by Rev. Michael J Dangler, originally published on his Patreon

In this session, we’re going to talk about the importance of the magico-religious function in the broader context of Indo-European culture. This video also answers question 1 of Magic for Priests in the ADF Clergy Training Program, as it stands at this recording. That question prompt is:

Discuss the importance and actions of the magico-religious function as it is seen within the context of general Indo-European culture.

What does the question mean?

I want to start by defining some terms: this idea of a “magico-religious function” is a conglomeration of the functions of religion, spirituality, and magic in the ancient world. You can think of it as that somewhat outmoded notion of a Dumezilian “First Function,” if that helps, or you can think about it as encompassing the entire spectrum of how the unseen impacts the lives of people. However you want to think about these functions, whether through a lens of older academia or a more recent effort at decolonization, these are the aspects you’ll want to focus on.

A lot of what we know, particularly in reference to how religion interacts with society, is that it is seen as a source of, or possibly a maintainer of, law and wisdom and cosmic order. Mallory, in his “In Search of the Indo-Europeans,” discusses these aspects on pages 131-133 of my copy. He describes Dumezil’s work suggesting that the “first function” of Indo-European societies revolves around both this magico-religious order, and a legal order. The second function is, of course, a military function, and the third is all about the fertility of the land.

What we want you to be thinking as you read about myth and culture is this: where did these things, religion, spirituality, and magic, fit into the broader cultural context, and how did participants in that culture seem to view them? How did they interact? What was their reaction to the places and people they encountered that were magical, and how did those encounters shape the narrative?

So, what’s the question asking?

So, what this question is really seeking is an explanation of how people saw individuals who had contact with these spiritual (or, perhaps, supernatural) aspects of life.

Now, my argument has always been that the religious side of the “magico-religious function” serves a community-binding function through the creation of connections and communitas that brings people together despite their differences, and that the magical side of the function brings people together by exploiting the differences inherent in the community. The language around this might be complicated: I don’t mean anything negative when I say that a magician in the ancient world “exploits differences.” I merely mean that the problems they solve on behalf of the community are less culturally sanctioned, even though the end result is a tighter, more integrated community connection. I do think that this is a bit of a simplistic argument, but it helps to navigate broader differences between what is “magic” and what is “religion” in the ancient world.

Let’s look at two examples, one religious, and one magical, to get a feel for how to answer this question. First, we’re going to look broadly at the Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece.

Eleusinian Mysteries

The Eleusinian Mysteries are a perfect case study in taking what unites a community and building on it. The only two requirements were that you had to be free of blood-guilt, meaning you can’t have murdered anyone, and you had to be able to speak Greek. If you could do those two things, you met the requirements for initiation. Men, women, and even slaves were allowed initiation.

These Mysteries are emblematic of the way that civic religion and community religion were often handled in the ancient Indo-European world: the folk would come together, and experience a religious connection to one another, allowing that connection to bring them closer as a people to one another.

Now, the Eleusinian Mysteries are highly structured and state-sponsored for the last 400 or so years of their existence. But we know that the regular religious events, including community sacrifice and work, focused on similarity over difference. Citizenship, language, and other connective cultural experiences formed the basis for this sort of religious work, and it led to a binding and consolidation of the popular work.

This sort of work is done publicly, on behalf of the community as a whole. It is supported by the whole community, and thus we think of it as “religion,” rather than magic.

But I mentioned that magic exploited differences to bring the community into harmony. Let’s talk a bit about that.

Magic and Difference

It does not take much reading to find that magic done “in the dark” or “in secret” or “by women” (of course without men being involved) as outlawed or worthy of scorn. Indeed, in Book II of The Laws, Cicero speaks specifically against secret, nighttime rites led by women.

Ancient folk, themselves, thought a lot about different kinds of magic. There was magic for stealing harvests, magic for forcing people to fall in love, and magic to heal. There was magic to bind others, and magic to tie their tongues in court.

Magicians, particularly those who are not healing sacred diseases, are lower-classed than priests. They are often described as being part of the edges of society, and Catullus even suggests that all magicians must be born of incest. They are assumed to be women, or criminals, or foreigners; this places them on the general outskirts of society, and that is where the magician, without religious connections and standing, remains. There is a reason we think about village witches living at the outskirts of town, or alone in the woods: the work they do is best done by those who are not part of the established order.

But it’s important to note that magical things are not a crime because they are magical; rather, they are crimes because of what they do: they break the social order of things. To spirit away someone’s crops by magic is wrong because it is stealing. To craft a love potion and use it on a person is wrong because it cheats another out of inheritance. To use herbs to poison a person is wrong because it’s murder. It has very little to do with magic, and everything to do with working within the set rules of the community.

Still, the majority of the work done by magical practitioners is important to the community: fertility magic, whether it is for a safe pregnancy or to cure impotence, is key to sustaining families; agricultural magic, so long as it does not steal the crops or rain of another, is vital to sustaining the community; healing magic, from herbalism to divining an appropriate cure, is vital to sustaining the body and remaining part of society. These focus on what makes a person different from others, and brings them into line with the community, keeping them productive and connected when outside forces prevent this.

Even in accusations of evil witchcraft or immoral magics, it is about the outcome, not the method, that is spoken and accused. Magic heals and magic harms; how you use it determines your guilt or innocence.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, magic and religion serve a vital function of drawing the community together. Both are sanctioned by the community in Indo-European cultures, so long as their aims are in line with shared community values. Magic and religion create a stronger, more tightly-knit community. Laws against certain types of magic are primarily against the end-result actions, whether those are rituals and magics bring, or what goes into them, which means that so long as the magic is for the good of the folk, it’s accepted and approved of in the ancient world.

I’m kind of enjoying the re-working of my previous work. Also, next week? It’s all about language. Watch me work hard to pronounce a bunch of different words in just one take!