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In 1940, Frazer made the statement,
"...This universal faith, this truly Catholic creed, is a belief in the efficacy of magic. While religious systems differ not only in different countries, but in the same country in different ages, the system of sympathetic magic remains everywhere and at all times substantially alike in its principles and practice."21
Although most scholars would probably still agree with Frazer on this point, today many feel that he was wrong in his attempt to differentiate between magic and objectified religion. In a book that is still useful, though not recent, Haddon brought to light many of the key elements found in magic and fetishism the world over. In it we find the following interesting observation:
"There arises in the region of human thought a powerful impulse to objectify, and even personify, the mysterious or 'supernatural' something felt; and in the region of will, a corresponding impulse to render it innocuous, or better still, propitious, by force of constraint, communion, or conciliation."22
Yet, this statement, so similar to several made by Norbeck and Eliade, is not referring to formalized religion, but to fetishism! Indeed, in this case, the localization of the deity is in terms of an object rather than a temple or shrine. Yet, we are still dealing with sacred space.
To those reluctant to understand a fetish or a spirit trap as sacred space, we pose the question, "Why should we draw a dividing line between an object twenty inches across, and a shrine 200 inches across?" Is not the difference here one of amount rather than one of substance?
In another passage, Haddon defines a fetish.
"A fetish is credited with mysterious powers owing to its being the habitation, temporary or permanent, of a spiritual being."23
There is a great similarity between the way oral cultures view a fetish, and the way many literate peoples view a temple or a shrine. What meaningful distinction can, or should be made between the sacred space recognized in fetishism, and that recognized in objectified religion? The "house of god" motif so well known in western religion seems almost identical to these notions of sacred space. Further still, Eliade points out that, "...the rocks, springs, caves and woods venerated from the earliest historic times are still, in different forms, held as sacred by Christian communities today."24
Some western thinkers are reluctant to admit the presence of an outlook for so long considered "primitive" in the heart of western culture. In a book containing much useful insight, although largely considered outdated in its basic interpretation today, Frazer says, "...an Age of Religion has thus everywhere, as I venture to surmise, been preceded by an Age of Magic..." 25
However, Frazer seems to be speaking more from cultural bias than from objective evidence. Parrinder denounces Frazer's view:
"Sir James Frazer called magic a primitive science and said that it came at the early stages, before religion. There is no evidence for the latter assumption. Religious and magical beliefs are intertwined at most stages of culture, and indeed a case be made out for banning the word magic and including it all, however crude, under the heading of religion; for these strange practices all depend upon spiritual conceptions and largely work by faith."26
It may be argued at this point that the theology of some religions have no explicit understanding that the deity(s) indwell a holy place. However, there is still ample similarity with so-called more primitive magical outlooks, because even fetishism sometimes views the object as "merely the vehicle or means by which the spirit communicates with his worshipers."27 Thus even those theologies that have no concept of the deity(s) literally dwelling within the sacred space idea hole that the space is a "vehicle of communication."28
We find then that notions which have been common to pre-literate cultures the world over are very similar, if not identical to some of the forces present in the process of objectification of religion. Observations such as these lead scholars like Norbeck to comment,
"Sacred objects of the great civilizations differ not at all in their general nature from those of primitive societies. Protective talismans, many uses of the cross, holy water, and the sacrament may all be objectively viewed as implying power which, although interpreted as bestowed or derived from a man-like deity, become the qualities of the acts or objects themselves."29
Here Norbeck truly points out that objects and actions are invested with spiritual qualities in the major religions today in precisely the same way that the so-called primitive fetishist or magician does. Perhaps this is a workable framework within which to understand objectification of religion; not a further development of the major religions, but a return to a way of thinking and believing that is as old as man himself. 30
Haddon bluntly agrees that, ". . .it is difficult to point out where fetishism ends and nature-worship, ancestor-worship, totemism, polytheism, and idolatry begin, or to distinguish between a fetish, an idol, and a deity.31 Here are scholars reaching the same conclusion we have already suggested--that objectified religion and magic are very difficult to differentiate.
One might wonder why, if these notions are so similar, don't oral societies have formalized structures like those we are familiar with in the modern west? Where are the temples of the non-literate peoples today?
In answer to this question Parrinder says,
"Building in stone is unknown to most illiterate peoples, either through lack of soft stone in their territory or more commonly because the necessary techniques are absent. Hence there are no great temples, monuments of the past, such as we find everywhere among the literary religions."32
Although there are temples to be found in pre-literate societies, they often do not play the prominent role that they do in literate societies. Yet this may only be a reflection of a difference in technology, not a difference in the basic way of thinking about the divine.
Having broached the subject of temples, it is interesting to note here yet another clear connection between magic and objectification of religion. Many, and perhaps most of the great cathedrals, temples, mosques, pagodas, and other shrines the world over, are actually built around a part of a human body. Whether some hair, bones, breast milk, teeth or the whole body of a saint, the shrine receives its identity and, we must suppose, some of its sacredness, from the presence of part of a dead saint's body. After all, the temple or sanctuary is "consecrated" at the same time the body part is introduced to the altar in Islam, Catholicism, some Hindu sects and Theravada Buddhism.
Students of oral societies recognize this practice as a form of contagious magic called exuvial magic. Norbeck explains, "...exuvial magic...involves the use of human exuvaie, hair combings, teeth, nail clippings, excreta, spittle, placentae, and the umbilici of new-born infants."34
Exuvial magic is a form of contagious magic, where practitioners believe the exuvaie will transmit some of the characteristics of the saint. Therefore we see again a striking parallel between objectification (especially connected with the area of sacred space) and supposed early ideas of contagious magic.
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