Sympathetic magic

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

Contents

• 1 Similarity and contagion

• 2 Imitation

• 3 Correspondence

• 4 Hypotheses about prehistoric sympathetic magic

• 5 Popular culture

• 6 See also

• 7 References

• 8 External links

Similarity and contagion[edit]

It has been said that the theory of sympathetic magic was first developed by Sir James
George Frazer in The Golden Bough (1889); Richard Andree, however, anticipates Frazer,
writing of 'Sympathie-Zauber' in his 1878 Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche.
Frazer further 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[edit]
Imitation involves using effigies, fetishes or poppets to affect the environment of people,
or occasionally people themselves. Voodoo dolls are an example of fetishes used in this
way. Such as using a lock of hair on the doll creating a "link" between the doll and the
person the hair came from so whatever happens to the doll will also happen on the person.

Correspondence[edit]
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. (Examples including Sauron's One
Ring in The Lord of the Rings, and the Russian folktale of Koschei the Deathless.
Compare Horcrux and lich.) 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 documeted 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[edit]

The term is most commonly used in archaeology in relation to Paleolithic cave
paintings such as those in North Africa and at Lascaux in France. The theory is one of
prehistoric human behavior, and is based on studies of more modern hunter-
gatherer societies. The idea is that the paintings were made by Cro-Magnon 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.

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