keith thomas - an anthropology of religion and magic ii

8/20/2019 Keith Thomas - An Anthropology of Religion and Magic II

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the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal ofInterdisciplinary History

An Anthropology of Religion and Magic, IIAuthor(s): Keith ThomasReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Summer, 1975), pp. 91-109Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/202826 .

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2/20

Journal

of Interdisciplinary

History

vI:I

(Summer

1975),

9I-I09.

Keith

Thomas

An Anthropology of Religion and Magic, II

Southey

was

a somewhat

impatient

listener

to

Coleridge's

meta-

physical

talk. When

Southey

was

engaged

on

his

History

of

Brazil,

Coleridge

said to

him,

"My

dear

Southey,

I

wish

to

know how

you

intend

to treat of

man

in

that

important

work.

Do

you

mean,

like

Herodotus,

to

treat

of man as man

in

general

?

Or

do

you

mean,

like

Thucydides,

to

treat

of man

as

man

political?

Or do

you

mean,

like

Polybius,

to treat of

man as

man

military?

Or

do

you

mean

..."

"Coleridge",

cried

Southey,

"I mean o writethe

history

of

Brazil."I

Since

most

working

historians

tend

to

be

impatient

of

anything

which

looks

like

methodological

discussion

I

must

begin

by

saying

that

I

am

genuinely grateful

to

Geertz,

not

only

for so

closely reading

my

text,

but

also for

formulating

her

criticisms

of

it

in

terms

which

pose

wide

general

issues

of some

profundity.2

It

is a

salutary experience

to

have

one's

work

subjected

to

probing

analysis

of this kind and

I

will

readily

admit

that,

if

I

had

had the

advantage

of

reading

Geertz at

an earlier

stage,

Religion

and the

Decline

of

Magic

would

have been

a

different

book,

though

perhaps

not

very

different.

Still,

as the

Red

Queen

said

to

Alice,

"When

you've

once said

a

thing,

that

fixes

it,

and

you

must

take

the

consequences."

My

aim in

this

brief note

will not be so much

to "defend"

my

book

as to reflect on

the

implications

of

some of the

important

general

issues

which Geertz has raised.

She

begins

by objecting

to the

categories

which I

have used to

conduct

my

analysis.

In

particular,

she

questions

whether there is such

a

thing

as

"magic"

at all.

By adopting

such a

concept,

and, even more,

by

defining

it

in such

a

way

as to

distinguish

it

from

"religion,"

I

have,

she

suggests,

fallen

victim to

language

which reflects the

official

pre-

judices

of

my

own

society;

for

today

both scientists

and

theologians

agree

in

using

the

term

"magic"

negatively

and

pejoratively,

to

group

together

and

disparage

such

practices

as

they

currently regard

as

irra-

tional

or

useless. Worse

still,

these official

prejudices

have led me into

Keith

Thomas is Fellow

and

Tutor

in

Modem

History

at

St.

John's

College,

Oxford.

I

Richard

J.

Schrader

ed.),

The

Reminiscences

f

Alexander

Dyce

(Columbus,

1972),

178.

2 I am

also

deeply

grateful

to

the

program

committee of the

American Historical

Association

or

devoting

a session at

its

annual

convention

(1972)

to the

discussion

of

my

book

and for

making

it

possible

for me to be

present.


3/20

92

KEITH

THOMAS

making

he

historian's

reatest rror-asking

he

wrong

question.

For

she

says,

"It is

not the decline

of the

practice

f

magic

that

cries

out for

explanation,but the emergenceandrise of the label'magic."'

Is

this

criticism

justified?

Have

I

been

studying

a

non-existent

problem?

Should

I

be

compared

to

a

pre-Namierite

historian

who

assumes

hat

the

essenceof

mid-eighteenth-century

British

politics

was

a

conflict

between

"Whigs"

and

"Tories,"

or a

pre-Freudian

doctor

trying

to

find the

causes

of

"hysteria"

Is

"magic"

a

concept

which

totally

dissolveson closer

inspection

?

Let me

say

first that

I am

fully

aware

that

anthropologists

oday,

when

discussing

the beliefs of

other

societies,

are

chary

about

using

the Western

concept

of

"magic"

tout court.

Acutely

sensitive to

the

danger

of

ethnocentricity,

hey

emphasize

that

an

ethnographer's

irst

task

is to arrive

at the

basic

categories

or

systems

of

classification

employed

by

the

people

whom

he is

studying.

To do this he

has to

begin

by discarding

his own

categories. "Typically

he

may

have to

abandon the distinction

between

the

natural

and

the

supernatural,

e-

locate the

line

between life

and

death,

accept

a

common

nature

in

mankind and

animals."3

It

is

partly

this

awareness

of

the

difficulty

of

apprehending

unfamiliar

systems

of classificationwhich hasled to the

immense current interest

among anthropologists

n

linguistics,

sym-

bolism,

and communications

theory,

and to

a

major

change

of

direction

in social

anthropology

as a

whole.4

The interests

of

the

new

generation

of

anthropologists

tend to

be not

so much

sociological,

as

linguistic,

even

philosophical.

Their

primary

concern

is

the

way

in

which

lan-

guage

and

symbolism

determine human

understanding

and

behavior.

Their

object

is to

reconstruct

the various

methods

by

which men

impose conceptualorder on the externalworld. They wish to identify

the

"programs,"

the

"grammars,"

he

"paradigms,"

the

"cognitive

structures,"

n

which social

behavior,

as

they

see

it,

is

founded. Above

all,

they

seek

to reconstruct ndividual

cultural

systems

n their

entirety,

and to understand

particular

notions

by

identifying

their

place

in

the

system

to which

they belong. They

therefore

reject

the work

of

those

earlier

ethnographers

who

thought

it

possible

to

study

a

society

by

simple

observationwithout

mastering

the

language

of its

people,

who

classifiedbeliefs

by

their

functions rather

than

by

their inner

structure,

3

Rodney

Needham,

introduction to his translation

of

Emile

Durkheim and Marcel

Mauss,

Primitive

Classification London,

1963),

viii.

4

For

this

change

and

its

implications

see Edwin

Ardener,

"The New

Anthropology

and

Its

Critics",

Man,

VI

(I97I),

449-467.


4/20

RELIGION

AND

MAGIC,

II

93

and

who,

by

wrenching

particular

spects

of

a

system

out of

their

cultural

ontext

and

arbitrarily

rouping

hem

together

with

super-

ficially

similar

aspects

of

other

systems,

ended

up by studying

non-

existent

entities,

brought

nto

being

by

the ill-considered

application

of a

single

abelto

social

phenomena

which

in

fact

differed

adically

from

society

o

society.

Adherents

f this older

style

of

anthropology

re

now

marooned

on

a barren

hore,

ut

off

by

a fast

receding

ntellectualide.

Away

on

the horizonsails

a

trim

new

craft,

bearing

he

post-structuralists,

he

semiologists,

nd

the

cognitiveanthropologists.

heirs

s

a

ship

which

no

longer

flies

the

flag

of

comparative

ociology,

but

is

dedicated

instead o the

discovery

f the

enduring

eatures f thehumanmind.

To achieve ts

new

speed

hisvessel

hashad to castoff

a

great

dealof

ballast,

mong

t

manygeneral ategories

which

anthropologists

nce

usedand

which historianstill

use without

a

blush.

They

includenot

just

such

anthropological

exotica

as

"totemism,"

which

everyone

regards

as

a

useless

tem of

vocabulary,

but other

more familiar

erms,

which most historians

probably

do

not

realize

are

now

regarded

as

contentious;

for

example,

"ritual,"

"belief,"

"witchcraft,"

"kinship,"

and "religion."5All of these have been rejected, at least by some

writers,

because

they

are

culture-bound

categories

which are alien to

the

thinking

of

many

societies

and

which,

if

used on a

universal

scale,

turn

out to

lack

any

constant

or intrinsic

content.

("Primitive,"

of

course

went

much earlier

because

of

its

condescending

evolutionary

overtones;

it

has

been

replaced

by

such debatable

ubstitutes s

"tribal,"

"traditional,"

"undifferentiated,"

preliterate"

r

"having

a low

level

of

material

culture.")

6

And with this

rejected

ballast

has

gone

"magic."

For,

as one writer

remarks,

"If

categorical

distinctionsof the Western

5

See Claude

Levi-Strauss

(trans. Rodney

Needham),

Totemism

(Harmondsworth,

I969);

Malcolm

Crick,

reviewing

J.

S.

La Fontaine

(ed.),

The

Interpretation

of

Ritual

(I972),

inJournal

of

the

AnthropologicalSociety

of

Oxford,

III

(I972),

5I;

Rodney

Needham,

Belief,

Language,

and

Experience

(Oxford,

1972);

T.

O.

Beidelman,

"Towards More

Open

Theoretical

Interpretations,"

in

Mary

Douglas (ed.),

Witchcraft

Confessions

and

Accusations

London,

1970),

35I;

Malcolm

Crick,

"Two

Styles

in the

Study

of Witch-

craft,"Journal of

the

AnthropologicalSociety of Oxford,

IV

(I973),

I8;

Rodney

Needham

(ed.),

Rethinking

Kinship

and

Marriage London,

1971),

cviii;

David

M.

Schneider,

"What

is

Kinship

all

about?"

in

Priscilla

Reining

(ed.),

Kinship

Studies

in the

Morgan

Centennial

Year (Washington, D.C.,

I972),

51;

Wilfred

Cantwell

Smith,

The

Meaning

and End

of

Religion

(New

York,

I964).

The term

"religion"

is retained

by

Thomas

Luckmann,

The

Invisible

Religion:

The Problem

of Religion

in Modern

Society

(New

York,

1967),

but

widened

to embrace

any

matter

which

an individual

regards

as of "ultimate"

significance.

6 For an isolated defence of the term see

Mary

Douglas, Purity

and

Danger

(London,

I966),

Ch.

5.


5/20

94

|

KEITH

THOMAS

mind

are found

upon

examination

to

impose

distinctions

upon (and

so

falsify)

the intellectual universes of other

cultures

then

they

must be

discarded... I believe 'magic' to be one such

category."7

The

wider

perspective

of the

present-day

anthropologist,

however,

inevitably distinguishes

his methods

from

those

of the

historian.

For

the

anthropologist

is

rightly

suspicious

of

any

terminology

which

looks

unsuitable for use

in

cross-cultural

comparison,

whereas

the

historian,

whose

preoccupations

are

usually

less

global,

is

more

ob-

viously

culture-bound.

He is

content

to

speak

of

"religion"

or

"kin-

ship"

without

worrying

whether

these

terms

are

helpful

in some more

exotic

context.

Of course he would

find

it

easy

to

agree

with E. R.

Leach that

"English-language

patterns

of

thought

are not

a

necessary

model

for the whole

of human

society".8

But

though

unsuitablefor

export

they

may

well be

good enough

for

home.

In

Religion

and the

Decline

of

Magic

(London,

1971),

I

was

attempting

to write

English

history,

not

to

engage

in

cross-cultural

analysis

and

I

must

plead guilty

to

having

used

language

which

contemporaries

hemselves,

or most of

them,

would

have

understood.

Of

course,

there

is

no

single

definition

of

"magic"

elastic

enough

to

embrace

all

of

the

different

usages

which

contemporariesgave the term. Even so, at the end of the period with

which

I

was

concerned,

the

expression

"magic"

had

come

to

have a

tolerably

clear

connotation.

It

meant

the deliberate

production

(or

attempted

production)

of

physical

effects

or the

gaining

of

knowledge

by

means

which were

regarded

as

occult

or

supernatural.

There

is

nothing

hard and fast about this definition.

For

contemporaries

differed

among

themselves

as

to

what was

or was

not

"natural"

(255-256),

and

many

refrained from

applying

the

term

"magical"

to

supernatural

operationswhich were authorizedby the Church (Chs.

2,

4) or the

state

(Ch.

7[ii]).

Moreover,

the word

"magic"

was

relatively

slow to

emerge

as

a

single

label for a

number

of different

activities.

In

the

Middle

Ages

it

was more common to

speak separately

of

"enchant-

ment,"

"necromancy,"

"conjuration"

or

"sorcery"

than to refer

simply

to

"magic."

The word existed both

in

Latin

and

in

English,but

commentatorsand

clerics

tended to

list the

magic

arts

separately;

only

in

the

sixteenth

century

did

it

become

common to

group

them

7

D.

F.

Pocock,

foreword

to Marcel

Mauss

(trans.

Robert

Brain),

A

General

Theory

of

MVagic

London,

1972),

2. As

yet,

however,

few

anthropologists

seem to have

managed

to

keep

the word

out of their

pages,

though

some

use

the alternative

"magico-

religious".

8

Leach,

Rethinking Anthropology

(London,

1961),

27.


6/20

RELIGION

AND

MAGIC,

II

[

95

together

under

a

single

head.9

Nevertheless,

I

felt no inhibition

about

using

the

expression "magic"

as

a

convenient label for

bracketing

together a variety of specific practiceswhich contemporariesusually

associated

together,

which had

been

classifiedas

"magical

arts"

since

classical

times,

and which

in

any

case

I

tried to

describe

in

concrete

enough

detail

for

it to have been

reasonably

clear

at

any particular

point

as to

just

what

I

was

talking

about.

Perhaps

I

should

have

laid even more

emphasis

on

the

hetero-

geneity

of

these

different

activities,

stressing

how the

nature

of

a

neo-

scientific

system

of

divination

like

astrology

was

quite

different

from

that of

healing by

charms

or

conjuring spirits;

indeed,

the

distinction

between ars

magica

and scientia

divinationis

went

back to the

classical

period.

But

I

think

I

described

the

individual

practices

and

beliefs in

sufficient

particularity

or

any

seriousconfusion to have

been

avoided.

Only

in

the

last few

pages

did

I

introduce,

half

frivolously,

the

quite

different

definition

of

magic

as

ineffective

technique

(667-668).

But

that

sort

of

magic,

which

is

of

course

universal,

was

not the

subject

of

my

book. Much of the

magic

with which I

was concerned

was

certainly

ineffective,

but ineffectivenesswas not

part

of

my

definition of

it;

and

the question of whether Elizabethanswould have accepted such a

definition does not arise.

Many

of Geertz's

strictures

relate,

therefore,

to

the last two

pages

of

my

conclusion,

rather

than

to

the

main

body

of

the book.

For

there

my

working

assumptions

were no

different rom

those of the

anthropologist,

Nur

Yalman,

who

speaks

of

"the

practical

use of

[supernatural

r

divine] powers

for

everyday

purposes

such

as

healing

or

assuring

uck

and

fertility-which

in

very

general

terms we

may

refer

to

as

magic";

though,

like

him,

I

would

readily agree

that

it is "not a uniform classof practicesandbeliefswhich canbe immedia-

tely

discovered

in

every society."

I

fully

recognize

that

for

anthropol-

ogists

the

concept

of

magic

is

"one

which

has

been

battered

about out

9

Cf.

Robert-Leon

Wagner,

"Sorcier"

et

"Magicien."

Contribution

a

l'histoire du

Vocabulairede la

Magie,

these

(Paris,

1939),

26n-27n.

On

the

terminology

used

in

the

late Roman

period

see

Eliane

Massonneau,

Le

Crime

de

Magie

et

le

Droit

Romain,

these

(Paris, I933);

H.

Hubert,

"Magia,"

in

Ch.

Daremberg

and

Edm.

Saglio (eds.),

Diction-

naire

des

antiquites

grecques

et

romains

(Paris,

1877-I919).

In

England

the

word

"magic"

was established

at

least

by

Chaucer's time

(see J.

A. H.

Murray [ed.],

A

New

English

Dictionary

on Historical

Principles

[Oxford,

I888-I933]),

but its

semantic

history

needs

more

investigation.

Io

Cf.

W.

Michael

Brooker,

"Magic

in

Business and

Industry:

Notes

towards Its

Recognition

and

Understanding,"

Anthropologica,

IX

(1967),

3-I9,

where

magic

is

defined as

repetitive,

non-adaptive

behavior.


7/20

96

[

KEITH THOMAS

of

useful

recognition""

and

I

have

no desire

to

follow their

predeces-

sors

in

a

search or the

universal

meaning

of

magic,

religion

or

science.

But

so

long

as

we are concerned with the sixteenth and

seventeenth

centuries,

the

analytic utility

of these terms is

surely

adequate.

In

any

case,

as

my

definition

of

magic implies,

I

did not

suggest

that

magic

was

always

distinct

from

"religion."

On the

contrary,

I

observed

that

"The line

between

magic

and

religion

is...

impossible

to draw

in

many

. .

societies;

it

is

equally impossible

to

draw in

medieval

England" 50).

I

would

agree

that

"magic"

is

normally

"best

regarded

as

an

aspect

of

religious

belief and

practice

hat takes

ts

special

force

from

the

antecedent and

deeply

rooted

recognition

in

many

societiesof

supernatural

r divine

power."

I2

What I

suggested

in

my

book

was that

a reclassificationook

place

during

the

period

with which

I was

concerned,

whereby

those

elements

in

religion

which

ultimately

came

to be

regarded

as

magical

were

gradually

identified as

such,

first

by

the

Lollards,

hen

by

the Reformers

(Ch.

3).

I

further

urged

that

a fundamental

change

took

place

in

the

idea

of

religion

itself,

as the

emphasis

came to be

placed

on formal belief ratherthan on a

mode

of

living

(76-77).I3

Far rom

ignoring

the

emergence

of

the

term

"magic"

as something separate rom "religion,"I pointed out that the classic

distinction

between

the

two,

normally

associated with

E. B.

Tylor

and

other

nineteenth-century

anthropologists,

was

in

fact

originally

formulated

by

the

sixteenth-century

Protestant

Reformers

(6I).

It was

they

who

first declared

that

magic

was

coercive and

religion

interces-

sionary,

and

that

magic

was not

a

false

religion,

but

a

differentsort of

activity

altogether.

The error

of

Tylor

and

Sir

James

Frazer

(but

not,

I

think,

of

Thomas)

was to make

this distinctionuniversal

by

exporting

it

to other societies.I4

Nevertheless,

I

am

sorry

if

my

use of

the terms

"magic"

and

"religion"

has caused confusion. As

Evans-Pritchard

says,

"terms are

only

labels

which

help

us sort

out facts

of

the same kind

from

facts

which

are different

or

in

some

respects

different. If

the

labels do not

11

Yalman,

"Magic,"

in

David

L.

Sills

(ed.),

International

ncyclopaedia

f

the Social

Sciences

(n.p.,

1968),

IX,

522;

Needham,

Belief,

Language,

and

Experience,

2o8n.

12

Yalman,

"Magic,"

522.

13

I

wrote

these

pages

before

I

came

across

Smith,

Meaning

ndEnd

of Religion,

but I

think

my

descriptionclosely parallels

his account of the shift from the

concept

of

"religiousness"

o

that

of"religion"

(ibid.,

39).

14

I note that

even the reviewer

(Randal

Keynes)

of

Religion

andthe

Decline

of Magic

in the

avant-gardeJournal of

the

Anthropological

Society of Oxford

(III

[I972],

154),

acquits

me

of

using

"Frazerian"erms of

reference.


8/20

RELIGION

AND

MAGIC,

II

|

97

provehelpful

we

can

discardhem.

The

facts

will be

the same

without

their labels."

'

I

claim no

universality

or a

distinctionbetween

magic

and religion, but I do suggest that in Europeanhistory, at least, it is

analytically

useful to

distinguish

those

religions

which,

like

medieval

Catholicism,

credited

their

rituals with

physical

efficacy

from

those

which,

like

eighteenth-century

deism,

did

not.

I

devoted

a

good

deal

of

space

to

describing

how

the

sectarians,

by

engaging

in

prophecy

and

religious

healing,

brought

back

into

religion

much

of the

magic

which

the

Reformers

had

cast

out

(Ch.5).

But

I

also stated that "at

the

end

of our

period

we can

draw

a

distinctionbetween

religion

and

magic

which

would

not have been

possible

at

the

beginning" (640).

To that extent I did discussthe

emergence

of the label

"magic."

I

explained

how

churchmen

of

every

denomination

used

the

term

to

brand

as

implicitly

diabolical

all

unauthorized

attempts

to

manipulate

the

supernatural,

ncluding many

folk

practices

previously

regarded

by

their

adherents

as

godly

(I92,

256,

265-267);

and

how

Protestants

applied

the same

description

o cover

any

claims

to

manipulation

made

by

the

Church

tself.

The

dividing

line between

"magic"

and

"religion"

was hardened

by

the

parallel

attempts

of

Protestant

and

Catholic

Reformers to eliminateallpopularritesof unauthorizedor ambiguous

status.16

The Catholics did

not abandon

all

claims

to

supernatural

manipulation,

but

the

more austere

position

of

the

English

Protestants

generated

the

very

categories

which

anthropologists

themselves are

only

now

beginning

to

discard

(61).

Nevertheless,

Geertz

has

a

point.

I

should have devoted

more

space

to a

proper

semantic discussion

of

how the boundaries

between

"religion,"

"magic,"

and

"science"

shifted and

reshifted,

according

to

the varyingoutlooksof different ocial andreligiousgroups.17 should

have

shown,

for

example,

how

the

category

"natural

magic"

melted

away altogether,

part

becoming

science,

the rest

being

discarded

as

obsolete.

I

should

also have

paid

more

attention

to

the

changing

vocabulary

n

which

magical

practitioners

and

magical

activities

were

described;

and

I

should

have

considered

more

explicitly

how far

the

practitioners

of

magic

themselves

regarded

their

activities

as

magical.

For

I

think it

quite

wrong

to

suggest,

as does

Geertz,

that the

only

15

E. E.

Evans-Pritchard,

Witchcraft,

Oracles

and

Magic among

the

Azande

(Oxford,

1937),

iI.

r6

On

this

theme

see

Jean

Delumeau,

Le

Catholicisme

ntre

Lutheret Voltaire

Paris,

I97I).

I7

This criticism

is also well

made

by

Keynes

in

Journal

of

the

Anthropological

Society

of Oxford,

154.


9/20

98

|

KEITH

THOMAS

contemporaries

who

used

the term

"magic"

were

those who

rejected

it.

If

that had

been so we

should

never

have

encountered

women

claiming to be "good" witches or intellectuals boasting of their

magical

powers.

Of

course,

some wizards saw

themselves

as

possessed

of a

special

kind

of

"cunning" i.e.

knowledge

or

technique),

but

others

unashamedly

confessed

to

attempting

to

manipulate

the

supernatural.

To that

extent

the modern

definition

of

magic

was

acceptedby

many

of its

practitioners

hemselves.

Even

so,

I am

now more

sensitive

to

the intricate

problem

of

shifting

vocabulary

and classificationthan

I

was when

I

wrote the

book.

I

can

see a lot of

historicalwork

waiting

to be done

in

this

area,

not

just

on

magic,

but

also on

social

class,

kinship,

age-groups,

and

other

fundamental

categories.

For,

from

the

anthropologist's

point

of

view,

much

of

what

historians

call

social

change

can be

regarded

as

a

process

of

mental

reclassification,

f

re-drawing

conceptual

lines

and

boundaries.

My

book

was meant to

demonstrate

a

hardening

of mental

divisions,

between

natural

and

supernatural,

etween the moral

order

and

the

natural

order;

which,

I

take

it,

is what

Max

Weber meant

by

the

disenchantment

of

the world.

I

cannot,

therefore,

agree

with

Geertzin dismissingasa boring non-questionthe problem of how far

the various

practices

which I

identified

as

magical

did

in

fact

decline.

On

the

contrary,

I

maintain that

in

England magic

declined

in

a

double sense:

The

clergy

abandoned

all

claims

to be able to achieve

supernatural

effects;

and the

practice

of

the

various

magical

arts

diminished

n

prestige

and extent.

I also

think

that this

declining

faith

in

the

physical

efficacy

of

religious

ritual and in the

power

of the

cunning

men,

poses

some

crucial historical

ssues.

Despite

the

popular

survival (perhaps even to a greater extent than I suggested (665,

666-667)

of

many

of the

practices

and

attitudes

which I

discussed,I8

I

remain

convinced that

what

I

called

"the

decline

of

magic"

has

to

be

regarded

as one of the

great

historical

divides.

Many

of

my

critics

have

accused

me of

being

unfair to

religion.

Geertz,however,

thinksthat

I

have been unfair o

magic, by suggesting

that

it dealt with

only

a

limited number

of

problems,

by

contrastwith

religion,

which

was

an

altogether

more elaborate

affair,

a

mode

of

living

and a coherent

system

of

explanation (153-I54,

636-637).

I

should have done

more,

she

thinks,

to

bring

out the

hidden

conceptual

i8

Cf. E.

P.

Thompson, "Anthropology

and

the

Discipline

of

Historical

Context,"

Midland

History,

I

(I972),

53-55.


10/20

RELIGION

AND

MAGIC,

II

|

99

foundations

n

which

magical ractices

ested,

o

show that

they

were

built

upon

an alternative

ut

equally

oherent

cosmology.

nstead,

he

suggests, crudely

treated

magic

rituals

as

mere

psychological

e-

sponses

o

immediate

eeds,

hereby

ailing

o

see

thatmen

would not

haveturned o them n the first

place

f

they

hadnot

already hought

them to

possess

some intellectual

plausibility.

Belief-systems,

he

argues,

have

an

independent

ife of their

own,

whereas

have

simply

discussed

hem

in

utilitarian

ashion,

mplying

that

magical

beliefs

arose

o

fit immediate

practical

eeds,

only

to be

discarded nce those

needs

had

evaporated.

I

hope

that

my picture

of the

relationship

f

magical

beliefs o

practical

eeds was not

really

so crude.I

fully

realize hat modern

cognitive anthropologists

are

reluctant to

treat

mental

activity

as

a

mere

epiphenomenon

f the socialand economic

nfrastructure.

ar

from

being

economic

determinists,

hey

are more

likely

to

maintain

that cultures

are not so

much material

phenomena

as

"cognitive

organizations

f

material

phenomena."

Similarly,

hose influenced

by

Levi-Straussssume

hat modes

of

thought

are determined

y

the

inherent

qualities

f the humanmind.20

, too,

agree

that

symbolic

formshavean autonomouseality, hat ritualsarenot derived rom

sentiments,

hat

psychological

eeds do not

create

beliefs,

and

that

magic

would

never

have

been

practiced

nless t

hadfirstbeen

thought

plausible.21Magic

was

stylized

and

inherited;

men did not invent it

at

momentsof stressand it did

not

cater or

every

problem 656)

any

more

than

witchcraftwas

invoked o

explain

every

misfortune

(538-

539).

I

certainly

did not

suggest

hat

magic

was

a

mere alternative

o

technology,

the one

going

out

when the other came

in.22

On the

I9

Stephen A. Tyler (ed.), Cognitive Anthropology(New York, 1969), 3.

20 Cf. Nur

Yalman,

"The Raw:

the

Cooked:: Nature:

Culture,"

in Edmund

Leach

(ed.),

The

Structural

Study

of

Myth

and

Totemism

(London, I967),

71-89.

21

A

classic

refutation

of the cruder functionalist view

may

be

found

in

Levi-Strauss,

Totemism,

Ch.

3.

But

it

should be noted

that

even writers

of a

more

functionalist

orientation have been careful

to

emphasize

that situations of tension

do

not in

them-

selves

explain

occult

beliefs.

See,

e.g.,

Max Gluckman "Moral

crises:

Magical

and

Secular

Solutions,"

in

Gluckman

(ed.),

The

Allocation

of

Responsibility

(Manchester,

1972),

4,

I3.

22

But

contrast E. E.

Evans-Pritchard,

Theories

of

Primitive

Religion

(Oxford,

1965),

113

("the

advances

of

science

and

technology

have rendered

magic

redundant").

Since

Geertz

(above,

84n) suggests

that I have misunderstood Evans-Pritchard's

argument,

it

is

perhaps

worth

pointing

out

that Evans-Pritchard

remarked

of Malinowski's

findings

that "his

general

conclusions

as

to the function of

magic

in

society

are

fully

borne

out

by

the Zande

data"

("The

Morphology

and Function of

Magic,"

American

Anthropol-

ogist,

XXXI

[I929],

621).


11/20

I00

I

KEITH THOMAS

contrary

I

pointed

out that

Lollards and Protestants

rejected

magic

long

before the

practical

needs

for which it

catered had

received

any

alternativetechnological solution (77, 656-666). When I wrote of a

shift

from

reliance on

magic

to

sturdy

self-help,

I

had

in

mind

not

a

psychological change

so much as

a

doctrinal

one.

It was

not

that

Lollards

and

Protestants

had

stronger

personalities

than their

pre-

decessors,

but

that their

convictions

about the

relative

scope

for

human

action and

supernatural

aid were different. The crucial

shift was

"attitudinal,"

n

that it reflected

a

changing

attitude

to the

relationship

of

God and

man.23

But to

say

that

is

not

to

invoke

a

psychological

interpretationbut to appeal to something nearer to the ontological

one which

Geertz

prefers;

though,

to the extent that

religious

beliefs

affected

men's outlook and

behavior,

the

change,

of

course,

also had

psychological implications.

Neither was

my

treatment

of

witchcraft

primarily

psychological

in

character.

I

tried to show that witchcraft

beliefs

were not

private

delusions,

generated

by

situations

of

stress,

but

were anchored

in a

culturally

acceptable

view of

reality

(Chs.

14,

I5).

They

were

part

of

a

much

larger

corpus

of

assumptions

about

the universe.

A

person

who

believed in witchcraft was not

necessarily

a

paranoiac.

On the other

hand,

it

took

a

specific

social situation to

bring

witch beliefs

into

action;

and when

they

came into action

in

the

form

of

witchcraft

accusations

they

had,

like

all

other

human

actions,

their

psychological

dimensions,

being

rooted

in a

variety

of

emotions,

uppermost among

which

was

guilt

(Ch. 17).

But

it

was not

guilt

about

turning

old

women from

the

door

which

generated

the

concept

f

witchcraft,

any

more

than

it was

a

declining

sense

of

guilt

which

led

to its

decay.

A

psychological explanationof the kind advancedby LeVine may just

possibly

help

to

explain

why,

in a

society

holding

witch

beliefs,

some

individuals

levied witchcraft accusations

while

others

in a similar

situation

did

not. But it

certainly

cannot

explain

the

growth

of

skepti-

cism about the

possibility

of

witchcraft

as

such. If that

skepticism

began among

the

social

elite

it

was not because the

members

of that

elite had

stronger egos,

but because their social situation

(superior

23 A vivid illustration of the change is provided by the medieval story of the Hunger-

ford

man

who,

in the

dry

summer

of

I259,

set out to water his

fields,

but

was

miraculously

paralyzed

for

blasphemously attempting

to

mitigate

the

effects

of a

divinely-ordained

drought (Henry

Richards Luard

[ed.],

Annales Monastici

[Rolls

Series,

London,

I864-

69],

II,

351-352).

By

the seventeenth

century

the fatalism

implicit

in anecdotes

of

this

kind

had

been

officially repudiated.


12/20

RELIGION

AND

MAGIC,

II

I10

education,

greater

mobility,

more

access o news

and

information)

exposed

them to

a

wider

range

of intellectual

experience.

And

if

witchcraftccusationst thevillageevelalsodeclined,hatwasbecause

of

a

decline

n

the

frequency

f

the

kindof

ambiguous

ocial

ituation

which

engendered

uch

accusations,

ot becauseof

a

change

n

the

personality

ype

of

English illagers.24

I

therefore

sympathize

ntirely

with

Geertz

n her

suspicion

of

any

shallow

functionalist

attempt

o

treat

popular

beliefs as

simple

defences

againstanxiety,

vain

compensations

or

technological

n-

adequacies.

canwell understand

hy many

anthropologistsrefer

o

study

deas

as self-contained

ystems

of

thought,

concentrating

olely

on their nternal

logic

andtheir

ontological

tructure.

Yet,

though

I

recognize

hat the

persistence

f

magical

beliefs

s a

problem

n

the

history

of

cognitive

tructures,

alsothink hatthe historian

would be

ill-advised

o

separate

uchbeliefs

rom theirsocialand

technological

context.It

may

not be true

to

say

that

magical

beliefsare

only

to be

found

in

"pre-industrial"

ocieties.

But it is

unquestionably

rue that

it

is

the

technological ap

between

man's

aspirations

nd his

limited

control

of

his environment

which

gives

magical

practices

heir

rele-

vance.AsI suggested 637,667),magical itesmayhavealsohadtheir

expressive

spects,

ut

in sixteenth- nd

seventeenth-century

ngland

their

purposes

were

usually

trictly

practical.

f

contemporary

octors

hadbeen

cheaper

ndmore

successful,

eople

would not

have

gone

to

charmers.

f

there

had been

a

police

force

to trace

stolen

goods

there

would have been

less recourse

o

cunning

men.25 f

the Church

had

been able

to

cater

for

all

practical

eeds there would have

been

no

wizards.26

Counter-witchcraft,

agicalhealing,

exorcism,

were not

just expressiversymbolic ites; heyweremeant owork.Thecunning

24

LeVine's

ingenious

addition

to

my argument

is

apparently

based on

my

earlier

brief

statement,

"The Relevance

of Social

Anthropology

to the

Historical

Study

of

English

Witchcraft,"

in

Douglas

(ed.), Witchcraft Confessions

and

Accusations,

47-79,

rather than on

my

book

(LeVine,

Culture

Behavior,

and

Personality,

255n).

It seems to

arise from his

assumption

that

a decline

in

the

belief

in

the

mystical

interdependence

of

individuals

and their

neighbors

must

necessarily

have had a

psychological

cause

(ibid.,

264-265).

But he does

not

say

why

he

finds

the more conventional

social

and intellectual

explanations

of this

phenomenon

inadequate.

25

For

continuing

resort

to

a

diviner

in circumstances when

the

prospect

of

police

detection

is

thought unlikely

or undesirable

see Richard W.

Lieban,

"Shamanism and

Social

Control

in a

Philippine

City,"

Journal of

the Folklore

Institute,

II

(I965),

47-49.

According

to a

seventeenth-century

divine,

"People weary

of

their

Christianity

because

it easeth them

not of the

little

discontentments

of their estate

in

this

world

which

they

meet

with";

they

therefore

went

to

magicians

(Herbert

Thomdike,

An

Epilogue

to the

Tragedy

of

the Church

of

England

[London,

I659],

III,

290).


13/20

102 KEITH THOMAS

folk

discharged

limitednumber

of

functions;

people

went to

them

at times

of

need,

for

highly

practical

purposes

and in

a

distinctly

utilitarianrameof mind.Theirprestige epended pon heirsupposed

efficacy,

nd

earlier

anthropologists

ere

right

to

point

out how

the

self-confirming

nature of their

activities

prevented

clients from

realizing

hat

they

were not

efficacious.

Conversely,

a

belief

which lost

its

practical

relevance was

likely

to wither.

This seems

o

have been

what

happened

with

witchcraft.

Despite

what Geertz

says,

it

is

by

no

meansclear that witch trials

ceased because

of a

change

n men's

cosmologicalassumptions.

On

the

contrary,prosecutions topped,

less

becauseof disbelief

n

the

possi-

bility

of witchcrafthanbecause

f the

difficulty

f

proving

t

in

any

particular

nstance;

he

well-publicizedxposure

f

fraudulent

ccusa-

tionsmade

men moreawareof the

epistemological

ifficulty

f

telling

a trueaccusation

rom

a

false

one;

ust

as

on the Continenthe

traumatic

effect of

prosecutions

which

got

out of

hand

ultimately

sapped

men's

faith

in

the

judicial

procedure.27

nd

once

the

trials

stopped,

t

was

only

a matter

of time before he laws

changed

and

the

reality

of the

idea tself

gradually

aded

453,

573-576).

We arestill,I think,verymuch nthedark,historiansndanthro-

pologists

alike,

as to the

precise

mechanism

by

whichcollective

beliefs

change

over

long

periods

of

time. But no

satisfactory

uture

nter-

pretation

of the

process

will

be able to

ignore

the fact that

beliefs

derive

muchof

their

prestige

rom

their ocial elevance.

heir

nternal

structures

ave

theirown

logic

and

this

logic

is not utilitarian.

ut if

we

are to

understand

why

the

beliefsare held

or

rejected,

we must

examine

heir

relationship

o the

society

in which

they

operate.

t

would,for example,be quiteunsatisfactoryo explain he declineof

Christian

elief

n

modern

imes

merelyby

indicatingways

in

which

ancient

theology

has lost its

intellectual

plausibility.

We should

also

haveto

consider

he

changing

ortunes f the

Church

s an

institution

andtake

account f the

growth

of

rival

agencies

f

education,

welfare,

and

entertainment.

imilarly,

n

asking

why

one

type

of medicine s

accepted

oday

rather han

another,

or

example,

why osteopathy

r

acupuncture

ack

prestige,

we are

dealing

ess with

an

intellectual

question

han

a

social

one;

we

have

to answer t

by following

the

fortunes

of

the

professional

rganizations

hich determine

what

the

27

Cf.

Robert

Mandrou,

Magistrats

et

Sorciersen France

au XVIIe

siecle

(Paris,

I969);

H. C.

Erik

Midelfort,

Witch

Hunting

in Southwestern

Germany,

1562-1684:

The

Social

and Intellectual

Foundations

Stanford, 1972), e.g., 162-163.


14/20

RELIGION

AND

MAGIC,

II

103

reigning orthodoxy

shall

be. We cannot

study

belief-systems

in a

void;

we have to determine what

gives

them their social

credibility.

If it remains ruethat the content f suchbeliefscannot be explainedby

psychological

reductionism

or

by sociological

functionalism,

t

is

also

true that

changes

n

belief

are

very

difficult

o

accountfor

in

structuralist

terms.

To

understand

why

men's

basic

assumptions

change

it

is

insufficient o

expose

the

inner

logic

of

their

systems

of

thought;

we

have also to

take account of the

relationship

of

those

systems

to the

external

social

context,

modified

though

human

awareness

of

that

context

may

be the

persistence

of

antique categories

of

thought.

As

Douglas

has remarked:

"It

should

never

again

be

possible

to

provide

an

analysis

of an

interlocking system

of

categories

of

thought

which

has

no

demonstrable

elation

to

the social life

of

the

people

who

think

in

these

terms."

8

Geertz,

however,

maintains

that faith in

astrology

or

spells

was

sustained

by

a

particular

iew

of

reality.

Such

faith could

only

decline,

she

says,

when "this

deeper

substratum f convictions about the

nature

of the universe

begins

to

fall

apart."

Why

then have

I

not

exposed

this

substratum

n all of its detail

?

Well,

to some extent

I

tried

to

do so.

I

indicatedsome of the assumptionsunderlyinghealingritualsandwitch

beliefs

(Chs.

7,

14-16);

and

I

discussed

the

rationalizations

put

forward

by

Renaissance

intellectuals,

with their microcosm

and

macrocosm,

and their animate

universe-rationalizations, however,

which

I

main-

tained had little to do

with

the

actual

practice

of

magic

at the

village

level

(I85,

I90,

222-223).

To the

wizard,

as to his

clients,

the source

of

his

power

was

often

unclear.

Recourse to

him

did not

necessarily

reflect

subscription

o

some

alternativeview of

reality,

any

more

than

a visit to anorthodox physician ndicateda cleargraspof the principles

of

Galen

(I9I,

257,

264).

Men

went

in

a

spirit

of

"try

anything

which

works";

and

the

symbolism

of the wizard's ritualswas

highly

limited

in

its

implications.

I

readily

admit

that

I

may

have been

less

sensitive

to

the

symbolic

or

poetic meanings

of

these

magical

rites

than

I

should

have been.29

But

I

am not convinced that

a more

sensitive observer

would

find

behind

them

a

view

of

reality

comparable

n

coherence

to

28

Mary Douglas,

"The

Healing

Rite

(review

article),"

Man,

V

(1970),

303.

Cf. her

assertion

(on

the basis

of

John

Middleton,

The

Religion

of

the

Lugbara [London, I960])

that "The

only way

in which a witch-dominated

cosmology

can be transformed is

by

a

change

at

the level of social

organization"

(Natural

Symbols: Explorations

in

Cosmology

[London,

1970], I2I).

29

As is

urged by Thompson, "Anthropology

and the

Discipline

of

Historical

Context," 49.


15/20

104

KEITH

THOMAS

that

offered

by

the

theologians.

am

prepared,

n

other

words,

to

question

whether

magicalways

had

the

"philosophicalnderpinnings"

with which Geertz reditst.

At

this

point

it

should be

stressed

hat

anthropologists

iffer

greatlyamong

themselves s to

how much coherence

they

should

expect

to

find

when

studying

he beliefsof

other

peoples.

Cognitive

anthropologists

eem

to

posit

a

unitary

"culture,"

lbeit

one

com-

prising

eparate

nfra-cultures.

rench

tructuralists

ave

always

ooked

for coherence

nd

sometimes

urprise

heir

more

skeptical, mpirically

minded,

behaviorally-oriented

ritish

olleagues

y

the

symmetry

of

the

elegantly

articulated

osmological ystems

which

they

claim

to

have ound

among

ndigenous

eoples.30

ven

at

the evelof

consciously

articulated eliefs

t is

clear hat

some

anthropologists

ave

developed

schemes

which n

the

opinion

of others

go

far

beyond

he evidence f

the

ethnographic

ata. f there s

room

for

this

type

of

argument

when

we are

dealing

with

contemporary

fricans

r

Indians,

who can

be

observed

nd

questioned,

ow

much

more

uncertainty

must therebe

when we come

to

consider illiterate

Englishmen

who

lived three or

four centuries

ago.

Of

course we must

persist

n our effort

to

recreate

theirmentalworld. But in thepresent tateof knowledge it isimpossible

to

maintain or certain

hat

that world

was

a

coherent

one.

In

my

book

I

wrote

that

"what we are

faced

with in this

period

is not one

single

code,

but

an

amalgam

of the cultural

debris

of

many

different

ways

of

thinking.

Christianand

pagan,

Teutonic

and

classical;

and

it would be

absurd

to claim that

all

these elements

had been

shuffled

together

to

form a new

and

coherent

system"

(627-628).

As Levi-Strauss

himself

admits,

"the nearer

we

get

to concrete

groups

the

more

we must

expect to find arbitrarydistinctions and denominations which are

explicable

primarily

n terms of occurrences

and

events and

defy any

logical

arrangement."

In the

sixteenth

century

even

contemporary

intellectuals

ailed to

produce

a

genuinely

coherent

rationalization

of

magical practices.31

30

See A. I.

Richards,

"African

Systems

of

Thought:

An

Anglo-French

Dialogue

(review

article),"

Man,

II

(1967),

284-298.

31

Claude

Levi-Strauss,

The

Savage

Mind

(London,

1966),

I55.

D. P.

Walker,

Spiritual

and Demonic

Magicfrom

Ficino

to

Campanella(London, I958), 75, 96.

I am

equally

hesi-

tant

about

adopting

Thompson's

suggestion

("Anthropology

and the

Discipline

of

Historical

Context,"

51-53)

that what

contemporary

authorities

regarded

as the

religious

"ignorance"

or

"skepticism"

of

the lower classes was

really

a coherent

alternative

system

of

religious symbolism.

The

popular

utterances

which I

quoted

(Ch.

6)

seem too

heterogeneous

to be

easily

fitted

into

any

coherent

alternative

(or

alternatives)

to

orthodox


16/20

RELIGION

AND

MAGIC,

II

I105

No

doubt

I

should have looked

not

only

for consciousrationaliza-

tions

(which

at

village

level are

obviously

seldom to

be

found),

but

also

for less conscious

underlying

structures

of

thought. More,

for

example,

might

have been said about

the

relationship

of

magical

methods to the

widely

prevailing

conception

of all

knowledge

as a

search or

resemblances nd

correspondences,

nd

thus itself

a

form

of

divination.

For

at this

time

the

affinity

of

human

beings

and nature

was

presupposed;

and

language

itself

was

seen

as

part

of

the

natural

world,

rather than

something

external to it.

Foucault,

who has

done

most to

develop

this

theme,

remarksof the intellectual

changes

of the

seventeenth

century

that

This new

configurationmay,

I

suppose,

be

called

"rationalism";

ne

might say,

if

one's mind

is filled

with

ready-made

oncepts

],

that

the seventeenth

century

marks he

disappearance

f the

old

superstitious

or

magical

beliefsand

he

entry

of

nature,

t

long

last,

nto

the

scientific

order.

But what we must

attempt

o

grasp

and

attempt

o

reconstitute

are the modifications hat affected

knowledge

itself,

at

that archaic

level which

makes

possible

both

knowledge

and the

mode

of

being

of

what

is to be

known.32

Here, I admit,

my

competence

failed me. No doubt this abdica-

tion

was

the

result

of

being

reared

in

an

educationaltradition

whose

products

must

inevitably

recoil from

Levi-Strauss'

suggestion

that the

investigator

should

attempt

to transcend

empirical

observation

so

as

to

achieve a

deeper

reality.33

But it is also the

consequence

of

approach-

ing

my subject

historically.

For

historians,

s

Levi-Strauss

as

remarked,

tend to

organize

their

data "in relation to

conscious

expressions

of

social

life,"

whereas

anthropologists

proceed

"by examining

its

un-

consciousfoundations."34This dictum is obviously only a half-truth,

theology, though they

do

suggest

a

widespread

tradition

of materialism.

Thompson

points

to

the

coherent universe

implicit

in

Thomas

Hardy's

The

Mayor

of Casterbridge,

but

this is

surely

a

clear

example

of the difference between

art and life.

Nevertheless,

I

readily agree

that

my

crude

concept

of

"popular

ignorance"

needs

a

lot

of

refiing.

32

Michel

Foucault,

The

Order

of

Things:

An

Archaeologyof

the

Human

Sciences

London,

I970),

pt.

I, ch.

I;

54.

It

ought

perhaps

to be added that Foucault

denies that

he

is

a

"structuralist,"

attributing

this

aspersion

to

"certain

half-witted 'commentators"'

(xiv).

33

Levi-Strauss,

"Introduction

a

l'oeuvre de

Marcel

Mauss,"

in Marcel

Mauss,

Sociologie

et

Anthropologie

(Paris,

1960),

xxxiii.

On the British

empiricist's

distaste

for

any

enquiry

into

underlying

structures

or hidden realities see David

Goddard,

"Anthro-

pology:

The limits

of

functionalism,"

in

Robin Blackburn

(ed.),

Ideology

in

Social

Science.

Readings

in

Critical Social

Theory

(London, 1972),

62.

34

Levi-Strauss

(trans.

Claire

Jacobson

and Brooke Grundfest

Schoepf),

Structural

Anthropology(London, I968),

i8.


17/20

IO6

I

KEITH

THOMAS

since,

from the

days

of

Marx,

if not

earlier,

many

historians have

sought

to

uncover the invisible foundations

of

society.35

But whereas

historians are quite used to dealing with the notion of underlying social

structures,

they

are

much less accustomed

to

searching

for invisible

mental

structures,

particularly

the

mental

structures

underlying

inchoate and

ill-recorded

systems

of

thought,

which are

only

articulated

in

a

fragmentary way.

These

are

structures of

which

the

average

mem-

ber

of

the

society

concerned

is,

almost

by

definition,

unable to

give

a

coherent

account,

any

more

than he can

describe

the

analytical

structure

of the

language

which

he

speaks.

Indeed

one

anthropologist

has re-

marked

of

the unconscious

thought-structures

of

Levi-Strauss that

they

tend to

be "at least three

degrees

removed from the

ethnographic

data."36

At a rather less

inaccessible

level, however,

I

would

fully agree

that more

justice

needs to be done

to

the

symbolism

of

popular

magic.

Just

as

the

mythology

of

witchcraft-night-flying,

blackness,

animal

metamorphosis,

female

sexuality-tells

us

something

about the

standards of

the

societies

which

believed

in

it-the

boundaries

they

were

concerned to

maintain,

the

impulsive

behavior

that

they thought

it

necessary

to

repress;

so we can learn from the

language

of white

magic-sympathy

and

antipathy,

narrative

charms,

and the

symbolism

of salt or

south-running

water. But it remains to be

established whether

these

charms and rituals

always

constituted

a

coherent

system

or

whether,

as is

implied

in

the old-fashioned definition

of"superstition"

(627-628), they

were

just unintegrated

remnants

of older

patterns

of

thought.

At

present

it

would seem common sense to assume

that

in a

changing society

mental

coherence

is

no more to be

expected

than

social coherence. Just as sociologists have to come to terms with the

fact that

nearly every

society

contains institutions

which are obsolete

or

dysfunctional,

so

anthropologists

have

to

be

prepared

for mental

inconsistencies.

They

also have

to consider

the

problem

of how to

handle the immense

range

of

variations,

chronological,

social,

and

regional,

presented

by

a

society

as diverse

as

seventeenth-century

England;

for

the

range

of mental

sub-universes

is

much wider

than

35 Cf. Maurice Godelier, "System, Structure and Contradiction

in Das

Kapital,"

in

Michael Lane

(ed.),

Structuralism:

A

Reader

(London,

1970),

341;

Levi-Strauss,

Structural

Anthropology,

23.

36 Richards,

"African

Systems

of

Thought,"

297;

Aidan

Southall,

"Twinship

and

Symbolic

Structure",

in

J.

S. La Fontaine

(ed.),

The

Interpretation

of

Ritual.

Essays

in

Honour

of

A.

I.

Richards

London, I972),

74.


18/20

RELIGION AND

MAGIC,

II

| 107

that

postulated by

Geertz's

simple

distinction between

literate and

illiterate,

and the

boundaries between

them are far

from clear-cut.

Anthropologists

end to

feel a

priori

hat some

coherence

must underlie

apparently conflicting

symbolisms,

just

as

a

grammar

is

known to

underlie human discourse.

But this

coherence will

not be found

for

early

modern

England

until some

immense technical

problems

have

been

solved.37

Meanwhile

we

must,

I

think,

continue to

question

whether

a

seventeenth-century

magical practice

(or

for that

matter

a

modern

superstition,

uch

as

a

refusalto

walk

under

ladders)

s

neces-

sarily

embedded

in

a

closed

system

of

ideas

in

the

way

that

Geertz

assumes.

I fearthattheserather

dogmatic

counter-assertionsre no substitute

for

the detailed discussion

which Geertz's

observations

deserve.

But

having

ventured thus

far

into

this rather

abstract

methodological

domain

I

would

like,

before

retreating

rom

it,

to

suggest

a few

con-

clusions

which

seem to

have

emerged

from this

exchange

of

views.

The first

is

that historians

must

recognize

that

much

of

their work

does

not

easily

lend

itself

to

cross-cultural

comparison

and

this,

I

confess, is

something

of which

I am

now much

better

aware than I

was).

This is

not to say that historicaldata shouldnot, where possible,be presented

in

a

form

suitable

for

such

comparison,

but

merely

that the

problems

of

such

comparison

are

much

greater

than

is

usually

appreciated.

It

remains

helpful

to

compare

material

aspects

of

different

civilizations;

and it

is

also

possible

(though

not

easy)

to

compare

different

kinds

of

social

structure.

But when one enters the domain

of

"culture"

and

ideas,

or indeed

that of

any

behavior

in

which

the

actor's

intentions

become

important,

then

the work

of

comparison

becomes

infinitely

more difficult,primarilybecauseof

the

absence of any agreed set of

universally

applicable

concepts.

It is

significant

that some

anthropol-

ogists

now

despair

of the

possibility

of

such

comparison

and

urge

their

colleagues

to concentrate

on

the

cultural

particularities

f

individual

societies38

while

those who continue to

offer

global

comparisons

aim

primarily

o isolate he natural

qualities

f thehuman mind

(for

example,

the

tendency

to

group

categories

n

sets of

binary

oppositions),

qualities

which are

so timeless and

general

as

to be

of

little historical

interest.

The essential

point,

as one cultural

anthropologist

puts

it,

is

"that

classifications

appropriate

o a

comparative

study

are on a different

37

It

must

be said

that none of the

sociological

and

anthropological

works to

which

Geertz

refers

(note 2I)

even

begins

to handle

variations on a

comparable

scale.

38

E.g.,

Needham,

introduction

to

Rethinking

Kinship

and

Marriage,

cviii.


19/20

108

|

KEITH THOMAS

conceptual

level,

serving

different

purposes,

from

the

categorical

distinctions

that

make best sense of

phenomena

within

a

particular

society."

39

My

second

conclusion

s

that

historians

are

going

to have

to come

to

terms with the methods and

approaches

f

structural

analysis.

When

I wrote

my

book,

the

anthropological

monographs

available were

mostly

those written

in

the

older

functionalist

radition

and

I

fear

that

Religion

and the Decline

of

Magic

reflectsthat

fact.

Uncertain

though

I

remain about the

methodology

involved,

I

welcome

the

prospect

of

more work

by

historianson

the hidden structure

of ideas.

I

differ

from

some

anthropologists,

however,

in

thinking

that attention

has to

be

paid

to the actualcontent

of

those ideas

no

less than

to their

structure.

Historians

will

continue to

be

more

interested n

local and

temporal

differences

of

content

rather

than

in

structural

imilarities.

My

third conclusion

is

simply

the

hope

that

the

next few

years

will

see

a sustained

onslaught

on

the

various

problems

which

my

book

leaves unresolved. The

task

is both

sociological

and

intellectual.

We

need

to

clarify

the

human context in

which

magical

practices

were

invoked and witchcraftaccusations

evied;

we

also

have

to

account for

the changing formation of mental structures.It would be wrong to

categorize

the

inquiry

as

primarily

ociological

or

primarily

ntellectual.

At

present

t

seems

obviously

both;

though

in

the

end we

may

have a

better

idea

of

whether and how far

intellectual

changes

are

related to

social ones.

To

that extent we are

dealing

with the

very

hardest

kind

of historical

problem,

and

one

which,

I

suspect,

neither

historiansnor

anthropologists

have

yet

directly

faced

up

to.

Finally,

there remain

my

own

mistakes

and

limitations. Even if

some of Geertz's criticisms are off the mark, she is right to detect

sundry

minor inconsistencies

of

approach

and

definition.40

But it is

fair

to

say

that

the

main

substanceof

Religion

and he

Decline

of

Magic

s

what

anthropologists

would call

ethnography

ratherthan

theory;

and

the

ethnography

at

least

is,

I

hope,

reasonably

sound.

I

therefore

take

comfort from

the

(possibly

sad)

fact that

humdrum

ethnography

tends

to

outlive even the

most

dazzling

theoretical

construction.

If I

were to

39

Ward H.

Goodenough,

in

Goodenough

(ed.),

Explorations

in

Cultural

Anthropology:

Essays in honorof GeorgePeter Murdock New York, I964), 9.

40

I

cannot

accept

her

charge (above,

74)

that,

in

crediting

some

medieval

theologians

with

a

symbolic

view

of

the

sacraments,

I

am

"projecting

onto

them an

interpretation

which

cannot

possibly

be

theirs."

In

fact,

such a

view,

though

frequently

overlaid,

had

been

in

circulation since

the

time

of

St.

Augustine

or

even earlier.

See,

e.g.,

C.

W.

Dugmore,

The

Mass and

the

English

Reformers

London,

I958),

5,

7, I3-I4,

78-79.


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RELIGION

AND

keith thomas - an anthropology of religion and magic ii

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