# Quote — James George Frazer, The Golden Bough

> For ages the army of spirits, once so near, has been receding farther and farther from us, banished by the magic wand of science from hearth and home, from ruined cell and ivied tower, from haunted glade and lonely mere, from the riven murky cloud that belches forth lightning, and from those fairer clouds that pillow the silvery moon or fret with flakes of burning red the golden eve.

- Author: [James George Frazer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer.md)
- Book: [The Golden Bough](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Frazer#The_Golden_Bough_(1890)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/for-ages-the

## More from this book

> The notion that we can transfer our guilt and sufferings to some other being who will bear them for us is familiar to the savage mind. It arises from a very obvious confusion between the physical and the mental, between the material and the immaterial.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/the-notion-that.md)

> Dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the sight of its ceaseless ebb and flow, and are apt, on the principles of that rude philosophy of sympathy and resemblance...to trace a subtle relation, a secret harmony, between its tides and the life of man...The belief that most deaths happen at ebb tide is said to be held along the east coast of England from Northumberland to Kent.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/dwellers-by-the.md)

> With the advance of knowledge, therefore, prayer and sacrifice assume the leading place in religious ritual; and magic; which once ranked with them as a legitimate equal, is gradually relegated to the background and sinks to the level of a black art.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/with-the-advance.md)