sympathetic magic

noun

1. magic predicated on the belief that one thing or event can affect another at a distance as a consequence of a sympathetic connection between them.

sympathetic magic

noun

1. a type of magic in which it is sought to produce a large-scale effect, often at a distance, by performing some small-scale ceremony resembling it, such as the pouring of water on an altar to induce rainfall

Word History and Origins

Origin of sympathetic magic¹

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

Until this point, sympathetic magic had been a term psychologists used to account for magical belief systems in traditional cultures, such as hunter-gatherer societies.

From New York Times

Sympathetic magic features a handful of iron laws.

From New York Times

In 1986, Rozin and two colleagues published a landmark paper called “Operation of the Laws of Sympathetic Magic in Disgust and Other Domains,” which argued that the emotion was a more complicated phenomenon than Darwin or the Hungarians or even Rozin himself had ventured.

From New York Times

My one year of pre-med had provided scanty knowledge at best, but the others, who knew nothing at all of medicine and regarded the discipline per se as less a science than a kind of sympathetic magic, constantly solicited my opinion on their aches and pains as respectfully as savages consulting a witch doctor.

From Literature

Was it not a dangerous word, too closely connected to Hobbes and to dubious stories about sympathetic magic told by Digby—someone whom John Evelyn, another early member, could dismiss as an arrant mountebank?

From Literature