imitative magic

noun

1. magic that attempts to control the universe through the mimicking of a desired event, such as by stabbing an image of an enemy in an effort to destroy them or by performing a ritual dance imitative of the growth of food in an effort to secure an abundant supply; a branch of sympathetic magic based on the belief that similar actions produce similar results. Compare contagious magic.

Example Sentences

After conducting experiments and interviewing guitar players and collectors, they have just published papers analyzing “celebrity contagion” and “imitative magic,” not to mention “a dynamic cyclical model of fetishization appropriate to an age of mass-production.”

From New York Times

That is a belief in what is also called imitative magic: things that resemble each other have similar powers.

From New York Times

“Consumers use contagious and imitative magic to imbue replica instruments with power,” Dr. Fernandez and Dr. Lastovicka write in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.

From New York Times

Such a theory is not supported by the facts of anthropology; and does not even apply to those specialized and often superficial kinds of magic classed under it by Dr. Frazer as ‘sympathetic and imitative magic’, i. e. that through which like produces like, or part produces whole.

From Project Gutenberg

Imitative magic follows the law of association by similarity, while contagious magic is based on the law of contiguity.

From Project Gutenberg