Zambezia (1988), XV (i).MAGIC, COMMUNICATIONAND EFFICACY1M. F. C. BOURDILLONDepartment of Sociology, University of ZimbabweACADEMIC DEBATES ABOUT the logic of magic may sometimes appear as theethnocentric speculations of the members of certain societies, purporting to justifytheir belief in their own cultural superiority. Or such debates may be perceived asthe idle intellectual games of academics, irrelevant to the world in which peoplestruggle to improve their lives, or simply to survive. Nevertheless, it is true thatmagic was once more dominant in the thinking and practice of Europe than it isnow; and many people associate the movement away from magic with theadvance of techology and greater control over our material life.The growth of knowledge depends on being able to criticize (in both positiveand negative senses) what we receive from our various cultures. It is difficult toproduce objective criteria by which we can assess different facets of our own, orother people's, culture. That it is difficult does not excuse us from trying. Thisarticle represents one such attempt.In this article, I look at a confusion that sometimes arises between the logic ofcommunication and the logic of material causality. My argument is that certaintypes of magic arise from such confusions, and that it is worthwhile trying to sortout the confusion when it arises.I am not, however, prejudging the efficacy of the traditional religious rites ofany society, still less the efficacy of traditional modes of healing or the potionsused by ritual or healing specialists. Much of our knowledge is received on trust,from elders or experts or friends or others who are thought to know. When aperson puts on a copper bangle as a cure for rheumatism, or takes a modern drug,or a herbal remedy prescribed by a traditional healer, usually he has no idea ofhow the attempted treatment might work. The question of the logic of magic orthe logic of technology does not apply to the sufferer. As far as he is concerned, thelogic is the same in all cases: someone has told him that this remedy might workand he is prepared to give it a try.Logic is involved in the origins of a treatment. The logic of science is to try andsort out what causes the affliction at the micro level, and to deduce what kind ofchemical structure might be introduced to offset the trouble. It is based on a1 I am grateful to my colleague, Professor A. P. Cheater, for her comments on an early draft ofthis paper, and to participants at the conference on 'Religion and Magic in Everyday Life' organizedby the African Studies Centre, Oxford, for useful points and criticism.2728 MAGIC, COMMUNICATION & EFFICACYtheory about how the world is structured. This logic is combined with thecommon logic of experience: people notice a repeated association of twophenomena, and deduce a cause and effect relationship, with little idea of how itworks. Much conventional wisdom comes from such observations. Thirdly,phenomena can be symbolically associated, and this is what I shall be discussing.Logic is usually involved in why a practice is repeated and accepted intoconventional wisdom. There are many ways in which practices become acceptedand customary, three of which are particularly common. Most things are acceptedsimply because they are observed to work. Certain practices might also beaccepted because they are put forward by someone of influence, even though theydo not work. No doubt certain practices in modern medicine come under thiscategory; but people with political or religious influence may also be able topersuade others that certain things work, in the face of patent failures. Thirdly,people may accept certain practices in the face of frequent failures because ofsymbolic associations which accord with the way they think: here we are dealingwith what I shall call the logic of magic.It is time to start looking at examples. In the early 1970s, when I was doingmy field work on a collection of Korekore (northern Shona) communities in thenorth-east corner of what is now Zimbabwe, there had been a couple of poorharvests as a result of poor rains and various pests. The people in the areadepended largely on their crops of bulrush millet for subsistence: not all could relyon financial support from absent migrant workers, and those who could receivedlittle since very few families (perhaps a couple) had members sufficientlyeducated for white-collar work, and unskilled work was the norm for people fromthis area. The rains of the following season were good, and the crops lookedpromising. Then people began to notice the presence of young corn crickets Š aninsect that had taken a heavy toll of the millet a couple of years previously. Thiswas a worrying development. No one had money to spare for large quantities ofinsecticides, but there were other strategies people could try.The head teacher at one of the schools found a successful way of averting thedanger. He had pupils of his school clear a three-yard strip around his field. Everymorning and every evening certain of the school children were assigned the taskof going around the strip and killing any crickets trying to cross it. Since thecrickets are very slow moving, this tactic effectively prevented crickets from theveld reaching his crops. The few that hatched in the field did not do too muchdamage.Others approached the spirit guardian of the land for help. These were spiritsof ancient members of the chiefly lineage, who, in the local ideology, from time totime took possession of their chosen mediums in order to speak to the people nowliving on their land, or to hear the problems of these people. In two sections of theM. F. C. BOURDILLON 29chiefdom where I was working, leading men went to the home of the localmedium. In each case, the spirit (the possessed medium) told the audience thateach family should collect a few crickets from each of their fields, and that theseshould all be collected together in a container and brought to the spirit.This was done, and in each case a container of crickets was brought to themedium one evening. The mediums kept the crickets in their huts overnight. Inone case, the possessed medium threw the crickets in front of the chicken housejust as the chickens were being let out early the following morning. He announcedthat birds would eat the crickets in the fields. The people would have no furtherproblem from the pest this year.In the second case, the possessed medium took the crickets to a place wheretwo paths crossed in the veld, and released the crickets there. He announced thatnow the crickets would not be able to find their way to the fields. In other ritualsituations, the crossing of paths symbolizes losing one's way: at funerals, theprocession often stops where the paths meet, and the bier is turned around severaltimes there, in order that the spirit may not find its way back to the homestead tocause trouble.The threat of a plague of corn crickets subsequently died away. Peoplehappily explained that they went to their spirits to ask for help, and the spirits hadlooked after them.Nobody has any difficulty in recognizing that the activity of the teacher is of adifferent order from the consultation with the spirit mediums and the subsequentrituals. It is not so easy to determine precisely where the difference lies.One could say simply that the latter is a religious act, in the sense that peoplesought relief by supplicating some spiritual power. Such supplication never hasthe predictable result we expect from technical action (such as the teacherorganized). I wish to pass over actions which attempt to persuade or commandspirits or some other power to produce results in the material world. The rites Ihave introduced contain a more interesting point: in the belief of the Korekore itwas the spirits themselves (the possessed mediums) who threw the crickets to thechickens, and released them at a crossroad. What is the significance and the logicof these actions? How were they believed to be efficacious?What I am considering is the ritual action of the possessed mediums. It is easyto understand what rites mean. The symbolic association between crossroads andlosing one's way is clear: but why should people think that a symbol which theyunderstand should affect the behaviour of the crickets? Why should people thinkthat seeing chickens eat the crickets in the medium's homestead should have anyinfluence on those that were left behind?It is possible to interpret such actions as emphatic and dramatic communi-cations from the spirits about what would happen, and not as an efficacious action30 MAGIC, COMMUNICATION & EFFICACYat all. The people concerned, however, appeared to consider the rites as anessential and efficacious action on the part of the spirits. They would not havebeen satisfied if the spirits had simply dismissed them and told them everythingwould be taken care of. The dramatic action was assumed to have some kind ofmaterial efficacy.It becomes clear that these are actions which some people believe to beefficacious and I do not. The difference in belief has to do with the relationshipbetween communication and efficacy. In magic, as I use the term here, people failto distinguish between the dramatic expression of desires, and efficacious action.2Magic is using ritual and the logic of symbols and communication, in order toobtain a material effect. Although I (or anyone else) may be wrong in particularinstances when we judge the efficacy of a particular action, the general axiom iscorrect that dramatic expression is often efficacious with respect to people andperhaps more complex animals, and not normally so with respect to theinanimate world and lesser living things. I do not believe that throwing the corncrickets to the chickens had any effect on the threatened plague.Notice that the last remark refers specifically to throwing corn crickets to thechickens (or at a crossroad). It is not a statement about the power of spirits tocontrol the world. Whether or not we accept that spirits have such powers, we canstill ask the question why the symbolic rite was deemed necessary.Notice, too, that it is the logic rather than the efficacy that I am discussing.When someone tries to keep horses from worms, by treating bits of their hair, onthe theory of 'radionics' according to which the treatment creates some kind ofradiation which affects the horse,31 expect the theory to be proved wrong, but it isnot magic. I suspect that the theory is a rationalization of what arose as magic, anattempt to justify certain types of treatment in a vaguely scientific mode ofthinking, and I am extremely sceptical of whether it works. Nevertheless, theaction now claims to be based on a theory of the way the material world works,supported by appeals to experience. Under such a theory, the logic of the action isno longer the logic of communication.Similarly, for the purposes of this discussion, I am not considering thoseactions which attempt to transfer through contact certain properties from onesubstance to another. If a man chews the sprouts of a fast-growing plant and spitsthem on to his child in order to make his child grow faster, I hold that he is wrongto think that the property of fast growth can be passed to the child in this way. Butthis is not magic as I am using the term: some properties (heat, sickness, etc.) can2 The distinction between communication and efficacy is not, however, trivial Š contra E. R.Leach, 'Ritualization in man in relation to conceptual and social development', PhilosophicalTransactions of the Royal Society of London (1966), CCLI (Series B, Biological Sciences), 772.3 See L. Birke, 'An open mind in the veterinary surgery', New Scientist (27 Aug. 1987), 34-6.M. F. C. BOURDILLON 31be passed on through contact and there is nothing wrong with the logic that triesto facilitate such passage.41 am limiting this discussion to actions which dependon the meanings of symbols.Although my use of the word 'magic' may coincide with the classification ofpeople who employ magic, my concept is essentially a concept of an outsideobserver. Insiders may recognize magic from the type of language used or theuncertainty of its outcome or the ritual status of the performer. I recognize magicby the attempt to use the logic of communication to affect things that are outsidethe sphere of communication. Although, in particular instances, I may notcorrectly perceive the boundaries of the sphere of communication, these are inprinciple determinable on criteria which are not simply ethnocentric.POLITICAL CONTROL'Magic', as I use the term, involves the use of ritual, and mistaken assumptionsabout the nature of things and control over the material world. We are looking atthe difference between the logic of the rituals of the spirit mediums on the onehand, and the practical, technical logic of the teacher on the other.Early attempts by anthropologists to explain magic in terms of a simplelogical error, or a special type of rationality based on a special logic, have rightlybeen rejected on the grounds that people who use magic are perfectly capable ofusing technical logic without error on other occasions. An approach that is basedon stages of psychological development3 is no more helpful: we note that it issophisticated adults, and not children, who develop and use magical rites; andthese adults are quite capable of seeing the difference between magic and the logicof technology, which they are perfectly able to use when it seems to themappropriate. Magic cannot be explained simply in terms of a 'primitive' system ofthought. What, then, is the basis of magic?Bloch recently revived a distinction made by Marx between practicalknowledge derived from experience, and ideology, which derives from socialhistory and legitimates the social order.6 Bloch argues that ideology is built up andreinforced through ritual, and supports his argument with reference to certain ritesof passage Š in particular, marriage and circumcision among the Merina ofMadagascar.*S<xJ.SkoTupski,SymbolandTheory:APhilosophicalStudyofTheoriesofReligioninSocialAnthropology (Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976), 134-5.5 See, for example, C. R. Hallpike, Foundations of Primitive Thought (Oxford, Clarendon,6 M. Bloch, 'From cognition to ideology', in R. Fardon (ed.), Power and Knowledge: Anthropo-logical and Sociological Approaches (Edinburgh, Scottish Academic Press, 1985).32 MAGIC, COMMUNICATION & EFFICACYThe ways in which ritual can support positions of authority have beenillustrated in a variety of studies of initiation rites,7 which are precisely concernedwith the social order. Certainly, issues of power and control should always beconsidered when examining ritual. If in the case in question a medium were tosend the people home and say he was unable to control corn crickets, he wouldlose standing in the eyes of the people. Politically, the mediums had to dosomething dramatic, which is one explanation of performance of the rituals..We could argue, following on from Bloch's idea, that the pretended ability ofthe mediums to cope with pests in the land served to shore up traditionalauthority. One can find links between the rituals to get rid of the threat of corncrickets and the chiefship. The guardian spirits of a chiefdom are associated withthe chiefship. The senior possessed mediums of these spirits elect a new chief froma number of pretending heirs. The traditional chiefship derived some of the statusfrom the spirit guardians of the land. Apart from the election procedures, the mostimportant spirit guardians were ancient members of the chiefly lineage, and thechief frequently confers with the senior mediums in his country.Nevertheless, there are problems with a political interpretation of the rites inquestion. Among these peoples, as among other Korekore peoples, the politicalpower of the chief had traditionally been very limited. It is said that the chiefshould never compel his subjects to do what they did not wish. The people werescattered in small hamlets, and could move easily from place to place. There wasno standing army. Historical evidence suggests that groups in the chiefdom feltfree to join or not to join their chief even in military campaigns. There is everyreason to believe the people when they point to the political weakness of theirtraditional chiefs. In the colonial period to which I am referring, the politicalpower of the chiefs came largely from the White-controlled administration: therewere cases of mediums deferring the appointment of a chief until they couldascertain that their candidate would be accepted by the administration. The pointis that the power the chief acquired from the spirit mediums was very limited.Even the standing of mediums was frail when political issues were concerned.I have described elsewhere how readily people contradicted and abused spirits(that is, the possessed mediums) when they appeared to favour an unpopularcandidate for the chiefship.8 But in the rites we are looking at, people assumed thatactions of the mediums were helpful in removing the threat of corn crickets.A further point is that the chief was in no way involved in the rituals I havedescribed. The elders who approached the mediums and organized the collection7 See, for example, J. La Fontaine, 'The pwer of rights', Man (1977), XII, 421-37; and P.Spencer, 'The function of ritual in the socialization of the Samburu moran', in P. Mayer (ed.),Socialization: The Approach from Social Anthropology (London, Tavistock, 1970), 127-57.« M. F. C. BourdiUon, 'Spirit mediums in Shona belief and practice', NADA (1974), II, i, 30-7.M. F. C. BOURDILLON 33of crickets for rituals had virtually no political authority outside their ownhouseholds: their role in the proceedings corresponded with the role of villageheadmen in secular life Š they facilitated administration. They simply co-ordinated the collection of crickets from different fields. It may be that one or twoof them were trying to curry favour with mediums, which might become useful infuture chiefly elections. It could be argued that the rituals assume and assert maleauthority within households, but this seems peripheral to the people's interests.The prime concern of everybody associated with these rituals was the threat ofcorn crickets, not relations of power.Relations of power were, however, central to the action of the schoolmasterwho used non-ritual means to control the plague on his fields. His strategydepended on having school pupils dependent on him for their progress, and onwhose services he could call at any time. His action used his position of power toincrease his wealth, which would later be used to spread his power. And onecould argue that all this helped to mystify the status of schoolmaster, as someonesuperior who should be obeyed at all times.In the case in question, relations of power were more germane to the technicalthan to the ritual procedures. We have to look elsewhere for an understanding ofthe rites.There is a further problem with applying Bloch's approach to magical rites, inthat both technical and ritual knowledge are very often received, rather thanlearned from experience. When one looks at such institutions as Japanesesword-making, we find that the technology of producing fine flexible steel iscontained precisely in traditional rituals: here ritual and technology go together.9When ideas are simply accepted from tradition in any way, the logic of suchacceptance is unproblematic, based on the experience from childhood onwardsthat much can be accepted from one's elders. The logic of magical rites is onlyproblematic when one looks at how they became established initially.The rituals of magic cannot adequately be explained in terms of politicalpower and control.SYMBOLS AND SIGNSNeither is it adequate to argue that because ritual activity is dramatic or artistic, itshould not be compared with the kind of logic behind technical activity. Certainlyritual is dramatic and artistic and can be appreciated on aesthetic lines: as Beattierightly points out, it is precisely the expressive, symbolic element thatdistinguishes magic from technical action.10 The problem lies in the assumed« See J. Bronowski, The Ascent of Man (London, BBC, 1973), 131-3.10 J. H. M. Beattie, 'On understanding ritual', in B. R. Wilson (ed.), Rationality (Oxford,Blackwell, 1970), 241.34 MAGIC, COMMUNICATION & EFFICACYefficacy of such dramatic action. In the eyes of the participants, the rites of themediums were performed in order to get rid of the crickets. I am reminded ofCheater's account of farmers giving up traditional magical practices to improvecrops when they got consistently good results from organic and artificialfertilizers: in this case, ritual action and technical action were clearly seen asparallel and as straight alternatives." It is possible that mediums are sometimessimply concerned to put up a dramatic show which leaves the observers dupedand satisfied; but there is no evidence that mediums normally see things in a wayso totally different from the perceptions of the communities they serve. It is areasonable assumption that when one medium threw crickets to the chickens, andthe other took crickets to a crossroad, they were trying to get rid of corn crickets inthe fields.Leach has suggested a logic of magic that at first sight seems sophisticated andplausible.12 He takes from Sir James Frazer the example of a sorcerer who takes apiece of his victim's hair, and performs a rite over it (including a verbal spell) in anattempt to harm the victim. Frazer assumed that the magician confused expressiveacts with technical acts. Leach claims to go beyond Frazer by drawing attention tothe distinctions between metaphor and metonym (in which a part represents thewhole), and between index and signal (which I shall explain below).In Leach's view, the magician makes a triple error. Firstly, he mistakes ametaphoric symbol for a metonymic sign. Originally, the hair was part of theperson, and then might have been a metonymic sign, standing for the person: atthat stage, if you saw the person's hair over the top of a wall, you could justifiablytake it as a sign of the person's presence. Leach argues that if you damage ametonymic sign, the whole which it signifies is damaged. If you destroy theperson's hair, the person is damaged.Leach is only partly right. A person need not be damaged when their hair isdamaged, unless there is a symbolic element thrown in Š as when a convict's hairis shaved off. Even a society woman who loses her hair can wear a wig!Nevertheless, Leach's point is that while attached to the person the hair is part ofthat person. Once separated from the person, the hair is no longer part of him andbecomes a symbol. In Leach's argument, the symbol is the label 'this is the hair ofjr5, and labels are metaphors rather than metonyms.To apply this to the rites we are discussing, if you saw birds eating corncrickets in a field as you passed, you would assume that the event was not uniqueand take it as a sign that the birds were significantly reducing the population of11 A. P. Cheater, Idioms of Accumulation: Rural Development and Class Formation amongFreeholders in Zimbabwe (Gweru, Mambo Press, 1984), 37-8.12 E. R. Leach, Culture and Communication: The Logic by Which Symbols Are Connected(Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976), ch. 6.M. F. C. BOURDILLON 35corn crickets. Once a few crickets had been collected and taken away from thefields, they became symbols rather than signs: the link with the whole is broken.Leach, however, offers no explanation of why the magician should make thislogical error. Normally people do not mistake metaphoric symbols formetonymic signs. I have never come across anyone trying to save himself troubleby taking a few representative weeds from his field and throwing them into a fire.There is a confusion in the mind of Leach, well illustrated by his example thatthe crown is a metonymic sign for royalty or kingship. He argues that if youdestroy the sign, the residue is destroyed: if you destroy the crown, the royalregalia without the headpiece are indecipherable.13 This is undisciplined argu-ment: the crown is certainly a metonym of the royal regalia, but it is a symbol ofkingship or royalty. If the crown were accidentally destroyed, the regalia aredamaged, but kingship and royalty would normally be left intact. Leach certainlymistakes a symbol for a sign. Other people do not usually make this mistake;rather, they legitimately select metonyms for use as symbols, which simplifiescertain kinds of communication. One part of the royal regalia is used as a symbolof royalty, in a variety of ways which I do not need to list here.The point I wish to draw from this is that the use of metonyms is a frequentconvenient means of communication. Metonyms relate to the logic of communi-cation rather than the logic of technology. And metonyms are frequently found inmagic.The sorcerer's second error in Leach's theory is to treat the imputed sign as if itwere a natural index. A natural index in Leach's terminology is something that isassociated by nature with what it points to, and is selected as an index by humanchoice: so smoke is an index of fire. The significance of the distinction betweensign and index in Leach's argument, and the grounds for saying the two areconfused in the mind of the sorcerer, remain obscure to me.Thirdly, Leach argues that the sorcerer interprets the supposed natural indexas a signal capable of triggering off automatic consequences at a distance. Again,Leach's meaning must not be confused with the meaning conveyed in ordinaryEnglish usage: tokens or effects to transmit messages, such as semaphore, aremetaphor, and not signals, in Leach's terminology. For Leach, a signal involves abiological response, but it is not fully automatic because of the unpredictabihty ofthe senses of the receiver. The smell of food cooking is a signal which triggers offsalivation. In a conditioned reflex, according to Leach, an index is treated as asignal: Pavlov so conditioned his dog that the bell, an index of food, causedsalivation and so was treated as a signal.14Leach's argument appears to be that through habitual associations, the"Ibid, 12,31. » Ibid., 23-4.36 MAGIC, COMMUNICATIONS EFFICACYsorcerer, like Pavlov's dog, treats a supposed index as an automatic signal. Indeed,he draws a parallel with switching on an electric light: you interpret the switch onthe wall as a sign that the room is wired for electricity, and then you treat the signas a signal Š you press the knob in the expectation that light will come onsomewhere.15It is true that magic can occasionally be automatic and unreflective. Whenpeople touch wood at a suggestion of danger, or perhaps when a Dinka man ties aknot in the grass to delay something,16 this might be as unreflective as switchingon an electric light in a modern home. In any case, much magic is receiveduncritically from the conventional knowledge of society, as is much technicalknowledge. When there is no reflection, there is no logic applied and, therefore,no logical difference between magic and technology. But the actions of the spiritmediums to control corn crickets were clearly not habitual nor unreflective.Switching on an electric light becomes habitual and unreflective because itworks. When the switch does not produce the expected result, the person's actionsare likely to become deliberate and reflective, and there is no question ofconfusing mechanical causality with communicative signals. The logic, when it isapplied, is the logic of mechanical causation. When through habit there is noreflection, this involves an absence of logic rather than the logic of magic.In contrast, when the medium threw the crickets to the chickens, it was adeliberate and very occasional action, performed in response to a particular crisis,because there was nothing else available to produce the desired effect. Magic isvery often a particular response to a particular crisis, rather than some habitualaction. A further point to notice is that people who are specialists in magic areoften the more reflective members of a community, with a poetic ability to createrites full of symbolic meaning for the participants. These are not the people mostlikely to make logical errors through unreflective habitual action.Although Leach's analysis at first sight seems plausible enough, I argue thatthere is no reason to believe that the mediums did in fact mistake symbols forsigns, supposed signs for natural indices, and the imputed indices for signals. Allwe can be sure of is that the mediums used dramatic expression, of a kind thatwould be appropriate in the context of communication, and hoped that suchexpression would carry some material efficacy. For all his pretentious jargon,Leach has told us very little about magic.SOME CLUESSkorupski provides a more convincing analysis of the magical use of symbolic15 Ibid., 32." SeeR. G. Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka (Oxford, Clarendon,1961), 282.M. F. C. BOURDILLON 37action.17 He points to parallels between such magic and 'operative actions', that is,actions which create a new situation through the use of symbols. When theappointed person cuts a ribbon and states, 'I declare this road open', the roadthereby becomes open to public use. Similarly, a wedding ceremony is anoperative action by which a couple becomes married, with all the rights andobligations that this status involves. A cabinet minister has to be sworn in beforehe can exercise his role.Such actions involve the use of symbols which have publicly-acceptedmeanings. They achieve their effects in the social order through their conventionalmeanings, and directly through their performance. Skorupski further points outthat, like magic, and unlike technical activity, operative action normally requiresto be performed by a person with appropriate social status in order to beefficacious. The appropriate functionary must open the road; an appointedofficial must register a marriage; the President must swear in ministers. Operativeaction is appropriate to control the social order. The suggestion is that muchmagic comprises attempts to use such action to control the material world.Material efficacy is attributed to actions which are primarily communicative.In the social realm, symbolic action frequently achieves what it symbolizes. Inmagic, people try to get material results from the use of symbols.Skorupski points out that there is a whole class of what is usually called magicthat does not fit his analysis, including a belief in the magical power of numbersand the use of various charms. He suggests that there is no reason to classify suchbehaviour with the magical use of operative action. I suggest that when suchaction is habitual and unreflective, it is not problematic from the logical point ofview. When we look at the origins of such action, or its deliberate and reflectiveuse, we are likely to find an attempt to control the material world throughsymbols.The question remains as to why people sometimes try to control the materialworld through symbols, when for most of their lives they are quite able tounderstand the limited scope of symbolic behaviour. Malinowski suggested ananswer when he pointed out that magical rituals are used in situations whichinvolve elements of unpredictability and danger, and which are not in the controlof available technology. Among the Trobriand Islanders in the South Pacific,magic was used for ocean-going canoes and ocean fishing, not for canoes used inthe protected lagoons nor for lagoon fishing for which the techniques werepredictable and reliable.18 For crops, magic is used in an attempt to controlweather and pests, not weeds.17 Skorupski, Symbol and Theory, ch. 9.18 B. Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays (London, Souvenir, 1974),29-31.38 MAGIC, COMMUNICATION & EFFICACYMalinowski's observation about the context of magic is valid. In traditionalAfrican systems, magic is used mainly to control sickness, the weather andenemies, none of which is entirely predictable and none of which can becontrolled by mechanical devices.Malinowski followed Frazer in calling magic a 'pseudo-science', andcontrasted it with science:Magic is based on specific experience of emotional states in which man observes notnature but himself, in which truth is revealed not by reason but by the play of emotionsupon the human organism... Magic [is founded] on the belief that hope cannot foil nordesire deceive. The theories... of magic [are dictated] by the association of ideas under theinfluence of desire.Finally, he comments that magic, in contrast to science, lies in the realm of thesacred.19In fact, people do not believe that hope cannot fail nor desire deceive.Nevertheless, one can accept that there is an emotional response to hopes anddesires in the practice of magic, and often an element of some kind of duress. Onecould argue further that the symbolic associations of magic rites precisely expressthese hopes and desires. The logical problem is why people should regard suchexpression as efficacious in this context Why should anyone think that expressinga wish might have an effect on the material world?In his later work,20 Malinowski went further. He argued that magicalformulas derive from a legitimate use of language, and in the very origins oflanguage. A child learns to control its environment by expressing its wishes; andmankind rose above other animals by co-operating and communicating withone another. In social contexts, such as a formal marriage ceremony, a verbalformula achieves an effect. 'The knowledge of right words, appropriate phrasesand the more highly developed forms of speech, gives man a power over andabove his own limited field of personal action.'21 Here Malinowski offers anexplanation in line with Skorupski's later exposition, although Malinowski goeson to emphasize a belief in the mystical influence of words as fundamental tomagic, a point which Skorupski convincingly denies.Malinowski suggested two areas in his own culture which derive from themagical pole of linguistic effectiveness (as opposed to the pragmatic pole). One isadvertisements, which express desirable associations supposedly coming from theproduct being advertised. Here Malinowski raises a valid point, but the parallel is'« Ibid, 87.» B. Malinowski, Coral Gardens and Their Magic (London, Allen and Unwin, 1935), esp231-40.« Ibid., 235.M. F. C. BOURDILLON 39not close. The logic of an advertisement derives from a deliberate attempt to formassociations in people's minds: it is the logic of communication. The magician istrying to achieve an effect. Both, however, might produce similar reactions fromtheir clients who wish to believe that the advertised article or magician's rite willhave the effects pronounced. The language of magic is certainly manipulativerather than simply descriptive. Although the words and actions may becommunicative, expressing hopes and desires, the symbols are manipulated toachieve an effect. Throwing corn crickets to the chickens is not simply anexpression of the medium's hopes: the drama is created to produce an effectŠand may well succeed in producing an emotional effect on those who arepresent.There remains a fundamental difference between magic and advertising. Theadvertiser tries to create and to communicate an association which he does notnecessarily believe in himself, but which makes his product more attractive Š say,the visual association between romantic girls and a particular brand of cigarettes.The magician, on the other hand, tries to achieve an effect on the material worldthrough a symbolic association. In order not to be taken in, observers mustcritically distinguish between the visual association of an advertisement and anycausal connection between the cigarettes and the girls. A magician's clients shouldequally scrutinize the difference between symbolic associations and causalconnections.Malinowski also associated magic with healing in Christian Science andcertain types of medical 'quackery' in his own society. It is worth noticing that theuse of symbols is particularly dominant in many traditions of healing. In Shonasociety, the most important traditional healers are spirit mediums; and they arebelieved to be able to turn their expertise to witchcraft and sorcery. Magic andhealing go together.Communication is often an efficacious factor in healing. That mental statescan affect physical health is now well established. Even when disease is caused byan outside agent, the patient's mental state affects the body's ability to cope withthe disease: psychological stress apparently adversely affects the body's immunesystem.22 The dramatic use of symbols in healing rituals may well be able toachieve appropriate effects in the attitudes and psychology of patients, and soproduce physical results. Important in this respect is the removal of social causesof stress, and the restoration of the patient's confidence. In the context of healing,the manipulation of symbols is often efficacious and, therefore, not strictly magicas I am using the term. Most of us, I think, hold that corn crickets are not readilyP. Martin, 'Psychology and the immune system', New Scientist (9 Apr. 1987), 46-50.40 MAGIC, COMMUNICATION & EFFICACYsusceptible to symbolic stimulation, and attempts to communicate attitudes tothem are inappropriate and not efficacious.One image that comes to mind is that of a male chimpanzee aggressivelybeating his breast in the face of an approaching thunderstorm. Guthrie refers tosuch behaviour in his argument that religion extends human relationships to thenon-human world.23 There is much to be commended in Guthrie's argument thathumans frequently interpret ambiguous phenomena in terms of human-likemodels, since humans generate such a wide variety of phenomena and are socentral to the environment in which any individual lives. But his discussionfocuses on religious beliefs in personal forces controlling natural phenomena.When the possessed mediums performed their rituals on corn crickets, the onlybelieved personal forces involved were the spirits, and the belief was that thespirits were themselves performing the rites.Guthrie argues at the cognitive level: when chimpanzees threaten storms, theysuppose that these, like chimpanzees, are capable of being frightened. Perhapssuch behaviour shows better how in desperation animals try things which work inother contexts, and apply them to the desperate situation. A show of aggression inthe context of an approach by a threatening outside male might serve to dispersethe threat. Nothing can be done about the approaching thunderstorm, but fearproduces the response which works when the threat is another chimpanzee, andin this case perhaps serves to allay the fear a little. Perhaps a similar form ofbehaviour in the human context is a mechanic swearing at a recalcitrant engine:he does not really expect the insult to make any difference to his engine Š it doesnot reflect an interpretation of the engine in personal terms, but swearing is a formof behaviour which sometimes produces results in frustrating situations, and itgives some relief to his frustrations in this situation.When a mechanic swears at an unresponsive engine, and perhaps gives it aclout and a kick, this action is based on frustration rather than reflection. Themechanic, however, has probably not been unreflective. He has been reflecting agreat deal on what the problem might be, and resorts to swearing when hisreflections are no longer helpful.The parallel with the mediums and the corn crickets is not exact. When themedium threw the crickets to the chickens, this was a direct result of his reflectionon the topic. The state of consciousness of the medium is somehow altered whenhe goes into his possession trance (I do not even try to say precisely how it isaltered). In this altered state, he faces yet again the threat of hunger to himself andto the people who have come to him for help. The subconscious mind has beenworking on the problem overnight. In the morning it produces a symbolic ritual,23 S. Guthrie, 'A cognitive theory of religion', Current Anthropology (1980), XXI, 181-93.M. F. C. BOURDILLON 41expressing his desires and hopes. Such symbolic action can be effective in other(that is, social) contexts. The medium accordingly performs his dramatic ritual,hoping that it might work.A further point is that in the context of social relations, dramatic expressionadds to the efficacy of communication on solemn or important occasions.Marriage vows would seem to carry less weight without a ceremony surroundingthem. Vague statements of intention or support are not normally acted out inritual, but a solemn promise is, and the ritual clarifies precisely what is promised.24Similarly here it is hoped that the dramatic expression of the people's hopes in asymbolic rite will enhance the efficacy of the power of the spirits to protect theirpeople.Horton contrasted the emphasis on personal causes among the Kalahari of theNiger delta and other small-scale African societies, with the emphasis onimpersonal causes in modern science. He explained this in terms of the differentexperience of the two societies. For the Kalahari, the natural world is changeableand unpredictable: order comes from the established pattern of social relations,and so explanations are modelled on personal relations. In a modern urbansociety, social relations become chaotic, and order is found in the inanimateworld of nature; explanatory theories come to be based on inanimate forces andthe ordered structure of the natural world. We might modify Horton's argument25slightly by pointing out that the attempt to get communicative associations towork in a situation of fear is much more likely to arise in those societies which laygreatest stress on human relations and human communication.I have argued that magic is based on logical error, but an error that is neitherhabitual nor simple. The error involves a confusion of the logic of communicationwith the logic of physical causation. It is not, however, simply a question ofinterpreting reality on a human model; nor is it an error simply deriving from afailure to reflect on habitual associations. The error, when it occurs, is frequentlymade under some kind of duress. When the usual techniques and the usual logicfail, people dig around in their minds or their unconscious for something in theirwider experience, from other contexts, which might work. In the case of magic,they try the kind of association which works in the context of communication.If the direction of this discussion seems unhelpful to you, it certainly wouldseem so to most of my Korekore informants. To them the matter is simple. Theywent to their spirits for help, and the threat of corn crickets died away. But if weleft the matter there, there would be little growth of knowledge.24 See R. A. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning and Religion (Richmond CA, North Atlantic Books,1979), 190.23 R. Horton, 'African traditional thought and Western stietKX', Africa (1967), XXXVH, 50-71,155-87, esp. 64-5.