The Golden Bough

The Golden Bough. A study of magic and religion, the original English edition The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, is a far more comprehensive comparative study of mythology and religion of the Scottish anthropologist James George Frazer ( 1854-1941 ). It was first published in 1890 in two volumes. The published 1906-1915 third edition consisted of twelve volumes. The title goes back to the epic Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil, in which a golden branch the hero Aeneas allows access to the underworld.

Frazer is an attempt by the Greek and Roman religious history through a comparative method in the sense of Edward Tylor and folklore research services to connect, of which Wilhelm Mannhardt plant forest and field cults most influenced him. He comes to the conclusion that the evolution of the human mind on the order of magic - Religion - based science. Magic is thus the attempt to control the people threatening environment and influence in his favor, and from this springs from the knowledge of supernatural powers whose benevolence applies to achieve it through religion. This evolutionary view is no longer represented in the relevant sciences, firstly because the science is no longer necessarily of meaning is attributed, are mixed on the other magic and religion often and beyond going Frazer emanating from a performance of individual outstanding individuals and the sociological perspective rejects.

Quotes

"In the end is what we call truth, but only the hypothesis which has proved to be the best. "

Effect story

The work influenced writers such as T. S. Eliot, Wyndham Lewis and DH Lawrence. The band The Doors used passages of the 60th Chapter in their song Not to Touch the Earth.

Reviews

" Frazer is much more savage than most of thesis savages. "

Expenditure

  • The Golden Bough, First Edition (1890, in 2 volumes ) ( edition of 1894: Vol 1 Vol 2)
  • The Golden Bough, Second Edition (1900, in 6 volumes )
  • The Golden Bough, Third Edition (1907-1915, in 12 volumes ), specifically: The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings (2 parts) Vol 1 Vol 2
  • Taboo and the Perils of the Soul digitized
  • The Dying God digitized
  • Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Studies in the History of Oriental Religion (2 parts) Vol 1 Vol 2
  • Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild (2 parts) Vol 1 Vol 2
  • The Scapegoat digitized
  • Balder the Beautiful. The Fire - Festivals of Europe and the Doctrine of the External Soul (2 parts) Vol 1 Vol 2
  • Bibliography and General Index digitized
  • Aftermath (Supplement, 1936) digitized
J. M. W. Turner Ludwig Wittgenstein The Hero with a Thousand Faces
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