In such experiences lie the roots of both religion and magic. In their earliest forms they may be as difficult to discriminate as the simplest types of animal and vegetable life. If it be asked what distinguishes them outwardly, when both are transmitted by tradition, both rest upon custom, it may be answered that religion is concerned with what tends to the stability of the community. Its interests are those of the group. It supplies the bond of united action for clan or tribe or people. It is pre-eminently social; it expresses itself in ceremonies, feasts, and rites in which all can join, or in commands which all can obey. Even the Australians, so poor in elements of worship, have tribal laws which have been imparted to them from on high (Chap. VII).
Over against the community stands the individual, object of all kinds of jealousies and enmities. All sorts of antisocial arts may be practised for his destruction. The pointing-stick of Australia provides a common magical weapon. It is carried away into a lonely spot in the bush, and the intending user plants it in the ground, crouches down over it, and mutters a curse against the object of his hatred: "May your heart be rent asunder, may your backbone be split open!" Then { 79} one evening, as the men sit round the campfire in the dark, he creeps up stealthily behind his enemy, stoops down with his back to the camp, points the stick over his shoulder, and mutters the curse again. A little while after, unless saved by a more powerful magic, the victim sickens and dies.
Of course magic may also be used for the benefit of the individual, and the practice of exorcism for the cure of diseases caused through possession by evil spirits long found shelter in some branches of the Christian Church. The kinship between Magic and Religion is clearly marked when the priest takes the place of the devil-dancer or the medicine man. Yet they are on different planes; religion is prescribed and official, and demands specific services; magic falls into the background, it becomes a secret, perhaps a forbidden, art. Nevertheless, between religion and antisocial magic lies a large group of rites, essentially magical in character, like the North American Indian rain-dances or the totem-ceremonies of the Arunta in Central Australia, designed for the general welfare. Even in much higher cultures the spell frequently mingles with the prayer, and ceremonies of sacrifice carry with them elements of compulsion or constraint.