gn of a
belief remains. It has by that time become part of the intellectual
environment. Theories of a quasi-philosophic or quasi-scientific
character are elaborated, and give to the original belief something of a
rational air. Even to-day the extent to which superstitious practices
still gather round the subject of disease is known only to the curious
in such matters. Not that the original reason is given for the practice.
In nearly every case a different one is invented. To take only a single
example. We still find saffron tea largely used in cases of measles. All
medical men are aware that it possesses not the slightest curative
value. Students of folklore are aware that it has its origin in the
theory of sympathetic cures. Its redeeming feature is that it is
harmless; so we find it still in common use, and the recovery of a child
from measles is often enough attributed to the potency of the
concoction. So with the relation of disease to the persistence of the
belief in the supernatural. The conclusion that disease--whether bodily
or mental--is due to the agency of spirits is one that follows from the
existence of the religious idea; but in turn the observed facts react
and strengthen the religious belief. Every case of disease becomes to
the primitive mind an unanswerable proof in favour of the original
hypothesis. The disease is there, and the only explanation possible is
in terms of the animistic idea. And all the time the religious idea is
becoming more deeply embedded in the social consciousness, more firmly
established as a social fact.

The next line of evidence is that furnished by what I have called the
culture of the supernatural. By some means or other--probably by
accident in the first instance--it is discovered that certain herbs and
vegetable drugs have a peculiar effect on one's mental state. Those who
use them see or hear things other people do not normally hear or see.
Abstention from food and other bodily privations produce similar
results. What is the inevitable conclusion? The only one possible under
the existing conditions is that communication has been set up with an
invisible world from which one is shut off under normal conditions. From
this to the next step is obvious and easy. If a drug, or a fast, brings
one into communication with the supernatural world, one has only to
repeat the conditions in order to repeat the experience. And repeated
they are in all religions, with, at most, those mod