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Sympathetic Magical Beliefs and Kosher Dietary Practice: The Interaction of Rules and Feelings
Author(s) -
NEMEROFF CAROL,
ROZIN PAUL
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1525/eth.1992.20.1.02a00040
Subject(s) - feeling , citation , psychology , library science , sociology , psychoanalysis , social psychology , computer science
The two major laws of sympathetic magic, the "law of similarity" and the "law of contagion," were considered to be universal laws of thought by the anthropologists who identified and elaborated them (Tylor 1974[1871]; Frazer 1959[1922]; and Mauss 1972[1902]. The law of similarity holds that things that resemble one another at a superficial level (e.g., in appearance or in some distinctive feature or features) also share more fundamental properties. It can at times involve a conflation of the representation of an object with the object itself (as Mauss summarized: the image equals the object) and/or an assumption that similar things can influence each other ("like produces like"). An example of the law of similarity at work is the common magical practice of making a doll to represent one's intended target (e.g., an enemy) and damaging it in some way to bring