The magic according Frazer

Shaman of the tribe Urarina , 1988.

According to Frazer , the thought that is based on the concept of magic is a set of practices and beliefs to which individuals in a society resort to create a benefit or an end, relating them to turn in a certain order in nature either as a group, where naturally limiting severely affects social organization thereof (drought or infertility) ( witchcraft ), or individually, as required, for example, get rid of an enemy that threatens life ( taboo ).

Evolutionists remarkably distinguished public professions under which constitute either company;

• The role of the magician in many societies played a key role in making important decisions.
• The advice from older, distinguished general tendency to higher councils, who represented the head of corporate governance “savages”.

Represented a central issue in studies that tried to understand the organization of non-Western societies that contrast with Western ones. Can be divided into two aspects of analysis , for mental processes, as in abstract principles underlying the practice of magic, under a law called for empathy .

It is for this reason that in this line of thought is the magic predecessor to the religion on an evolutionary scale, ie, that magic stage corresponds to a degree of evolution of certain companies that are considered wild and religion to others who are supposed to higher degree of civilization. Behold the interest of their study, which sought to understand the magic point where it ceases to be such to become well mark a religion and social progress to another stage of evolution.

Frazer defined magic as the expression of rules that determine the achievement of worldwide events, like magic theory, and considered as a set of rules that human comply in order to achieve their ends, as practical magic. This is divided into two types, each of which is based on principles of similarity and contact:

• Imitative magic. Related to that like produces like. This refers to the effects caused by something or someone will resemble the causes that provoked it, they can range from who uses magic, who practice, to what purpose.
• Magic pollutant. Referred to things that were once in contact interact remotely joining them loop forever, having been separated, also present inHomeopathy .

To reach an understanding is necessary to use examples that may be contained within these schemes. In The Golden Bough by Frazer , at all times referred examples of alien societies, so to call them, that to some extent seem to be intact before the Western world, but the fact is that these companies were already having contact with Western man, who was colonizing their territories.

[ edit ]The transition from magic to religion

Frazer believes that principles of association of ideas wrongly applied the magic occur, which even considered as “bastard sister of science.” ^{[ citation needed ]} Frazer believes that the first blow that transformed humanity, to give up magic as a rule of faith and practice, was to recognize “his inability to handle pleasure certain natural forces which hitherto had assumed within its mandate.” ^{[citation needed ]} In this conception is possible to understand that the intelligence of men began to realize that the practice of magic just was not producing the expected results, which previously meant a reality. This was continued for a long period of reflective thought which made ​​the transition to religion gradually, for the better understanding of the forces with a power greater than man’s and the development of knowledge. Frazer concludes that the final step of magic to religion occurs in “the confession of the sole and absolute dependence of man over the divine”, ^{[ citation needed ]}culminates with the submission of man before the immensity of the universe.

Currently, however, it is considered impracticable to establish a boundary between magic and religion emphatic, much less under a unilineal evolutionary premise as that posed by Frazer . This is the case of Mesopotamian culture, where religion and magic coexist within the social body to the point of being indistinguishable.