The Golden Bough. Part VI. The Scapegoat: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Golden Bough. Part VI. The Scapegoat, credited to James Frazer, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Golden Bough. Part VI. The Scapegoat by James Frazer. Read in English by Leon Harvey The ninth book in The Golden Bough Series. With The Scapegoat the general discussion of the theory and practice of the Dying God is brought to a conclusion. The aspect of the subject with which we are here chiefly concerned is the use of the Dying God as a scapegoat to free his worshippers from the troubles of all sorts with which life on earth is beset. Frazer sought to trace this curious usage to its origin, to decompose the idea of the Divine Scapegoat into the elements out of which it appears to be compounded. If he is right, the idea resolves itself into a simple confusion between the material and the immaterial, between the real possibility of transferring a physical load to other shoulders and the supposed possibility of transferring our bodily and mental ailments to another who will bear them for us. When we survey the history of this pathetic fallacy from its crude inception in savagery to its full development in the speculative theology of civilized nations, we cannot but wonder at the singular power which the human mind possesses of transmuting the leaden dross of superstition into a glittering semblance of gold. Certainly in nothing is this alchemy of thought more conspicuous than in the process which has refined the base and foolish custom of the scapegoat into the sublime conception of a God who dies to take away the sins of the world. Along with the discussion of the Scapegoat included in this volume an account of the remarkable religious ritual of the Aztecs, in which the theory of the Dying God found its most systematic and most tragic expression. - Summary by leon harvey

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Golden Bough. Part VI. The Scapegoat
• Author credits: James Frazer
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 19
• Listed recording duration: 14:12:58

Catalogue topics

• human sacrifice
• aztec
• primitive belief

Track guide

1. 00 - PREFACE. — 3:32
2. 01 - I. THE TRANSFERENCE OF EVIL. Part 1. — 1:11:43
3. 02 - I. THE TRANSFERENCE OF EVIL. Part 2. — 1:07:30
4. 03 - II. THE OMNIPRESENCE OF DEMONS. Part 1. — 38:31
5. 04 - II. THE OMNIPRESENCE OF DEMONS. Part 2. — 38:50
6. 05 - III. THE PUBLIC EXPULSION OF EVILS. Part 1. — 55:47
7. 06 - III. THE PUBLIC EXPULSION OF EVILS. Part 2. — 59:28
8. 07 - IV. PUBLIC SCAPEGOATS. Part 1 — 56:58
9. 08 - IV. PUBLIC SCAPEGOATS. Part 2 — 51:47
10. 09 - V. ON SCAPEGOATS IN GENERAL. — 9:48
11. 10 - VI. HUMAN SCAPEGOATS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY. Part 1 — 48:11
12. 11 - VI. HUMAN SCAPEGOATS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY. Part 2 — 41:25
13. 12 - VII. KILLING THE GOD IN MEXICO. — 1:03:41
14. 13 - VIII. THE SATURNALIA AND KINDRED FESTIVALS. Part 1 — 14:18
15. 14 - VIII. THE SATURNALIA AND KINDRED FESTIVALS. Part 2 — 1:04:54
16. 15 - VIII. THE SATURNALIA AND KINDRED FESTIVALS. Part 3 — 18:21
17. 16 - VIII. THE SATURNALIA AND KINDRED FESTIVALS. Part 4 — 56:58
18. 17 - VIII. THE SATURNALIA AND KINDRED FESTIVALS. Part 5 — 1:01:14
19. 18 - NOTE. The Crucifixion of Christ. — 30:02

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