RUDN journal of Sociology (Dec 2015)
Marcel Mauss: The practical idea of magic in “pantheism of mana”
Abstract
The article assembles theoretic models that define magic as an original social phenomenon fundamentally different from religion. Referring to the definitions of C. Lévi-Strauss, G. Gurvitch and V.I. Garadga the author focuses on the conception of magic proposed by Marcel Mauss. He defined magic as a practical idea in which knowledge and experience coincide, therefore, magic cannot exist as something abstract or theoretical, as an ordinary turnover of representations and experience but rather as their alloy. A representation becomes magical only at the rite, which in its turn can be considered magical only if the principle of mana was intended. According to Mauss, mana is a nominal universal measure of the intensity of connections between natural elements including people. For an adept of magic, the magic reasoning does not suppose discovering some meanings - rather an active interpretation of the idea of potential contact or contrast between all elements. In other words, mana does not possess any real content; this magic institution does not impose meanings, but allows to express and support them in the mutually conditioned oppositions in a differentiation system. Thus, we can identify a magical worldview based on mana as a plastic cognitive formation, in which we can trace a special interlacing of ‘cosmic freedom’ and ‘traditional unfreedom’ for a magician. Magic as knowledge does not substantialize in either society nor nature despite its direct appeal to the physical characteristics of objects and playing up the role orders. Magic is a fine example of a purely social formation for nothing else but inner social machinery explains it; the casuistry of magic cannot be objectified without special collective representations.
