The primary aim of this book is to explain the remarkable rule which regulated succession to the priesthood of Diana at Aricia.
This is an extremely wide-ranging and large work and it is easy to forget what the author's original intentions were when writing it. This statement in the Preface tells us that the main goal of the work is to solve the mystery of the King of the Wood, the Priest of Diana's grove in Aricia, Italy. Frazer plainly states his key objective is to discover the origin and to understand how priests came to be chosen for this prestigious office.
There are strong grounds for thinking...in the evolution of thought, magic has preceded religion.
Frazer studies thought and its evolution in order to discover how certain beliefs were arrived at. Like other things, thought has evolved over the centuries and things that were accepted centuries ago are now thought of completely differently. Frazer concludes that magic came before religion and that humans were at first magicians, believing themselves to have the power to change the world around them. Gradually they came to realize there was a higher power outside themselves and that it was this higher power that affected change. They began to worship these outside deities and spirits and honored them with ritual or sacrifice.
Religion consists of two elements, a theoretical and a practical, namely, a. Relief in powers higher than man and an attempt to propitiate or please them.
Frazer breaks down the complex question of the identity of religion into two bite-size chunks. Religion needs belief in a higher power and an interaction between the believer and the higher power he believes in.If there is only one without the other then it is not religion. For example, a person may go through the motions and act worshipfully but if they do not truly believe in the deity they are worshipping then that is not religion. Similarly, a person might believe strongly in a higher power but in a non-participation way, but without the act of worship then it is belief but not religion. In order for there to be religion, both belief and a relationship with the higher power must be present.
