Paper 88 Overview: Fetishes, Charms, and Magic

The concept of a spirit entering an inanimate object, animal, or human being represents one of the oldest and most widespread religious beliefs in human history. This doctrine of spirit possession, known as fetishism, did not involve worshipping the object itself but rather the spirit believed to reside within it. These beliefs evolved from simple ghost-worship to increasingly complex systems of spirit interaction and manipulation through objects, words, and rituals.

As human civilization developed, fetishes expanded from simple objects to elaborate systems of totems, magic, and charms aimed at controlling the spirit environment. This evolutionary step in religious thinking served as an important bridge between primitive superstition and more advanced forms of religious expression. While modern science has largely replaced magical thinking, many aspects of fetishism remain embedded in contemporary religious practices and cultural traditions, showing how deeply these concepts influenced human development.

The concept of spirits entering objects, animals, or humans represents one of humanity's oldest and most respected religious beliefs. This doctrine of spirit possession, known as fetishism, didn't involve primitive people worshipping the fetish object itself; rather, they logically worshipped the spirit they believed resided within it. This distinction is important for understanding early religious development.

Initially, the spirit of a fetish was believed to be the ghost of a dead person, but as religious thinking evolved, higher spirits became associated with fetish objects. Eventually, fetish worship expanded to incorporate all primitive concepts about ghosts, souls, spirits, and the belief in demon possession, creating a comprehensive system for explaining the supernatural world and its interactions with physical reality.

Primitive humans naturally sought to transform extraordinary objects or experiences into fetishes, with chance playing a significant role in determining what became sacred. When someone recovered from illness after a particular event occurred, both the event and any associated objects might be converted into fetishes. Dreams were particularly influential in creating fetishes, as were celestial events like shooting stars and meteors, which were interpreted as visiting spirits arriving on earth.

The earliest fetishes were distinctive pebbles, and "sacred stones" have been sought throughout human history, with some like the Kaaba and the Stone of Scone surviving to modern times. Fire and water ranked among the earliest fetishes, with fire worship and belief in holy water continuing to the present day. Other important fetish categories included trees, plants, fruits, animals (especially those resembling humans), certain days of the week, and numbers like thirteen, which was considered unlucky. Body parts such as hair, nails, and even saliva were viewed as powerful fetishes, with chiefs' fingernail trimmings being highly prized and the umbilical cord becoming humanity's first toy and necklace when preserved and decorated.

Ghosts were believed to prefer inhabiting objects that belonged to them during their physical lives, which explains why ancient people revered the skeletal remains of their leaders. Even in modern times, people make pilgrimages to the tombs of great figures, demonstrating the enduring power of this belief. Religious relics represent an evolved form of fetishism, attempting to elevate primitive beliefs to a more dignified position within modern religious systems.

Sacred places like shrines and temples originated as fetish locations, often because the dead were buried there. Words eventually became powerful fetishes, especially those considered to be divine utterances. This led to sacred books becoming what the text describes as "fetishistic prisons" constraining spiritual imagination. The commandment against creating images, intended by Moses to control fetish worship, ironically became a supreme fetish itself, limiting artistic expression throughout history. Doctrinal fetishism has frequently led to intolerance and superstition, with humanity only recently beginning to escape these limitations through developing greater respect for wisdom and truth.

Fetishism pervaded all primitive religious systems, from the earliest belief in sacred stones through the development of idolatry, cannibalism, nature worship, and eventually totemism. Totemism represented a unique combination of social and religious practices based on the belief that respecting a particular animal of supposed biological origin would ensure the food supply for the group.

Totems functioned simultaneously as group symbols and tribal gods, effectively personifying the clan as a whole. This represented one phase in the attempt to socialize otherwise personal religious expression. Over time, the totem evolved into the flag or national symbol of modern peoples, showing how ancient concepts transformed into contemporary cultural practices. The medicine bag, a pouch containing items believed to be infused with spirit power, was carefully protected by shamans as a symbol of their authority, much as modern nations protect their flags from touching the ground, demonstrating the psychological continuity between primitive fetishism and modern national symbolism.

Civilized humans approach their material problems through scientific methods, while primitive people attempted to solve what they perceived as problems in a spirit environment through magic. Magic represented the technique for manipulating the spirit world, whose activities were believed to explain otherwise inexplicable events. It constituted an effort to obtain voluntary cooperation from spirits or to coerce involuntary spirit assistance through fetishes or more powerful spirits.

Magic and sorcery served two primary purposes: gaining insight into the future and favorably influencing the environment - objectives identical to those of modern science. The progression from magic to science has occurred not through meditation or rational thought but through long, painful experience as humanity gradually backed into truth after beginning in error. Early superstition functioned as the mother of scientific curiosity, containing the progressive emotional elements of fear plus curiosity and the driving power that would eventually lead to the desire to understand and control the environment through systematic investigation rather than supernatural manipulation.

Since anything connected to the human body could potentially become a fetish, early magical practices frequently involved hair and fingernails. Privacy surrounding bodily functions developed from the fear that enemies might obtain and misuse bodily excretions in harmful magic. Primitive people carefully buried all bodily waste, avoided public spitting, and covered saliva when it couldn't be avoided, not from hygienic understanding but from fear of magical retaliation.

Magical charms were crafted from a remarkable variety of materials including human flesh, tiger claws, crocodile teeth, poison plant seeds, snake venom, and human hair. The bones of the dead were considered especially magical, as was dust from footprints. People strongly believed in love charms and considered blood and bodily secretions capable of ensuring romantic influence. Images and effigies were used effectively in magic, as practitioners believed that treating these representations well or poorly would affect the actual person. Other powerful magical items included the milk of black cows, black cats, staffs or wands, drums, bells, and knots, revealing the extensive symbolic system that underpinned magical practices.

Magic was performed using wands, elaborate "medicine" rituals, and incantations, typically with the practitioner working unclothed. Women outnumbered men among primitive magicians, creating the original aristocracy as they were exempt from tribal restrictions. In magical practice, "medicine" referred to mystery rather than treatment, and primitive people never treated themselves but relied entirely on specialists in magical arts.

Magic had both public and private dimensions. Public magic, performed by medicine men, shamans, or priests, was intended to benefit the entire tribe. Private magic, dispensed by witches, sorcerers, and wizards, served personal or selfish purposes, often as a coercive method to harm enemies. The concept of dual spiritism—good and bad spirits—led to beliefs in white and black magic. Word combinations and ritual chants were considered highly magical, eventually evolving into prayers as religion developed. Despite modern scientific progress, many superstitions persist in contemporary language and culture, with terms like "spellbound," "ill-starred," and "astonished" revealing our linguistic connection to magical thinking, while some people continue to believe in concepts like luck and astrology.