C. Lyall, K.C.B., CLE. London, 1882.

Meiners. Geschiohte aller Religionen. By Prof. Meiners.
2 vols. i8c6. Michaelis, J. D. Commentaries on the Laws of Moses. From
the German. 4 vols. London, 18 14. Muhlau. De Prov. Aguri et Lemuelis. Leip. 1869. Nevius. Demon Possession and Allied Themes. By J. L.
Nevi'us. London, 1 896. N. T. New Testament. O. T. Old Testament. ; Prym and Socin. Der neu-Aramaische Dialect des Tur 'Abdin.
Von Eugen Prym u. Albert Sooin.
Text u. Ubersetzung. Zwei theile. Gottingen, i88r.
Renan, Ernest. History of the People of Israel. 3 vols. London, 1888— 189 1..
Riehm. Riehm's Handworterbuch des Biblischen Alterthums. 2nd edition, 1894.
[ LITERATURE XV
RoskorT. Geschichte des Teufels von Gustav RoskofT. 2 Bde.
Leipzig, 1869.
Schorr, y^nn Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen iiber Jii- dische Geschichte, Litteratur u. Alterthum. Frankfort a. Maine, 1865. Heft- vii., 1872, Heft. viii.
Scholz. Gotzendienst u. Zauberwesen bei den alten Hebraern.
By Dr. Paul Scholz. Regensburg, 1877. Schultz. Biblical Theology of the Old Testament. By H.
Schultz. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1893. ScherikeL Bibel-Lexicon. By Dr. D. Schenkel, and others. Schrader. Die Keilinscheiften u. d. alte Testament. Giessen.
2nd ed., 1883. Scott. The Existence of Evil Spirits. By (Rev.) Walter Scott.
London, 1853. (Not Sir Walter Scott, the celebrated
novelist, who wrote a book on Witchcraft, &c.)
Smend. Lehrbuch der altestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte.
Freibourg u. Leipzig, 1893. Smith, W. Bible Dictionary. 2nd ed., 1894.
Smith, W. R. 1. Journal of Philology, xiii. pp. 273—288 ; xiv. pp. 113— 128. 2. The Religion of the Semites. By W. Robertson Smith* Edinburgh, 1889.
Spencer. De Legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus earumque rationi-
bus. 2 vols. Tubingse, 1732. ed. C. M. PfafT. Socin. Guide to Palestine. Baedeker's. Stade. Geschichte des Volkes Israel. Von Dr. B. Stade,
Berlin. 2 vols., 1887-88. Streane. A Translation of the Treatise Chagigah from the
Babylonian Talmud. J3y Rev. A. W. Streane, M.A.
Cambridge, 1891. Tallqyist. Die Assyrische Beschworungserie Maqlu, &c. Von
Knut L. Tallqvist. (In Acta Societatis Scientiarun
Fennicas Tomus xx., 1895.)
xvl LITERATURE
Tiele. Geschichte der Religion im Alterthum. Von C. P.
Tiele. i Band. Gotha, 1896. Tylor. Primitive Culture. 2 vols. 3rd ed. 1891. Torreblanca. De Magia. Editio Novissima. Lugduni, 1678. Tuch. Coninventar iiber die Genesis. 2te Auflage, 187 1. Waite. The Occult Sciences. By Arthur Ed. Waite. London,
1891. Weber. Judische Theologie. Von Dr. Terd. Weber. Zweite
verbesserte Auflage. Leipzig, 1897. Wellhausen. j. Reste arabische Heiderstums. 2te Auflage.
Berlin, 1897. 2: Isr. u. Jiid. Geschichte, 1895. 3- Die
Kleinen Propheten, 1892. Wiedemann. Religion of the Ancient Egyptians. By Alfred
Wiedeman, Ph.D. London, 1897.
Wmer, iii. Biblisches Realworterbuch. Von Dr. G. B. Winer,
&c. Dritte Ausgabe, 1840. Z. A. W. Zeitschrift fiir die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft.
Stade. Z. D. M. G. Zeitschrift der Deut. Morgenl. Gesellschaft. Zimmem. Die Beschworungstafeln Surpu. Leipzig, 1896.
(Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Babylonischen Religion.
Von Dr. Heinrich Zimmem. ite Lieferung.)
MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOGY
INTRODUCTION.
Magic, Divination, Necromancy, and Demonology are so closely connected in their character and history, that it is impossible to lay down lines between them which are fixed and exclusive* First of all, let each be defined as clearly as may be.
Definition of Magic.
Magic may be briefly defined as the attempt on man's part to have intercourse with spiritual and supernatural beings, and to influence them for his benefit. It rests upon the belief so prevalent in low civilizations, that the powers in the world on which human well-being depends are controlled by spiritual agents, and that these agents are to be conciliated and made friends of by words, acts, and so forth, which are thought to please them. There is in this something analogous to religious worship and prayer. Indeed, magic and religion have many and close affinities, as will be more fully shown.1 All magic ;%
1 See "Magic and Religion/' p7i8.N
2 MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOGV
incipient religion, for it is an appeal to spirits believect tl? be more powerful and wise than man, and the methods employed to secure what is desired are no other than supplications to the goodwill of the beings consulted. Magic may be described as a tow kind of religion in which the ethical element is either subordinated or sacri- ficed to other and inferior elements. v Incantations arc prayers, only that the main stress is laid on the mode of utterance rather than on the moral condition of the agent. Plants, drugs, etc., when burnt to appease the good spirits, and protect against evil ones, are to be compared with sacrifices, and especially with incense, which last obtains at the present time in many branches of the Christian Church. In the mythology of the Vedas it is hard, if not impossible, to distinguish between magical acts and sacrifices ; in each case something is done with the view of propitiating higher beings.1
The unethical means employed by magic correspond to the unethical view that is held of the beings trafficked with. As the conception of these beings rises, animism * passes through polytheism on to monotheism. At this last stage the one God believed in is just and holy, requiring on the part of all who have to do with Him moral qualifications, these above all else, these almost to the exclusion of all other qualifications. Magic has now given way to religion. Prayer and fellowship have taken the place of mere words and acts.
Magicians a Class.
Hegel has very correctly pointed out8 that where, magic is believed in, not everyone is able or allowed to
1 Hilleb.andt, p. 167 f. 2 See this ten» explained at p. SJ^
3 i. p. 2$ j.
INTRODUCTION 3
practise it. Special individuals are chosen on account of their superior knowledge of the formulae, methods of operation, etc., believed to prevail with the powers which it is sought to per$uade„ This select body of men corresponds to the priests, which in the lower forms of religion are credited with extraordinary knowledge of Divine secrets, and with unusual influence over Deity* Indeed, it is hard to say when exactly the magician resigns, and the priest enters upon office* To some extent the conception and conduct which properly belong to magic, accompany religion in all its historical forms.1
•Magic has been made to consist especially in the art or compelling spirits or deities, or the Deity, to do the will of him who utters the needful words, or performs the requisite acts. In this it has been made to stand apart from religion, as by d'Alviella,2 and Professor E. Caird.3 So also apparently Hegel,4 but cf. p. 23 ffM "Religion and Magic. " This, however, is not strictly correct, because, as already stated, all magic is a sort of religion; and certainly in most cases, the magician does not seek to use force in the exercise of his art : else what do we make of incantations and charms ?
Black and White Magic, Conjuring, Natural Magic.
In the lowest stages of culture the spirits communicated J with are not separated into good and bad, just because the categories of good and bad have not risen into conscious thought, though implied in the v^ry earliest thinking. Later cm, traffic with evil spirits, particularly
Sec intra, p. 24. * See p. 87 ff. * i. p. 225. 4 i. p. 281.
4 MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOGY
when the purpose was to injure others, was called Blaci Magic, or the Black Art. White Magic, the contrary term, stood for intercourse with well-disposed spirits,. In our own time, and amorigst civilized peoples, White Magic means no more than the art of performing clever tricks with the hands, etc. Similarly the word conjure has, in modern English, the present meaning which White Magic has among ourselves, though originally it denotes exorcise. A conjurer — well, children know who he is, perhaps even better than their soberer sires. Sir David Brewster's interesting little book on " Natural Magic M gives an account of the way in which an acquaintance with the secrets of nature and of art have been used to support claims of being on intimate terms with the spiritual world. But the expression V Natural Magic1' was used in this very same sense long before Sir David's time. Even, Lord Bacon, in his u Advancement of Learning," has it with this signification.
Magic, Wide and Narrow Sense of.
In a narrow, but later sense, magic has to do with feats of power and not of knowledge. For this reason the relation between magic and divination has been compared to that existing between miracles and prophecy. But it will be more fully shown later on that at the beginning, and at the present among back- ward races, this distinction is not drawn. Indeed, divination is hardly the right word to use for what is so called at this stage, since it is really magic applied to future events. The future is not so much foretold as^ constituted, or made, by the art of the magician.;
1 See injra% p. 27.,
introduction 5
Some Terms Explained.
The German word zaubern has been variously ex- plained, but the etymology having the best support is that which connects it with the Gothic taujan, Old High German zouwan (=the modern German thun. Cf. English done). All these words mean to do, magic, relating to feats of power (a later and narrower sense, however, see before). Compare with these terms the Middle Latin factum, the Italian fattura, the Portuguese feitigo (fetish), the Spanish hecho, all meaning primarily something done, and secondarily magic. It was Grimm (Jacob) who first suggested the above derivation of the German word.
The English word magic is, in our language, primarily a noun, but it represents an adjective in the classical tongue, the corresponding noun for art being under- stood, and sometimes expressed in Latin (Ars Magica) and in Greek (ftov ] riyyt]). The noun from which the classical adjective is derived is ftayos, plural /±ayct, the priestly caste among the Medes, Persians and Par- thians. The root mag has been connected with the Indo- European root makdy1 great, but without the slightest ground. Nor is it the Persian or Zend word denoting wise in divine things,2 wise, excellent, priest.8 The word came over as the thing it stood for did, from the Accadians to the Babylonians and Persians. Lenor- mant4 traces the word to the Accadian imga% which means " respected," " honoured. " Schrader 5 translates the word by tiefandachtig (very devout), or tiefgekhrt (very learned), adopting the same etymology.
Cf. Lat. magnus ; Welsh, mawr (from Lat. major). Porpbyr ., de Abstinentia, 4, 16. a Waite, p. it.
4 " Chaldean Magic." * p. 257.
6 magic, divination,
Divination *
Divination may be provisionally defined ! as the attempt on man's part to obtain from the spiritual world super- normal? or superhuman knowledge. This knowledge relates for the most part to the future, but it may also have to do with things in the present, such as where s6me hidden treasure is to be found. Divination takes for granted the primitive belief that spiritual beings exist, are approachable by man, have means of know- ledge which man has not, and aretwilling upon certain conditions known to diviners to communicate tahe special knowledge wrhich they are believed to possess.
When, as among the Israelites, divination co-existed with monotheism, or at any rate with monolatry, to use Stade's word,3 the modes of divination were but methods of consulting deity. The Old Testament prophet, under such circumstances, differs from the diviner mainly in this, that he makes his appeal direct to God, without the employment of such means as heathen soothsayers used, which means are referred to in the Old Testament and often with approval.4 But both diviner and prophet might, and indeed actually did, believe in Yahwe : both also sought guidance from Him.
Necromancy.
Necromancy is a part of divination and not a thing distinct in itself. Its peculiar mark is, that the infor- mation desired is sought from the ghosts of deceased persons. Divination embraces all attempts to obtain
1 See a fuller treatment of the subject at p. 72 fi. ,* Andrew Lang's word in his new book, " The Making of Religion." \*j. p. 439. 4 bee infra, p, 74 ff.
INTRODUCTION
/secret knowledge from the denizens of the spiritual world, so that necromancy comes under it, and is a part of it. Indeed, the word itself denotes literally divination (/xavrcttt) by consulting the dead (yc/cpos).
Demonology.
The etymology of the word demonology is no safe guide a& to what the word itself means, for the Greek Sot/xwv denotes a supernatural being that stands midway between gods and men. He may be good or bad. Lecky says : l " A daemon in the philosophy of Plato, though inferior to a deity, was not an evil spirit, and it is extremely doubtful whether the existence of evil daemons was known to the Greeks or Romans till about the time of the advent of Christ."
We commonly understand by demonology the belief which is a part of advanced animism 2— that there exist evil spirits which are more or less responsible for the misfortunes which assail men. In the earliest stage it 4s probable that good and evil spirits wer6 not distin- guished,3 Men must from the very first have noticed in themselves and in others, dispositions and tendencies as revealed iii conduct. Some men would be character- ized as prevailingly good, others as prevailingly bad. I am not saying, for I do not believe, that the moral category is a merely utilitarian one, but we judge of character by acts. If it was man's thought that made him believe in the existence of innumerable beings in nature, living like himself, he must by the same process soon have divided spirits into good and bad? also resem- bling men.
European Morals, i. p. 404. 3 See infira% p. 24.
* See infra, p. 13.
8 MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOGY
In primitive animism1 and in the simple nature-spirit beliefs that prevailed in the midst of the Turanian tribes,2 no hierarchy of spiritual beings can b& traced. On the other hand, among the Babylonians, Assyrians, the Median Magi, and, at least in later times, among the Zorcastrians of Persia, evil spirits as well as good ones were organized into a complete .system, with a supreme ruler, having under him subordinate chiefs. We meet with this developed demonology and- arigelology in the Old and New Testaments,3 ia the Pseudepigraphical, Apocryphal and other writings.
Common Origin of *he Preceding.
All the beliefs which have been noticed take their rise in the primitive and instinctive impulse of human beings to interpret what they see outside of themselves in terms of their own personality. The earliest know- ledge which man acquires is that of himself as a living, conscious, thinking being. In a vague way he may be said to perceive the outer world as reflected in his thought before he rises to the conception of himself as standing apart from it. But surely the first object he knows is himself. This knowledge obtained, all other things are interpreted in its light, just as coloured glass makes what is seen through it have the same colour as itself. As man, in the wildness of unrestrained imagina- tion, looks forth upon rivers and stars, he pictures them as living just as he is living. Have they not many of the marks of life and personality ? Trees and plants stand up and apart from their environment ; they also appear to eat and drink, and they produce fruit and
1 S e infra, p. 9. a Lenormant's " Chald. Magic," chs. xv. and xvi.
a See infra, p. 95 ff. and p. 102 fF.
INTRODUCTION 9
beget offspring. Stones resist all efforts to move or destroy them : they often seem to move of their own accord, injuring and even killing animals and men.
11 Man gazes," says Turgot, " upon the profound ocean of being, but what at first he discerns is not the bed hidden beneath its waters, but only the reflection of his own face."
It would be too much to say that at this low level of thought the doctrine , of soul as distinct from body has been reached, but it very soon is reached. In his growth to this higher thought, man is guided by his own experience. At a very early period, before there were words to suggest it, he must have come to feet that he is not the body : that, on the contrary, his truer selr owns and controls the body. In other words, soul is differentiated from body. This twofold view of himself is almost unthinkingly applied to other things believed to be living.
The word (i animism " is used to express these primordial beliefs of man. It was first used in this Connection by Dr. E. B. Tylor in a lecture delivered by him in 1867, before the Royal Society, and in the official reports of this society the lecture -appears exactly as it was delivered.
The following sentences are quoted from this lecture by Mr. -Herbert Spencer, and occur in a letter by him in 14 Literature," February 19, 1898, p. 211.-
" The worship of such spirits (in general natural objects) found among the lower races over almost the whole world, is commonly known as * fetishism/ It is clear that this child-like theory of the animation of all nature lies at the root of what we call mythology. It would probably add to the clearness of our conception of the
10 MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOGY
state of mind which thus sees in all nature the action of animated life and the presence of innumerable spiritual beings, if we give it' the name of animism instead of fetishism/' Andrew Lang facetiously calls this kind of animism— All-alivism.1 But in his " Primitive Cul- ture,"* chs. xi. toxvii;, Dr. Tylor denotes by the term the 44 doctrine of souls and of spiritual beings,"8 the existence of the latter being inferred from that of the former* This more advanced doctrine than mere All-auvism is attained by man from his reflections upon the difference between the living and Ihe dead, and from observations of what takes place in sleep, swoons, dreams, etc*
It has been suggested that we keep the * word fetishism for that animism which regards the nature- filling spirits as inseparably joined to material objects, spiritualism doing duty for that higher kind of animism which assumes spirits to have a free and/ independent existence.4 But it is a fatal objection to this last that spiritualism in English and the corresponding term m German (spiritismus) and other modern languages, has a definite meaning of a different sort, so thai to make it represent also Tylor's later meaning of animism would be to make confusion worse confo'unded.
In this treatise I employ the term in the higher sense which it bears in Tylor's " Primitive Culture," though the other and lower kind is unquestionably more elementary and earlier in time.
Tiele mentions a stage in human culture which he alleges to be prior to animism in either of its meanings : this he calls Polyzo'ismus.* At this point man sees in
1 " Literature," March 5, 1898, p, 396 .
* Mine is the third edition, 189 1, * Vol. i. p. 42s ft.
Tieie, p. 6 ft. • p. 8.
INTRODUCTION 1 1
the world, not living beings, still less souls or spirits, but simply natural powiers or forces. It may .be said in answer to this, that the first power or force which man learns to know is that of his own personality. It is later and not earlier than he takes in the notion of natural or of any objective force. Besides, as Tiele admits,1 there is no historical basis for his hypothesis, though he holds that it was most probably man's earliest and simplest attempt to interpret the universe in which he finds himself.*
The proof of animism lies in its prevalence among existing savage races, who may be considered as occupying that level of culture at which the most civilized race once was, and in the survivals among civilized nations which admit of no other explanation, e.g. magic and its allied arts, which held their ground among the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Babylonia, Greece and Rome, and of which there are traces amdng all the great nations oi to-day, As to animism as implied in the early beliefs and practices of the Hebrews, see Stade i. 443 f. and 503 f. It is hardly needful to say that " Animism " has a different sense in the philosophy of Pythagoras (fl. B.C. 540-500 founder of the Italian school of philosophy) and in that of Plato, where it denotes the force immaterial but inseparable from matter (anima mundi) which gives the latter form and. movement. Stahl, the great German chemist (#i66o: ti734), used the term to describe his theory, that all diseases have their, cause in a wrong state of the soul ; their removal is therefore to be sought and secured by restoring the soul to its normal condition.
Men must at an early stage .of development have reached the level of thought implied in the high animism.
\ Loc cit, j?J3e la Saussaye, p. 12.
13 MAGIC, DIVINATION, ANt> DEMONOLOGY
The soul is believed in dreams to forsake the body and to wander where the dreamer thinks he is. This would very naturally, Dr. Tylor considers, suggest the idea that soul and body can exist apart. Moreover, in these dreams, when the soul is supposed to be in places far removed from the body, other persons are seen as well as animals and inanimate objects in situations wholly different from those in which they are seen in waking moments, and in which persons not asleep at the time know them to be.
This mental double of human beings, of animals and of things, has been called the l
14 apparitional soul " can be but temporarily separated as long as the individual is alive. Death gives it perfect freedom : it is under no further necessity of returning to its prison house. We find survivals of this belief in comparatively recent times.
In India, within the memory of many living men, it was* the custom to bury the widow along with her deceased husband, so that her spirit might be reunited with his.
The warrior's horse was killed and interred with the body of its late master. This was done officially at Trfevres so late as 1 781, though then and long before no one understood the original import of the practice. At present we do not keep up this custom, but even in our time the warrior's horse with its trappings is led to the grave, though it is not killed as formerly.
In course of time the doctrine of souls would, as Tylor points out, give rise to that of independent spirits, which had never been confined to bodies, and which were thus freer to move and to act.
1 Tylor, i. 428.
INTRODUCTION 1 3
It could not be long before these independent spirits, with which the world was peopled, were made, like men, to have not merely varying moods, some good, some bad, but permanent characters/ intellectual, ethical, etc. Demonology would take its rise at this point, and also angelology, if we may use this word for the belief in good spirits, a sense which the word generally carries with it in Christian Theology.
The superiority of spirit to matter must have been almost an intuition to early man. It is true that, in some respects, mind is the slave of body, and that it is made to suffer by contact not only with its own body, but also with objects around and outside, such as fire, water, air, etc. Yet, however hampered man's spirit is by its material environment, it is conscious, as matter is not; it uses matter to realize its own ends. Matter cannot sit down and form plans, using spirit as a means of carrying them out. This living, conscious, scheming, matter-controlling spirit could not but be conceived of as standing — shall I say? — -head and shoulders above mere things.
Spirits that had no connection with body, that had always enjoyed this immunity, would naturally be thought of as higher than mere souk.
These again would be soon put into ranks according to their capacity and moral worth.2 To the highest and best man would be sure to turn in the thousand and one emergencies which crowd his earthly life. Knowledge which no faculties of his could fathom, but which yet he craved for and needed : power to overcome the evil spirits that caused loss, disease, and death — these were
1 See supra* p. 7 a Su/trc, p. 7.
14 MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOtOGY
not within his own grasp. Could this longed-for know- ledge, this lacking but necessary power, be supplied by the higher spirits ?
The earliest crude endeavours to persuade these spirits to grant the knowledge and power wished for and; wanted, belong to Magic in its primitive wide extent. (See the definition and explanation of rnagic.)
The deification of the most capable and honoured of these spiritual beings would follow1 as a natural result of the growing awe and expectation \vith which they were regarded.
This is not the place to" either affirm or deny the existence and diffusion of a primitive revelation front God to man.1 The present inquiry aims at tracing the natural growth of human thought as it seems to have unfolded itself, judging by what we know of the human mind, and of the history and present condition of back- ward peoples.1 v
It will be seen that we are now'upon the threshold of religion, if, indeed, we have not crossed it.
The following are the stages through which, according
1 I wish in this note to guard myself against being misunderstood on two points. I am far from thinking that the genesis of man's know* ledge of souls and of independent spirits is wholly explained by sleep, dreams, and the like. There is a prior question : how does man come to know what spirit is ? this he must know before he can say or think that spirit is separable from body, is independent of body. Even to say that man's own mental experience supplies him with the notion *' spirit," is to stop short of the full answer. A similar objection may be lodged against the evolution of the belief in God as supreme and absolute. But, unless the thought of God is involved in man's whole complex of thought, it could never be evolved out of it. The elaborate and interesting account given by Dr. Tylor in his epoch-making work of the steps by which man rises on his way to the conscious thought of the Infinitive and Absolute One, is, however, singularly confirmed by facts, and there is nothing in this reasoning that is contrary to the Christian idea of God or of Revelation.
INTRODUCTION 1 5
to Dr. Tylor and other eminent anthropologists, man passes in his progress to the perfect religion :—
1. Fetishism.
2. Totemism.
3. Atavism.
4. Polytheism.
5. Henotheism.
6. Monotheism.
For other classifications of positive religion, including those of Hegel,1 Hartmann, Tiele and Siebeck, see De La Saussaye i. p. 1 1 f.
Herbert Spencer makes ancestor worship, which he takes to be a product of dreams and of the consequent belief in ghosts, to be the tap-root of all religion. Lyall * does not go so far, for he acknowledges that euhemerism 11 is not a master key which will disclose the inside of all mythologies ; "3 but he holds that for most of the facts, and especially as far as India is concerned, ancestor worship supplies an adequate explanation.
This theory fails to distinguish between the form of wor- ship and the religious feeling itself. Ancestors are not, as such, deities. A deeper question is, how, in any cas£, did man come by the thought of God, so that ancestors or anything else could be reverenced and adored as divine ? Besides, we know for certain that many ancestors are not worshipped even where, as in China and India, ancestor worship prevails ; and it is equally certain that many deities never were men, and got to be worshipped on other grounds than because they were ancestors.4
1 For Hegel's, see more fully in his " Vorlesungen iiber die Philo- sophic der Religion," i. p. 258 ff. s p. 30 ff. 3 p. 34.
4 See Andrew Land's answer to H. Spencer's theory in his new book, ^^The Makittg of Religion," p. 232^
l'6 magic, divination, and demonol06y"
Magic without Animism or Superna?Ui£Alis&£
Dr. Tylor l notes a kind of magic — under which term he conforms to the primitive habit of including divina- tion— which makes no appeal to the spirit world, and which indeed makes no acknowledgment of the existence of spiritual beings (cf. Tiele's " Polyzoi'smus "). The magician on this theory professes to have discovered the secret laws of the universe. By strong efforts of will ; by traditional formulae or rites; in short, by all the instrumentalities of magic, he causes and cures disease,; inflicts misfortune or confers happiness, summons death or prevents his coming.
With an equal ignoring of spirit or God, the astrologer infers the future of human beings from the planets under which they were born* The augur makes his forecast from the movements and cries of animals and birds. The haruspice draws his conclusions from the heart or liver of slaughtered animals. Others penetrate the future from observations of thrown dice, the twitching of fingers, the tingling of ears, etc., etc.
Lyall 3 makes it to be the principal characteristic of magic that it v/orks independently of priests and deities through supposed secret knowledge of the processes or nature. By certain words or acts the magician— whom Lyall calls the witch — claims to be able to bring about particular results. Quite inconsistently Lyall holds divination to belong to the sphere of religion. Omens, he owns, are signs supposed to be given by the gods or by God for the guidance of men.3
But surely these writers have gone wrong at this
1 Enovc Brit., art. Magic, cf. Prim. Cu\t.} i. ua f. % p. 76 ff. »p. 91.
.INTRODUCTION 1 7
point, for all the methods adopted in magic and in divination proceed upon the assumption that there am spiritual beings who manage the world, upon regular principles, and. who, upon certain conditions, deign to, interfere in behalf of man. It is true that, in many instances, the consciousness of the important part played-: by supernatural agency is not very vivid, but it is never absent, and indeed the practices referred to have no meaning without such, consciousness.
Sympathetic Magic*
What has been called " sympathetic magic,,TinSas always existed and it exists at the present time. This depends for its success largely upon the association of ideas. Its underlying assumption is that to produce any result you have but to imitate it. To burn or otherwise injure anything belonging to a person is to affect its owner in a similar way. To burn hair Is to cause him to burn to whom it originally belonged. To destroy a portrait is to ruin the individual. The lover thought he softened and won the heart of his adored one by chewing and softening a piece of wood. This last is to be seen among the Zulus at the present day.
But even this could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic prayer to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. In so far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, and not magic at all, though Tylor,2 Lyall,8 Frazer,4 Jevons,6 and many others give it that name and character. I have no hesitation in saying that there has never been, and there is not at
1 Jevons, p. 28 ft. * i. 116 f. * p. 75 flf. * i. t>. 9 £
5 p. 28 f. fc
1 8 MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOGY
the present time any magic, any divination, which has not involved and grown out of the conviction that spirits more powerful and more knowing than man, exist and can be reached by man if he uses the proper means. That so eminent a writer as Dr. Tylor misses his way in this matter is due to the fact that he is too exclu- sively an observer of facts, and too little the philosopher. At any rate, the predominance of man's intellectual con- ception of things has never taken proper hold or Dr. Tylor. Lyall, Frazer, and Jevons are in this, as in much else, but followers of Tylor, though all are original thinkers/
Magic and Rfxigion.
It is difficult and, probably, impossible to draw a hard and fast line between these two. In most, if not in all positive religions there are traces or survivals of magic. In the more advanced development of magic we have the beginnings of religion.
Polytheism is the natural outgrowth of animism. The gods of polytheism are the highest and noblest spirits, and polytheism is certainly a religion. Among mono* theistic peoples, nay among Christians, magical charms, amulets, etc., are exceedingly common. Note the Jewish phylacteries, mezuzas and tsitzith, and also the incan- tations and charms addressed to the Holy Trinity and de- pending for their effects upon the use of the Triune names*
A moot question is this : Is magic prior to and a stepping-stone to religion ? Or, is it a step backward from religion ; a corruption of religion ; a belief, a practice involving a previous knowledge of religion, but a forsaking of it, or, at any rate, a rejection of religion in favour of magic ?
INTRODUCTION 1^
This last opinion — that magic is a departure from religion in the strictest sense — is the old view, and among theologians it still holds the field. It is advocated by Lange,1 Kleinert,2 Lenormant,3 Scholz* Jevons,6 and Lang* There is no denying the fact that this view rests upon the assumption universally held by the5 churches until a few decades back, that all religions are due to a primitive revelation, the false ones being corruptions of the true. A recent and learned advocate, the well-known Chinese scholar, Dr. Edkins,1 has, within the last two or three years, written a book to support the old opinion. The title of the book' is, "The Early Spread of Religious Ideas, especially in' the Far East." (London, 1893.) The main argument pursued by the author is, that in matters of morals and religion the tendency of nations is, when left to them- """selves, to deteriorate. He instances the Hindoos who, in the pre-Rigveda and Rigveda stage, were monotheistic, and the Chinese who lived on a higher level of civiliza- tion and religion in the time of Confucius.- But his treatment involves an enormous number of unproved and unprovable assumptions, such as, that no other causes have been at work ; that we know all the facts connected with the case, etc. Most students of anthropology and archaeology, and of the science and the history of religion, and a growing number of theologians, indeed a' majority of those most competent to judge, contend that at the first religion was in a very nebulous state : that, as was the case in intellectual and moral
i* Herzog, Zauberei. 8 Riehm, Zauberei. 3 " Chald. Magic," p. 70 ff.
4 p. I, ct passim. Scholz says that magic and idol worship are closely connected, and that both are departures from an original reve-! Jation of the true religion.
* p 36* • "The Making of Religion," p. 290.
20 MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOGV
conceptions, so likewise in religion, man's ideas advanced from lower to higher, jand from higher to ever higher developments.
Religion involves purer and more advanced thought than magic. For this reason it may be expected to follow and grow out of it. History and observation of anthropo- logical and archaeological facts, survivals in folk-lore and in primitive customs — these and yet other considerations support the new view as against the old.
Jevons devotes a considerable portion of his able and interesting work to the defence and exposition of his position.
He appears to think that a belief in God, however meagre and unsatisfactory, is one element that is never absent from magic. This cannot be got until the religious stage has been reached. Therefore religion must precede magic.1 Now we join issue with the author on this cardinal point.
Though believers in magic believe of necessity in spirits and in their superior power and skill, there is no necessity arising out of their magic, that they should contemplate these spirits as divine. Magic does not involve more than the superiority indicated above : it has existed and now exists in cases where the category of deity has never been attained unto..
It is contended further, that religion has never been known, as a matter of fact, to arise out of magic ; but that on the contrary, the decay of religion has been generally accompanied by the adoption of magic. The Old Testament is referred to as indicating the purity of the
1 Cf. with this Sir Max Miiller's contention (Hibbert Lectures) that fetishism is a declension from a higher religion, since it involves ihe idea of deity, of tbe infinite.
INTRODUCTION 21
early religion of Israel. The implicit, and even explicit magical teaching, in the Talmud,1 the mysticism and theosophy, the theurgic doctrines of the Jewish Qabbalah show us Israeli religion in its later and corrupter state.
Christianity judged by its earliest literature — New Testament, etc., gives no countenance to the vagaries of magic and divination. But some of the most eminent Qabbalists were likeReuchlin (t 1592), Christian scholars, who saw in the curious and ingenious mysteries of the — Qabbalah the Trinity, the Atonement, and all the central \verities of the Christian faith. In the Middle Ages witches were condemned and executed, not because they had no power over nature and men, but because they had such power and exercised it to the detriment of others.
Martin Luther spok§ thus of the watches who in his day spoiled a farmer's butter and eggs, " I would have no pity on those witches, I would burn them all."
In Scotland and in Germany, until comparatively recent times, Roman Catholic priests were believed to have magical power. In cases of emergency it was not an uncommoh thing for Protestant clergymen in these countries to consult their Roman Catholic rivals. (See Tylor s " Primitive Culture,8 *3 i. 1 1 5 ff.}
The same feature appears to characterize Islam. There is not a word in the Quran which countenances magic. On the contrary, see Surah it 96, fJ*$ ^*W "The Satans taught men magic." Similarly in the Traditions — Mishk&t — (Book xxi., ch. 3, part i.) magic is censured. Yet the recorded sayings of Mohammed permit practices that are closely akin to magic. See examples in Hughes' u Dictionary of Islam," p. 303b. f.
-See infra t p. 61 ff.
22 MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOGY
Nevertheless it is true that in subsequent times Islam became more and more addicted to magic. Many are the zealous Moslems who have devoted themselves to the secrfet arts.
In regard to divination the course seems to have been different. Mohammed did not claim the power of di- vining, yet he often availed himself of, the services of the Qahin power. After the prophet's death many arose who pre- tended to be Allah's authorized exponents of the faith, who said they were in this the successors of Mohammed. Among these were Maslama, Tulhaiha, al-Alwa. But it was soon pointed out that the Quran and the traditions (surma) supplied all the guidance that was needed.1 """"It is impossible not to be reminded by this explanation of the uselessness of magic, of the parallel argument adduced in Deut. xviii. 10 f. Yet the're is a difference. The Israelites are. to keep far away from magic and divination, for God now speaks to them in the prophets. Mohammed himself was the prophet : his words, his instruction, were preserved in the Quran and the Sunnat, «nd nothing further was wanted.
There are very few instances, and none that are con- clusive, to show that magic denotes a devolution from the religious stage.
There are many peoples in all the great continents who very largely practise magic, but who have never risen ^bove the lowest fetishism, which indeed may be called a kind of religion, though it is not the kind 01 religion which Jevons and his school have in mind.
On the other hand, among the advocates of the view
1 Wellh. Reste, 137 Uj
INTRODUCTION 23
that religion is evolved out of magic stand the names of Tiele and of t|ie celebrated German philosopher, Hegel (11831). In his " Vorlesungen uber die Philosophic der Religion," Hegel deals with the subject under consideration. To understand his position it is needful to have a clear view of his theory of knowledge.
Man is first of all conscious of what is called the objective, though it is an objective in thought, and not in any world which lies outside of thought. In this objective consciousness there is involved the knowledge of himself as the subject who is thus conscious, and of the absolute unity through which subject and object are brought into relation.\ In the beginning it is the objects around man that strike^him, and which indeed constitute for him the only realities. He is dependent upon them, and has to make with them the best terms he can. Hegel called religion which can under these condi- tions exist, '* immediate natural religion1 " : immediate, because the things seen are treated as the whole of what exist, just as the dreamer takes what he bees in his dream to be the only realities. This kind of religion is to be compared with fetishism, in which the object is the sole thing worshipped, or at least in which subjec^and object jire one. This is the lowest form of magic.\ Strictly speaking, man can, according to Hegel, be truly religious jthen only when he has risen to the consciousness of himself as distinct from the not self, and when he feels himself a free man, and as such, master over nature, or, at any rate, able to--* control the powers of nature by exercising the right means.2 First of all, the magician seeks to influence -nature, or rather the spirits of nature
^T 263. M. 281.
24 MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOGY
directly, by word of mouth, or by gesture. At higher levels of civilization means are employed, such as sacrifices, etc., for the beings dealt with have now to be appeased, persuaded, etc., by gifts and the like.
The full religious experience, however, is enjoyed ority after man has risen to the full conception of God as absolute and perfect. But this higher knowledge is involved, and, to some extent, actually realized in the lowest objective mental acts. That is to say, magic in its crudest form involves religion in its purest, and is, in fact, on the way to being the perfect religion.
Dr. Tylor * writes thus : —
u Magic belongs in its main principles to the lowest stages of civilization, and the lower races, who have not partaken largely of the education of the world, still maintain it in vigour."
In his Encyclopaedia article he says that in low stages of civilization magic and religion are hardly distinguished : the sorcerer2 is also the priest. This view was long ago advocated by Meiners.s
The true state of the case appears to be this, —
i. Magic, as the non-ethical attempt of man to influence the supernatural, may be said to accompany all grades of religion ; Christianity itself, in all its actual forms, is more or less influenced by it.
2. Since magic is a low form of religion, it may either precede the full realization of religion, or it may follow upon this last, and so be, in that case, a degeneration, a going back from religion. I do not think that Hegel
1 Prim. Cult., i. 112.
2 By which he means the man who is magician and diviner ; but the sorcerer is, strictly speaking, a diviner.
• "Geschichte aller Religionen," book xii. M. was a professor at Gottingen ; t 1810.
INTRODUCTION $ %
would have had anything to say against this presentation, since his development is not necessarily always forward : it indicates rather different degrees of perfection which with continuous progress, will be reached : it is the progress of the tide rather than that of the dawn : in the main, however, there is literally progress.
Magic and Science.
It has been often pointed out that magic is science in the making, just as it has been said to be religion in the making. Thus Jevons1 shows that savage logic goes upon all fours with the logic of, say, John Stuart Mill The same methods are followed — agreement, difference, concomitant variations, etc., in coming to conclusions regarding the future. Sympathetic magic he holds to bo simply a case of the same mode of reasoning. But Jevons himself admits that the belief in the uniformity of nature which lies at the bottom of primitive man's logic, rests upon the previous belief that there are in all nature indwelling spirits. The logic is a corollary deduced from the spirit-belier.
Magic has been in a special manner compared with early medical science. Incantations, plants, and amulets have a scientific aspect. Incantations have an efficacy in soothing nervous patients. 'Plants and other physical agents have, in certain cases, definite remedial effects, and they are thus, described as having the power of casting out devils, just because they heal the diseases believed to be due to demon possession. In course o time incantations and the use of material things (either as solids, liquids or odours), came to be regulated
lCb. iv,
2& MAGIC, DIVINATION, AftD DEMOttOtOfcY
on sanitary principles ; but it must not be forgotten that at first these things had a religious significance, and that alone.
We have an analogous process of religious usage passing into science in the distinction found in the Old Testament and in other religions, between clean and unclean food. J. D. Michaelis1 and others hold that this distinction originated in health considerations. In a paper on " The Health Laws of the Bible," read at the 1 89 1 Oriental Congress,2 Mr. Marcus N. Adler, M.A., F.S.S., strongly supports this view ; nor does he seem to know that any other explanation has been ever put forward.
The study of comparative religion and especially that of the religion of the Semites, has placed the matter beyond the possibility of doubt that clean and unclean, when applied to food, were in the first instance, religious conceptions, as is maintained by Dillmann,3 Stade,4 Wellhausen, W. Robertson Smith,5 F. B. Jevons,6 and most recent scholars. Whatever among primitive peoples had to do with the gods, if, for example, they were totem plants or animals, were as such, taboo or prohibited as food. It is almost amusing to think that unclean and holy have a common origin, and at the start denote the same thing, viz. that which was taboo. Thus W. R. Smith says7: " Holy and unclean things have this in common, that in both cases certain restrictions lie on men's use of and contact with them, and that the breach of these restrictions involves supernatural dangers."
1 Vol. iii. p. 219 ff.
3 Published in the Asiatic Quarterly for January, 1892.
* On Leviticus xi. 4 i. p. 4$ ff- 1 Rel. Sem., 143 ff., and 427 ff.
• Rel. Sem., p. 62, ct passim,/ 7 Rel. Stm., p. 427.
INTRODUCTION 27
Yet what originated in religious superstition, is often rationalized, so that further regulations proceed upon scientific principles ; so much so that the religious origin is forgotten and even denied. Religion in the -early form of magic or in some higher form, has given rise to nearly ail our science, and to very much of our art. Even poetry, music, sculpture, and pastimes like dancings received their first suggestion and earliest impetus in the religious sphere. Only in the modified sense, demanded by what has now been said, is it true that magic is elementary science, or science in the process of being borp.'
Magic and "Divination.
Among the least advanced races, and in the lowest levels at which civilized nations have been, no dis- tinction is drawn between magic and divination. W. Robertson Smith1 says that it was in the decadence of the old religions that these two tended to run into one another. He instances the Greeks as a nation which legalized divination and yet condemned magic as a black art. He might have added the Egyptians and Romans ,as other examples.
But both history and philosophy are against him. Differentiation is the mark of a late and not of an early time. Both magic and divination come under the category of intercourse with the spirit world ; whether the aim be to acquire secret knowledge or superhuman power, the proceeding was at first similar.
To obtain a message from the other world, such as a
? Journal of Phil., xiv. p. 19 1 ♦
2S MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND DEMONOLOOV
prophetic dream, the ancient Egyptians took a black cat which had been killed^ and wrote on a tablet with a solution of myrrh, a certain incantation in which the name of the god to be invoked was mentioned. This tablet was to be placed in the cat's mouth, The dream came, with the desired intimation, (See Wiedemann's "Religion of the Ancient Egyptians," Eng. Ed. 1897, p. 267 f.) Now, here the methods of magic are employed to gain the ends of divination. Both are, in fact, united in the same process. In the Biblical ltfni. I am inclined to see an appeal to the serpent god, the appeal being made by magical means. (But see under this vyord.)
In Torreblanca's book " De Magia," the writer divides his subject thus :•—