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Magic from "The Golden Bough"

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Fun Trivia : Quizzes : Paganism : Magic from "The Golden Bough"

Introduction:
"James Frazer's classic 12-volume work, "The Golden Bough", is a compendium of world belief built upon the premise that human practice evolves from magic to religion to science. How much do you know about magic according to this founding text?"


1. Frazer claims that there are basically two kinds of magic. What are they?
    Theistic and Atheistic
    Homoeopathic/Imitative and Contagious
    Black/Malevolent and White/Benevolent
    Eastern and Western


2. Among the South Slavs, how might a young woman secure the fidelity of her beau by using his footprint?
    By keeping dirt from the print in a small pouch between her breasts for forty days
    By preserving the print and allowing no one else to step in it
    By putting dirt from his footprint in a pot and planting a marigold in it
    By sprinkling the footprint with rose water


3. Which of the following is part of a Hindu ritual to treat jaundice?
    Drinking water mixed with the hair of a red bull
    Bathing in a blessed waterfall
    Applying the liver of a pig to the abdomen
    Pouring one's blood over violets


4. According to Frazer, the practice commonly called the "voodoo doll" is not unique to voodoo practice at all. Which of these cultures uses representations of people in ways strikingly similar to the voodoo doll?
    The Malay
    Traditional Scotland
    All of these
    The North American Ojibway


5. Which of these rituals was used to assure a happy afterlife in the funerary rituals of the folk native to the Darling River region of Australia?
    Burying several animals with the dead person
    Cutting living men's hands with boomerangs and letting the blood drip into the open grave
    Sending the dead person down the river on a pilotless barge
    Painting several pictures of the dead person on the nearby cliffs.


6. Frazer reports of a ritual in the Kei Islands where women fill baskets with fruits and stones then annoint the baskets with oil while reciting an incantation. What effect is this ritual supposed to have?
    Abundant harvest
    Success in battle
    Conception of children
    Spiritual enlightenment


7. Frazer outlines a Galelareese spell that a young man may use to make sure his sweetheart's family stays sleeping while he woos her. How is this accomplished?
    He fans the scent of essential oils through an open window
    All of these
    He lays feathers over the house's threshold
    He sprinkles dirt from a grave on the roof of their house


8. According to North American Blackfoot belief, what benefit does taking a human skull along on a hunting expedition confer?
    It calls forth the energy of the dead upon the quarry
    It really freaks the animals out
    It grants the hunter all the intelligence of the dead man
    It renders the hunter invisible


9. There is a spell used by South Slavic women where they wash coins that have covered a dead man's eyes in water or wine; this drink is later given to their husbands. What is the effect of this necromancy?
    It grants the husband success in financial matters
    It sends the husband to an early grave
    It makes the husband love the wife forever
    It renders the husband blind to the wife's indiscretions


10. Despite his insistence that magic and religion are fundamentally separate things, Frazer does admit of several magical rituals which seem to fuse with religion. One of these is the legendary black mass, which condemns the object thereof to a slow death. Frazer does not use the term "black" to describe this ritual, however. What Saint is this mass named for?
    Saint Sécaire
    Saint Paraskeva
    Saint Cassian
    Saint Jude


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