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.qxd 30/10/2007 12:11 Page 4444 A Framework for Greek Magicto contain.The second type of magic (goBteia) is based on the anxietiesand fears produced in its victims and it operates primarily on psycholog-ical grounds:59The other type is that which, by means of enchantments and spells and so-called bindings, persuades those attempting to harm their victims that theycan do so, and persuades the victims that they really are being harmed bythose capable of bewitching (goBteuein).With respect to this and all suchmatters, it is neither easy to recognize what has happened, nor, if oneknows, is it easy to persuade others.With regard to men s souls, it is not worthtrying to persuade those who are suspicious of one another about such things,if some of them see molded wax images either at their doorways or at theplaces where three roads meet or on the tombs of their ancestors themselves,nor to admonish those who do not have a clear belief about all such thingsto make light of them.Plato s catalogue of magical practices is not random but includes themost common forms of magic in the classical period, and we shall engagewith each of them in later parts of this work.His characterization ofmagic, basing its efficacy as it does on a mistaken belief about causesand implying that it would disappear if only its practitioners understoodphysical causality, might almost be said to make Plato modern in hisoutlook.Insofar as people perform spells and binding charms, place waximages at doorways or on tombs, Plato concedes that his fellow Greekspractice magic, although he stops short of claiming that their activitiesexert anything other than psychological effects.60 He further adds thatsuch activities also reinforce the practitioner s belief in his own powers a statement that might have come right out of the writings of Frazer,Malinowski, or Tambiah.Magic and CausalityThe impression from Plato that, apart from its psychological effects, thissecond type of magic exerts no real effect in the world brings us to theconsideration of Greek causality.Our notions of causality are not thesame as for the Greeks.The causal systems at work in classical Greek cul-ture, to the extent we can reconstruct them, along with the types of infer-ences which they believed were derivable from them, are not intuitive andmust be examined carefully.If the cross-cultural research we reviewed inchapter 1 suggests anything, it is that cultures operate within their own,unique frames of reference when it comes to causes and effects, especiallywhen the causes are invisible.As we saw with the author of On the Sacred9781405132381_4_002.qxd 30/10/2007 12:11 Page 45A Framework for Greek Magic 45Disease, the question before the physician was not whether there was aninvisible network of causes, but which were the proper ones to diagnosein a given case of illness.So it is with magic in general.The general problem of causality in situations of illness or injury was atopic of considerable interest to fifth- and fourth-century Greek intellec-tuals, including tragedians, historians, orators, and physicians.61 Theirexplanations are revealing because they demonstrate that the determina-tion of the cause of an event could imply competing and, at times incom-patible views of agency.Nevertheless, multiple causes could determine thesame event, but which to us would appear as inconsistent.It is notewor-thy that in Plato s view, he locates the causes of his second type of magicentirely with the individual practitioner, and identifies the efficient causeof magic as his or her ability to persuade themselves and others that theiractions produce real effects.At the same time, in other writings of Platohe seems to take the efficacy of spells, when issued by midwives and physi-cians, for granted, just as he takes pharmaceutical  magic for granted, mak-ing it unclear exactly where he stands on magical activity as a whole.Heis not alone, however, in this ambiguity.We have already seen the authorof On the Sacred Disease wrestle with the similar dilemma of denyingthe efficacy of his adversaries remedies, without denying their efficacy inprinciple.There are several reasons for this: first, magical causation wasdifficult to distinguish from divine agency, and before Aristotle intellec-tuals attempts to rationalize the cause for an event typically includeddivinity as one possible factor.Second, like divinity magic operatedaccording to the principle of actio in distans  action at a distance , whichis a medieval scholastic term that, I think, metaphorically captures theancient reality.As an example, a binding curse tablet could be buried ina grave or well and cause an orator in court  at a distance in time andspace  to lose his memory and voice.This means that even when other,more immediate causes for an event, such as loss of memory, can be found,it is nearly impossible to exclude magic as one possible cause, especiallywhen there is already a cultural expectation that some types of eventscan be caused by magic.Third, Greek magic like most magic was basedin volition, which means that a person used magic to achieve a desiredoutcome, and by doing so prompted a sequence of events towardfulfilling that desire.Volitional cause, as we shall see below, is oftenoverlooked and can subsume within it what we might take to be moreproximate, visible, and physical causes.For many contemporary readers, what we take for granted in ourcausal thinking is largely the product of hundreds of years of socialand legal deliberation.It is not inevitable, for example, that events per-ceived to be out of human control enjoy the legal status of  acts of God ,9781405132381_4_002.qxd 30/10/2007 12:11 Page 4646 A Framework for Greek Magicdifferently defined under contract and tort law, but rather the result ofcenturies of institutional disagreement that has worked out when breachof contract or liability should ensue.It is no easy task to come to termswith how differently ancient Greeks interpreted such phenomena.Inantiquity an  act of God , such as a natural disaster or a lightning storm,might not only have had divine causes, but the humans who sufferedduring the event might well have been regarded as morally responsiblefor it themselves.When we inquire into the causes of an event, assumingwe have first stipulated what the  event itself is, we are confronted withmany possibilities which grow as a situation is analyzed into its constituentparts.As one example, in contemporary Anglo-American jurisprudence,the proximate cause  meaning a necessary cause near enough to thetarget event (e.g., damage, injury, loss, etc.) in space and time to be con-sidered a sufficient one  is often singled out to help guide the court inthe determination of moral responsibility.However, proximate causerelies on a spatial metaphor that has long been recognized as inadequateto serve as a main criterion of responsibility.62 In antiquity the argumentof proximate cause was even less relevant than it is today because humanagency and divine agency could overlap in the explanation of a given event.We can see how this works by relating the famous late fifth-century caseof the javelin-thrower.63 An athlete practicing one day threw a javelin andkilled another youth who ran into its path.Plutarch (ca.50 ca.120 ce)reports that Pericles (ca.495 429 bce) and the philosopher Protagoras(ca.490 420 bce) spent an entire day discussing whether the javelin, theathlete who hurled it, or the judges of the contests ought to be consideredthe cause of death  in the most correct sense [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]