Freud - Complete Works (456 page)

   In a second group of magical acts
the principle of similarity plays no part, and its place is taken
by another one, the nature of which will at once become clear from
the following examples.

   There is another procedure by
which an enemy can be injured. One gets possession of some of his
hair or nails or other waste products or even a piece of his
clothing, and treats them in some hostile way. It is then exactly
as though one had got possession of the man himself; and he himself
experiences whatever it is that has been done to the objects that
originated from him. In the view of primitive man, one of the most
important parts of a person is his name. So that if one knows the
name of a man or of a spirit, one has obtained a certain amount of
power over the owner of the name. This is the origin of the
remarkable precautions and restrictions in the use of names which
we have already touched upon in the essay on taboo. (See 
p. 2699 ff.
) In these examples the
place of similarity is evidently taken by affinity.

Totem And Taboo

2725

   The higher motives for
cannibalism among primitive races have a similar origin. By
incorporating parts of a person’s body through the act of
eating, one at the same time acquires the qualities possessed by
him. This leads in certain circumstances to precautions and
restrictions in regard to diet. A woman who is with child will
avoid eating the flesh of certain animals for fear that any
undesirable qualities they may have (cowardice, for instance) might
be passed over to the child that is nourished by her. The magical
power is not affected even if the connection between the two
objects has already been severed or even if the contact occurred
only on a single important occasion. For instance, the belief that
there is a magical bond between a wound and the weapon which caused
it may be traced unaltered for thousands of years. If a Melanesian
can obtain possession of the bow which caused his wound, he will
keep it carefully in a cool place so as to reduce the inflammation
of the wound. But if the bow was left in the enemy’s
possession, it will undoubtedly be hung up close to the fire so
that the wound may become thoroughly hot and inflamed. Pliny (in
his
Natural History
, Book xxviii) tells us that ‘if
you have wounded a man and are sorry for it, you have only to spit
on the hand that gave the wound, and the pain of the sufferer will
be instantly alleviated’. Francis Bacon (in his
Sylva
Sylvarum
) mentions that ‘it is constantly received and
avouched that the anointing of the weapon that maketh the wound
will heal the wound itself’. English country people are said
even to day to follow this prescription, and if they cut themselves
with a scythe carefully keep the instrument clean, to prevent the
wound from festering. ‘At Norwich in June 1902 a woman named
Matilda Henry accidentally ran a nail into her foot. Without
examining the wound, or even removing her stocking, she caused her
daughter to grease the nail, saying that if this were done no harm
would come of the hurt. A few days afterwards she died of
lockjaw’ - as a result of this displaced antisepsis. (Frazer,
ibid., 203.)

Totem And Taboo

2726

   The last group of instances
exemplify what Frazer distinguishes from ‘imitative’
magic under the name of ‘contagious’ magic. What is
believed to be their effective principle is no longer similarity
but spatial connection, contiguity, or at least
imagined
contiguity - the recollection of it. Since, however, similarity and
contiguity are the two essential principles of processes of
association, it appears that the true explanation of all the folly
of magical observances is the domination of the association of
ideas. The aptness of Tylor’s description of magic which I
have already quoted now becomes evident: mistaking an ideal
connection for a real one. Frazer (1911
a
,
1
, 420) has
put it almost in the same words: ‘Men mistook the order of
their ideas for the order of nature, and hence imagined that the
control which they have, or seem to have, over their thoughts,
permitted them to exercise a corresponding control over
things.’

   We shall at first be surprised to
learn that this illuminating explanation of magic has been rejected
by some writers as unsatisfactory (e.g. Thomas, 1910-11
a
).
On reflection, however, it will be seen that the criticism is
justified. The associative theory of magic merely explains the
paths along which magic proceeds; it does not explain its true
essence, namely the misunderstanding which leads it to replace the
laws of nature by psychological ones. Some dynamic factor is
evidently missing. But whereas the critics of Frazer’s theory
have gone astray in their search for it, it will be easy to arrive
at a satisfactory explanation of magic merely by carrying the
associative theory further and deeper.

   Let us consider first the simpler
and more important case of imitative magic. According to Frazer
(1911
a
,
1
, 54) it can be practised by itself, whereas
contagious magic as a rule presupposes the other. It is easy to
perceive the motives which lead men to practise magic: they are
human wishes. All we need to suppose is that primitive man had an
immense belief in the power of his wishes. The basic reason why
what he sets about by magical means comes to pass is, after all,
simply that he wills it. To begin with, therefore, the emphasis is
only upon his wish.

Totem And Taboo

2727

   Children are in an analogous
psychical situation, though their motor efficiency is still
undeveloped. I have elsewhere (1911
b
) put forward the
hypothesis that, to begin with, they satisfy their wishes in a
hallucinatory manner, that is, they create a satisfying situation
by means of centrifugal excitations of their sense organs. An adult
primitive man has an alternative method open to him. His wishes are
accompanied by a motor impulse, the will, which is later destined
to alter the whole face of the earth in order to satisfy his
wishes. This motor impulse is at first employed to give a
representation of the satisfying situation in such a way that it
becomes possible to experience the satisfaction by means of what
might be described as motor hallucinations. This kind of
representation of a satisfied wish is quite comparable to
children’s play, which succeeds their earlier purely sensory
technique of satisfaction. If children and primitive men find play
and imitative representation enough for them, that is not a sign of
their being unassuming in our sense or of their resignedly
accepting their actual impotence. It is the easily understandable
result of the paramount virtue they ascribe to their wishes, of the
will that is associated with those wishes and of the methods by
which those wishes operate. As time goes on, the psychological
accent shifts from the
motives
for the magical act on to the
measures
by which it is carried out - that is, on to the act
itself. (It would perhaps be more correct to say that it is only
these measures that reveal to the subject the excessive valuation
which he attaches to his psychical acts.) It thus comes to appear
as though it is the magical act itself which, owing to its
similarity with the desired result, alone determines the occurrence
of that result. There is no opportunity, at the stage of animistic
thinking, for showing any objective evidence of the true state of
affairs. But a possibility of doing so
does
arrive at a
later time, when, though all of these procedures are still being
carried out, the psychical phenomenon of doubt has begun to emerge
as an expression of a tendency to repression. At that point, men
will be ready to admit that conjuring up spirits has no result
unless it is accompanied by faith, and that the magical power of
prayer fails if there is no piety at work behind it.¹

  
¹
Cf. the King in
Hamlet
(III.
3):

               
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

               
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Totem And Taboo

2728

   The fact that it has been
possible to construct a system of contagious magic on associations
of contiguity shows that the importance attached to wishes and to
the will has been extended from them on to all those psychical acts
which are subject to the will. A general overvaluation has thus
come about of all mental processes - an attitude towards the world,
that is, which, in view of our knowledge of the relation between
reality and thought, cannot fail to strike
us
as an
overvaluation of the latter. Things become less important than
ideas of things: whatever is done to the latter will inevitably
also occur to the former. Relations which hold between the ideas of
things are assumed to hold equally between the things themselves.
Since distance is of no importance in thinking - since what lies
furthest apart both in time and space can without difficulty be
comprehended in a single act of consciousness - so, too, the world
of magic has a telepathic disregard for spatial distance and treats
past situations as though they were present. In the animistic epoch
the reflection of the internal world is bound to blot out the other
picture of the world - the one which
we
seem to
perceive.

   It is further to be noticed that
the two principles of association - similarity and contiguity - are
both included in the more comprehensive concept of
‘contact’. Association by contiguity is contact in the
literal sense; association by similarity is contact in the
metaphorical sense. The use of the same word for the two kinds of
relation is no doubt accounted for by some identity in the
psychical processes concerned which we have not yet grasped. We
have here the same range of meaning of the idea of
‘contact’ as we found in our analysis of taboo.
(Cf. 
p. 2675
.)

   By way of summary, then, it may
be said that the principle governing magic, the technique of the
animistic mode of thinking, is the principle of the
‘omnipotence of thoughts’.

(3)

   I have adopted the term
‘omnipotence of thoughts’ from a highly intelligent man
who suffered from obsessional ideas and who, after having been set
right by psycho-analytic treatment, was able to give evidence of
his efficiency and good sense. (Cf. Freud, 1909
d
.) He had
coined the phrase as an explanation of all the strange and uncanny
events by which he, like others afflicted with the same illness,
seemed to be pursued. If he thought of someone, he would be sure to
meet that very person immediately afterwards, as though by magic.
If he suddenly asked after the health of an acquaintance whom he
had not seen for a long time, he would hear that he had just died,
so that it would look as though a telepathic message had arrived
from him. If, without any really serious intention, he swore at
some stranger, he might be sure that the man would die soon
afterwards, so that he would feel responsible for his death. In the
course of the treatment he himself was able to tell me how the
deceptive appearance arose in most of these cases, and by what
contrivances he himself had helped to strengthen his own
superstitious beliefs. All obsessional neurotics are superstitious
in this way, usually against their better judgement.¹

  
¹
We appear to attribute an
‘uncanny’ quality to impressions that seek to confirm
the omnipotence of thoughts and the animistic mode of thinking in
general, after we have reached a stage at which, in our
judgement
, we have abandoned such beliefs.

Totem And Taboo

2729

   It is in obsessional neuroses
that the survival of the omnipotence of thoughts is most clearly
visible and that the consequences of this primitive mode of
thinking come closest to consciousness. But we must not be misled
into supposing that it is a distinguishing feature of this
particular neurosis, for analytic investigation reveals the same
thing in the other neuroses as well. In all of them what determines
the formation of symptoms is the reality not of experience but of
thought. Neurotics live in a world apart, where, as I have said
elsewhere, only ‘neurotic currency’ is legal tender;
that is to say, they are only affected by what is thought with
intensity and pictured with emotion, whereas agreement with
external reality is a matter of no importance. What hysterics
repeat in their attacks and fix by means of their symptoms are
experiences which have occurred in that form only in their
imagination though it is true that in the last resort those
imagined experiences go back to actual events or are based upon
them. To attribute the neurotic sense of guilt to real misdeeds
would show an equal misunderstanding. An obsessional neurotic may
be weighed down by a sense of guilt that would be appropriate in a
mass-murderer, while in fact, from his childhood onwards, he has
behaved to his fellow-men as the most considerate and scrupulous
member of society. Nevertheless, his sense of guilt has a
justification: it is founded on the intense and frequent death
wishes against his fellows which are unconsciously at work in him.
It has a justification if what we take into account are unconscious
thoughts and not intentional deeds. Thus the omnipotence of
thoughts, the overvaluation of mental processes as compared with
reality, is seen to have unrestricted play in the emotional life of
neurotic patients and in everything that derives from it. If one of
them undergoes psycho-analytic treatment, which makes what is
unconscious in him conscious, he will be unable to believe that
thoughts are free and will constantly be afraid of expressing evil
wishes, as though their expression would lead inevitably to their
fulfilment. This behaviour, as well as the superstitions which he
practises in ordinary life, reveals his resemblance to the savages
who believe they can alter the external world by mere thinking.