The Technological Society

by Jacques Ellul

Magic clearly displays the characteristics of primitive technique, as Leroi-Gourhan indicates when he says that technique is a cloak for man, a kind of cosmic vestment. In his conflict with matter, in his struggle to survive, man interposes an intermediary agency between himself and his environment, and this agency has a twofold function. It is a means of protection and defense: alone man is too weak to defend himself. It is also a means of assimilation: through technique, man is able to utilize to his profit powers that are alien or hostile. He is able to manipulate his surroundings so that they are no longer merely his surroundings but become a factor of equilibrium and of profit to him. Thus, as a result of techniquë, man transforms his adversaries into allies. These characteristics of material technique correspond perfectly to the characteristics of magical technique. There, also, man is in conflict with external forces, with the world of mystery, spiritual powers, and mystical currents. But there, too, man erects a barrier around himself, for he would not know how to defend himself by his own unaided intellect. He uses any means that will serve him both for defense and for adjustment. He turns to his own profit the hostile powers, which are obliged to obey him by virtue of his magical formulas. Masson-Oursel, in a recent study, confirms this. He shows that magic is basically a “scholasticism of efficiency” which man employs as an instrument against his environment; th...