The Origins and Design of Witches and Sorcerers

The Origins and Design of Witches and Sorcerers. Manvir Singh. Current Anthropology, Feb 2021. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/713111

Abstract: In nearly every documented society, people believe that some misfortunes are caused by malicious group mates using magic or supernatural powers. Here I report cross-cultural patterns in these beliefs and propose a theory to explain them. Using the newly created Mystical Harm Survey, I show that several conceptions of malicious mystical practitioners, including sorcerers (who use learned spells), possessors of the evil eye (who transmit injury through their stares and words), and witches (who possess superpowers, pose existential threats, and engage in morally abhorrent acts), recur around the world. I argue that these beliefs develop from three cultural selective processes: a selection for intuitive magic, a selection for plausible explanations of impactful misfortune, and a selection for demonizing myths that justify mistreatment. Separately, these selective schemes produce traditions as diverse as shamanism, conspiracy theories, and campaigns against heretics—but around the world, they jointly give rise to the odious and feared witch. I use the tripartite theory to explain the forms of beliefs in mystical harm and outline 10 predictions for how shifting conditions should affect those conceptions. Societally corrosive beliefs can persist when they are intuitively appealing or they serve some believers’ agendas.

8. Discussion

8.1. The origins of sorcerers, lycanthropes, the evil eye, and witches

Table 5 displays the three cultural selective processes hypothesized to be responsible for shaping beliefs in practitioners of mystical harm. Figure 3 shows how those processes interact to produce some of the malicious practitioners identified in Figure 1 (sorcerers, the evil eye, lycanthropes, and witches).

[Table 5. The three cultural selective schemes responsible for beliefs in practitioners of mystical harm.]

According to the theory outlined here, sorcerers are the result of both a selection for intuitive magic and a selection for plausible explanations. The selection for intuitive magic produces compelling techniques for controlling uncertain outcomes, including rain magic, gambling superstitions, and magic aimed at harming others, or sorcery. Once people accept that this magic is effective and that other people practice it, it becomes a plausible explanation for misfortune. A person who feels threatened and who confronts unexplainable tragedy will easily suspect that a rival has ensorcelled them. As people regularly consider how others harm them, they build plausible portrayals of sorcerers.

Beliefs about werewolves, werebears, weresnakes, and other lycanthropes also develop from a selection for plausible explanations. Baffled as to why an animal attacked them, a person suspects a rival of becoming or possessing an animal and stalking them at night. This explanation becomes more conceivable as the lycanthrope explains other strange events and as conceptions of the lycanthrope become more plausible. Many societies ascribe transformative powers to other malicious practitioners (see Table 3), showing that people also suspect existing practitioners after attacks by wild animals.

Beliefs in the malignant power of stares and words likewise develop to explain misfortune. As reviewed earlier, people around the world connect jealousy and envy to a desire to induce harm. Thus, people who stare with envy or express a compliment are suspected of harboring malice and an intention to harm. A person who suffers a misfortune remembers these stares and suspects those people of somehow injuring them. In regularly inferring how envious individuals attacked them, people craft a compelling notion of the evil eye.

Why suspect the evil eye rather than sorcery? There are at least two possibilities. First, an accused individual may ardently vow not to know sorcery or to have attacked the target (see these claims among the Azande, both described in text: Evans-Pritchard 1937:119-125; and shown in film: Singer 1981, minute 21). Alternatively, given beliefs that effective sorcery requires powers that develop with age, special knowledge, or certain experiences, it may seem unreasonable that a young or unexperienced group mate effectively ensorcelled the target. In these instances, the idea that the stare itself harmed the target may provide a more plausible mechanism.

The famous odious, powerful witch, I propose, arises when blamed malicious practitioners become demonized. People who fear an invisible threat or who have an interest in mistreating competitors benefit from demonizing the target, transforming them into a heinous, threatening menace. Thus, witches represent a confluence of two and sometimes all three cultural selective processes.

In Figure 1, I showed that beliefs about malicious practitioners exist along two dimensions. The tripartite theory accounts for this structure. All of the practitioners displayed are plausible explanations of how group mates inflict harm. One dimension (SORCERY-EVIL EYE) distinguishes those explanations of misfortune that include magic (sorcerers) from those that do not (evil eye, lycanthrope). The other dimension shows the extent to which different practitioners have been demonized. In short, all beliefs about harmful practitioners are explanations; sometimes they use magic, sometimes they’re made evil.

8.2. Ten predictions

The proposed theory generates many predictions for how shifting conditions should drive changes in beliefs about malicious practitioners. I referred to several of these throughout the paper. Here are ten (the section of the paper is noted when a prediction is discussed in the paper):

1. People are more likely to believe in sorcerers as sorcery techniques become more effective-seeming. 2. People are more likely to ascribe injury to mystical harm when they are distrustful of others, persecuted, or otherwise convinced of harmful intent. (sect. 6.2.1) 3. The emotions attributed to malicious practitioners will be those that most intensely and frequently motivate aggression. (sect. 6.2.1) 4. People are more likely to attribute injury to mystical harm when they lack alternative explanations. (sect. 6.2.2) 5. The greater the impact of the misfortune, the more likely people are to attribute it to mystical harm. (sect. 6.2.2) 6. Practitioners of mystical harm are more likely to become demonized during times of stressful uncertainty. 7. The traits ascribed to malicious practitioners will become more heinous or sensational as Condoners become more trustful or reliant on information from Campaigners. 8. Malicious practitioners will become less demonized when there is less disagreement or resistance about their removal. 9. The traits that constitute demonization will be those that elicit the most punitive outrage, controlling for believability. (sect. 7.2.1) 10. Malicious practitioners whose actions can more easily explain catastrophe, such as those who employ killing magic compared to love magic, will be easier to demonize.

8.3. The cultural evolution of harmful beliefs

Social scientists, and especially those who study the origins of religion and belief, debate over whether cultural traditions evolve to provide group-level benefits (Baumard and Boyer 2013; Norenzayan et al. 2016). Reviving the analogy of society as an organism, some scholars maintain that cultural traits develop to ensure the survival and reproduction of the group (Wilson 2002). These writers argue that traditions that undermine societal success should normally be culled away, while traditions that enhance group-level success should spread (Boyd and Richerson 2010). In this paper, I have examined cultural traits with clear social costs: mystical harm beliefs. As sources of paranoia, distrust, and bloodshed, these beliefs divide societies, breeding contempt even among close family members. But I have explained them without invoking group-level benefits. Focusing on people’s (usually automatic) decisions to adopt cultural traditions, I have shown that beliefs in witches and sorcerers are maximally appealing, providing the most plausible explanations and justifying hostile aims. Corrosive customs recur as long as they are useful and cognitively appealing.