ABSTRACT
The idea of the primacy of ritual vis-a-vis myth is dogmatically ar gued by W. Robertson Smith, well known as a scholar of religions and of Semitic history. However, it is Frazer who is often seen as the uncon
tested founder of the ‘ritual school’ in this century, even though many of his ideas were in fact inspired by Robertson Smith.43 Frazer is primarily interested in studying myths that are linked to seasonal cycles.44 He is part of the English anthropological tradition associated with Lang and Tylor and continued to believe in the theory of survivals for most of his life. He does, however, bring many innovations to Tylor’s theory of animism, suggesting that magic is a sign of an earlier stage of human thought in which people addressed themselves not to personified spirits, as in animism, but to impersonal forces.
