James George Frazer: The Perils of the Soul

A SHADOW, A REFLECTION, A BREATH, OR WHAT? James George Frazer has operated as the chief ideologists of soul-theft. In 1887 the British anthropologist mailed a questionnaire to missionaries, doctors and colonial administrators all over the globe asking amongst other things whether the soul would resemble “a shadow, a reflection, a breath, or what?” From the responses Frazer, who never did fieldwork but instead spent his life working in libraries, has compiled the twelve volumes of “The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion”. In a chapter devoted to the “perils of the soul” he concludes: “As with shadows and reflections, so with portraits; they are often believed to contain the soul of the person portrayed. People who hold this belief are naturally loth to have their likeness taken; for if the portrait is the soul, or at least a vital part of the person portrayed, whoever possesses the portrait will be able to exercise a fatal influence over the original of it.”
Find the whole chapter in: The Golden Bough