The Urantia Book
PAPER 88
FETISHES, CHARMS, AND MAGIC
Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.
88:0.1 THE concept of a spirit's entering into
an inanimate object, an animal, or a human being, is a very
ancient and honorable belief, having prevailed since the
beginning of the evolution of religion. This doctrine of spirit
possession is nothing more nor less than fetishism. The
savage does not necessarily worship the fetish; he very
logically worships and reverences the spirit resident therein.
88:0.2 At first, the spirit of a fetish was
believed to be the ghost of a dead man; later on, the higher
spirits were supposed to reside in fetishes. And so the fetish
cult eventually incorporated all of the primitive ideas of
ghosts, souls, spirits, and demon possession.
1. BELIEF IN FETISHES
88:1.1 Primitive man always wanted to make
anything extraordinary into a fetish; chance therefore gave
origin to many. A man is sick, something happens, and he gets
well. The same thing is true of the reputation of many medicines
and the chance methods of treating disease. Objects connected
with dreams were likely to be converted into fetishes.
Volcanoes, but not mountains, became fetishes; comets, but not
stars. Early man regarded shooting stars and meteors as
indicating the arrival on earth of special visiting spirits.
88:1.2 The first fetishes were peculiarly
marked pebbles, and "sacred stones" have ever since been sought
by man; a string of beads was once a collection of sacred
stones, a battery of charms. Many tribes had fetish stones, but
few have survived as have the Kaaba and the Stone of Scone. Fire
and water were also among the early fetishes, and fire worship,
together with belief in holy water, still survives.
88:1.3 Tree fetishes were a later development,
but among some tribes the persistence of nature worship led to
belief in charms indwelt by some sort of nature spirit. When
plants and fruits became fetishes, they were taboo as food. The
apple was among the first to fall into this category; it was
never eaten by the Levantine peoples.
88:1.4 If an animal ate human flesh, it became
a fetish. In this way the dog came to be the sacred animal of
the Parsees. If the fetish is an animal and the ghost is
permanently resident therein, then fetishism may impinge on
reincarnation. In many ways the savages envied the animals; they
did not feel superior to them and were often named after their
favorite beasts.
88:1.5 When animals became fetishes, there
ensued the taboos on eating the flesh of the fetish animal. Apes
and monkeys, because of resemblance to man, early became fetish
animals; later, snakes, birds, and swine were also similarly
regarded. At one time the cow was a fetish, the milk being taboo
while the excreta were highly esteemed. The serpent was revered
in Palestine, especially by the Phoenicians, who, along with the
Jews, considered it to be the mouthpiece of evil spirits. Even
many moderns believe in the charm powers of reptiles. From
Arabia on through India to the snake dance of the Moqui tribe of
red men the serpent has been revered.
88:1.6 Certain days of the week were fetishes.
For ages Friday has been regarded as an unlucky day and the
number thirteen as an evil numeral. The lucky numbers three and
seven came from later revelations; four was the lucky number of
primitive man and was derived from the early recognition of the
four points of the compass. It was held unlucky to count cattle
or other possessions; the ancients always opposed the taking of
a census, "numbering the people."
88:1.7 Primitive man did not make an undue
fetish out of sex; the reproductive function received only a
limited amount of attention. The savage was natural minded, not
obscene or prurient.
88:1.8 Saliva was a potent fetish; devils
could be driven out by spitting on a person. For an elder or
superior to spit on one was the highest compliment. Parts of the
human body were looked upon as potential fetishes, particularly
the hair and nails. The long-growing fingernails of the chiefs
were highly prized, and the trimmings thereof were a powerful
fetish. Belief in skull fetishes accounts for much of later-day
head-hunting. The umbilical cord was a highly prized fetish;
even today it is so regarded in Africa. Mankind's first toy was
a preserved umbilical cord. Set with pearls, as was often done,
it was man's first necklace.
88:1.9 Hunchbacked and crippled children were
regarded as fetishes; lunatics were believed to be moon-struck.
Primitive man could not distinguish between genius and insanity;
idiots were either beaten to death or revered as fetish
personalities. Hysteria increasingly confirmed the popular
belief in witchcraft; epileptics often were priests and medicine
men. Drunkenness was looked upon as a form of spirit possession;
when a savage went on a spree, he put a leaf in his hair for the
purpose of disavowing responsibility for his acts. Poisons and
intoxicants became fetishes; they were deemed to be possessed.
88:1.10 Many people looked upon geniuses as
fetish personalities possessed by a wise spirit. And these
talented humans soon learned to resort to fraud and trickery for
the advancement of their selfish interests. A fetish man was
thought to be more than human; he was divine, even infallible.
Thus did chiefs, kings, priests, prophets, and church rulers
eventually wield great power and exercise unbounded authority.
2. EVOLUTION OF THE FETISH
88:2.1 It was a supposed preference of ghosts
to indwell some object which had belonged to them when alive in
the flesh. This belief explains the efficacy of many modern
relics. The ancients always revered the bones of their leaders,
and the skeletal remains of saints and heroes are still regarded
with superstitious awe by many. Even today, pilgrimages are made
to the tombs of great men.
88:2.2 Belief in relics is an outgrowth of the
ancient fetish cult. The relics of modern religions represent an
attempt to rationalize the fetish of the savage and thus elevate
it to a place of dignity and respectability in the modern
religious systems. It is heathenish to believe in fetishes and
magic but supposedly all right to accept relics and miracles.
88:2.3 The hearth -- fireplace -- became more
or less of a fetish, a sacred spot. The shrines and temples were
at first fetish places because the dead were buried there. The
fetish hut of the Hebrews was elevated by Moses to that place
where it harbored a superfetish, the then existent concept of
the law of God. But the Israelites never gave up the peculiar
Canaanite belief in the stone altar: "And this stone which I
have set up as a pillar shall be God's house." They truly
believed that the spirit of their God dwelt in such stone
altars, which were in reality fetishes.
88:2.4 The earliest images were made to
preserve the appearance and memory of the illustrious dead; they
were really monuments. Idols were a refinement of fetishism. The
primitives believed that a ceremony of consecration caused the
spirit to enter the image; likewise, when certain objects were
blessed, they became charms.
88:2.5 Moses, in the addition of the second
commandment to the ancient Dalamatian moral code, made an effort
to control fetish worship among the Hebrews. He carefully
directed that they should make no sort of image that might
become consecrated as a fetish. He made it plain, "You shall not
make a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in
heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters of the
earth." While this commandment did much to retard art among the
Jews, it did lessen fetish worship. But Moses was too wise to
attempt suddenly to displace the olden fetishes, and he
therefore consented to the putting of certain relics alongside
the law in the combined war altar and religious shrine which was
the ark.
88:2.6 Words eventually became fetishes, more
especially those which were regarded as God's words; in this way
the sacred books of many religions have become fetishistic
prisons incarcerating the spiritual imagination of man. Moses'
very effort against fetishes became a supreme fetish; his
commandment was later used to stultify art and to retard the
enjoyment and adoration of the beautiful.
88:2.7 In olden times the fetish word of
authority was a fear-inspiring doctrine, the most terrible of
all tyrants which enslave men. A doctrinal fetish will lead
mortal man to betray himself into the clutches of bigotry,
fanaticism, superstition, intolerance, and the most atrocious of
barbarous cruelties. Modern respect for wisdom and truth is but
the recent escape from the fetish-making tendency up to the
higher levels of thinking and reasoning. Concerning the
accumulated fetish writings which various religionists hold as
sacred books, it is not only believed that what is in the
book is true, but also that every truth is contained in the
book. If one of these sacred books happens to speak of the earth
as being flat, then, for long generations, otherwise sane men
and women will refuse to accept positive evidence that the
planet is round.
88:2.8 The practice of opening one of these
sacred books to let the eye chance upon a passage, the following
of which may determine important life decisions or projects, is
nothing more nor less than arrant fetishism. To take an oath on
a "holy book" or to swear by some object of supreme veneration
is a form of refined fetishism.
88:2.9 But it does represent real evolutionary
progress to advance from the fetish fear of a savage chief's
fingernail trimmings to the adoration of a superb collection of
letters, laws, legends, allegories, myths, poems, and chronicles
which, after all, reflect the winnowed moral wisdom of many
centuries, at least up to the time and event of their being
assembled as a "sacred book."
88:2.10 To become fetishes, words had to be
considered inspired, and the invocation of supposed divinely
inspired writings led directly to the establishment of the
authority of the church, while the evolution of civil forms
led to the fruition of the authority of the state.
3. TOTEMISM
88:3.1 Fetishism ran through all the primitive
cults from the earliest belief in sacred stones, through
idolatry, cannibalism, and nature worship, to totemism.
88:3.2 Totemism is a combination of social and
religious observances. Originally it was thought that respect
for the totem animal of supposed biologic origin insured the
food supply. Totems were at one and the same time symbols of the
group and their god. Such a god was the clan personified.
Totemism was one phase of the attempted socialization of
otherwise personal religion. The totem eventually evolved into
the flag, or national symbol, of the various modern peoples.
88:3.3 A fetish bag, a medicine bag, was a
pouch containing a reputable assortment of ghost-impregnated
articles, and the medicine man of old never allowed his bag, the
symbol of his power, to touch the ground. Civilized peoples in
the twentieth century see to it that their flags, emblems of
national consciousness, likewise never touch the ground.
88:3.4 The insignia of priestly and kingly
office were eventually regarded as fetishes, and the fetish of
the state supreme has passed through many stages of development,
from clans to tribes, from suzerainty to sovereignty, from
totems to flags. Fetish kings have ruled by "divine right," and
many other forms of government have obtained. Men have also made
a fetish of democracy, the exaltation and adoration of the
common man's ideas when collectively called "public opinion."
One man's opinion, when taken by itself, is not regarded as
worth much, but when many men are collectively functioning as a
democracy, this same mediocre judgment is held to be the arbiter
of justice and the standard of righteousness.
4. MAGIC
88:4.1 Civilized man attacks the problems of a
real environment through his science; savage man attempted to
solve the real problems of an illusory ghost environment by
magic. Magic was the technique of manipulating the conjectured
spirit environment whose machinations endlessly explained the
inexplicable; it was the art of obtaining voluntary spirit
co-operation and of coercing involuntary spirit aid through the
use of fetishes or other and more powerful spirits.
88:4.2 The object of magic, sorcery, and
necromancy was twofold:
1. To secure insight into the
future.
2. Favorably to influence
environment.
88:4.3 The objects of science are identical
with those of magic. Mankind is progressing from magic to
science, not by meditation and reason, but rather through long
experience, gradually and painfully. Man is gradually backing
into the truth, beginning in error, progressing in error, and
finally attaining the threshold of truth. Only with the arrival
of the scientific method has he faced forward. But primitive man
had to experiment or perish.
88:4.4 The fascination of early superstition
was the mother of the later scientific curiosity. There was
progressive dynamic emotion -- fear plus curiosity -- in these
primitive superstitions; there was progressive driving power in
the olden magic. These superstitions represented the emergence
of the human desire to know and to control planetary
environment.
88:4.5 Magic gained such a strong hold upon
the savage because he could not grasp the concept of natural
death. The later idea of original sin helped much to weaken the
grip of magic on the race in that it accounted for natural
death. It was at one time not at all uncommon for ten innocent
persons to be put to death because of supposed responsibility
for one natural death. This is one reason why ancient peoples
did not increase faster, and it is still true of some African
tribes. The accused individual usually confessed guilt, even
when facing death.
88:4.6 Magic is natural to a savage. He
believes that an enemy can actually be killed by practicing
sorcery on his shingled hair or fingernail trimmings. The
fatality of snake bites was attributed to the magic of the
sorcerer. The difficulty in combating magic arises from the fact
that fear can kill. Primitive peoples so feared magic that it
did actually kill, and such results were sufficient to
substantiate this erroneous belief. In case of failure there was
always some plausible explanation; the cure for defective magic
was more magic.
5. MAGICAL CHARMS
88:5.1 Since anything connected with the body
could become a fetish, the earliest magic had to do with hair
and nails. Secrecy attendant upon body elimination grew up out
of fear that an enemy might get possession of something derived
from the body and employ it in detrimental magic; all excreta of
the body were therefore carefully buried. Public spitting was
refrained from because of the fear that saliva would be used in
deleterious magic; spittle was always covered. Even food
remnants, clothing, and ornaments could become instruments of
magic. The savage never left any remnants of his meal on the
table. And all this was done through fear that one's enemies
might use these things in magical rites, not from any
appreciation of the hygienic value of such practices.
88:5.2 Magical charms were concocted from a
great variety of things: human flesh, tiger claws, crocodile
teeth, poison plant seeds, snake venom, and human hair. The
bones of the dead were very magical. Even the dust from
footprints could be used in magic. The ancients were great
believers in love charms. Blood and other forms of bodily
secretions were able to insure the magic influence of love.
88:5.3 Images were supposed to be effective in
magic. Effigies were made, and when treated ill or well, the
same effects were believed to rest upon the real person. When
making purchases, superstitious persons would chew a bit of hard
wood in order to soften the heart of the seller.
88:5.4 The milk of a black cow was highly
magical; so also were black cats. The staff or wand was magical,
along with drums, bells, and knots. All ancient objects were
magical charms. The practices of a new or higher civilization
were looked upon with disfavor because of their supposedly evil
magical nature. Writing, printing, and pictures were long so
regarded.
88:5.5 Primitive man believed that names must
be treated with respect, especially names of the gods. The name
was regarded as an entity, an influence distinct from the
physical personality; it was esteemed equally with the soul and
the shadow. Names were pawned for loans; a man could not use his
name until it had been redeemed by payment of the loan. Nowadays
one signs his name to a note. An individual's name soon became
important in magic. The savage had two names; the important one
was regarded as too sacred to use on ordinary occasions, hence
the second or everyday name -- a nickname. He never told his
real name to strangers. Any experience of an unusual nature
caused him to change his name; sometimes it was in an effort to
cure disease or to stop bad luck. The savage could get a new
name by buying it from the tribal chief; men still invest in
titles and degrees. But among the most primitive tribes, such as
the African Bushmen, individual names do not exist.
6. THE PRACTICE OF MAGIC
88:6.1 Magic was practiced through the use of
wands, "medicine" ritual, and incantations, and it was customary
for the practitioner to work unclothed. Women outnumbered the
men among primitive magicians. In magic, "medicine" means
mystery, not treatment. The savage never doctored himself; he
never used medicines except on the advice of the specialists in
magic. And the voodoo doctors of the twentieth century are
typical of the magicians of old.
88:6.2 There was both a public and a private
phase to magic. That performed by the medicine man, shaman, or
priest was supposed to be for the good of the whole tribe.
Witches, sorcerers, and wizards dispensed private magic,
personal and selfish magic which was employed as a coercive
method of bringing evil on one's enemies. The concept of dual
spiritism, good and bad spirits, gave rise to the later beliefs
in white and black magic. And as religion evolved, magic was the
term applied to spirit operations outside one's own cult, and it
also referred to older ghost beliefs.
88:6.3 Word combinations, the ritual of chants
and incantations, were highly magical. Some early incantations
finally evolved into prayers. Presently, imitative magic was
practiced; prayers were acted out; magical dances were nothing
but dramatic prayers. Prayer gradually displaced magic as the
associate of sacrifice.
88:6.4 Gesture, being older than speech, was
the more holy and magical, and mimicry was believed to have
strong magical power. The red men often staged a buffalo dance
in which one of their number would play the part of a buffalo
and, in being caught, would insure the success of the impending
hunt. The sex festivities of May Day were simply imitative
magic, a suggestive appeal to the sex passions of the plant
world. The doll was first employed as a magic talisman by the
barren wife.
88:6.5 Magic was the branch off the
evolutionary religious tree which eventually bore the fruit of a
scientific age. Belief in astrology led to the development of
astronomy; belief in a philosopher's stone led to the mastery of
metals, while belief in magic numbers founded the science of
mathematics.
88:6.6 But a world so filled with charms did
much to destroy all personal ambition and initiative. The fruits
of extra labor or of diligence were looked upon as magical. If a
man had more grain in his field than his neighbor, he might be
haled before the chief and charged with enticing this extra
grain from the indolent neighbor's field. Indeed, in the days of
barbarism it was dangerous to know very much; there was always
the chance of being executed as a black artist.
88:6.7 Gradually science is removing the
gambling element from life. But if modern methods of education
should fail, there would be an almost immediate reversion to the
primitive beliefs in magic. These superstitions still linger in
the minds of many so-called civilized people. Language contains
many fossils which testify that the race has long been steeped
in magical superstition, such words as spellbound, ill-starred,
possessions, inspiration, spirit away, ingenuity, entrancing,
thunderstruck, and astonished. And intelligent human beings
still believe in good luck, evil eye, and astrology.
88:6.8 Ancient magic was the cocoon of modern
science, indispensable in its time but now no longer useful. And
so the phantasms of ignorant superstition agitated the primitive
minds of men until the concepts of science could be born. Today,
Urantia is in the twilight zone of this intellectual evolution.
One half the world is grasping eagerly for the light of truth
and the facts of scientific discovery, while the other half
languishes in the arms of ancient superstition and but thinly
disguised magic.
88:6.9
Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.
