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However using the word 'magic' alongside 'religion' is one method of trying to understand the supernatural world, even if some other term can eventually take its place. [4] It is a postulate of modern anthropology, at least since early 1930s, that there is complete continuity between magic and religion. Robert Ranulph Marett (1932) said:
The magic-religion-science triangle developed in European society based on evolutionary ideas i.e. that magic evolved into religion, which in turn evolved into science. [205] However using a Western analytical tool when discussing non-Western cultures, or pre-modern forms of Western society, raises problems as it may impose alien Western ...
The history of magic extends from the earliest literate cultures, who relied on charms, divination and spells to interpret and influence the forces of nature. Even societies without written language left crafted artifacts, cave art and monuments that have been interpreted as having magical purpose.
The relationship between religion and myth depends on what definition of "myth" one uses. By Robert Graves's definition, a religion's traditional stories are "myths" if and only if one does not belong to the religion in question. By Segal's definition, all religious stories are myths—but simply because nearly all stories are myths.
The occult (from Latin occultus 'hidden, secret') is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysticism.
In English, Vodou's practitioners are termed Vodouists; [45] in French and Haitian Creole, they are called Vodouisants [46] or Vodouyizan. [47] Another term for adherents is sèvitè (serviteurs, "devotees"), [48] reflecting their self-description as people who sèvi lwa ("serve the lwa "), the supernatural beings that play a central role in Vodou.
either that religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage; or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, saw religion as an exaptation or a spandrel, in other words: religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons.
In his early 4th century BC Cyropaedia, Xenophon depicts the magians as authorities for all religious matters (8.3.11), [18] and imagines the magians to be responsible for the education of the emperor-to-be. Apuleius, a Numidian Platonist philosopher, describes magus to be considered as a "sage and philosopher-king" based on its Platonic notion ...