§ 5 Magic and Mystery
Magic begins with ignorance of some of the conditions of a desired event, and the adoption (on account of coincidence) of anything that fixes one’s attention as contributing to the total antecedent. As the supposed conditions of events grow more and more miscellaneous, the disposition increases to regard anything as a possible cause of anything else. Hence unbounded suspicion whenever an interesting event occurs whose antecedents are not familiar and manifest. The more unusual any occurrence, the more it must excite attention and be apt to arouse suspicion; and the first arrival of travellers or missionaries amongst a wild tribe is an event so unprecedented, that it is likely enough to occasion exaggerated suspicions and behaviour which, when reported, misrepresent the tribe’s normal attitude of mind. For this allowance should be made.
However, in Magic the causation is never traceable; therefore it becomes mysterious. The sense of mystery arises when something excites wonder, wonder gives place to curiosity, curiosity is baffled, and wonder returns with fear. The magical power of an inert object, such as a black pebble or a shark’s tooth, or of a bone that is pointed towards a victim, or of a spear that is swung but not thrown, and nevertheless inflicts a wound, though an invisible one, is something unknown, or mysterious. That is to say, it is a merely imagined action which remains obscure and inscrutable, in comparison with the perceived action of a spear thrown at a deer and slaying it with a visible wound. The savage has adequate practical knowledge of the latter process; of the former only a vague analogical image. He feels the difference, and that the Magic is mysterious; and mystery, being common to all magical processes, and deeply impressive (especially in black Magic), becomes what we call a “fundamental attribute” of Magic, pervading the whole apperceptive mass that is formed by a man’s magic-beliefs. Therefore whatever excites the sense of mystery tends to be assimilated119 by this apperceptive mass and confirmed as magical; just as the mass of our scientific knowledge assimilates and confirms any proposition that has the attributes of a scientific law. Hence the savage accepts the mysterious remedies of an European doctor as magical; and he is ready to regard as magical, and to fear, anything—a rock, tree, or water-spout—that by any trait excites his sense of mystery. Magic, then, does not arise from mystery; but having come into existence, it appeals to the feeling of mystery; and then whatever else is mysterious tends to become magical.120
Magic being mysterious, the more mysterious the more powerful it must be. Hence foreign Magic is more dreaded than the home-made; ancient Magic is more powerful than modern; muttered spells, or formulæ in a strange language, or in one whose meaning has been lost, are more efficacious than intelligible speech; written characters and numbers have a subduing prestige; verse is more subtle than prose (for poets are everywhere respected); a wizard is more impressive in a mask than when bare-faced, in a fit than when sober; and operations in the dark, that ought to excite scepticism, enhance credulity.
Masses of ideas having this mysterious quality form relatively dissociated systems, which offer resistance to all ideas that want it, and therefore to what we call “explanation.” Hence the conservative, inexpugnable character of Magic and its easy alliance with Mysticism. Resistance to explanation may go the length of denying present experience; as when a man is seen to be slain by a weapon or by a falling tree, and yet his death is ascribed to sorcery: the fear of sorcery having become a fixed idea.