“A General Theory of Magic”, translation Robert Brain

Marcel Mauss (b. 1872; d. 1950) and Henri Hubert (b. 1872; d. 1927) were close collaborators of Émile Durkheim (Mauss was, furthermore, Durkheim's nephew) and regularly contributed articles to his journal L'Année sociologique. Their famous “Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice” (“Essay on the nature and function of sacrifice”) was published in the second issue of this journal (1898). In the seventh issue of the L'Année sociologique (1902/1903), Mauss and Hubert published the text we present here, their “Esquisse d'une théorie générale de la magie” (“Outline of a general theory of magic”).

With their theory, Mauss and Hubert seek to refute Frazer's concept of “sympathetic magic” (see Chapter 12). They claim that:

1. “Sympathetic” rites and beliefs are not restricted to “magic” as “there are sympathetic practices in religion”.

2. Frazer's distinction of coercive (“magical”) versus submissive (“religious”) rites is not satisfactory as “Religious rites may also constrain.”

3. Frazer's idea that “religion” addresses transcendent beings while “magic” would be mostly mechanistic is misleading as “spirits and even gods may be involved in magic”.

Due to these perceived inconsistencies in Frazer's theory, Mauss and Hubert argue that “magic” should not be defined “in terms of the structure of its rites, but by the circumstances in which these rites occur”.