Note 1 — Chapter VII · THE CURSE AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS

Robertson Smith expresses the position as follows: “The gods watched over a man’s civic life, etc., but they were not sure helpers in any private need, and, above all, would not help him in matters that were against the interests of the community as a whole. There was therefore a whole region of possible needs and desires for which religion could and would do nothing, and if supernatural help was sought in such things it had to be sought through magical ceremonies designed to purchase or constrain the favour of demoniac powers with which the public religion had nothing to do.”1