MAGIC IN LANGUAGE AND RITUAL: NOTES ON AUGUSTINE'S CONFESSIONS.

The article focuses on the issues related to fetishism. Language becomes invested with magical powers and significance when ritual is unable to accomplish its work. Ritual is uniquely suited to differentiate and at the same time to provide the basis for a re-integration of the two lineages. Where ritual fails, however, it is left to language to provide the meaning that both sets apart one lineage from another and yet allows two lines to meet with a minimum of damage to either side. Augustine seeks to define the boundary between lineages by a verbal magic so to speak: as if the right formulation of one lineage's claims to life eternal would make it so. Ritual tends to re-enact critical moments of the past in which firm divisions were made of one lineage or house from another. Every new parting, that is, rekindles memories of earlier divisions. By transposing to language the burdens and magical powers of ritual, Augustine undertakes through speech the task of renewing and then disposing of earlier partings.