The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, by James George Frazer (first published 1890, expanded to twelve volumes by 1915, abridged in one volume in 1922). My rating: 5 of 5.
You may know The Golden Bough as the book that T.S. Eliot pointed his readers to, or as the source behind a dozen documentaries on ancient ritual. You may also have heard that modern scholars have moved past it. Both are true. I read it anyway, and I am glad I did, because it is still one of the great attempts to explain why human beings pray, sacrifice and keep taboos.
What the book covers
Frazer was a Scottish classicist. He starts with a single strange custom, the priest-king of a grove near Lake Nemi in Italy who held office until a challenger killed him, and he sets out to explain it. To do that he gathers customs, myths and rituals from all over the world. The book ranges over sacred kings, tree and harvest spirits, scapegoats, fire festivals and the dying and rising gods of the ancient Near East.
His big argument is that human thought moved through three stages: magic, then religion, then science. Magic tries to force nature. Religion tries to persuade the powers behind it. Science, in his view, returns to magic’s idea of fixed laws but gets the laws right.
What stayed with me
Two rules of magic. Frazer names two principles behind most magic. Like produces like, so you harm an image to harm a person. And things once in contact keep acting on each other, so a lock of hair still carries power. Once you have the names, you start to see them everywhere.
Charms and taboos. Magic has positive rules (do this to get that) and negative ones (never do this, or that will happen). Frazer traces taboos to mistaken ideas about cause and effect. It is a useful picture of fearful religion, the kind that keeps rules to avoid punishment.
Control versus trust. This was the line I kept. Magic tries to control. Religion, as Frazer describes it, asks and trusts. That is a good test for prayer. Prayer is entrusting ourselves to God, and when it turns into a technique for getting results, it drifts back toward magic.
Belief and practice together. Frazer insists that religion needs both. Belief without practice is only theology, and he cites the Letter of James on faith without works. Practice without belief is not religion at all. The same act can be religious or not, depending on whether it is done from love or fear of God.
A few notes
Read Frazer as a period source, not an authority. Modern anthropology rejects his method of lifting customs out of their settings, and it rejects his neat march of magic to religion to science. Some of his racial categories are those of the 1890s and should stay there. He also argues that Christianity spread by absorbing pagan customs. Resemblance is not proof of borrowing, and later historians have shown how thin many of his parallels are.
Who should read it
Readers of comparative religion, mythology and literature who want the book that shaped a century of thinking. The one-volume abridgment is the place to start. Read it with a critical eye and a modern history of religion close at hand.
This review paraphrases the author and uses no direct quotes. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The price you pay does not change. I read this book on my own, and no one asked me or paid me to review it. My faith writing reflects my own views, not those of my parish or diocese. See Disclosures.