“It is for the philosophic student to trace the train of thought which underlies the magicians practice; to draw out the few simple threads of which the tangled skein is composed; to disengage the abstract principles from their concrete applications; in short, to discern the spurious science from the bastard art.”

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 3, Sympathetic Magic.

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James Frazer50

Scottish social anthropologist 1854–1941

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