Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

12 The Transition from Sky to Sky-god

control its sunshine, its winds, above all its fructifying showers by
a sheer assertion of his own will-power expressed in the naive arts
of magic1. Modern investigators have shown how great was the
role of the magician, especially of the public magician, in early
society. And not the least of Dr J. G. Frazer's services to
anthropology has been his detailed proof ' that in many parts of
the world the king is the lineal successor of the old magician or
medicine-man2.' ' For sorcerers,' he urges, ' are found in every
savage tribe known to us; and among the lowest savages...they
are the only professional class that exists. As time goes on, and
the process of differentiation continues, the order of medicine-men
is itself subdivided into such classes as the healers of disease, the
makers of rain, and so forth; while the most powerful member
of the order wins for himself a position as chief and gradually
develops into a sacred king, his old magical functions falling more
and more into the background and being exchanged for priestly
or even divine duties, in proportion as magic is slowly ousted by
religion3.' But if so, it becomes highly probable, nay practically
certain, that the real prototype of the heavenly weather-king was
the earthly weather-king, and that Zeus was represented with
thunderbolt and sceptre just because these were the customary
attributes of the magician and monarch.

So Zeus, in a sense, copied Salmoneus. But it remains to ask
what led the community side by side with their Salmoneus to
postulate a Salmoneus-like Zeus. I incline to the following ex-
planation as possible and even probable. With the age-long
growth of intelligence it gradually dawned upon men that the
magician, when he caused a storm, did not actually make it
himself by virtue of his own will-power but rather imitated it
by his torches, rattling chariot, etc., and so coaxed it into coming

Laert. 7. 147, Aristeid. or. i. 6 (i. 9 Dindorf), et. mag. p. 408, 54, et. Gud. p. 230, 18 f.,
schol. //. 15. 188 f., cp. Athen. 289 A, Eustath. in II. p. 436, riff.); (4) Zeus as life-
giving breath, i.e. £rjv + aw {et. mag. p. 408, 57 f.).

1 On 'will-power' as a rough equivalent of the i?iana of the Pacific and the orenda
of the Iroquois see R. R. Marett The Threshold of Religion London 1909 p. 99,
cp. pp. 115—141.

Even sophisticated man has his moments of hyperboulia. When I hit a ball too far at
lawn-tennis, I ejaculate 'Don't go out!' and while speaking feel as if my voice actually
controlled the ball's flight. Or again, I find myself rising on tip-toe to make a ball,
already in mid air, clear the net. What is this but rudimentary magic?

In Folk-lore 1903 xiv. 278 f. I attempted to show that magic, whether 'mimetic' or
' sympathetic,' ultimately depends upon a primitive conception of extended personality—
a failure to distinguish aright the / from the not-I.

2 Frazer Goldert Bough3: The Magic Art i. 371, cp. i. 215, 245, and especially 332 ff.

3 Id. id. i. 420 f.