In an attempt to account for human illness and adversity spirits and gods are frequently invoked, but there is a nearly universal belief that at least some of this misfortune is caused by individual humans using supernatural means. While being closely related terms in general usage, witchcraft and sorcery can be distinguished for anthropological purposes. Witches are believed to have innate psychic powers that may or may not be under their conscious control. This power is passed by heredity or implanted at an early age.Demonic possession is another explanation for a witch’s power. This demon may be born in the witch, passed from mother to daughter. Sorcerers, on the other hand, are ordinary persons practicing “black” magic using spells and physical objects. At times, witc and sorc are socially approved by the community and in some cultures witches may actually cure illness, not cause it. The term “witch” describes a ‘female sorceress or magician’ and is derived from the Old English term ‘wicce’. Some other explanations for misfortune include the will of god, karma, chance, ancestor spirits, and kismet.

There are many differences and similarities in witchcraft beliefs and many symbols used are culture specific. In Europe witches are thin, whereas in central Africa they are fat. There is a common thread in the belief that witches exhibit behavior that is the exact opposite of “normal” persons in a particular culture. They violate taboos against cannibalism, incest, and necrophagia. They eat and kill babies, they eat the souls of their victims, and they make sacrifices of blood. Sometimes they exhume bodies and feed on their flesh. Witches are nearly always acquaintances or relatives and are the scapegoats for illness and troubles in the community.

Witches are organized in covens and they meet for the Sabbath. The word coven is a variation of convent and comes from around 1500. The coven was the structure; the Sabbath was the meeting. Among the Navaho, groups would meet and be led by a chief witch. They might be shape-shifters. They could make themselves invisible or turn into animals or insects so they could slip through the cracks in houses to kill babies. One of the most common and oldest beliefs is that witches fly at night. They get to the Sabbath on flying broomsticks, horses walking backwards, or by the Devil sweeping them into the air. They might go to their meetings riding nocturnal animals. They could have magic “wands” or powerful medicines. Witches often meet at night. They often exploit assistants or familiars, including imps, black cats, rats, owls, beetles, and snails. Snakes, hyenas, and skunks were common familiars. In extreme cases the witches kept a zombie; a person killed by the witch and made to be her slave.

Witches were believed to be having sexual intercourse with familiars. Incubi and succubi, male and female demons respectively, would also have sexual relations with sleeping members of the opposite sex. Witches made love potions, capable of seducing ordinary members of the opposite sex. Witches were thought to harbor hate and greed, of being able to kill at a distance, and able to place foreign substances into other’s body. There are several explanations for the similarity of beliefs about witches cross-culturally. These include cultural diffusion, the existence of a world religion of witchcraft, and coincidence.

American “culture” imposes on us continual stress. Is the stress of having enough money to feed your family any different from ensuring that ancient crops grew? Is the stress of an angry and antagonistic mail carrier co-worker different from a neighbor that is a sorcerer? Stress and worry impose upon us all, whether American or Trobriand, a fear of what may come in the future. We feel out of control of our surroundings. So where are we to turn? The occult relieves some of the stress we experience. It provides answers to age-old questions. How do we Trobriand deal with the danger of the sea? How do I know if I should include my firing on my resume? The occult may provide answers. Who is to say that the lucky lottery winner didn’t get the numbers from a ouija board? Imagine the stress felt by a world leader. Has American foreign and domestic policy been shaped by the occult? Remember Nancy Regan’s astrologer?

The normal, competitive American is always seeking an edge. Seeking that edge in the occult may be the answer for some. Power is addictive, and if it works once, belief is reinforced. The occult will always be the refuge of some who feel downtrodden, left out, and stressed out. It will continue to thrive in America.

Treatment of disease is determined by its cause. Ethnomedicine may treat headaches with sucking, as the cause is an object intrusion created by magic. Western medicine may treat the same headache with synthetic anti-inflammatory drugs like naproxen, identified by its chemical signature C₁₄H₁₄O_3. Epilepsy may be treated in non-western society by performing a ceremony to find and retrieve a lost soul because it is caused by soul-loss, while in the west it is treated with anti-seizure drugs which inhibit the wild firing of neural impulses.

Because of the belief in supernatural causation of disease in ethnomedicine, treatment is very often of a spiritual nature. In the west, all causation is natural and treatments are with pharmaceuticals. In some cases the supernatural treatments are more effective than western treatment for the same disease, as in the case of mental illness. Cure rates using ethnomedicine are more than double those in the west. Because of the tenant of science that requires proof before belief, there are no supernatural causes of disease. It is most interesting to note, though, how effective retrieval of a soul can be in curing a disease. It is belief (religion) that may hold the key.

Geertz’s article, “Religion” is basically an historical summary of the anthropology of religion since the mid-nineteenth century. I do find it interesting that there is nothing mentioned of the musings of pre-nineteenth century thinkers. But then, “publishing” was not the way of many thinkers prior. Certainly in an area as ripe for speculation as this, there have been thinkers thousands of years old.

Geertz tells us of the development of the anthropology of religion from the late 19^th century onward. He begins with evolutionism and Tylor, certainly a great thinker of his day. His theory was intellectualistic. The belief in spirits was a way to rationalize death, dreams, and possession. “Belief in spiritual beings” was a way to order the world. Polytheism and monotheism grew from this animistic belief. The practice of religion became more sophisticated. “Cause”, “category”, and “relationship” began to emerge. The world is seen to have become more rational. The “primitives” began to arise from darkness into a more ordered and understandable world. This, it was argued by evolutionists, transformed into the more stable, regularized practices of “modern” religion. These were the “evolutionists” that were soon to be taken on by the anti-evolutionists. And the debate was on. But the debate was for naught, as neither side was persuasive.

The positivist movement against historicist thought began to take hold. Sigmund Freud took the front on a psychological approach, while Durkheim took another. The psychological approach argued that religious rituals and beliefs are derived from deep psychosocial wounds suffered in childhood, while the sociological approach argued for the integrity of social order as the root of religious beliefs. This theory argued that all sacred beliefs were derived from “inward social necessities. And this gave rise to “functionalism”, or “structuralism”.

Structuralism focused on the theory that religion was to “celebrate and sustain the norms” that society is built upon. Promulgated by Radcliff-Brown, the focus became the content of sacred “symbols” These symbols were connected to the people’s well-being. Social and natural needs were reflected in sacred symbols that merged both into a cultural “world view”. Yet this left all mystery, and fascination with these symbols unexplained. And the symbols themselves were vexing. Why one symbol for one culture and another for a neighboring culture? It was theorized that these symbols derived their importance from their “functional” utility in everyday life. It does appear that religious practices of “primitives” do reflect the moral, functional values of a culture. This is an important connection. But what about the emotional connection? What about the philosophical origins. We are still lost in the wilderness of an anthropological explanation.

And so we come to “semantic studies”. As of the sixties, there was no central theory of semantic studies, but Geertz postulates that one of the “most disarming” is to simply accept that expressions of the sacred are real. We need only track them, record them, and compare them. Yet the metaphysical questions are left aside. We are provided with an historical record, but there is no delving into the reasons why religious phenomena occur. What is the purpose? All metaphysical questions and considerations are left aside.

So what was the primitive mind thinking? Why establish this set of beliefs as opposed to that set of beliefs? Perhaps it was a result of a distinctive mode of thought; only now perceptible by a primitive mind. What was the “concept of meaning”? How could this effect further research? Was it possible that the primitive mind was capable of logical, original, and bold thought? Radin sought to establish that it was. Of course it was. The primitive mind was no different than our own. This has become nearly universally accepted. Malinowski, however, broadened the argument. He postulated that the primitive mind knew the distinctive lines between empirical, magic, and religious. The problem is that this isn’t even distinctive today. But who is to say the primitive mind was not more advanced than ours?

Levi-Stauss, working with classification systems, focused on how tribal peoples ordered their objects and their world. He focused on the symbolic structures and they way they are formulated and applied. The concrete images of these structures are of supreme importance. They form the connection between the everyday world and the supernatural. The use of good symbols from everyday life form a nexus that contributes to good thinking.

In the end, Geertz admits that all of these approaches, historical, psychological, sociological, and semantic, still can’t explain “religion”. He is convinced that a comprehensive approach, utilizing all of the above and more, is coming. I hope that it has.

The lecture notes for this week were very informative, and merged nicely with the Geertz article on the history of anthropology of religion. The notes reflect a present day “look back” on western civilization and the current thought existent today.

Using the word “we”, as I am a member of the descendants of the white imperialist ancestors, I decry the atrocities we have perpetrated on “primitive” peoples. Our excuses for slavery, ethnocide, and oppression are sorely lacking. I think the “civilized” peoples were the ones persecuted.

Dreaming and death are certainly phenomena to be pondered. How does that happen? It must be a separate part of us we don’t experience in the “real” world. Belief in souls, belief that all things have souls is a natural outgrowth of our inquisitiveness. My dog looks me in the eye, he sees me. He knows when I’m happy or sad. He has a soul. Animism is a given to me.

Neanderthals must have experienced the same thing. We all have, throughout history. “There is no society without religion”. But there are substitutes, functional-equivalents.  They fulfill the need to explain the universe, to explain our relationships, and to give us a meaning for life. Fundamentalism is a cancerous outgrowth of this need.

So what is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What is my purpose? Is this all chaos?

Chaos is a threat to the meaning of life. It is the experience of life without meaning. Bafflement, suffering, and ethical paradox all threaten our perception. Evil also threatens us. Why aren’t things the way they SHOULD be? Who did this to me anyway? My “religion” is supposed to tell me. Where are you, God?