The Magic | Anthropology Optional for UPSC PDF Download

Magic
Sir James George Frazer, a leading British anthropologist in the beginning of the present century is one of the first to define magic. According to him magic is the technique designed to achieve specific goals by manipulating the supernatural.
Frazer emphasizes that magic is a technique i.e., it is an aspect of technology. This technology involves certain skills and competence for manipulating or controlling the supernatural i.e., it includes certain actions that can comple the supernatural to act in some particular and intended way. Supernatural is that which is empirically unknowable and is believed to exist beyond the visible universe. It includes supernatural powers or forces. The specific goal's may be the ensuring of good crops, the replenishment of game, the fertility of domestic animals, the bringing of rains, the avoidance and cure of illness in humans or the harming of crops, the creation of scarcity of game, the rendering of domestic animals’ infertile, the creation of famine arid the creation of illness and death in humans i.e., magic is either meant for good or meant for evil purposes.
Brownislaw Kaspar Malinowski offered yet another definition of magic in the second quarter of the present century. According to him magic consists of the superstitious acts and beliefs through which individual try to control nature where there technology and natural techniques are insufficient.
Like Frazer, Malinowski also emphasizes that magic is an aspect of technology. Like Frazer, Malinowski also argues that Controlling the supernatural forces but not supernatural beings alone comprises magic. Both Frazer and Malinowski argue that magic is primitive science because it comes into existence when the rational techniques insufficient to control natural phenomena. While Frazer argues that magic came into existence earlier than religion. Malinowski said that magic came into existence when people tried to alleviate anxiety in the face uncertainty.
Malinowski explains his definition, with the help of the magical practices of Trobriand Islanders. According him the Trobriand Islanders have knowledge concerning their environment. They grow a variety of crops. They skillfully adjust their agricultural activities to the varying local situations. They build canoes and undertake long voyages for trade and fishing. Yam gardens made with the best of care may be blasted by one or another natural phenomenon such as a storm and a heavy rain. Sudden storms may drive a canoe far off course or even capsize it. In such situations the Trobriand Islanders know that their knowledge about nature is limited and that there are factors beyond their control. Neither their considerable .knowledge of the crops can protect their crops from the dangers of unexpected storms and  winds nor can their commendable  navigation abilities save them from the dangers of unexpected winds and other natural calamities. Therefore in all such helpless situations the Trobriand Islanders take recourse to magical acts. Malinowski theorized that the function of these magical acts is to alleviate anxiety in the face of uncertainty. Hence he says magic refers to the acts and beliefs through which human being try to control nature when their technology and rational techniques are insufficient Malinowski thus argues that the belief supernatural forces other than supernatural beings and procedures for the manipulation of those forces and the result of applying such procedures is magic.
Since the days of Bronislaw Malinowski, the definition of magic has undergone several modifications. Some anthropologists define it as "beliefs and practices seeking to control events through compulsive formulae thought to be influencing the supernatural world" or "a ritual practice applying the belief that supernatural powers can be compelled to act in certain ways for good or evil purposes by recourse to certain specified formulae" or the "practice of specifically prescribed procedures for manipulating supernatural power, which are assured to have predictable results".