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7 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA sor bonne Boroery and Soothsaying
is a later phenomenon in development, is allied to Magic (q.v.), is found alongside of religion, but in it religion itself is not to be found. Indeed, sorcery tends to drown out religion or to drive it into the background; the more meager religion is, the more luxuriant are the parasitic growths of sorcery. Yet it is a fact that the sorcerer or Shaman (q.v.) often seeks power through a loftily conceived divinity regarded as good, aiming to subject lower and ill-disposed spirits. Magic is sorcery technically developed. Among races of the lower order there is often a science of secrets to which only the consecrated are admitted. Sorcery also has relations with Divination (q.v.), and the professions of sorcerer and diviner are often plied by the same person, who claims to have insight into the unseen and to be able to control more or less the course of events.
Among primitive peoples, then, sorcery is especially at home. Ignorance of nature leads to the belief in the possibility of supernatural operations in the sphere of man. The sorcerer covers himself with a veil of secrecy, speaks in dark figures, performs acts that are outr6, thus giving
z. Among the impression of secret power and in- Primitive scrutable doings. The results expected Races. from the exercise of these activities cover the field of man's needs and de sires; moreover, evil spirits are warded off or con ciliated, the cooperation of good spirits is gained. There are sorcerers and counter-sorcerers; the dan gerous exerciser of these powers must be mastered by a more powerful one. The method is not to sub ject oneself to the will of God, as in true religion, but magic works as a concurrent with religion, and is thus irreligious and irrational. It is regarded in two ways-as a serious crime, when it produces damage; and as a high art when it averts injury and brings a blessing. To the user it seems not at all wrong to injure an enemy by sorcery, though it is a crime to use it against a friend or blood brother. Among the vicious means of sorcery, as regarded by the most varied peoples, is the evil eye, which is be lieved by many to be able to affect with illness and death those on whom it is cast, while the possessors are supposes, as in Africa, to meet in the desert to counsel how they shall effect their purposes. So the suspicion regarding vampires as the cause of death and illness is a concomijant of sorcery. From this " illegitimate " use of these means is distinguished a " legitimate " method, which takes especially the form of protecting from evil powers and the increase of the natural good of man in life-well-being, fruit fulness, and possessions-having the ability to ward off evil spirits. Charms and potions are employed, which, however, require for their proper use the ad vice of the expert. In pestilences and epidemics the counsel of these experts is needed to define the causes, and in case of guilt to determine the blame. Thus a connection is made with soothsaying and the deliverance of oracles, while the Ordeal (q.v.) is under the guardianship of this branch in the preparation of potions. Through these means the sorcerers in some regions, as in Africa, wield enor mous power and influence, especially as sickness is regarded as the work of demons, whose work must be undone through the counter-sorcerer or the medi-cine man. One of the means employed by this class is the wprd of power, which binds to or looses from evil, and this word only the sorcerer knows and can turn to a hundred uses. The formula is usually an unintelligible or irrational expression, the names of divine and demonic powers being included and their assistance invoked. At; times the effigy of the person to whom evil is to be done is treated as the person himself is expected to suffer [after the manner of sympathetic magic; see COMPARATIVE RELIGION, VI., 1, a, § 5; other methods of using magic are described in that place]. The formula used has often a similarity to prayer, but it is utterly without ethical relations and has in mind the arbitrary will of the sorcerer, not submission to deity. A similar difference exists between prophecy and soothsaying; prophecy depends upon the will of God, soothsaying contemplates man's self-chosen purposes and employs not inspiration but certain means of attaining its ends, such as the Lot (q.v.), the interpretation of various natural phenomena, and the like, a set of rules being formulated to this purpose. The spirits of the dead are also evoked. See also DREAM.
Sorcery appears also as a custom of the civilized peoples of antiquity, and shows a great tenacity of persistence even in connection with a grade of culture with which it is not in harmony. In course of time sorcery becomes a complicated art, and its bonds are dissolved only by, the ad-
3. Among Vance of thought, as when magic in Civilized illness gives way to medicine, astrol- Peoples. ogy to astronomy, and the like, though superstitious practises persist with real advance in knowledge (see SUPERSTITION). There seems to remain a feeling that external and cor poreal affairs are governed by the unseen, and irra tional elements and practises abide, even, in partial connection with religion. This is especially true of peoples like the Chinese, among whom a certain stage of civilization has been. reached, with a result ing stagnation. The religion of early people had magical elements and therein showed their heathen character. The relation to deity is not purely re ligious, but is influenced by external factors. Thus, in Babylonia (q.v.) while such literature as the " penitential psalms " shows high ethical conscious ness and a realization of sin and of repentance, the usages reveal magic practises, burning of spices, and the like. So in Egypt (q.v.), the " Book of the Dead " contains a chapter dealing with purity of heart and conscience as the. essential condition of happiness after death, yet the most of the book is taken up with directions of magical character di recting the soul in its course. Similarly Zoroas trianism (see ZOROAaTER, ZOROASTRIANISM) is full of ethical truths, yet magical conceptions abound and Ahura Mazda comes to earth to act as priest of sorcery. Similar facts meet One in India. As among primitive peoples, so among the more advanced exists the idea of an illegitimate sorcery, which is a crime. Thus the Twelve Tables of the Roman law contained enactments against these practises, as did the Cornelian law against assassins and poison ers; the possession of books on magic was a crime (cf. for a strong passage the sixth satire of Juvenalj.
