ABSTRACT

Besides gods, primitive societies are all supposed to have had magic. Freud, though he does not separate magic sharply from religion, does draw a sharp distinction between magic and sorcery, and he defines both without explicit appeal to concepts of physical science. Magic flourishes in areas where expertise is sought and it is unclear whether success or failure is more due to physical or to psychological factors. Anthropology needs a different way of not being natural, which depends on the modern concept of a physical law. Anthropologists project their own discarded ideas on other people. And missionaries who have heeded the call to 'preach to all nations' find it easier, when they try to bring their religion to an alien society, to suppose that the alien society has an alternative, false religion than that it has none.