1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Magic/Origin of Magic

Origin of Magic.—The associationist theory of magic sets out with the assumption that primitive man began with general conceptions; he started with certain means at his disposal—the law of sympathy—by which he could, in his own belief, influence the outer world. But it is more probable that he argued from concrete instances and arrived little by little at abstract ideas of magical power.

a. Death and disease are universally regarded by uncivilized people as due to so-called “magic,” i.e. to non-natural causes. Primitive man was familiar with the wounds and bruises caused by physical means; he would naturally attribute any pain not so caused to the operation of analogous but invisible weapons, and eventually attempt to discover how he himself could apply on his own behalf the forces thus used against him. Similarly he may have asked himself to what causes were to be attributed the superiority of one man over another; he may have decided the problem by referring it to the superior power of the one, and then inquired in what way this power could in individual instances be increased. In fact we may say generally that man probably explained the already existing and happening by reference to the supernormal, and then endeavoured to guide the supernormal for his own benefit, direct or indirect.

b. Ritual, however (the primitive magico-religious plasm), is negative as well as positive. The corpse is uncanny, and man’s dread of the corpse may well have been an early development; this dread, become traditional, with accretions of various sorts, crystallized into taboo, the magico-religious prohibition. The notion of the uncanny, once arrived at, may have been exploited positively; psychical abnormalities are present among savage races in very different degrees; but if they were developed at an early stage in human history they doubtless suggested the possibility that man might exploit them for the collective advantage. But it by no means follows that beneficent rites were originally regarded as magical; and it should be noted that the initiator of the so-called magician in Australia is often the god of the tribe or nation. The limits of magic or its correlatives in the lower stages of culture are thus far undecided.

c. Magic as it represents itself to the Occidental mind of the present day, and perhaps to the great part of the inhabitants of the world, seems to be a thing of gradual growth. (i) In the earlier stages there was probably no animistic feature about magic; it was essentially “the prohibited.” (ii) Then with the rise of animistic beliefs and practices came the association of the magician with demons—the spirits of the dead, or of animals, or unattached spirits—upon whose co-operation the powers of the magician are often now held to depend. These spirits were not in the position of gods; such recognition, worship, or cult as they received was often not a social institution, but the work of individuals, liable to fall into desuetude at the death of the individual, if not earlier. (iii) Again, the magical tends to be the less important and eventually the less respectable; therefore ancient cults which are conquered, like the religion of Rome by Christianity, come to be reckoned as within the sphere of magic and witchcraft. (iv) All non-animistic practices tend to become ipso facto magical; many ritual prohibitions fall under the head of negative magic. Religion is predominantly animistic, and with the rise of gods magic and religion become antagonistic. Thus rites of a neutral character, such as leechcraft, and perhaps agricultural ceremonies which are not absorbed by religion, tend to acquire the reputation of being magical, as also do all amulets and talismans, and, in fact, everything not directly associated with religion. We therefore arrive at a period when magic is distinguished as white, i.e. the laudable, or at least permitted form, and black, i.e. the prohibited form.