Sympathetic magic

Sympathetic magic, also known as imitative magic, is a type of magic based on imitation or correspondence.

Contents
Similarity and contagion
Imitation
Correspondence
Hypotheses about prehistoric sympathetic magic
Popular culture
See also
References
External links

Similarity and contagion

James George Frazer coined the term "sympathetic magic" in The Golden Bough (1889); Richard Andree,
however, anticipated Frazer, writing of sympathy-enchantment (German: Sympathie-Zauber) in his 1878
Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche. Frazer subcategorised sympathetic magic into two varieties: that
relying on similarity, and that relying on contact or "contagion":

If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to
resolve themselves into two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause;
and, second, 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 former principle may be called
the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From the first of these
principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he
desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object
will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part
of his body or not.[1]

Imitation
Imitation involves using effigies, fetishes or poppets to affect the environment of people, or occasionally
people themselves. Voodoo dolls (Poppets) are an example of fetishes used in this way. Such as using a lock of
hair on the doll creating a "link" known as a "taglock" between the doll and the person the hair came from so
whatever happens to the doll will also happen on the person.

Correspondence
Correspondence is based on the idea that one can influence something based on its relationship or resemblance
to another thing. Many popular beliefs regarding properties of plants, fruits and vegetables have evolved in the
folk-medicine of different societies owing to sympathetic magic. This include beliefs that certain herbs with
yellow sap can cure jaundice, that walnuts could strengthen the brain because of the nuts' resemblance to
brain, that red beet-juice is good for the blood, that phallic-shaped roots will cure male impotence, etc.[2]

Many traditional societies believed that an effect on one object can cause an analogous effect on another
object, without an apparent causal link between the two objects. For instance, many folktales feature a villain
whose "life" exists in another object, and who can only be killed if that other object is destroyed, as in the
Russian folktale of Koschei the Deathless. (For literary versions, see Sauron's ring in The Lord of the Rings
and horcruxes in the Harry Potter books; the Dungeons & Dragons term lich has become common in recent
fantasy literature.) Mircea Eliade wrote that in Uganda, a barren woman is thought to cause a barren garden,
and her husband can seek a divorce on purely economic grounds.[3]

Many societies have been documented as believing that, instead of requiring an image of an individual,
influence can be exerted using something that they have touched or used.[4] Consequently, the inhabitants of
Tanna, Vanuatu in the 1970s were cautious when throwing away food or losing a fingernail, as they believed
these small scraps of personal items could be used to cast a spell causing fevers. Similarly, an 18th-century
compendium of Russian folk magic describes how someone could be influenced through sprinkling cursed salt
on a path frequently used by the victim,[5] while a 15th-century crown princess of Joseon Korea is recorded as
having cut her husband's lovers' shoes into pieces and burnt them.[6]

Hypotheses about prehistoric sympathetic magic

Sympathetic magic has been considered in relation to Paleolithic cave paintings such as those in North Africa
and at Lascaux in France. The theory, which is partially based on studies of more modern hunter-gatherer
societies, is that the paintings were made by magic practitioners who could potentially be described as
shamans. The shamans would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state and then paint
images of their visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing power out of the cave walls themselves. This
goes some way towards explaining the remoteness of some of the paintings (which often occur in deep or
small caves) and the variety of subject matter (from prey animals to predators and human hand-prints). In his
book Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell stated that the paintings "...were associated with the magic of the
hunt." For him, this sympathetic magic was akin to a participation mystique, where the paintings, drawn in a
sanctuary of "timeless principle", were acted upon by rite.

In 1933, Leo Frobenius, discussing cave paintings in North Africa, pointed out that many of the paintings did
not seem to be mere depictions of animals and people. To him, it seemed as if they were acting out a hunt
before it began, perhaps as a consecration of the animal to be killed. In this way, the pictures served to secure a
successful hunt. While others interpreted the cave images as depictions of hunting accidents or of ceremonies,
Frobenius believed it was much more likely that "...what was undertaken [in the paintings] was a consecration
of the animal effected not through any real confrontation of man and beast but by a depiction of a concept of
the mind."

In 2005, Francis Thackeray published a paper in the journal Antiquity, in which he recognised that there was a
strong case for the principle of sympathetic magic in southern Africa in prehistory. For example, a rock
engraving from Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa (dated at 4000 years before the present, BP) showed a
zebra which had probably been "symbolically wounded", with incisions on the rump being associated with
wounds. Ochre on the engraved slab could represent blood. A prehistoric rock painting at Melikane in Lesotho
shows what appear to be men (shamans) bending forward like animals, with two sticks to represent the front
legs of an antelope. Thackeray suggests that these men, perhaps shamans or "medicine-men" dressed under
animal skins, were associated with hunting rituals of the kind recorded by H. Lichtenstein in 1812 in South
Africa, in which a hunter simulated an antelope which was symbolically killed by other hunters, in the belief
that this was essential for a successful hunt. Such rituals could be represented in prehistoric art such as
paintings at Melikane in Lesotho. Thackeray suggests that the Melikane therianthropes are associated with
both trance and the principle of sympathetic hunting magic In 2005, in the journal Antiquity, Francis
Thackeray suggests that there is even a photograph of such rituals, recorded in 1934 at Logageng in the
southern Kalahari, South Africa. Such rituals may have been closely associated with both roan antelope and
eland, and other animals.

In the Brandberg in Namibia, in the so-called "White Lady" panel recorded by the Abbe Henri Breuil and
Harald Pager, there are "symbolic wounds" on the belly of a gemsbok-like therianthrope (catalogued as T1),
which might relate to the principle of sympathetic hunting magic and trance, as suggested by Thackeray in
2013.

At the Apollo 11 cave in Namibia, Erich Wendt discovered mobile art about 30,000 years old, including a
stone broken in two pieces, with a gemsbok-like therianthrope that closely resembles the Brandberg
therianthrope which Thackeray catalogues as T1. Both examples of art may be related to sympathetic hunting
magic and shamanism.

In 2013 Thackeray emphasised that in southern Africa, the principle of sympathetic hunting magic and
shamanism (trance) were not mutually exclusive.

However, as with all prehistory, it is impossible to be certain due to the limited evidence and the many pitfalls
associated with trying to understand the prehistoric mindset with a modern mind.

Popular culture
The concept of sympathetic magic features prominently in the Kingkiller Chronicle novel series by Patrick
Rothfuss.

Merricat Blackwood in Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a practitioner of sympathetic
magic.

In Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles, sympathetic magic is practiced prominently.

The music duo Charming Disaster has a song called "Sympathetic Magic". A duet between the magic user and
her target.[7]

Catspaw (Star Trek: The Original Series):"Sympathetic magic" is referred to, and is the basis for this episode.

See also
Cargo cult science – Form of pseudoscience
Contagion heuristic
Correspondence (theology) – Theological term referring to the relationship between two levels
of existence
Law of contagion
List of topics characterized as pseudoscience – Wikipedia list article
Magic (paranormal)
Magical thinking – Illogical conclusions based on correlated events or thoughts
Natural magic
Quantum entanglement
References
1. "3: Sympathetic Magic; Part 1: The Principles of Magic" (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3623/3
623-h/3623-h.htm#c3section1), The Golden Bough, Bartleby, 1922
2. Harrison, Regina (1989). Signs, songs, and memory in the Andes: translating Quechua
language and culture (https://archive.org/details/signssongsmemory0000harr). University of
Texas Press. p. 178 (https://archive.org/details/signssongsmemory0000harr/page/178).
ISBN 978-0-292-77627-2.
3. Eliade, Mircea (1976). Beane, Wendell C; Doty, William G (eds.). Myths, Rites, Symbols: A
Mircea Eliade Reader. New York: Harper & Row. p. 385. ISBN 978-0-06-090510-1.
OCLC 2136392 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2136392).
4. Gregory, R. J. (1996). "Rehabilitation interventions: Ideas based on a South Pacific example".
Disability and Rehabilitation. 18 (1): 48. doi:10.3109/09638289609167089 (https://doi.org/10.3
109%2F09638289609167089). PMID 8932745 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8932745).
5. Zguta, Russell (1978). "Witchcraft and Medicine in Pre-Petrine Russia". The Russian Review.
37 (4): 446. JSTOR 128509 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/128509).
6. 世宗實錄 (http://sillok.history.go.kr/search/inspectionMonthList.do?id=kda) [Veritable Records of
Sejong]. 45. 1454.
7. "Sympathetic magic lyrics" (https://charmingdisaster.bandcamp.com/track/sympathetic-magic).
Bandcamp.com. Retrieved 16 August 2017.

Campbell, Joseph (1991). Arkana (https://archive.org/details/masksofgod00camp_0). Penguin

Books. ISBN 978-0-14-019443-2. OCLC 470180186 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/47018018
6).

Frobenius, Leo (1993) [1933]. Kulturgeschichte Afrikas. Prolegomena zu einer historischen

Gestaltlehre [A Cultural History of Africa] (in German). Wuppertal: Hammer. pp. 131–32.
ISBN 978-3-87294-525-9. OCLC 311991077 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/311991077).
(reprint of the 1954 Phaidon Verlag edition)
Thackeray, J.F. 2005. The wounded roan: a contribution to the relation of hunting and trance in
southern African rock art. Antiquity 79:5-18.
Thackeray, J.F. 2005. Eland, hunters and concepts of ‘sympathetic control’ expressed in
southern African rock art. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15,1:27-34.
Thackeray, J.F. & Le Quellec, J.-L. 2007. A symbolically wounded therianthrope at Melikane
Rock Shelter, Lesotho. http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/thackeray1/index.html
Thackeray, J.F. 2013. The principle of “sympathetic magic” in the context of hunting, trance and
southern African rock art. The Digging Stick 30 (1), 1-4.

External links
"3; Sympathetic magic" (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/bough11h.htm#chapter3), The
Golden Bough, Project Gutenberg.
"5; Rainmaking as sympathetic magic" (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/bough11h.htm#c
5section2), The Golden Bough, Project Gutenberg.
"Sympathetic magic" (http://skepdic.com/sympathetic.html), The Skeptic's Dictionary.

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