ABSTRACT
Wherever magic is, or has been, practised, there the making of images for good or for evil appears as a known and familiar part of that magic. This is a universal practice, found all over the world, amongst backward and civilised peoples, in antiquity and onwards through time down to our own day. It is based on the age-old notion that there is a secret sympathy between things that resemble each other, or have been in contact with one another, and that, because of this, a man can be physically or mentally affected by the treatment given to a figure made in his likeness, or to some other object temporarily identified with him. Thus, an image made of wax, or clay, or wood, or almost any other material, could be used to cure its original of disease, or to induce love, or unite estranged friends, or enable a barren woman to bear a child; and equally, it could be employed to cause fatal illnesses, pains, insanity, sexual impotence, failure in a cherished enterprise, or any other form of human misery that malice could devise. Human nature being what it is, it is perhaps not surprising that all the evidence points to a far greater use of image-magic for purposes of the latter kind than for beneficial ends.
