The Golden Bough
by James George Frazer · first published 1890
42% recommend47% neutral11% critical
Why HN recommends it
Sweeping survey of myth, ritual and religion across cultures, valued for its ambition and for shaping how later readers think about ritual origins; suits readers of comparative religion and anthropology.
Common criticism: Its arguments are widely rejected by modern scholarship and some of its claims are wrong
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Wikipedia - "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (retitled The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. The Golden Bough was first published in two volumes in 1890; in three volumes in 1900; and in twelve volumes in the third edition, published 1906–1915. It has also been published in several different one-volume abridgments. The work was for a wide literate audience raised on tales as told in such publications as Thomas Bulfinc
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Hero With A Thousand Faces is truly amazing. It made me think about archtypes, meaning of live. The next stop for me after that book was famous and mystical The Golden Bough by James Frazer. I highly recommend it. I bought a great edition from Folio [0] [0] http://www.foliosociety.com/book/GNB/golden-bough
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?” ↗"The Golden Bough" - a study in comparative religion, by James George Frazer https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1159648W/The_golden_bough?ed... LETTER TO A BRAZILIAN MASON - Marcelo Ramos Motta https://parareligion.ch/dplanet/motta/moma2.htm
on “Ask HN: What's the Best Book on Religion” ↗you definitely shouldn't read James Frazer's The Golden Bough. Absolutely no documented history of European aristocracy sacrificing and eating humans up to this century. Definitely no evidence that all the Egyptian mummies were EATEN by Victorian era Europeans. And…
on “Human Relatives Were Butchering and Eating Each Other 1.45M Years Ago” ↗…the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis. Wonderfully written, though not as completely fleshed-out as a modern sci-fi reader may be used to. Still stands on its own two feet, worth a try. My first sci-fi. The Golden Bough, Frazer. Sublime, frustrating and intriguing. Changes your dreams, whether you immediately realise it or not. How Things Work: The Universal Encyclopedia of Machines. My grandfather gave me this when…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books of all time, and why?” ↗…anthropologist would then just read the books you have. If you want to use astrology to model the world you should instead use physics. If you want to use astrology to model the inner world then read e.g. "Golden Bough" and Jung's archetype work and his Liber Novus (aka The Red Book), and maybe "The Varieties of Religious Experience" and "The Perennial Philosophy". And then just make up your own system. It will work…
on “Ask HN: Help me learn astrology in 2020” ↗If you would like to read a brilliant but rambling and unsubstantiated account of comparative proto-religions, shamanistic psychology and the creation of metaphor, check out a classic called The Golden Bough. You'll walk away with a deeper understanding toward the rational origins of irrational rituals.
on “3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online” ↗…the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthword, downword, into the dark, the deep - into evil.” Also "The Golden Bough" by Frazer if you can read between the lines.
on “Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users” ↗…rituals. Check out Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, etc. For a modern and extensive compilation, Frazer famously wrote a huge multi-volume work that documents sacrificial myths from all over the world in The Golden Bough. He selects and uses them to make his own argument, but you’re not likely to find a more comprehensive compilation.
on “Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children” ↗Consider the field of comparative mythology described by Joseph Campbell in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". [0] As a side quest, check out James Frazer's "The Golden Bough". [1] On a more critical note: separating a story (diegesis) from the telling (narrative structure) is like reducing animals to skeletons, disregarding the sinews, fascia, nerves, flesh, and fluids that…
on “Music has scales / raagas. What about storytelling in movies and prestige shows?” ↗…to be when the veil between our world and other worlds were thin. That didn’t necessarily mean spirits of dead people, but also faeries and stuff. A lot of these types of claims came from the book The Golden Bough, which gets things wrong: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough A good weblog post that goes into primary sources and how Bough influenced popular culture is: > Contrary to Seth Andrews’…
on “A deep history of Halloween” ↗…https://archive.org/details/Philokalia-TheCompleteText 1853, John Dowling, History of Romanism, arguing against the Roman Catholic Church, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dowling_(pastor) 1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, anthropology of the human transition to science, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough 1896, Andrew Dickson White, founder of Cornell, A History of the Warfare…
on “'Anti-Facebook' platform Ello attracts thousands” ↗…naive perspectives of religion—with the one exception being the recommendation of C.S. Lewis. If you want to understand the psychology behind religion I recommend Wittgenstein's "Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough"; Eliade's "Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries" and "The Sacred & Profane"; Feuerbach's "The Essence of Religion"; Gertz's "The Religion of Java" and "The Interpretation of Cultures"; and no anthology of introduction…
on “Ask HN: Best books on the psychology of religion?” ↗A lot of older books that are now out of print often run many hundreds of dollars, if not more. For example, I've been trying to find a complete unabridged edition of Fraser's Golden Bough, which isn't that niche - you'll find it cited somewhere in any work on mythology- and it seems to run in the high-hundreds to low thousands. A quick look shows a first edition selling for 12k all by…
on “What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?” ↗You’re not wrong, despite Wittgenstein’s Brown Papers, his criticism of Golden Bough—-people continue to refuse to acknowledge the limits of knowledge. Here’s an author theorizing on why people go to festivals TODAY, instead of the obvious answer that they’re a fun social game he creates…
on “Lost world revealed by human, Neanderthal relics washed up on North Sea beaches” ↗…things we see going on in and around us. The Church of Modern Medicine deals with the most puxzzling phenomena: birth, death, and all the tricks our bodies play on us—and we on them—in between. In The Golden Bough, religion is defined as the attempt to gain the favor of 'powqers superior to man, which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and human life.'
on “Confessions of a Medical Heretic” ↗