Witchcraft and Sorcery: An Anthropological View

• Module aims: Understand differences between witchcraft & sorcery from an anthropological perspective, and articulate the associations that link women to the image of witches.
• Module focus: witchcraft among traditional non-Western groups, reflecting the work of E.E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (1937).
• The material may not align with contemporary neopagan beliefs like Wicca.
• All societies acknowledge the frailty & uncertainty of human existence and try to reconcile it.
• Societies seek explanations for:
• Suffering and evil
• Personal fault in misfortune
• Malevolent forces
• Western industrialized societies gain insights through advances in technology, medicine, and science; this knowledge is widely dispersed.
• Formal education increases opportunities leading to a more informed public which affects how people understand cause and effect through science and logic.
• Non-Western societies interpret illness, injury, and injustice from a different perspective.
• Non-Western societies often face extraordinary or paranormal experiences from a mystical viewpoint, attributing them to supernatural sources such as witchcraft & sorcery.
• Witchcraft & sorcery: Actions of responsible individuals cause misfortune, not coincidence or chance.
• Belief in witchcraft & sorcery is a cultural universal or was until recently.
• Societies attribute magical origins to bewildering events.

Witchcraft & Sorcery: A Comparison

• Witchcraft & sorcery terms appear to be synonymous.
• Terms are often used interchangebly to describe evil magic.
• Anthropology differentiates between the two practices.
• Anthropologists distinguish between witchcraft and sorcery, through the British Anthropologist, E.E. Evans-Pritchard.
• Witchcraft emphasizes characteristics of people, while sorcery emphasizes their practices.

Witchcraft

• Witchcraft is an inherent power that allows individuals, without magical charms or paraphernalia, to cause harm or misfortune.
• It relies on psychic powers, not manipulation of objects.
• It's extrasensory/telepathic, involving unconscious bad thoughts or projecting negative energy; often the person isn't aware they're causing harm.
• The "Evil Eye" (mal ojo) is an example, found in Mediterranean, Middle East, Africa & Latin America cultures.
• It involves an uncontrolled power causing sickness/illness through an intense stare/gaze.
• The phenomenon of the "evil eye" is typically associated with individuals/things that are considered out of the norm such as: strangers, dwarves, old women, menstruating women, & certain types of animals.
• Witchcraft is unconscious & innate, not requiring formal training or apprenticeship.
• Witches are believed to be markedly different than others in terms of ability.
• Witchcraft is invariably anti-social, causing unintentional harm or injury to the community.

Sorcery

• Sorcery involves the use of magical paraphernalia by an individual to harness supernatural power for evil ends.
• Sorcery involves a conscious attempt, a sorcerer intentionally seeks to bring about change through supernatural means (usually, to harm). Involves use/manipulation of objects/formulas “spells."
• Sorcerers acquire skill through learning spells and formulas, often from family or an established sorcerer.
• Sorcery is not always anti-social or illegitimate; it's sometimes used constructively to instill courage or bring justice.

Who are witches & sorcerers?

• Witches are considered the antithesis of proper behavior.
• Societies associate specific personality types with potential witches.
• Anti-social qualities like unsociability, isolation, moodiness, & stinginess are synonymous with being a witch.
• Unsocial behavior in witches:
• Arguing with neighbors
• Sexual promiscuity
• Stealing
• Talking to oneself
• Being outside at night
• People engaging in these social activities face suspicion.
• Women are more often labeled witches than men.
• Witch accusations are often found in patriarchal societies where men hold power resulting in a predisposition to favor the male gender.
• Women in marginal social positions in the context of patriarchal societies face limited expression, any attempt by women to subvert or assume authority can be seen as an illicit reversal of the social order (witchcraft).
• Ritual pollution manifests as misogyny & gynophobia, focusing on physiological/biological differences between genders.
• Women's bodies, menstruation, lactation, and giving birth are sources that are regarded as deeply threatening out of the norm, & polluting/repellent.
• Mary Douglas says emissions from menstrual cycles are threatening.
• Emissions have “traversed the boundaries of the body.”
• Women occupy a liminal state because emissions are from the body but no longer part of the body, they remind people of death.
• Physiological differences between males & females can be the reason why women are classified as witches in the aspect of sexuality.
• Connections between sex & witchcraft may be due to ritual pollution.
• Sexuality is a lustful activity associated with temptation & the devil.
• The Succubus, female figures who look for sexual relations, connect to nightmares/females/witches who "rode" unsuspecting males during the night.
• The nature of semen is connected to bone marrow/skull. Women were seen as dangerous because they could deplete a man's vital life force/intelligence.
• Women tend to conduct household tasks.
• Women are involved in acts such as cooking, washing, and raising children.
• Due to the fact women conduct such tasks, this gives them access to areas in life that leaves families vulnerable.
• Roles are also associated with polluting substances.
• During the Rennaisance period in Europe, the witch craze accused maidservants and midwives of witchcraft as they help with brith, raising children, preparing the dead for burial.
• Sorcerers are typically men
• The role of a shaman & sorcerer tend to be the same
• Sorcerers seem to not differ in behavior from their neighbors
• Sorcerers are seen as shrewd or cunning
• Clients hire sorcerers to cast spells or magic at particular enemies seek, in doing so seek revenge or retribution
• Or sorcerers may be hired to counter the spells of another sorcerer.

Social & Psychological Implications of Beliefs in Witchcraft/Sorcery

• Leveling Mechanism: Witchcraft belief systems maintain community equality while preventing dominance

Social

• Leveling mechanism: Witchcraft beliefs level wealth differences.
• Wealth belief system: Wealth is seen as not infinite.
• limited image of good: Wealth is believed to have been benefited due to others misfortune.
• Image of limited good and secret techniques: Rich have gained wealth by secret supernatural techniques.

Phsychological

• Outlet for hostility/justification for neglect, those who are socially marginal are accused of witches
• Those accusations take aim at people who are less likely to retaliate.
• Witch hunts/hysteria's powerful methods of creating social control give insight to the environment of danger/insecurity.
• An environment of insecurity affects people who are not likely targets.
• People do not want to affiliate with those who are accused of being witches.
• As a result people tend to behave in the conformity of social/cultural norms, those wo are not are labeled a witch.
• Mental illness is another justification of neglect.

Religion and Magic

• Lecture discusses 2 rituals that are essential to understanding how traditional societies interact with supernatural.
• Pre-industrial groups believe supernatural beings play a big role in their daily lives
• Rituals: How individuals within non-Western societies compel the supernatural to act on their behalf (magic)
• Rituals: Discovering information that can not be revealed through channels (divination)
• Magic is the use of rituals that compels the supernatural to act in a desired way.

Religion vs. Magic

• Early anthropologists believed that magic acted as a primitive system based by supernatural powers
• They compared it tot he formal religions of Europe such as; Christianity, Judaism
• Formal belief sytems emphasized petionary rituals.
• Petitionarty rituals involve supernatural aid taht increases likelihood of result.
• Petitionary rituals may involve thanksgiving which increase chances of the petition.
• Magic ritauls are seen as powerful and effective. Compared to petitionary rituals, they accomplish the desired result.
• Religion is merely and attempt to interact with the supernatural
• Magic essentially compels the supernatural
• Magic is one of a variety of religious ritual in nature.
• Falling across the continuum whose endpoints are petition and compulsion.
• Magic is near the compulsion end.
• Rituals are more coercive/compulsive when people feel an urgent need to have more control over events than they have by nonreligious means.
• Magic is more religious in nature when the outcome is crucial to the performers.
• Magic can be expressed in different ways.
• Religious use of magic should not be confused with stage magic (illusion)
• Magic of the religious variety is a ritual that the audience truly believes will work
• Magic thinking precursor to scientific thinking It indicates how it is important to control nature through understanding effect.
• The methods of magic however are not scientific.
• Magic tends to operate on 2 basic principles of thought, Sir James George Frazier - The Golden Bough
• Law of Similarity, if a person or object is like another or object Y, then action done to the person or object, X will affect Y
• Imitative Magic, imitating a desired result will cause it to occur
• Concerned with objects, fetishism- attribution of magical powers to objects.
• A fetish is an object worshipped because of its supernatural powers for example a voodoo doll Fetish confers command over supernatural forces Sometimes its transforms a person such as the case of a voodoo doll Other times it protects people like the case of a product that protects you from the world The product becomes a charm

Law of Similarity and Imitative Magic and Actions

Pueblo Indians conduct Rain Dances

Couvade

Where father imitates giving birth to the mother, so the mother experiences less labor

Example in United States

Children step over crackers

• Law of contact/Contagion, things once connected affect eachother, performing acts upon personal items is also effective to casting a spell.
• Items such as nail clippings, personal items and objects can all bring harm to a person.
• Law of contact applies to a person's real/true names or real/true names. If someone knows one's birth name, one is vulnerable to spell and sorcery.
• All socities have tecnhiques to deal with aspects of peoples lives that they lack control.

Functions of Magic

• According to Malinowski, people face magic with unecceraty and danger- they turn to magic.
• Trobriand Islanders used magic when engaging engaged in fishing and sailing out into the open sea because they did not control these items, and people turn to magic when they reach a gab in their lives.
• In other words, people call upon magic when they come to a gap in their knowledge of powers or practical control

Divination

• Divination involves contact the supernatural to answer a question regarding cause and effect
• The practice of Divination can be related to the word, divinity which indicated its relationship, it uses the supernatural to reach specific ends.
• Divination differs with magic emphasizing the seeking of knowledge instead of using supernatural to control events.
• Since the beginning of time, we have wanted to know about what is going to happen. Such as meteorlogical events. We have looked for signs or "indicators."
• Although the word "diviners" indicates magic, many socities do not have the powers fo shamans. Very often, the diviner operates abnoramly within society.

Varieties of Divination Techniques

• Dreams
• Presentiments
• Body Actions
• Ordeals (painful and life threatening tests that a person suspected of guilt undergoes)
• Though it is used to solve conflict situations, an innocent person m ay appear guilty. Though it can appear this way, ordeals seem to offer an explanation.
• Diviners typically make judgemnts to public opinion

Types of tests

• Dipping hands in hot oil or having poisoned forced on someone
• Possession is when someone is overtaken with spirits. Enables the diviner to reveal the future
• Necromancy is a similar technique to possession where one can seek signs from spirits of the dead.
• Animal Types: Knowledge that is drived from animlas
• Mechanical - a form of divination (the most comprehensive category of all) that is used to see answers by manipulating objects
• The Iching is a 3000 year book of changes

Nature Types

• In which answers are determined by looking for signs in nature
• American farmers traditionally organized their planting season according to the appearance of some signs

Miscellaneous

• A large category that is used as a part of divination techniques