baselines, not changing your socks or eating the same thing every day during a batting streak, etc.

Using this approach in regards to the Egyptian world-view might be useful in this discussion. And, again, animism (not being an expert on Egypt I can’t tell how extensive it really was) can exist without shamanism. Magic can also be done without animism. Many. many societies, including our own (think black cats, rabbit feet) have magical thinking and do not have animism. Animism is not a prerequisite to magic.

Another point. In a previous post you point out that Egyptians involved in making bricks, and other routine procedures did not use magic. This is exactly the point Malinowski and I were making about procedures where you have a lot of control. Also, writing is not a requirement for magic. Most magic, in fact, does not involve writing, and there are hundreds
and hundreds of cultures that do not have writing but use a lot of magic.

From your post: "Magic is the belief in spirits and forces of nature that can be controlled through force of will and special incantations. That is the definition in the modern dictionary for magic.

The pyramid texts are magical.
The coffin texts are magical.
The Book of Coming forth by Day is magical.

Those are consistent with the definition of magic.

The Rhind mathematical papyrus was not magical.
Accounting papyri from Egypt were not magical."

This is exactly what I say above and what others have been saying. You keep trying to put us into a box of the "excluded middle" i.e. it's either magic or science. Actually, religion, magic and "science" can coexist and be done simultaneously in a society and even in the same problem: a person can go to a hospital for a "scientific" procedure, stop in church to pray for a good result, and still carry a rabbit's foot into the operation room. The problem as I see it is that you continue to call "magic" things that probably are "religion". The Egyptian mavens here should comment, but probably the pyramid texts, the coffin texts, and the Book of the Coming Forth by Day can be analyzed as I described above more as religious than magical. Did the Egyptian priests (the name already tells you something) think that these words had power to compel and guarantee a result (as long as all the words and rituals were carried out properly) from the Gods; or were they in the nature of a supplication and a hope that the gods would grant the actions required? Or are these texts, mixed with a combination of both




Bernard



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2007 12:31PM by bernard.