HOPEFULLY Nicola Sturgeon and Co have read The Golden Bough by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James Gordon Frazer. Published in 1890, it remains a cracking investigation of the strange thought processes and atavistic practices of long-dead cultures. In the opening chapters, Frazer dissects the notion of “magical thinking” – where ancient people believed that if you just said the right incantation or spell then what you wished for would miraculously happen.
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