Sympathetic Magic
(Law of Sympathy)
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Homoeopathic Magic Contagious Magic
(Law of Similarity) (Law of Contact)


I will now illustrate these two great branches of sympathetic
magic by examples, beginning with homoeopathic magic.



2. Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic

PERHAPS the most familiar application of the principle that like
produces like is the attempt which has been made by many peoples in
many ages to injure or destroy an enemy by injuring or destroying an
image of him, in the belief that, just as the image suffers, so does
the man, and that when it perishes he must die. A few instances out
of many may be given to prove at once the wide diffusion of the
practice over the world and its remarkable persistence through the
ages. For thousands of years ago it was known to the sorcerers of
ancient India, Babylon, and Egypt, as well as of Greece and Rome,
and at this day it is still resorted to by cunning and malignant
savages in Australia, Africa, and Scotland. Thus the North American
Indians, we are told, believe that by drawing the figure of a person
in sand, ashes, or clay, or by considering any object as his body,