Sympathetic magic
In analogy spells or magic sympathy, and Sympathetic Magic the idea very many magical, religious or therapeutic practices and ideas underlying is known that between outwardly similar things there is a connection ( sympathy ) and therefore this influence. This idea is used in all cultures around the world. Typical examples would be that red and blood related, or phallic objects and male potency. Sympathetic ideas are often particularly in medical and therapeutic procedures and in dealing with natural hazards.
Practical application of this analog magic imagination and analogy magic in the strict sense is based on the idea that you can act on it with something like, an image or a symbol, which is represented by that image or symbol. For example, assume that a persistent connection between the cut hair and nails, or any bodily excretions of a person and the person even exist. Therefore, what one performs with the separated parts of the body (eg, burning ), done by sympathetic action with the person (eg, onset of fever ). A popular example is eg the so-called voodoo doll that is to represent an image of a man. After the presentation of the symbolic magic to pain and injury, which are added to the doll, meet the person whose image is the doll.
Likewise, there is the application of the principle is according to the between macrocosm and microcosm analogy or correspondence. Similarly, there is an action on a small scale, ie about with handbarer equipment, or special ceremonies, influence developments in the macrocosm, and thus affect about the weather, to ward off natural hazards, promote the harvest.
This sympathetic ideas often form over many centuries the dominant school of thought, as in cosmological theories, the Greek four- element theory, the Hermetic Philosophy, or the two traditional Chinese theories of Yin - Yang and the Five Elements theory in which each some basic principles a class among themselves of related issues form ( such as " yang is heaven, male, active, creative, dominant, etc. ", so that a representative of the Yang - Prizips all other influences ). Also elements of early medicine (early systems are about the doctrine of signatures or based on the four- element theory Humoralpathologie by Hippocrates and Galen ) and folk medicine, even in the veneration of saints in popular belief, by about the martyrdoms or passing temptations of the saints this as patron saint qualify, such as St. Anthony: " the temptations of Saint Anthony and the invocation against St. Anthony's fire " ( ergotism, ergot poisoning).
Related forms of symbolic magic are aspects of numerology.
In analogy magical concepts based also numerous forms of deriving Omen (character, in terms of the interpretation of the future, and their influence, a well-known example is the use of the system of the Yi Jing, the Chinese Book of Changes, or the classic Western Astrology ).
In his at that time very influential work, The Golden Bough ( The Golden Bough ) James George Frazer postulated the magic as a precursor of religion, which he considered magic essentially as sympathetic magic, while homoeopathic or imitative magic and transmission Magic ( contagious magic ) differed. The former captures ideas how to connect red objects to blood or yellow jaundice, the latter about the notion that a permanent connection between the cut hair and nails, or any bodily excretions of a person and the person himself would, where he is a law of similarity for the former, and a law of direct transmission of the latter formulated.