35 pages • 1 hour read
Mary DouglasPurity and Danger
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1966A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “Powers and Dangers”
The main idea of this chapter is that beliefs that attribute spiritual power to individuals can be related to the patterns of the social structure (139).
One of the aims of ritual is to discover truths that lie outside of rational control and conscious effort. Ritual recognizes the existence of anomalies, outliers, and persons and things in a “marginal state”—broadly, that which lies outside the patterns of society. Examples include unborn children and witches. Danger is often believed to exist in these marginal states. For example, witches are believed to have the ability to conjure up evil powers in the universe. It is often the case that persons with a marginal status in a society are credited with being witches, sorcerers, or the like. Yet just as often, the use (or abuse) of spiritual powers can be correlated with holding a key position in the social structure:
Where the social system explicitly recognises positions of authority, those holding such positions are endowed with explicit spiritual power, controlled, conscious, external and approved—powers to bless or curse. Where the social system requires people to hold dangerously ambiguous roles, these persons are credited with uncontrolled, unconscious, dangerous, disapproved powers—such as witchcraft and evil eye (124).
Spiritual powers that human beings can unleash can be divided into two classes: internal and external. The former reside within the psyche of the agent and the latter are symbols on which the agent must consciously act.
Chapter 6 Analysis
Here, Douglas examines primitive beliefs about spiritual powers in the universe, dangers “which are not powers vested in humans, but which can be released by human action” (140). Such spiritual powers can be divided into two classes: internal and external. The former reside within the psyche of the agent (e.g., the evil eye and witchcraft) and the second are external symbols on which the agent must consciously work (e.g., spells, curses, or charms) (122).
One area where ideas of disorder come into play are persons or things considered to be in a “marginal state”—i.e., having an indefinable status in society. Historically, these have included unborn children, witches and sorcerers, and Jewish people. Such persons are often credited with dangerous spiritual powers. People assumed to be witches attract fear and dislike because of their assumed powers of conjuring up evil forces. By contrast, sorcery is a form of authority that can be used for good or ill; in some Central African societies, sorcery is practiced within the field of medicine. As a modern example of a class of persons in a marginal state, Douglas cites ex-prisoners and residents of mental hospitals. Society typically treats such people with suspicion and intolerance. For an example from European history, she cites Joan of Arc, who was marginal in a number of ways—a woman in armor, a peasant at court, etc.—and ended up accused of witchcraft.
Douglas also cites examples of spiritual powers used by people in control of key positions in the social structure; these include the biblical King Saul, a leader whose divinely-given powers are abused (132). Also of this type are the ancient Teutonic notion of Luck and the Islamic ideas of baraka and mana, which typically emanate from people in official positions (135).
Douglas identifies pollution as a source of danger not only for the polluted person but for those around them. Unlike witchcraft or sorcery, it is not always unleashed by humans and can happen inadvertently, as when a person accidentally touches something believed to be unclean.
