Religion, magic and worldview

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Lecture 17

• Religion, magic and worldview

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Religion

• All societies have beliefs
• Any set of attitudes, beliefs, practices as
  pertaining to supernatural power

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Natural and the supernatural

• Not all languages or cultures make such
  distinction.
• Depends on how is natural and supernatural
  determined by a society. (E.g. illnesses)

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In some societies

• Religious is embedded in aspects of everyday
  life.
• Difficult to separate religious from economic or
  political aspects
• Such societies have no-full time priests, no
  purely religious activities.

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Universality of religion

• Religious beliefs are found in all contemporary
  societies. Signs of religious beliefs date back
  at least 60,000 years ago.
• Herodotus (V BC) made fairly objective
  comparisons among the religions during his
  travels.

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• Speculations about which religion is superior is
  not an anthropological concern
• Interest to anthropologists is why it varies from
  society to society.
• Why do people need religion?

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Reasons of origin of religion

• Religions are created by humans in response to
  certain universal needs or conditions
• - need for intellectual understanding
• - reversion to childhood feelings
• - anxiety and uncertainty
• - need for community

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The need to understand

• Edward Tylor in Primitive Culture (1871)
  religion originated in peoples speculation about
  dreams, trances, and death.
• Beliefs in souls was the earliest form of
  religion animism. Humans developed religions in
  order to explain things.

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Reversion to childhood feelings

• Sigmund Freuds theory of a dominating tyrannical
  man. Sons who killed and ate him later
  experienced remorse and guilt. Expressed this
  guilt by prohibiting the killing of a totem
  animal.
• When adults feel out of control or in need, they
  may unconsciously revert to their infantile and
  childhood feelings. They may then look to gods or
  magic to do what they cannot do for themselves,
  just as they looked to their parents to take care
  of their needs.
• Freud humans would eventually outgrow the need
  for religion

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Anxiety and uncertainty

• Bronislaw Malinowski people in all societies are
  faced with anxiety and uncertainty. Religion is
  born from the universal need to find comfort in
  inevitable times of stress.
• Carl Jung, Erich Fromm and others viewed religion
  more positively than Freud relieves anxiety and
  is therapeutic. Jung suggested that it helps to
  resolve their inner conflict and attain maturity.

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The need for community

• Some social scientists believe that religion
  springs from society and serves social rather
  than psychological needs.
• Social forces public opinion, custom, law seen
  as mysterious forces made people to believe in
  gods and spirits.
• Emile Durkheim religion arises out of the
  experience of living in social groups. Religious
  belief and practice affirm a persons place in
  society, enhance feeling of community and provide
  confidence.

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Durkheim society is the object of worship

• Durkheim explained totemismnothing inherent in a
  lizard, rat, or any other animal that would make
  them sacred for aboriginal groups.
• Totem therefore must be a symbol.
• People are organised into clans. Totem is the
  focus of the clans religious rituals and
  symbolises both the clan and the clans spirits.

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Ways to interact with supernatural

• Prayer (spontaneous, memorised, private, public,
  silent, spoken)
• Physiological experience
• Simulation
• Feasts and sacrifices
• Can involve hallucinogenics or alcohol, social
  isolation or sensory deprivation, etc.

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Religious change as revitalisation

• Cargo cults, nativistic movements, messianic
  movements, millenarian cults.
• What may explain such cults? Important factor
  existence of oppression. Relative deprivation.
  Times of stress.
• People resort to magic in situation of chance,
  when they have limited control over the success
  of their activities.

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Shamanism

• Shamanism is fragmented. There is no doctrine, no
  church.
• Shamanism refers to the worldview, philosophy of
  the people. People who practice shamanism believe
  in supernatural spirits and beings that affect
  their lives.
• It is not a single form of religion. But a
  cross-cultural form of religious sensibility and
  practice.

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What is a shaman?

• The word originates from the Evenk language to
  designate a religious specialist.
• Shamans were considered to be doctors, priests,
  workers and mystics.

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• Shaman is a chosen by spirits person. Shaman is
  endowed with abilities to see, heal, and
  communicate in a specific way are given to a
  shaman.
• He has ability to communicate with the spirits
  and negotiate the recovery or see the cause of
  the problem.