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> In September 1890 Maud Berkeley, aged 29 and living on the Isle of Wight, and her sister attempted a similar divination which she recorded in her diary: ‘dropped … hazelnut, into the fire’, which, to her disappointment, ‘chose to “burn and die” instead of “crack and fly” as it ought to have done’. She came to the conclusion that ‘such practices were mere nonsense’ – but that did not stop her continuing to play them. It would be interesting to know further how seriously these rituals were taken. Most societies have some sort of magical thinking, but it seems to be that fervent belief in omen-like phenomenon decreases as the metaphysic of a given culture becomes more naturalistic and mechanistic. Magical thinking tends to emerge in situations of uncertainty and disorder, and even if there's no honest conscious belief in a supernatural process, there's often a vestige of comfort and romanticism in being able to influence a system with technically uncontrollable parameters. Bronisław Malinowski talks about this in his anthropological work on traditional Pacific Islander cultures: > They have, in fact, a whole system of principles of sailing, embodied in a complex and rich terminology, traditionally handed on and obeyed as rationally and consistently as is modern science by modern sailors. How could they sail otherwise under eminently dangerous conditions in their frail primitive craft? But even with all their systematic knowledge, methodically applied, they are still at the mercy of powerful and incalculable tides, sudden gales during the monsoon season and unknown reefs. And here comes in their magic, performed over the canoe during its construction, carried out at the beginning and in the course of expeditions and resorted to in moments of real danger. If the modern seaman, entrenched in science and reason, provided with all sorts of safety appliances, sailing on steel-built steamers, if even he has a singular tendency to superstition— which does not rob him of his knowledge or reason, nor make him altogether pre-logical—can we wonder that his savage colleague, under much more precarious conditions, holds fast to the safety and comfort of magic? |
A silly example: A distant relative explained how he'd seen a stone healer about curing his smoking addiction. We're talking about a down-to-earth man, a small-scale factory owner. She did a ritual involving burning incense and putting stones on his back. Then as he was getting ready to leave, she said to him: "Oh, by the way, no more smoking, not even nicotine gum". He promptly quit smoking completely.
I think the odd situation of the ritual prepared his mind to fully accept the conclusion. I don't know how effective this stone healer is overall compared to other means of quitting smoking. But it was impressively efficient for my relative, just a one hour job.