Americans are notoriously religious, which means that most believe in supernatural agents and forces. While most of these supernaturals are of the Christian variety, there seems to be a spillover effect. Belief in Christian supernaturals apparently doesn’t preclude belief in less orthodox kinds of supernaturals:
Source:LiveScience
This isn’t surprising. Socially constructed and doctrinal lines separate “religion” [...]
Tags:deities·demons·ghosts·gods·magic·paranormal·spirits·supernatural
A person of many astute observations, one of Robert Bellah’s most astute is his refrain (when talking about the history of religions) that “nothing is ever lost.” By this I take Bellah to mean that at any given point in time, an existing religion will contain elements from earlier religions. There is continuity in religious [...]
Tags:aleatory·augurs·auspices·axial·bone dice·chance·control·divination·El Juyo·explanation·fortune·Gonzalez Echegaray·Magdalenian·magic·neolithic·omens·oracles·Paleolithic·prediction·prophecy·prophets·randomness·Robert Bellah·scapulimancy·superstition
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
With this famous sentence, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins his masterful critique of political power. Less well known is another sentence from The Social Contract (1762): “No State has ever been founded without Religion serving as its base.”
My reading of history is that Rousseau was right. State-formation [...]
Tags:China·civic religion·disciplina·divination·Dominique Briquel·Etruria·Etruscan·Etruscan books·haruspices·haruspicy·J.G. Frazer·Jean-Jacques Rousseau·magic·politics·power·prodigia·religion·Roman·Roman epistemology·Rome·Romulus·science·Shang Dynasty·state formation·Tages Against Jesus
The standard origins story of cultural anthropology includes two founders: Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) and Henry Lewis Morgan (1818-1881). Unlike most founders, Tylor and Morgan are not widely acclaimed or accorded much honor. They have been relegated to a minor place in history because of their belief in progressive cultural evolution, a paradigm that combined [...]
Tags:animism·barbarism·civilization·cultural evolution·Darwin·Edward Burnett Tylor·Franz Boas·Henry Lewis Morgan·Herbert Spencer·J.G. Frazer: His Life and Work·magic·primitive·Robert Ackerman·science·survivals·The Golden Bough
Last night the Discovery Channel premiered “The Exorcist Files.” When initially announced, the show was touted as a partnership between Discovery and the Vatican:
“The Vatican is an extraordinarily hard place to get access to, but we explained we’re not going to try to tell people what to think,” says Discovery president and GM [...]
Tags:anti-Semite·Catholic·Christopher Hitchens·Clark Bunting·conspiracy theorists·creationists·demonology·demons·Discovery Channel·exorcism·exorcist·Jeffrey Goldberg·Jeremy Stahl·Judah Maccabee·Judaism·Lawrence Wright·Maccabees·magic·Mel Gibson·Mesopotamian religions·nationalism·shaman·The Exorcist Files·Vatican·Yahweh
Few books in the history of anthropology are better known (but never read) than James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. First published in 1890 (2 volumes), Frazer published a second edition in 1900 (3 volumes), and a rolling third edition between 1911 and 1915 which ballooned to 12 volumes.
Though [...]
Tags:Cambridge Ritualists·comparative mythology·Diana·folklore·James George Frazer·JG Frazer·Kant·magic·myth·Nemi·primitive religion·resurrection·ritual·ritual murder·Robert Ackerman·sacred grove·The Golden Bough·Ur-religion
This statement from an Inuit elder reveals the logic of hunting magic:
Now that we have firearms it is almost as if we no longer need shamans, or taboo, for now it is not so difficult to procure food as in the old days. Then we had to laboriously hunt the caribou at the sacred crossing [...]
Tags:amulets·game spirits·hunting·hunting magic·Inuit·magic·ritual·shamans·taboo
What makes people pay large sums of money for apparently mundane objects such as JFK’s golf clubs ($772,500 at auction) and rocking chair ($453,500)? Although a portion of the price is related to investment value, this cannot account for the exorbitant amounts paid for these items. Something else is at work. According to a recent [...]
Tags:Adam Biran·Adolph Hitler·association·Camelot·celebrity objects·Charles Manson·contagion·Darwinian medicine·dirt·disease·disgust·essence·fetish·fetishes·George Newman·germs·Holy Grail·Holy Prepuce·immune response·immune system·intuitive microbiology·Jeffrey Dahmer·JFK·Journal of Consumer Research·kosher·magic·medicine bundles·memorabilia·murderabilia·parasites·pathogens·Paul Bloom·relics·sacred objects·Shroud of Turin·Spear of Destiny·Steven Pinker·transitive property·Valerie Curtis
In several posts, I have discussed the prevalence of witchcraft in Africa. Before anyone gets the idea that Africans are somehow unique or backwards when it comes to this issue, I would like to point out the resurgence of interest in exorcisms within the Catholic Church.
As Laurie Goodstein reports for the New York Times, Catholic [...]
Tags:angels·Bishop Paprocki·Catholic Church·demons·devil·exorcism·incantations·Linda Blair·magic·possession·prayer·rites of exorcism·sacraments·Satan·sorcery·spells·The Exorcist·witchcraft
Here is an explanation for ritual that makes considerable sense: if you are about to perform some task, and think that engaging in some — indeed any — form of ritual will enhance your performance, there is a good chance the mental prime improves subsequent performance. My guess is that there is fine line between [...]
Tags:causation·luck·magic·magical thinking·mental prime·performance·ritual·superstition
