Comparative Religion
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780217462464
Paperback|9780217462464
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III MAGIC Against the calamities and misfortunes which may befall the community it is conceived to be the business of the community to provide, by appeals to the powers worshipped by the community. Where, as in Japan and in Israel, the relation of man to the gods was conceived to be in the nature of a covenant between them, it was the community that was a party to the covenant, and not any individual member of the community; and the contractual obligation of the gods bound them to avert calamity from the community, but not to protect any particular person from misfortune that affected him alone. Against personal misfortune, such as illness or death, it was the business of the individual to guard himself. When, as in the earlier stages of human evolution, everything that called for explanation was explained by regarding it as having been done by somebody, the illness or death of a person was regarded as having been brought about by somebody. The author of the calamity, therefore, was a person actuated by malignity and having the power tocause illness or death. In looking for the author of the calamity, then, it was necessary to look for some one who was the sort of person who would be expected to be guilty of that sort of thing. Some such person is always to be found by those who expect to find him; and he is some one who is marked out by a strangeness of person or a forbidding manner or an evil eye, which creates the expectation of strange or malevolent actions on his part. He or she is believed to possess strange powers, that is to say, is regarded as a magician or witch; and on him lights suspicion, when the illness or death of a person sets those near to the sufferer wondering who has brought the calamity about. The suspected person may feel a certain satisf...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217462464 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217462464 |
| Weight | 0.35 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.24 In |
| List Price | $15.94 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 100 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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