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"If my analysis of the magician's logic is correct, its two great principles turn out to be merely two different misapplications of the association of ideas. Homoeopathic magic is founded on the association of ideas by similarity: contagious magic is founded on the association of ideas by contiguity. Homoeopathic magic commits the mistake of assuming that things which resemble each other are the same: contagious magic commits the mistake of assuming that things which have once been in contact with each other are always in contact. But in practice the two branches are often combined; or, to be more exact, while homoeopathic or imitative magic may be practised by itself, contagious magic will generally be found to involve an application of the homoeopathic or imitative principle. Thus generally stated the two things may be a little difficult to grasp, but they will readily become intelligible when they are illustrated by particular examples. Both trains of thought are in fact extremely simple and elementary. It could hardly be otherwise, since they are familiar in the concrete, though certainly not in the abstract, to the crude intelligence not only of the savage, but of ignorant and dull-witted people everywhere. Both branches of magic, the homoeopathic and the contagious, may conveniently be comprehended under the general name of Sympathetic Magic, since both assume that things act on each other at a distance through a secret sympathy, the impulse being transmitted from one to the other by means of what we may conceive as a kind of invisible ether, not unlike that which is postulated by modern science for a precisely similar purpose, namely, to explain how things can physically affect each other through a space which appears to be empty."
The Golden Bough : a study of magic and religion
James George Frazer
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Great feats of strength and magic have been attributed to both the spirit-mediums of Upper Tibet and their northern shaman counterparts. Among the lha-pa of Upper Tibet, it is common to divide their profession into three categories of ceremonial proficiency: superior,
average and inferior. A congruous tradition was found among the Yakut shamans, who were divided into three categories: great, average and weak, judged by the amount of spirits under their control (Alekseev 1984: 269). The lha-pa, in conformance with an ancient
Tibetan cosmological concept, divide the universe into three vertical spheres (srid-pa-gsum) Similarly, the Tuvans divided their universe into two or three vertically-oriented spheres (Vajn"tejn 1984: 354). The Nanai also had a tripartite vertically-oriented universe (Okladnikov
1981: 19), as did the Yakuts (Hatto 1970: 10) and Evenks (Vasilevich 1963: 48, 49, 72). Another striking similarity between the lha-pa and shamans of Central Asia and Siberia is the general use of a sucking technique to remove impurities that cause diseases. Moreover, the vocation of shamans in Siberia is often hereditary, as it is among the lha-pa (cf. Nebesky-Wojkowitz 1956: 549, 550). For divination the Evenki shamaness uses a device made of nine threads (Bulatova 1997: 240), while nine threads are used in the healing rituals of certain spirit-mediums of Upper Tibet.
SPIRIT-MEDIUMS, SACRED MOUNTAINS AND RELATED BON
TEXTUAL TRADITIONS IN UPPER TIBET
HENK BLEZER, ALEX MCKAY, CHARLES RAMBLE.
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THE CLERICAL – So according to you the Bible is a fabric of lies and you mock it like Voltaire?
ELIPHAS LEVI – The Bible is a hieratic book, that is, sacred; it is written in priestly style, mixed with stories and allegories.
THE CLERICAL – Only the Church has the right to interpret the Bible. Do you believe in its infallibility?
ELIPHAS LEVI – I am of the Church and I have said or written nothing contrary to its teachings.
THE CLERICAL – I admire your aplomb. Are you not a free thinker? Do you not believe in progress? Do you not admit the boldness of modern science that contradicts the Holy Scripture every day? Do you not believe in the indefinite antiquity of the world and in the diversity, whether simultaneous or successive, of human races? Do you not consider as myth or fable, which is the same thing, the story of Adam's apple on which the dogma of original sin is founded? But you know well that then everything collapses; no more revelation or incarnation, because all of Christianity has been nothing but a long error; the Church can only be maintained by proscribing common sense and propagating ignorance. Are you in this and dare call yourself Catholic?
ELIPHAS LEVI – What does the word Catholic mean? Does it not mean universal? I believe in the universal dogma and take care of the aberrations of all particular sects. I endure them, however, in the hope that progress will be fulfilled and that all men will unite in the faith of fundamental truths, which has already been accomplished in that society known worldwide as Freemasonry.
Eliphas Levi
