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

Therefore, magic-belief is able to unite itself with every individual stage of development. *)

For it is precisely because of these assumptions that we find the belief in the influence of higher beings on humans—according to its basic relationships—so developed among all peoples that the belief in magical power and effect stands everywhere directly at its side. And, as disparate as the forms and the results thereof may be—the worshipper of sublime, neo-European magic, the Angekok of Greenland, the Shaman of Siberia, the Indian or Tibetan spirit-invoker, the Vogul and the Abipone—at the root of everyone’s magic-belief lies a "main idea" that guides and governs them all, whether dreamed dimly or thought clearly.

So much for the origin and universality of magic-belief as the foundation of "magic" according to its various developments and modifications.

*) This is excellently indicated in both Goethe’s and Klinger’s Faust; indeed, perhaps Faust himself, whose real history remains as enigmatic and dark as a sorcerer, owes his more ideal than real existence to this idea.