The Two Laws of Magic

[Magical Realist]

"If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. The former principle may be called the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion … from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not."---The Golden Bough, By Sir James Frazer

This struck me when I first read it. Is not this the entire astonishing implication behind such phenomena as quantum entanglement, synchronicity, the collapse of the wavefunction by consciousness, and clairvoyant knowledge based on the owner's possessions, clothes, photograph, etc. Einstein famously dismissed the possibility of quantum entanglement as "spooky action at a distance." And from what was known at that time, that was probably a proper judgement of it for the simple reason that such a phenomenon would violate the sacrosanct law of locality in physics--that causation only can occur between local events. That there is now solid evidence of this no longer being true, as well as a whole ancient cultural tradition that embodied just such an assumption about causal and influential events, seems to me more than a coincidence. We seem to be emeshed in a spaceless and timeless field of mutually effective forces and actions, not even limited to whatever happens locally. And the laws of its operations have been at least roughly figured out long before the advent of science. Spacetime is even being questioned at this point--a mere epiphenomenon of some underlying abstract higher-dimensional geometry. The oft repeated catchphrase of mysticism and the occult rings absolutely true--as above, so below. Everything really IS connected.

"Considering Abbe Breuil's dominant position in the field until his death in 1961, it is not surprising that his general interpretation of the meaning of cave art was widely adopted by experts and lay people alike. Breuil argued that the origin of the paintings lay in the masking practices of a people that depended for their survival on hunting big game. He imagined Paleolithic hunters donning masks and covering themselves in pelts of the animals they hunted in order to attract their prey. When spread out in a two-dimensional plane, the masks and pelts became flat images that could be painted or engraved on cave walls. Influenced by anthropological studies of the aboriginal Arunta people of Central Australia, Breuil claimed that the Paleolithic rock paintings, like those of the Arunta, were created in ceremonies intended to multiply game animals, as well as to ensure successful kills by means of magical images of slaughtered prey. Both categories of cave paintings were examples of what the 19th century anthropologist James Frazer called "sympathetic magic." Sympathetic magic operates by the principle of similarity. What is done to the properly made image of an object is done to that object itself, as when a sorcerer sticks pins in a doll resembling his victim in an effort to destroy him. By making images of animals penetrated by spears, the cave hunters were attempting to kill the animals the images resembled, or, more precisely, to render the game susceptible to being killing by hunting parties. Similarly, in creating multiple images of animals, the artists were attempting to increase the fertility of the migrating herds. It is true that a considerable degree of professionalism is evident in the cave paintings. The people who decorated the ancient rock galleries discovered techniques of mixing paint and applying it, of representing volume through shading, or suggesting movement or emotional content, and so on, techniques they shared with their colleagues and passed down to their successors. In short, they were the beneficiaries and creators of sophisticated artist traditions. Yet in spite of the high degree of aesthetic accomplishment many of the paintings and engravings exhibit, they are not examples of art for art's sake. In the view of Abbe Breuil, they are attempts to ensure survival by means of magic under the difficult circumstances of the Ice Age."--- https://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/C...Breuil.htm

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