Analogy magic

Under sympathetic magic or sympathy magic , even Sympathetic Magic is the many magical, religious or therapeutic practices and ideas underlying referred lying notion that a connection (between outwardly similar things sympathy ), and therefore they can influence. This notion is common in all cultures around the world. Typical examples are that red and blood are related, or phallic objects and male potency. Sympathetic ideas are particularly common in medical-therapeutic procedures and when dealing with natural hazards.

Concrete application of this analogue-magical idea and analogy magic in the narrower sense is based on the idea that with something similar, an image or a symbol, one can influence what is represented with this image or symbol. For example, it is believed that there is a permanent bond between clipped hair and nails or any body exudates from a person and the person himself. Therefore, what is done with the severed parts of the body (e.g. burning) will also happen to the person through sympathetic effects (e.g. occurrence of fever). A popular example is e.g. B. the so-called Voodoo doll, which is supposed to represent an image of a person. According to the concept of the magic analogy, pain and injuries inflicted on the doll should hit the person whose image the doll is.

There is also the application of the principle according to which there is an analogy or correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm . Accordingly, small-scale actions, such as using hand-held equipment, or special ceremonies that influence developments in the macrocosm, such as influencing the weather, warding off natural hazards, promoting the harvest.

Sympathetic ideas have often been the predominant doctrine for many centuries, for example in cosmological theories the Greek four-element theory , the hermetic philosophy , or the two traditional Chinese theories, that of Yin-Yang and the five-element theory , in which Some basic principles each form a class of related issues (such as "Yang is heaven, masculine, active, creative, ruling, etc.", so that one representative of the Yang principle influences all others).
Elements of early medicine (early systems are, for example, the doctrine of signatures or the humoral pathology based on the four-element doctrine according to Hippocrates and Galen ) and folk medicine , also in the veneration of saints in popular belief , such as martyrdoms or persistent temptations of the saint as patron saint qualify, for example for St. Anthony : " the temptations of St. Anthony and the invocation against the fire of St. Anthony" ( ergotism , ergot poisoning).

Related forms of the analogy spell are aspects of numerology .

Numerous forms of the extraction of omens (signs, in the sense of the interpretation of the future, and also their influence, a well-known example is the use of the system of Yi Jing , the Chinese Book of Changes, or classical Western astrology ) are based on analogy-magic concepts. .

In his at that time very influential book The Golden Bough ( The Golden Bough ) postulated James George Frazer magic as a precursor of religion, which he regarded magic as essentially sympathetic magic, while homeopathic or imitative magic and transmission Magic (contagious magic) differed. The former captures ideas such as the connection between red objects and blood or yellow objects with jaundice, while the latter encompasses the idea that there is a permanent connection between cut hair and nails or any body waste of a person and the person himself, whereby he has a law of similarity for the former, and formulated a law of direct transfer for the latter.

literature

Friedrich Pfister : Magic of Analogy. In: Concise dictionary of German superstition . Volume 1, de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1927, pp. 385-395.
Karl Beth: Sympathy (4) . In: Concise dictionary of German superstition . Volume 8, de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1927, p. 628 f.

Web links

Analogy magic. In: Peter CA Schels: Small Encyclopedia of the German Middle Ages.

Individual evidence

^ Joseph Needham: Science and Civilization in China . tape 1 . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-518-57692-5 , 10. The basic ideas of Chinese science , p. 163 ff . (English: The shorter science and civilization in China, University Press, Cambridge 1978. Translated by Rainer Herbster, esp. The School of Naturalists (Yin-Yang Chia), Tsou Yen and the origin and development of the five-element theory. P. 187 ff .; The Theory of Two Forces 209 ff. - Discussion of the analogy-magical aspect of "associative" thinking and its meaning p. 212 ff. And The Theories of the Elements and Experimental Science in China and Western Europe. P. 219 ff).
↑ See also Carl Werner Müller : like to like. A principle of early Greek thought. Wiesbaden 1965; and Hermann Grensemann : The doctor Polybos as the author of Hippocratic writings. Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz (Commissioned by Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden), Mainz 1968 (= Academy of Sciences and Literature. Treatises of the humanities and social sciences . Year 1968, No. 2), p. 85.
↑ Marcel Granet: The Chinese Thought . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1993, ISBN 3-518-28119-4 , Die Zahl , p. 100 ff . (French: La pensée chinoise . Albin Michel, Paris 1936. Translated by Manfred Porkert, esp. 2. Numbers, places, oracles. P. 127 ff). ; Needham: Science and Civilization in China . 1984, Numerology and Scientific Thinking , p. 206 ff .
↑ Needham: Science and Civilization in China . 1984, 11. The Pseudosciences and the Skeptical Tradition , p. 250 ff . ; on the mysticistic phase of the use of the Yi Jing see also Introduction in: Richard Wilhelm: I Ging. The Book of Changes. Eugen Diederichs, Jena 1924.
^ Frazer: The Golden Bough. 3. Edition. Volume 1, p. 53 f. (“ Homoeopathic magic is founded on the association of ideas by similarity: contagious magic is founded on the association of ideas by contiguity. […] 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 […]. ”) Cf. also Frazer: Der goldene Zweig. Leipzig 1928, p. 17.

[Needham-1] Joseph Needham: Science and Civilization in China . tape 1 . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-518-57692-5 , 10. The basic ideas of Chinese science , p. 163 ff . (English: The shorter science and civilization in China, University Press, Cambridge 1978. Translated by Rainer Herbster, esp. The School of Naturalists (Yin-Yang Chia), Tsou Yen and the origin and development of the five-element theory. P. 187 ff .; The Theory of Two Forces 209 ff. - Discussion of the analogy-magical aspect of "associative" thinking and its meaning p. 212 ff. And The Theories of the Elements and Experimental Science in China and Western Europe. P. 219 ff).

[2] See also Carl Werner Müller : like to like. A principle of early Greek thought. Wiesbaden 1965; and Hermann Grensemann : The doctor Polybos as the author of Hippocratic writings. Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz (Commissioned by Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden), Mainz 1968 (= Academy of Sciences and Literature. Treatises of the humanities and social sciences . Year 1968, No. 2), p. 85.

[Granet/Needham-3] Marcel Granet: The Chinese Thought . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1993, ISBN 3-518-28119-4 , Die Zahl , p. 100 ff . (French: La pensée chinoise . Albin Michel, Paris 1936. Translated by Manfred Porkert, esp. 2. Numbers, places, oracles. P. 127 ff). ; Needham: Science and Civilization in China . 1984, Numerology and Scientific Thinking , p. 206 ff .

[Needham2-4] Needham: Science and Civilization in China . 1984, 11. The Pseudosciences and the Skeptical Tradition , p. 250 ff . ; on the mysticistic phase of the use of the Yi Jing see also Introduction in: Richard Wilhelm: I Ging. The Book of Changes. Eugen Diederichs, Jena 1924.

[5] Frazer: The Golden Bough. 3. Edition. Volume 1, p. 53 f. (“ Homoeopathic magic is founded on the association of ideas by similarity: contagious magic is founded on the association of ideas by contiguity. […] 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 […]. ”) Cf. also Frazer: Der goldene Zweig. Leipzig 1928, p. 17.