Would you describe Jesus as practicing a form of sympathetic magic

[IndigoChild5559]

Actually, in chapter three of the golden bough it turns out that one's body and behavior often turns out to be the 'object,' and this is quite common. It could be a wife's connection to a husband just as well as a table leg to a horse's leg. So all of this isn't limited to what's done with inanimate objects, if that's unclear. Taking a moment to consider this, it seems that the definition of sympathetic magic becomes quite wide. According to the book, it often takes the form of how different people in a tribe or family carefully act, in order to deflect a bad outcome for other people trying to do things (as in the people hunting, or at war). Kosher rules for example, basically become sympathetic magic, as everyone in a community is communally trying to deflect a bad outcome with the rules they follow, using their behavior as the medium

So with that in mind, it's an easy jump to Jesus. His body was the object, and so he would magically have it maimed for the sake of his body of followers.

Can you explain to me in detail how Kosher rules effect an object in a way that sympathetically influences another object the same way? Try using the formula A (kosher diet) affects B the way that C affects D, thus there is a sympathetic relationship.

In the same manner, please show me how Jesus'd body being maimed and killed was similar to something else (something else being maimed and killed or similar) to the extent that this something else actually occurred.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Can you explain to me in detail how Kosher rules effect an object in a way that sympathetically influences another object the same way? Try using the formula A (kosher diet) affects B the way that C affects D, thus there is a sympathetic relationship.

Well, you know the examples Frazer gives are endless when it comes to how objects can connect with rules. I'm not really sure what you want me to explain, it seems pretty basic. He gives examples of how when sailors are out at sea, certain villagers might not eat stingrays or certain kinds of rice, since this might hamper the sailors in different ways. Surely that kind of thing is analogous to a kosher rule not to eat something, because the belief would be that doing so would metaphysically affect the community at large, if I'm not mistaken. The action or lack of action gives off metaphysical radio waves that tune everything to a better outcome

I was also startled by the way that he described how so many tribal people hold the afterbirth as sacred, for example. They actually think of it as like a brother or guardian being for the newborn, and treat it with respect. Thus in some instances it actually gets a sacred burial, and I remembered how I read that in Judaism, a circumcised foreskin actually gets a burial as well. Seems no different than the sympathetic magic that all those other tribes saw in the afterbirth, it's all the same difference, it all came from the same human proclivity toward magic at the root

In the same manner, please show me how Jesus'd body being maimed and killed was similar to something else (something else being maimed and killed or similar) to the extent that this something else actually occurred.

that will have to wait, I need to sleep. But really, the similarity is to the other people, the act of martyrdom is no different than any other act of self denial that magic users do. Also, the thing with the bread and wine, I think that is 'contagious magic,' as well as the wearing of crucifixes. You must kinda get it now, right

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Well, you know the examples Frazer gives are endless when it comes to how objects can connect with rules. I'm not really sure what you want me to explain, it seems pretty basic. He gives examples of how when sailors are out at sea, certain villagers might not eat stingrays or certain kinds of rice, since this might hamper the sailors in different ways. Surely that kind of thing is analogous to a kosher rule not to eat something, because the belief would be that doing so would metaphysically affect the community at large, if I'm not mistaken. The action or lack of action gives off metaphysical radio waves that tune everything to a better outcome

I was also startled by the way that he described how so many tribal people hold the afterbirth as sacred, for example. They actually think of it as like a brother or guardian being for the newborn, and treat it with respect. Thus in some instances it actually gets a sacred burial, and I remembered how I read that in Judaism, a circumcised foreskin actually gets a burial as well. Seems no different than the sympathetic magic that all those other tribes saw in the afterbirth, it's all the same difference, it all came from the same human proclivity toward magic at the root



that will have to wait, I need to sleep. But really, the similarity is to the other people, the act of martyrdom is no different than any other act of self denial that magic users do. Also, the thing with the bread and wine, I think that is 'contagious magic,' as well as the wearing of crucifixes. You must kinda get it now, right

I gave you a structure to insert your facts into that would spell out sympathetic magic. Not every pagan sense of the spiritual is sympathetic magic. For example, the sense of the sacred in the afterbirth that you have noted is not sympathetic magic. In some cases, where it is looked upon as a good luck charm for the infant, it is case of *contagious* magic. But in most cases it is simply given reverence, and is not associated with magic at all.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

In some cases, where it is looked upon as a good luck charm for the infant, it is case of *contagious* magic. But in most cases it is simply given reverence, and is not associated with magic at all.

Well, contagious magic is merely a sub-genre of sympathetic magic, usually involving things that come from one's body, producing an effect even after they are separated from that body. For example, samson's hair still affecting samson after he lost it, or viking toenails going toward building the great ship at the end of the world cycle. Or the 'blood' and 'body' of Jesus going outward into the world to give out whatever blessing they say it gives, though that's a little more metaphorical

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Well, contagious magic is merely a sub-genre of sympathetic magic, usually involving things that come from one's body, producing an effect even after they are separated from that body. For example, samson's hair still affecting samson after he lost it, or viking toenails going toward building the great ship at the end of the world cycle. Or the 'blood' and 'body' of Jesus going outward into the world to give out whatever blessing they say it gives, though that's a little more metaphorical

No, sympathetic magic and contagious magic work on entirely different basis. It is becoming crystal clear to me that you don't know what sympathetic magic is.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

No, sympathetic magic and contagious magic work on entirely different basis. It is becoming crystal clear to me that you don't know what sympathetic magic is.

in the 2nd paragraph of the first chapter in the golden bough it's written:

"Both branches of magic, the homoeopathic and the contagious, may conveniently be comprehended under the general name of Sympathetic Magic, since both assume that things act on each other at a distance through a secret sympathy, the impulse being transmitted from one to the other by means of what we may conceive as a kind of invisible ether, not unlike that which is postulated by modern science for a precisely similar purpose, namely, to explain how things can physically affect each other through a space which appears to be empty."

So does do anything for my credibility? You're probably thinking of homeopathic magic... And it also could be that other writers think of these things differently as well, but I haven't gotten to that yet. However, I'm not sure I appreciate being accused of total ignorance, I don't come here to be annoyed. If I feel I don't have a good grasp of something, I have no problem making that quite clear. How do you understand these things then, if it is better than I do

 

[Audie]

So, as I just started reading 'the golden bough,' this thread question is what springs to mind as I read into its very useful descriptions of historical sympathetic magic, though the author of course stated that he believed that there was something primitively erroneous about it

The actual work/method of Jesus seems to fit pretty well, to me, with any other approach to magic that diverse peoples around the earth practiced, as per the golden bough description. From the remote tribal magician giving birth to a rock from his shirt to help a women in childbirth, to a magician inducing sickness in himself to 'reattach the stomach' of a sick man, to a sufferer of jaundice trying to transmit his sickness back to yellow birds and the sun where it naturally belongs, this is all basically the same as the sin which accumulates in man, which then is transmitted from humans to the crucifixion of Jesus.

I'm sure the book with eventually touch on just this, but I'm curious as to how you might see it as a believer. The bible is notable in banning 'magic,' though by this, it seems to have largely meant divination as opposed practices that acted a symbolic palliative. When sympathetic magic is described, it needn't actually include divination at all, as it can deal with blinder forms of cause and effect without any prediction occurring, whether the magic is of the homeopathic or contagious type (the two sub-headings of sympathetic magic). Thus, many biblical and modern spiritual practices might actually fall into a magical locus, including prayer, mediation, fasting, or sacrifice of any kind

Itinerant faith healers have been common as doodle bugs
throughout history

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Itinerant faith healers have been common as doodle bugs
throughout history

Do you think that all magic doesn't work?

 

[Audie]

Do you think that all magic doesn't work?

i am not from Missouri, but I say, show me.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

in the 2nd paragraph of the first chapter in the golden bough it's written:

"Both branches of magic, the homoeopathic and the contagious, may conveniently be comprehended under the general name of Sympathetic Magic, since both assume that things act on each other at a distance through a secret sympathy, the impulse being transmitted from one to the other by means of what we may conceive as a kind of invisible ether, not unlike that which is postulated by modern science for a precisely similar purpose, namely, to explain how things can physically affect each other through a space which appears to be empty."

So does do anything for my credibility? You're probably thinking of homeopathic magic... And it also could be that other writers think of these things differently as well, but I haven't gotten to that yet. However, I'm not sure I appreciate being accused of total ignorance, I don't come here to be annoyed. If I feel I don't have a good grasp of something, I have no problem making that quite clear. How do you understand these things then, if it is better than I do

Then this book is mistaken. I wouldn't use it for reference material anymore. Begin by just googling definitions for sympathetic magic, and you'll see that they give the same definition that I give.

In order for sympathetic magic to take place, you have to have something similar to that which you wish to influence. Then whatever you do to that something will effect that other thing, because there is a sympathy between like objects. For example, pouring out wine and saying let the blood of my enemies be poured out would be classic sympathetic magic. A voodoo doll is an example of BOTH sympathetic and contagious magic. It's shape as a doll uses sympathetic magic, and if it also incorporates hair, etc., from the victim, that would be contagious magic.

You realize that all of this is nonsense, I hope? It's interesting to study from an intellectual point of view, to try to understand those poor souls who actually do these things. But it's a crock.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Then this book is mistaken. I wouldn't use it for reference material anymore. Begin by just googling definitions for sympathetic magic, and you'll see that they give the same definition that I give.

If wikipedia is correct, it says that the author coined the term. How would you reasonably disagree with what a term means, against someone who actually coins it? It would be like me saying that the english words in the KJV are more precise than those in the Masoretic.

So I googled 'sympathetic magic and contagious magic,' and 2 of the first 3 sites agree with me. The first site doesn't exactly disagree, but it doesn't tie the two things together like the next two do, which are a dictionary site and wikipedia. I like to think that this puts my view of it on fairly solid ground, though actually, I try to learn things without googling them. You know, when I was in school and the internet was first starting, the information on it was often seen as dubious, and they encouraged you to read books. And the more and more the internet becomes clogged with information, the more and more it might make sense to reach back to a literate age. I actually think it's becoming harder to find anything out on the internet

In order for sympathetic magic to take place, you have to have something similar to that which you wish to influence. Then whatever you do to that something will effect that other thing, because there is a sympathy between like objects. For example, pouring out wine and saying let the blood of my enemies be poured out would be classic sympathetic magic. A voodoo doll is an example of BOTH sympathetic and contagious magic. It's shape as a doll uses sympathetic magic, and if it also incorporates hair, etc., from the victim, that would be contagious magic.

Ok, that part you got right. Think for a moment though now about contagious magic - how could it logically not also be 'sympathetic?' The only difference is, that in homeopathic magic, the object doesn't come from your body. That's why Frazer discusses the afterbirth, or missing teeth, or toenails etc. under the heading of contagious magic. But it sill follows basically the same rules of sympathy, only the object is similar because it was a part of one's body

You realize that all of this is nonsense, I hope? It's interesting to study from an intellectual point of view, to try to understand those poor souls who actually do these things. But it's a crock.

Do you believe the torah was all metaphor? Or do you actually think that moses talked to a burning bush, or that it rained bread, or that staffs turned into snakes? And if I am actually conversing with such a person, wherefore does this sudden burst of positivism come

I believe at least, that nature or the earth does have a soul, and western civilization continues down the path of its denial. How the earth-soul is to be interacted with is tricky, and may humble and reduce us down to such interactions with its 'invisible' power, though perhaps non-theists and the dogmatists of newer religions see that thinking as despicable. We're the poor souls, we're the kind of people who create islands out of garbage, or flick cigarettes into the brush to burn down half of Australia. What exactly are we connecting with that is so spiritually advanced?

 

[sojourner]

Sympathetic magick is when you do something to an object that is similar to the object that you want to influence, and it has the same or similar effect on the desired object.

Can you give a couple examples of Jesus doing this.

The Last Supper leaps to mind. Jesus broke bread and poured out wine, and said, “this is my body broken and my blood poured out for you.”

 

[IndigoChild5559]

If wikipedia is correct, it says that the author coined the term. How would you reasonably disagree with what a term means, against someone who actually coins it? It would be like me saying that the english words in the KJV are more precise than those in the Masoretic.

So I googled 'sympathetic magic and contagious magic,' and 2 of the first 3 sites agree with me. The first site doesn't exactly disagree, but it doesn't tie the two things together like the next two do, which are a dictionary site and wikipedia. I like to think that this puts my view of it on fairly solid ground, though actually, I try to learn things without googling them. You know, when I was in school and the internet was first starting, the information on it was often seen as dubious, and they encouraged you to read books. And the more and more the internet becomes clogged with information, the more and more it might make sense to reach back to a literate age. I actually think it's becoming harder to find anything out on the internet



Ok, that part you got right. Think for a moment though now about contagious magic - how could it logically not also be 'sympathetic?' The only difference is, that in homeopathic magic, the object doesn't come from your body. That's why Frazer discusses the afterbirth, or missing teeth, or toenails etc. under the heading of contagious magic. But it sill follows basically the same rules of sympathy, only the object is similar because it was a part of one's body



Do you believe the torah was all metaphor? Or do you actually think that moses talked to a burning bush, or that it rained bread, or that staffs turned into snakes? And if I am actually conversing with such a person, wherefore does this sudden burst of positivism come

I believe at least, that nature or the earth does have a soul, and western civilization continues down the path of its denial. How the earth-soul is to be interacted with is tricky, and may humble and reduce us down to such interactions with its 'invisible' power, though perhaps non-theists and the dogmatists of newer religions see that thinking as despicable. We're the poor souls, we're the kind of people who create islands out of garbage, or flick cigarettes into the brush to burn down half of Australia. What exactly are we connecting with that is so spiritually advanced?

As far as what sympathetic v. contagious magic is, I'm just going to stick with what I learned in the religious studies department of my university.

I googled "define sympathetic magic", and this is what came up:

sym·pa·thet·ic mag·ic
noun

1. primitive or magical ritual using objects or actions resembling or symbolically associated with the event or person over which influence is sought.

Is Torah literal or a metaphor? I just consider the question to be irrelevant. Sometimes I ask myself how much of it is history and how much is legend, but that is only on rare occasions. For me the importance of Torah is that 1. It tells us who we are as the People of Israel and 2. it gives the parameters of our covenant with Hashem. I live my life based on it being history, even if in the end it turns out to be legend.

I'm not opposed to the belief that everything has a soul of sorts. Animals have an animal soul, other living things such as plants have a kind of soul too, but even mountains and rivers have some sort of essence. This doesn't mean, however, that mother nature is God. God is the Creator. He is the source of all, he is that which underlies the universe, he is "the mother of ten thousand things," the Great Mystery. This is why we don't worship anything on earth or in heaven above, but reserve worship only for the Creator.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

The Last Supper leaps to mind. Jesus broke bread and poured out wine, and said, “this is my body broken and my blood poured out for you.”

This would be true except for one thing. The drinking of wine and breaking of bread didn't CAUSE the crucifixion or the atonement. Therefore no magic occurred.

 

[sojourner]

This would be true except for one thing. The drinking of wine and breaking of bread didn't CAUSE the crucifixion or the atonement. Therefore no magic occurred.

No, but then they weren’t supposed to. But it did change an ordinary Roman symposium into the Eucharist, in which Christ is truly present in all times and in all places.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

This doesn't mean, however, that mother nature is God. God is the Creator. He is the source of all, he is that which underlies the universe, he is "the mother of ten thousand things," the Great Mystery. This is why we don't worship anything on earth or in heaven above, but reserve worship only for the Creator.

I see. Well, I guess my argument is that if you go too far beyond what you can sense, and label that the 'source,' then it's a slippery slope toward dismissing all the importance of that which is physically sensed. It argues that ultimately, the earth and our physical state shouldn't be cared for all that much, for it is all just a veneer worn by an impregnable puppet-master. Now I think if spirituality is located closer to nature, it's a bit closer to the bone, and things matter more. It's not all just some clunky trash and confusion strewn illusion cast into being by a stainless and omnipowerful hand, but the ball is located moreso in the human court, where things we do here matter more in relation to the perpetuation of everything. These are probably ideas for a different thread though

 

[amorphous_constellation]

This would be true except for one thing. The drinking of wine and breaking of bread didn't CAUSE the crucifixion or the atonement. Therefore no magic occurred.

In such a case, they wouldn't have caused it, but they would represent the objects that originated with the body of jesus, and thus were contaminated with the contagious magic that can spread through their use. They weren't meant to cause anything, but the death of the body was meant to release them as effects, I suppose

 

[IndigoChild5559]

No, but then they weren’t supposed to. But it did change an ordinary Roman symposium into the Eucharist, in which Christ is truly present in all times and in all places.

However, in Catholic theology (and Catholics can correct me if I have this wrong) God simply cooperates, as this is a prayer, rather than a spell.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

In such a case, they wouldn't have caused it, but they would represent the objects that originated with the body of jesus, and thus were contaminated with the contagious magic that can spread through their use. They weren't meant to cause anything, but the death of the body was meant to release them as effects, I suppose

If they don't CAUSE the change, there is no magic. Period.

 

[sojourner]

However, in Catholic theology (and Catholics can correct me if I have this wrong) God simply cooperates, as this is a prayer, rather than a spell.

Well... you've got it backward. God is operative and we cooperate. And there's no "simply" about it. it's a profound spiritual act.