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1Golden Bough (1922 Abridged Edition)

By James Frazer

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion is a wide-ranging comparative study of mythology and religion, written by Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941). It offered a modernist approach, discussing religion dispassionately as a cultural phenomenon, rather than from a theological perspective. Although most of its theories have subsequently been exploded (the most famous one being that of the relationship between magic, religion and science), its impact on contemporaneous European literature was substantial.<br><br>The Golden Bough attempts to define the shared elements of religious belief, ranging from ancient belief systems to relatively modern religions such as Christianity. Its thesis is that old religions were fertility cults that centered around the worship of, and periodic sacrifice of, a sacred king. This king was the incarnation of a dying and reviving god, a solar deity who underwent a mystic marriage to a goddess of the earth, who died at the harvest, and was reincarnated in the spring. Frazer claims that this legend is central to almost all of the world’s mythologies, and he offers a plethora of colourful examples from all over the world. Moreover, his book is written in an admirable style, seldom excelled by his more modern colleagues. (From Wikipedia, with small additions by Måns Broo)

The first volume in Frazer's seminal 12 volume set on anthropology and traditional systems of belief. Topics covered include extensive discussion on the belief in sympathetic and contagious magic, magical influence on the environment, magicians and kings, magicians as priests, the origin of incarnate living gods, and a lengthy essay on the origin on the king of the wood at the lake of Nemi. (Summary by Leon Harvey)

The second volume in Frazer's seminal 12 volume set on anthropology and traditional systems of belief. The superstition and magical purpose of kings is further discussed alongside the worship of trees, vegetation, fire, and the sacred marriages, and the mystical bond between people and trees. - Summary by Leon Harvey

The fourth volume in Frazer's seminal 12 volume set on anthropology and traditional systems of belief. With this third part of The Golden Bough we take up the question, why had the King of the Wood at Nemi regularly to perish by the hand of his successor? Topics investigated include the practice and intention of human sacrifice, the mortality of gods, the regular killing of divine kings and spirits, and the superstitions surrounding the succession of the soul. - Summary by Leon Harvey

The third volume of The Golden Bough. The term Taboo is one of the very few words which the English language has borrowed from the speech of savages. This volume examines the underlying moral code of many societies, both primitive and medieval, and with modern analogies. The reader is encouraged to contemplate the contradictions, inconsistencies, and absurdities, not merely between different people of different countries and ages, but also between similar people within the same countries. Frazer presents extensive evidence that the laws of morality slowly, but subtly, are in an ever changing state. - Summary by Leon Harvey

6Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion. Part 4. Adonis Attis Osiris. Volume 1

By James Frazer

The fifth volume and the first of two in the fourth part of Frazer's seminal work on the evolution of belief deals with the semi mythological legends of the Mediterranean and the eastern civilizations. Many analogies are traced between the worship of Osiris and the worship of the dead, especially of dead kings. The conclusion to which these analogies appear to the point is that under the mythical pall of the glorified Osiris, the god who died and rose again from the dead, there once lay the body of a dead man. The traditions of sacred men and women, ritual sacrifice and burning of gods, the influence of volcanoes upon religion, and the festivals of death and resurrection feature heavily. - Summary by Leon Harvey

The sixth volume in the Golden Bough. Frazer continues into the second part of the compilation of analogies dealing with the recurring theme of the dying god. the worship of the dead, and dead kings. Extensive evidence is presented from the history of Egypt and what had been learned from archaeology in North Africa and the Mediterranean. The Egyptian calendar and festivals, the identify and personality of Osiris, and the relationship of the mother goddess, are discussed in length. - Summary by Leon Harvey

The seventh volume in The Golden Bough series by Sir James George Frazer. The figure of the dying and reviving god in Oriental religions of Classical antiquity is returned to, and compared with the systems of belief in Europe. - Summary by leon harvey

The eighth volume in The Golden Bough collection, and second volume of The Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild. The investigations into the superstitions and rituals to propitiate fertility in primitive agriculture are expanded further to cover the link between the belief in the dying and reviving gods to the transmutation of the souls of animals into crops. Frazer discusses his speculation of the evolution belief systems depending on the level of agricultural development between hunting, grazing, and farming, and the relics of totemism and taboo. Divine animals, Gods portrayed as and replenished from totem animals, rituals of hunting, gathering, harvesting, eating, and sacrifice, and special attention to man's relations with his favoured animals are addressed in depth. - Summary by Leon Harvey

The ninth book in The Golden Bough Series. With The Scapegoat the general discussion of the theory and practice of the Dying God is brought to a conclusion. The aspect of the subject with which we are here chiefly concerned is the use of the Dying God as a scapegoat to free his worshippers from the troubles of all sorts with which life on earth is beset. Frazer sought to trace this curious usage to its origin, to decompose the idea of the Divine Scapegoat into the elements out of which it appears to be compounded. If he is right, the idea resolves itself into a simple confusion between the material and the immaterial, between the real possibility of transferring a physical load to other shoulders and the supposed possibility of transferring our bodily and mental ailments to another who will bear them for us. When we survey the history of this pathetic fallacy from its crude inception in savagery to its full development in the speculative theology of civilized nations, we cannot but wonder at the singular power which the human mind possesses of transmuting the leaden dross of superstition into a glittering semblance of gold. Certainly in nothing is this alchemy of thought more conspicuous than in the process which has refined the base and foolish custom of the scapegoat into the sublime conception of a God who dies to take away the sins of the world. Along with the discussion of the Scapegoat included in this volume an account of the remarkable religious ritual of the Aztecs, in which the theory of the Dying God found its most systematic and most tragic expression. - Summary by leon harvey

The tenth volume in The Golden Bough series. Frazer discusses the problem which gives its title to the whole work. If right, the Golden Bough over which the King of the Wood, Diana’s priest at Aricia, kept watch and ward was no other than a branch of mistletoe growing on an oak within the sacred grove and as the plucking of the bough was a necessary prelude to the slaughter of the priest, leads to a parallel between the King of the Wood at Nemi and the Norse god Balder, who was worshipped in a sacred grove beside the beautiful Sogne fiord of Norway and was said to have perished by a stroke of mistletoe, which alone of all things on earth or in heaven could wound him. This volume also provides a dissertation into sacred rituals of fire and seclusion of girls in primitive societies. - Summary by leon harvey

12Golden Bough. Part VII. Balder The Beautiful. Volume II

By James Frazer

The eleventh volume of The Golden Bough series. Fire festivals in exotic nations, magical properties of flowers, the concept of the external soul, and a proposal to solve the mystery of ritual of the golden bough. Frazer's extensive researches into the origin, the evolution, and the meaning of killing of the king of the wood, is summarised with the help of analogies from the myths of other cultures, and finally explained as a symbolic cycle of death, rebirth, and the recharging of the sacred powers of the natural world thought to come from gods to man. (Summary by Leon Harvey)