Robert Ranulph Marett

“ In the higher religions, to be pure remains amongst the most laudable of aspirations, and, even though the ceremonial aversion of a former age has become moralized, and a purity of heart set up as the ideal, it is on “virtues of omission” that stress is apt to be laid, so that a timorous propriety is too often preferred to a forceful grappling with the problems of life. There are signs, however, that the religious consciousness has at length come to appreciate the fact that the function of routine in religion as elsewhere is to clear the way for action. ”

“ Thus the negative attitude of the observer of taboo involves a positive attitude of reverence from which it becomes in practice scarcely distinguishable. To keep a fast, for instance, is looked upon as a direct act of worship. It must be noted, too, that, whereas taboo as at first conceived belongs to the magico-religious circle of ideas, implying a quasi-physical transference of sacredness from what has it to one not fit to receive it, it is very easily reinterpreted as an obligation imposed by the deity on his worshippers. ”

“ Viewed analytically in its developed nature, magic is a wonder-working recognized as such, the core of the mystery consisting in the supposed transformation of suggested idea into accomplished fact by means of that suggestion itself. ”

“ Just as the main business of habit is to secure bodily equilibrium in order to allow free play to the mental life, so the chief task of routine in religion is to organize the activities necessary to its stability and continuance as a social institution, in order that all available spontaneity and initiative may be directed into spiritual channels. Such organization will naturally affect far more than the forms of worship ”

“ On the other hand, there is reason to believe that the magical spell proper is a self-contained and self-sufficient form of utterance, and that it lies at the root of much that has become address, and even prayer in the fullest sense. ”

“ The Moralization of Prayer.—When we come to consider the moral quality of the act of prayer, this contrast between the spirit of public and private religion is fundamental for all but the most advanced forms of cult. In its public rites the community becomes conscious of common ends and a common edification. ”

“ This proneness to impute efficacy to ritual is immensely reinforced by another social proclivity, more or less distinct in its ultimate nature, which causes the rite to rank as a divine ordinance or command. Naturally if the god manifests himself by means of certain forms, if he is reputed to have founded or revealed them, or if he has been known to evince displeasure at departures from them, there is strong reason to think that such forms are efficacious, and that in a sense of themselves, namely, by being what they are. ”

“ The law observed by a primitive religious community abounds in negative precepts, and if early religion tends to be a religion of fear it is because the taboo-breaker provides the most palpable objective for human and divine sanctions. ”

“ From Spell to Prayer.—Of course to address and entreat a fellow-being is a faculty as old as that of speech, and, as soon as it occurred to man to treat sacred powers as fellow-beings, assuredly there was a beginning of prayer. We do not know, and are not likely to know, how religion first arose, and the probability is that many springs went to feed that immense river. Thus care for the dead may well have been one amongst such separate sources. It is natural for sorrow to cry to the newly dead “Come back!” ”

“ In magic a suggestion is made orally, or by dramatic action, or most often in both ways together, that is held ipso facto to bring about its own accomplishment. A certain conditionality attaches to the magical operation, inasmuch as each magician is subject to interference on the part of other magicians who may neutralize his spell by a counter spell of equal or greater power; nevertheless, the intrinsic tone is that of a categorical assertion of binding force and efficacy. ”

“ Thereupon assimilation is likely to take place to one or another leading type of rite—for instance, sacrifice or prayer. At these higher stages there is more need than ever for the expert in the shape of the priest, in whose hands ritual procedure becomes more and more of a conscious and studied discipline, the naïve popular elements being steadily eliminated, or rather transformed. Not but what the transference of ritualistic duties to a professional class is often the signal for slack and mechanical performance, with consequent decay of ceremonial. ”

“ But, whilst ritual at least represents routine, it tends, historically speaking, to have a far deeper significance for the religious consciousness. A recurrent feature of religion, which many students of its phenomena would even consider constant and typical, is the attribution of a more or less self-contained and automatic efficacy to the ritual procedure as such. ”

“ Silent Prayer.—A small point in the history of prayer, but one that has an interesting bearing on the subject of its relation to magic, is concerned with the custom of praying silently. Charms and words of power being supposed to possess efficacy in themselves are guarded with great secrecy by their owners, and hence, in so far as prayer verges on spell, there will be a disposition to mutter or otherwise conceal the sacred formula. ”

“ Secondly, there is the tendency to identify such a self-accomplishing act of worship with its objective expression in the ritual that for purposes of mutual understanding makes the body of worshippers one.
The Magical Element in Ritual.- Exactly similar tendencies - to impute efficacy, and to treat the ritual procedure as the source of that efficacy - are typically characteristic of magic, and their reappearance in religion can hardly be treated as a coincidence, seeing that magic and religion would appear to have much in common, at any rate during the earlier stages of their development. ”

“ It is the magic power, virtue or grace residing in, and proceeding from, the material object - a power the communicability of which constitutes the whole working hypothesis of the magico-religious performance - that is valued in those cases where native opinion can be tested. ”

“ Unconscious evolution is perhaps the more active factor in primitive times; imitation is never exact, and small variations amount in time to considerable changes. On the other hand, there is also deliberate innovation. In Australia councils of the older men are held day by day during the performance of their ceremonies, at which traditions are repeated and procedure determined, the effect being mainly to preserve custom but undoubtedly in part also to alter it. ”

“ If, however, the worshipper place his god on a level with himself, so far at any rate as to make him to some extent dependent on the service man contracts to render him, then genuine prayer tends to be replaced by a mere bargaining, often conjoined with flattery and with insincere promises. This spirit of do ut des will be found to go closely with the gift-theory of sacrifice, and to be especially characteristic of those religions of middle grade that are given over to sacrificial worship as conducted in temples and by means of organized priesthoods. ”

“ Even in the highest religions, where orthodoxy is the main requirement, and ritual is held merely to symbolize dogma, there is a remarkable rigidity about the dogma that is doubtless in large part due to its association with ritual forms many of them bearing the most primeval stamp. ”

“ Finally we may note in this connexion that in advanced religion, at the point at which prayer is coming to be conceived as communion, silent adoration is sometimes thought to bring man nearest to God. ”

“ At all stages of religious development, however, and more especially in the case of the more primitive types of cult, prayer as thus understood occurs together with, and shades off into, other varieties of observance that bear obvious marks of belonging to the same family. ”

“ The nature of religion, as the sociologist understands it, is bound up with its congregational character. In order that inter-subjective relations should be maintained between fellow-worshippers, the use of one or another set of conventional symbols is absolutely required ”

“ There is little or no felt opposition between processes implying control and processes of a propitiatory character in the religion of the Pueblo Indians, which American ethnologists have been so successful in expounding, or, to mount to a still higher level, in the Vedic, Assyrian or Egyptian cults. ”

“ The verbal employment of vocatives and of the second person may have little or no personifying force, serving primarily but to make the speaker's wish and idea intelligible to himself. When the rustic talks in the vernacular to his horse he is not much concerned to know whether he is heard and understood ”

“ As regards its growth, there is hardly a known tribe without its elaborate body of magico-religious rites. In the exceptional instances where this feature is relatively absent (the Masai of E. Africa offer a case in point) , we may suspect a disturbance of tradition due to migration or some similar cause. Thus there is always a pre-existing pattern in accordance with which such evolution or invention as occurs proceeds. ”

“ These considerations may help towards the understanding of a second class of cases, namely forms of implicit address shading off into unaddressed formulas. Wishings, blessings, cursings, oaths, vows, exorcisms, and so on, are uttered aloud, doubtless partly that they may be heard by the human parties to the rite, but likewise in many cases that they may be heard, or at least overheard, by a consentient deity, perhaps represented visibly by an idol or other cult-object. ”

“ As we have seen, such meaning is usually acquired ex post facto, and typical forms of rite are used for many different purposes; so that attempts to differentiate are likely to beget more equivocations than they clear up. The fact is that comparative religion must be content to regard all its classifications alike as pieces of mere scaffolding serving temporary purposes of construction. ”

“ Lastly, the degree of dependency on human goodwill attributed to the power addressed may be so great that, instead of diplomatic politeness, there is positive hectoring, with dictation, threats and abuse. Even the Italian peasant is said occasionally to offer both abuse and physical violence to the image of a recalcitrant saint ”