The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

In anthropology, magic refers to practices that are undertaken to exercise control over natural or spiritual forces. The practices of magic in any given society are usually considered as distinct from religious practices, though the two share the same cultural worldview. Magic is often viewed as subversive or inappropriate from the perspective of a given culture’s traditional religious framework, but it can still be widely practiced thanks to the assumed efficacy of its rituals. While some theorists at the turn of the 20th century believed that magic represented an earlier form of human religious development, Durkheim believes that religion was the prior social system, of which magic was a derivation.

Mana is a term which Durkheim borrows from Melanesian cultures and applies to the overarching totemic principle. This totemic principle is the all-pervasive spiritual force which emerges from society itself and which constitutes the foundational element of human religious experience. Durkheim uses mana interchangeably with the Oceti Sakowin term wakan, though mana is the more frequent usage in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. 

By profane, Durkheim does not mean to indicate something blasphemous or offensive, as is sometimes the term’s connotation in modern sources (where its association with its related term, profanity, colors its usage). Rather, Durkheim uses “profane” to designate whatever does not fall into the category of the sacred. In this sense, “secular” might be a closer approximation in modern language, representing the ordinary and prosaic side of life as contrasted with those objects and practices regarded as holy within a religious context.

Durkheim’s definition of religion focuses on two main features: first, the separation of all reality into the dualistic categories of sacred and profane; and second, the community-centered context of religious practices. Religion, then, is a system of beliefs and practices that classifies objects and actions as either sacred or profane, and that is experienced in a communal social context. Importantly, Durkheim does not include in his definition of religion certain elements that are commonly conceived as essential to religion, such as a belief in spiritual beings or divinities.

The soul is a nearly ubiquitous feature in human religion, usually denoting a spiritual element of the individual person. In Durkheim’s usage, it takes on a slightly different aspect; the soul’s fundamental nature is not grounded in either the individual or the idea of spirit. Rather, it is grounded in the overarching reality of the totemic principle. Durkheim sees religion as a reflection of society itself, which exerts its influence on all members of that society in the manner of an emergent collective consciousness, a set of values and concepts that impress themselves upon the individual. Insofar as this totemic principle essentially represents the “soul” of society itself, each individual soul is a fragment of that whole, an incarnation of the totemic principle in each person’s experience.