On Magic, re WG: "You'll want your cause and effect..."---GR

[Mark Kohut]

Magic often utilizes symbols that are thought to be intrinsically efficacious. 
Anthropologists, such as Sir James Frazer (1854–1938), have characterized the 
implementation of symbols into two primary categories: the “principle of 
similarity,” and the “principle of contagion.” Frazer further categorized these 
principles as falling under “sympathetic magic,” and “contagious magic.” Frazer 
asserted that these concepts were “general or generic laws of thought, which 
were misapplied in magic.”[10]
 
{Seems some others have thought that Frazer might have too narrow a concept of 
'laws of thought'....MK}
[edit] The Principle of Similarity
The principle of similarity, also known as the “association of ideas,” which 
falls under the category of “sympathetic magic,” is the thought that if a 
certain result follows a certain action, then that action must be responsible 
for the result. Therefore, if one is to perform this action again, the same 
result can again be expected. One classic example of this mode of thought is 
that of the rooster and the sunrise. When a rooster crows, it is a response to 
the rising of the sun. Based on sympathetic magic, one might interpret these 
series of events differently. The law of similarity would suggest that since the 
sunrise follows the crowing of the rooster, the rooster must have caused the sun 
to rise.[11] Causality is inferred where it should not have been. Therefore, a 
practitioner might believe that if he is able to cause the rooster to crow, he 
will be able to control the timing of the sunrise.