0005 Anthropology stands astride the narrower, more technical, disciplines of Sociology and Psychology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Manvir Singh constructs a modern paradigm for a topic dear to Anthropology<\/em>, but not to the narrower disciplines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is the nature of magic?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 0006 Singh publishes the results of a Mystical Harm Survey,<\/em> applied to 60 societies on the Probability Sample File<\/em> of the electronic Human Relations Area Files<\/em>. He uses principal component analysis<\/em> to reduce forty-nine raw variables to two principal dimensions with the greatest variation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Principal components? Greatest variation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0007 Principal components<\/em> are the dimensions with the greatest variation<\/em> in a scatterplot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typically, principal component analysis<\/em> shows variables that are relevant to the topic at hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, when considering mystical harm, one would expect significant variation between a common person and, say, a warlock, along some parameter that might be called, “warlockness”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0008 Singh finds two parameters distinguishing common folk, sorcerers and witches. Witches are high in PC1 and low in PC2. Sorcerers are low in PC1 and high in PC2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PC1 is witchiness. Witches fly, meet in secret in the forest on a full moon, suddenly appear and disappear, and so on. To me, witchiness is the embodiment of malicious magic<\/em>. Witches not only perform magic, they live it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PC2 is the evil eye.\u00a0\u00a0Sorcerers do not embody\u00a0the magic that they perform<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, the magic resides in their gaze.\u00a0\u00a0The evil eye<\/em>\u00a0is\u00a0a harmful mystical operation<\/em>\u00a0that signifies a whole range of magical works.\u00a0\u00a0The evil eye<\/em>\u00a0is the worst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0009 Singh does not dwell on\u00a0the seemingly philosophical distinction between embodiment and gaze<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Neither do the anthropologists who are pleased with the scatterplot of PC1 and PC2 in Figure 1 (of the article).\u00a0\u00a0Anthropology looks like science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 0005 Anthropology stands astride the narrower, more technical, disciplines of Sociology and Psychology. Manvir Singh constructs a modern paradigm for a topic dear to Anthropology, but not to the narrower disciplines. What is the nature of magic? 0006 Singh publishes the results of a Mystical Harm Survey, applied to 60 societies on the Probability Sample File of the electronic Human Relations Area […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13],"tags":[123,39,29,163,153,158,157,164,161,83,162,50,160,159],"class_list":["post-5068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defining-religion","category-presence-underlying-religion","tag-anthropology","tag-category-based-nested-form","tag-first-singularity","tag-individual","tag-interpretation","tag-magic","tag-manvir-singh","tag-mirror-world","tag-nature","tag-organization","tag-presence","tag-religion","tag-sorcerer","tag-witch"],"yoast_head":"\n