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119 of 121 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The missing link between ancient paganism & modern religion, June 18, 1998
By A Customer
Frazer's classic "The Golden Bough" may justifiably be called the foundation that modern anthropology is based on. While it has been discredited in some areas since it's 1st publication, it has stood the test of time remarkably well. It's still the best book I know of to explain the origins of magical & religious thought to a new student of comparative religions. I would especially suggest it to anyone interested in mythology, supernatural magic or religion, especially any of the modern neo-pagan religions. More than one critic has said that it should be required reading for everyone.Originally, Frazer sought to explain the strange custom at an Italian sacred grove near the city of Aricia. He wanted to know why it was custom there for a priest of Diana to continually guard a sacred tree with his life. Why was it required that this pagan priest murder anyone who dares to break a branch from the tree & why were so many willing to risk their lives to do so? What power did this broken branch have that made it a symbol of the priests own coming death? Why could the priest only be relieved of his position by being ritually murdered & who in their right mind would strive to take his place? What Frazer discovered in his search for answers went well beyond what he expected to find. He very quickly found himself surrounded by ancient pagan beliefs & magic rituals that were as old as mankind & just as widespread. He slowly reveals to us, by way of hundreds of examples, that ancient or primitive man was bound up in a never ending web of taboos & restrictions that regulated his existence here on earth. Every move, spoken word or even thought could swing the powers of the divine for or against pagan man. Every action was bound by religious code & any mistake could invoke supernatural retribution. The entire world, it seemed, was a reflection of the mystic other world that pagan man worshipped & everything here was symbolic of something there. While studying this idea Frazer covers many other perplexing questions about culture & belief that have affected our lives. For example, he explains the origins of many of our holidays. He reveals the original symbolism & meaning of the Christmas tree & mistletoe & tells us what they represent. He explains the pagan origins of Halloween & why it's necessary to placate the spirits who visit your home that night. He solves the question of why Easter isn't a fixed holiday but is instead linked to the Spring Equinox & just what colored eggs have to do with anything. In short he covers just about every known superstition or tradition & relates it back to it's pagan beliefs. What emerges from this collection of superstition & folktales isn't a chaotic mess of mumbo-jumbo but is instead a fully expounded religious system. Frazer shows again & again that these traditional customs & continuations of ancient rites are the basis for a religious system pre-dating any of our own. We find that in this system man can not stand apart from nature or the world. Nor can he commit any action without it's usual equal but opposite reaction. Eventually, we learn of the powerful but frightening association between a king's fertility & his lands well-being. Lastly, we learn that it's not always "good to be king" & just what sort of horrible price one must pay to be "king for a day". But more than all of this Frazer is commenting on our own times & our own beliefs. "The Golden Bough" isn't simply about ancient pagan religious ideas for their own sake. The book provides & explains these ideas so we can see how they are still in operation even today. Primitive pagan beliefs & symbolism are with us daily, besides the obvious Christmas tree & Easter eggs. Behind his exhaustive examples & explanations of mystic or secret magic rituals Frazer is actually commenting on our own Judeo-Christian religions. A careful reading between the lines reveals what Frazer was afraid to state bluntly in 1890. That idea is that all religions, even our own, are based on the same basic pagan ideas of "sympathetic" & "contagious" magic. Despite advancements in science & knowledge & even despite spiritual advancements in religion & philosophy, we're still trying to comprehend the divine with the same tools our ancestors used thousands of years ago.
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62 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For Myth and Anthropology, start here, December 6, 2003
This is Frazer's own abridgement of a mere 750 pages. The original work is 12 volumes. I've started in my lunch hour writing a few reviews here on Amazon of things which either really struck me deeply, or which I feel are underrated or overrated... or which I happen to have read recently and therefore are fresh in my mind. This one is of the deep-striking, perspective-altering kind.The book feels to me somehow to be the most central work on mythology, ritual or anthropology that I have read. The reason for this, I think, is that Frazer had a clear vision of some central Fact which he needed to convey. The book is therefore very well organized, doesn't lose its focus amid the masses of data -- and I mean masses of data -- which he brings to bear. And this Fact which he conveys is not really about something external to man -- even something external which man has created; it is about something internal and fundamental to man. Its fundamental point concerns a changeless Fact about the nature of things, more than any myriad of facts -- however amazing -- which have resulted from historical circumstance. After 100 or so pages, I was thinking, "All right already, I get the point about sympathetic magic and a dead guy in a tree. When's the next topic?" But he just kept going on, and about 300 pages into the book, I felt a sort of chill in the base of my spine... maybe I hadn't gotten it about the dead guy in the tree... and then Frazer just keeps going on and on and on for another 450 pages. The sheer volume of data, and the effectiveness with which it is organized somehow sunk through. Had I read a yet more abridged volume, I might not have been left with this stunned sense of the unbelievable pervasiveness and power of this one central Myth which runs through all humanity. There's a lot more one could write about that Myth and the evolution of religions and consequently societies, but I suppose I'll leave that to Frazer. However, for those who have been struck by the Myth or the Dream, I would say that this is the place to start... more than Freud, Jung, Campbell or Bulfinch... all of which should be read at some point. I feel like what Frazer presents is fact more than a perspective or theory, which is why I wish I had read it prior to Freud or Jung. I read Joseph Campbell over and over more than Frazer, but his scholarly works are not as easy to penetrate or as unified as are Frazer's. And Bulfinch and the like collect the tales without penetrating them particularly, though I find Bulfinch a very helpful reference when I need to look things up.
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44 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Inspiring, but not trustworthy, October 12, 1998
By A Customer
The Golden Bough is indeed a seminal work of early anthropology/folklore studies. However it's no longer held in high esteem in these fields, and for good reason. The major problem with Frazer is his source use. He took citations grossly out of context and made no effort to determine how reliable they were.Moreoever he took myth literally, assuming that it was a distorted memory of actual events. If Pagan myths involved kings dying, then once upon a time Pagans must really have sacrificed their kings. By this 'logic', Christianity used to involve ritual cannibalism, since during the Eucharist believers eat the blood and body of Christ. The holiday information is extremely poor, too. Like many 19th century folklorists, Frazer assumed that any "pagan-looking" customs were indeed pre-Christian. He did *no* research in the history of the holidays, and as a result the Golden Bough contains grievous amounts of misinformation. (I say this as a medievalist who's done significant amounts of research myself.) For example, Frazer was responsible for the tenacious myth that Halloween is a Christianized version of the Celtic Samhain, introduced by the Celtic Church. If you check early Irish martyrologies, you'll find that the Celtic Church actually celebrated All Saints in April, not on Samhain. The October 31st date came from England and/or Germany, not the Celtic Church, making the connection between Samhain and Halloween somewhat obscure. Frazer assumes that Christmas trees are an ancient Pagan custom, when any historical research would reveal that the earliest mention of this custom comes from 16th century Germany. The Golden Bough has had a tremendous impact on Neo-Paganism and many of the theories are inspiring. For that, for its poetry, I give it credit. But it's not a reliable work on Pagan history -- I'd give Ronald Hutton's _Stations of the Sun_ a much, *much* higher grade for that.
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