©BRIGHTSTARS EXAM SOLUTIONS
11/16/2024 10:16 AM
Anth 4340: Magic, Witchcraft and Religion
Exam Questions With Correct Answers
Ethnocentirism - answer✔Evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating
in the standards and customs of ones own culture
Religion - answer✔A system of beliefs and practices usually involving the worship of
supernatural forces or beings
Dichotomy - answer✔A division or contrast between two things that are represented as being
opposed or entirely different: other societies may not make a supernatural/natural distinction
Identifying the Supernatural - answer✔What we consider as supernatural, others may not
(water babies)
Holistic Perspective - answer✔Looking at it from all different aspects and how they are
interconnected by the whole
Objective Perspective - answer✔Observe without passing judgement
Comparative Perspective - answer✔How does it compare to other cultures and peoples
Interdisciplinary - answer✔Being open to the ideas and observations from other fields studying
the same subject
Emic Perspective - answer✔
Evolutionism - answer✔The study of origin
Functionalism - answer✔The study of function
Symbolic and Iterperative approaches - answer✔The study of meaning
Knowledge - answer✔The study of experience
Rationalism - answer✔Reason: beginnings of Anthropology Sociology and Psychology
James Ussher - answer✔-1654 he calculates the date of creation to be 23 October 4004 BC
1|Page
, ©BRIGHTSTARS EXAM SOLUTIONS
11/16/2024 10:16 AM
-Catatrophism
Catastrophism - answer✔The idea that the earth was shapes by a series of sudden, short-lived,
violent events (ex: the great flood)
Attributed to James Ussher
Charles Lyell - answer✔-1830's Principles of Geology argues for uniformitarianism --> the laws
of nature are constant
-The earth is not divinely created
-Geological formations require millions of years
Charles Darwin - answer✔-Origin of species
-"Much light will be shed on the origin of man and his history"
E.B. Tylor - answer✔-Quaker
-Deeply anti-catholic
-Wanted to account for the origin of religion and trace its developmental history
-Put himself in the shoes of primitive man
-What makes the difference between a living body and a dead on?
-Animism: belief in supernatural beings (minimal definition of religion)
-Primitive man was a rationalist and a scientific philosopher
-Preliterate religions were essentially consistent and logical, based on rational thinking and
empirical knowledge
Animism - answer✔In preliterate cultures
Animals,plants and inanimate objects are endowed with souls
Tylor
Polytheism - answer✔The idea of multiple spiritual beings to explain natural events and
phenomena
Belief or worship of one or more god
Tylor
2|Page
, ©BRIGHTSTARS EXAM SOLUTIONS
11/16/2024 10:16 AM
Monotheism - answer✔Belief that there is only one god
Animism of civilized man
Tylor
Sympathetic Magic - answer✔-Trying to affect other people
-Get a representative of the person itself and anything done to that object is done to the
person (voodoo)
-Cave art may have been used for this type of ritual
Contagious Magic - answer✔-The notion that things which have once been conjoined must
remain ever afterwards, even when quite dissevered from each other, in such a sympathetic
relation that whatever is done to one must similarly affect the other
-Most common example is between man and any severed portion of a person (hair,skin, nails)
-Baseball Magic
Functionalism - answer✔
Emile Durkheim - answer✔-Dissatisfied with Tylor's minimal definition of religion, he claimed
we needed a broader definition
-Atheist
-Felt that even the most barbaric and fantastic religious rites must be based on some human
need
-Divided religion into two parts: Rites and Beliefs
-Religion didn't include magic
Beliefs - answer✔Durkheim
All Religous beliefs presuppose a classification of all things real and ideal into two classes or
opposed groups: the sacred and the profane
Rites - answer✔Durkheim
Rules of concept which prescribe how one should behave in the presence of the sacred
We know what things are sacred or profane by how people react to these things
Profane - answer✔-The realm of routine experience
3|Page
, ©BRIGHTSTARS EXAM SOLUTIONS
11/16/2024 10:16 AM
-The secular everyday world of work and toil and domestic duties
-People often take caution to avoid contact with the profane
-Anything not sacred: unholy, irreverent, contemptuous or blasphemous
Sacred - answer✔-A recognition of belief power or force
-'non-utilitarian': beyond the everyday
-Evokes an attitude of awe reverence and intense respect
-What makes something sacred is not connection to the 'Devine' but prohibiting setting it apart
from the profane --> taboos
Fundamental Metamorphosis - answer✔Changing from one state to another
Religion
(according to Durkheim) - answer✔-Was a public, social, beneficial institution
-Church makes a profession of adhering to beliefs and practicing the rites connected with them
-The individuals which compose it feel themselves united to each other by the simple fact that
they have a common faith
Magic
(according to Durkheim) - answer✔-Selfish, private and at least potentially maleficent
-Belief in magic does not bind together those who adhere to it nor unite them in a group
leading a common life
Totemism - answer✔-From the Ojibway ...
Totemism
(according to Durkheim) - answer✔-Images, animals and clan members are all sacred in one
way or another
-Thus their sacred character is not due to special properties of one another,but rather is derived
from some common principal shared by all
-Totemism is really about an anonymous,impersonal force, immanent in the world and diffused
among its various material objects
Lucien Levy-Bruhl
4|Page
11/16/2024 10:16 AM
Anth 4340: Magic, Witchcraft and Religion
Exam Questions With Correct Answers
Ethnocentirism - answer✔Evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating
in the standards and customs of ones own culture
Religion - answer✔A system of beliefs and practices usually involving the worship of
supernatural forces or beings
Dichotomy - answer✔A division or contrast between two things that are represented as being
opposed or entirely different: other societies may not make a supernatural/natural distinction
Identifying the Supernatural - answer✔What we consider as supernatural, others may not
(water babies)
Holistic Perspective - answer✔Looking at it from all different aspects and how they are
interconnected by the whole
Objective Perspective - answer✔Observe without passing judgement
Comparative Perspective - answer✔How does it compare to other cultures and peoples
Interdisciplinary - answer✔Being open to the ideas and observations from other fields studying
the same subject
Emic Perspective - answer✔
Evolutionism - answer✔The study of origin
Functionalism - answer✔The study of function
Symbolic and Iterperative approaches - answer✔The study of meaning
Knowledge - answer✔The study of experience
Rationalism - answer✔Reason: beginnings of Anthropology Sociology and Psychology
James Ussher - answer✔-1654 he calculates the date of creation to be 23 October 4004 BC
1|Page
, ©BRIGHTSTARS EXAM SOLUTIONS
11/16/2024 10:16 AM
-Catatrophism
Catastrophism - answer✔The idea that the earth was shapes by a series of sudden, short-lived,
violent events (ex: the great flood)
Attributed to James Ussher
Charles Lyell - answer✔-1830's Principles of Geology argues for uniformitarianism --> the laws
of nature are constant
-The earth is not divinely created
-Geological formations require millions of years
Charles Darwin - answer✔-Origin of species
-"Much light will be shed on the origin of man and his history"
E.B. Tylor - answer✔-Quaker
-Deeply anti-catholic
-Wanted to account for the origin of religion and trace its developmental history
-Put himself in the shoes of primitive man
-What makes the difference between a living body and a dead on?
-Animism: belief in supernatural beings (minimal definition of religion)
-Primitive man was a rationalist and a scientific philosopher
-Preliterate religions were essentially consistent and logical, based on rational thinking and
empirical knowledge
Animism - answer✔In preliterate cultures
Animals,plants and inanimate objects are endowed with souls
Tylor
Polytheism - answer✔The idea of multiple spiritual beings to explain natural events and
phenomena
Belief or worship of one or more god
Tylor
2|Page
, ©BRIGHTSTARS EXAM SOLUTIONS
11/16/2024 10:16 AM
Monotheism - answer✔Belief that there is only one god
Animism of civilized man
Tylor
Sympathetic Magic - answer✔-Trying to affect other people
-Get a representative of the person itself and anything done to that object is done to the
person (voodoo)
-Cave art may have been used for this type of ritual
Contagious Magic - answer✔-The notion that things which have once been conjoined must
remain ever afterwards, even when quite dissevered from each other, in such a sympathetic
relation that whatever is done to one must similarly affect the other
-Most common example is between man and any severed portion of a person (hair,skin, nails)
-Baseball Magic
Functionalism - answer✔
Emile Durkheim - answer✔-Dissatisfied with Tylor's minimal definition of religion, he claimed
we needed a broader definition
-Atheist
-Felt that even the most barbaric and fantastic religious rites must be based on some human
need
-Divided religion into two parts: Rites and Beliefs
-Religion didn't include magic
Beliefs - answer✔Durkheim
All Religous beliefs presuppose a classification of all things real and ideal into two classes or
opposed groups: the sacred and the profane
Rites - answer✔Durkheim
Rules of concept which prescribe how one should behave in the presence of the sacred
We know what things are sacred or profane by how people react to these things
Profane - answer✔-The realm of routine experience
3|Page
, ©BRIGHTSTARS EXAM SOLUTIONS
11/16/2024 10:16 AM
-The secular everyday world of work and toil and domestic duties
-People often take caution to avoid contact with the profane
-Anything not sacred: unholy, irreverent, contemptuous or blasphemous
Sacred - answer✔-A recognition of belief power or force
-'non-utilitarian': beyond the everyday
-Evokes an attitude of awe reverence and intense respect
-What makes something sacred is not connection to the 'Devine' but prohibiting setting it apart
from the profane --> taboos
Fundamental Metamorphosis - answer✔Changing from one state to another
Religion
(according to Durkheim) - answer✔-Was a public, social, beneficial institution
-Church makes a profession of adhering to beliefs and practicing the rites connected with them
-The individuals which compose it feel themselves united to each other by the simple fact that
they have a common faith
Magic
(according to Durkheim) - answer✔-Selfish, private and at least potentially maleficent
-Belief in magic does not bind together those who adhere to it nor unite them in a group
leading a common life
Totemism - answer✔-From the Ojibway ...
Totemism
(according to Durkheim) - answer✔-Images, animals and clan members are all sacred in one
way or another
-Thus their sacred character is not due to special properties of one another,but rather is derived
from some common principal shared by all
-Totemism is really about an anonymous,impersonal force, immanent in the world and diffused
among its various material objects
Lucien Levy-Bruhl
4|Page
