On the Origin, Idea, Scope, and History of Ancient and Modern Magic

savage attributes all natural phenomena that are inexplicable to him without further ado to direct spirit influences. This is so natural to him and goes so far that a person must have progressed very far in culture in order to investigate the natural causes of phenomena. Even now, every savage, when he sticks his hand into a boiling pot, like Campe’s Friday in Robinson referring to Joachim Heinrich Campe's popular 1779 adaptation of Robinson Crusoe, would sooner suspect spirit and magical influence in it than reflect on the natural cause of his pain, the effect of the fire.

This general folk-belief is the foundation of all belief and superstition itself, and especially of magic-belief.

In order to make this clear, and because the spirit-doctrine of the various nations and ages is the midpoint of magic-belief and magic, around which everything revolves, we must linger here for a moment.

III.

That the belief in good and evil spirits and their active influence on the earth was the prevailing folk-belief in the entire ancient world, I have proven in detail in my Daimonomagie original: "Dämonomagie"; a study of demonological magic, especially in relation to the two most remarkable peoples of antiquity, the Greeks and Romans. *)

*) See the world-historical parallel between the magic-belief in paganism and the magic-belief in Christianity in both volumes. Vol. I, pp. 309–368. Vol. II, pp. 316–346. Unfortunately, I could not yet use the valuable essay on sorcery among the Greeks and Romans by Wachsmuth in the Athenaeum, as it appeared later than the Daimonomagie. It shall, however, be done in the Magic Library original: "Zauber-Bibliothek".