Short answer: two old laws still operate in the modern mind
Kind of knowledge: School: AnthropologySchool's interpretation. How one school or one book reads it; other schools may read it differently. The five labelsThe feeling that an object carries a person's essence remains strong even when we know it has no physical mechanism, because it does not sit at the level of physical understanding but at the level of automatic cognition. Anthropology has long described two "laws" of contagious magic: one is that contact transfers properties, two is that similarity means shared essence. Paul Rozin and colleagues (1986) brought these two laws into the laboratory and showed that modern adults are still governed by them, even when they clearly know it is irrational.
What is notable is that these two laws are not merely "leftovers" from a superstitious past. They operate most strongly in domains where the body reacts before reason can intervene: disgust, fear, reverence, longing. So the feeling toward a dead person's belongings, toward New Year's luck, toward the essence of someone who passed an exam, are all expressions of the same mechanism.
What are these laws and who named them?
These two laws were systematized by James Frazer in *The Golden Bough* at the end of the 19th century, when he classified magic into two types: contact magic and imitative magic.
- Law of contact: things that have once touched each other continue to influence each other after they are separated.
- Law of similarity: what is alike is the same in essence, or the small represents the large.
Frazer built this classification as a model of cultural evolution, in which magic is considered a stage before religion and science. This reading is no longer widely accepted by anthropologists today. Bronisław Malinowski, in *Magic, Science and Religion* (1925), argued the opposite: no people lacks scientific thinking, and magic is not false science but a separate domain, arising from moments when humans are helpless before danger and uncertainty. He wrote that magic is born from pent-up experiences when humans face the gaps in the cultural wall they build between themselves and fate.
Malinowski's reading matters for this article: it removes magic from the frame of "false knowledge" and places it in the frame of "psychological response to uncertainty". From there, the fact that modern people are still governed by these two laws is no longer a paradox.
The fruit juice and chocolate experiments: evidence from the laboratory
Rozin, Millman and Nemeroff (1986) published in the *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology* a series of experiments showing that the two laws of contagious magic govern modern adults in the domains of disgust, pleasure and evaluation.
In one experiment, participants were given a glass of fruit juice. They knew clearly the juice had never touched anything dirty. But when a sterilized cockroach was dipped in and taken out, many still refused to drink, or drank with a measurable degree of reluctance. The cockroach was dead and had been disinfected, meaning it could not transmit disease by any microbiological mechanism. But "contact" in cognition does not care about microbiology.
In another experiment, participants were asked to rate their enjoyment of a chocolate bar shaped in a disgusting form, for example a dog or feces. The chocolate was completely clean, made from ordinary ingredients, but the shape made people eat less or refuse to eat. This is the law of similarity: a shape resembling something disgusting carries the properties of that disgusting thing.
Rozin and colleagues also found similar effects with other people's clothing, with objects that once belonged to a disliked person, and with objects believed to "transmit" qualities through contact. These results have been replicated many times in later studies in many Western countries.
Why are superstition, magic and the supernatural the same thing?
Marjaana Lindeman and Annika M. Svedholm (2012) argued in *Review of General Psychology* that the four terms "paranormal", "superstitious", "magical" and "supernatural" in fact refer to the same kind of belief, and their common definition is category confusion between domains of knowledge.
Kind of knowledge: SchoolSchool's interpretation. How one school or one book reads it; other schools may read it differently. The five labelsMore specifically, Lindeman and Kia Aarnio (2007) proposed an integrative model in the *Journal of Research in Personality*: superstitious, magical and mystical beliefs all stem from wrongly attributing properties across the physical, biological and psychological domains. For example:
- Attributing will or intention to an inanimate object (psychological domain into physical domain).
- Attributing biological contagion to psychological contact (biological domain into psychological domain).
- Attributing a person's moral qualities to their objects (psychological domain into physical domain).
Lindeman, Svedholm-Häkkinen and Lipsanen (2015) published in *Cognition* that it is category confusion, not the ability to think about others' minds, that predicts religious belief, mystical belief and belief in supernatural purpose.
This understanding helps explain why the same person can both believe in science and feel uneasy about using a dead person's belongings. The two systems do not compete at the same level. The physical system says "there is no mechanism of contagion". The automatic classification system says "this object belongs to that person, so it carries that person". Both coexist.
Table comparing the main studies
| Study | Journal, year | Data scope | Main result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rozin, Millman and Nemeroff | *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 1986 | Adults, United States | The two laws of contagious magic govern evaluation and behavior in the domains of disgust and pleasure |
| Lindeman and Aarnio | *Journal of Research in Personality*, 2007 | Adult sample, Finland | Integrative model: superstitious, magical and mystical beliefs share roots in category confusion between physical, biological and psychological domains |
| Lindeman and Svedholm | *Review of General Psychology*, 2012 | Theoretical review | The four terms are one; common definition is category confusion |
| Lindeman, Svedholm-Häkkinen and Lipsanen | *Cognition*, 2015 | Adult sample, Finland | Category confusion predicts religious, mystical and supernatural beliefs; mind-reading ability does not |
Kind of knowledge: UnprovenNot enough evidence. Someone has claimed it, but no source or study is strong enough to confirm it. The five labelsThese studies were conducted in the West. To date, no published study has directly measured the two laws of contagious magic on Vietnamese people in the same experimental design. Therefore, the application to Vietnamese customs below is Nhat Nguyet's interpretation, not research results.
Applying to Vietnamese customs: seeking luck, avoiding the dead's belongings, asking for essence
This section is Nhat Nguyet's interpretation, based on the theoretical framework presented above, not research results on Vietnamese people.
Why is seeking New Year's luck "sacred"?
Kind of knowledge: Folk beliefFolk belief. What people believe, avoid or pass on by word of mouth, recorded as a belief, not as a checked fact. The five labelsIn folk belief, New Year's luck, whether a branch from a temple or a red envelope, is considered to carry good fortune from a sacred place or from the giver. The receiver believes that fortune is transmitted through the object.
According to Rozin's framework, this is the law of contact operating: an object that has touched a sacred place or a person considered lucky carries that property. Interestingly, this feeling is stronger when the giver has higher status or is considered "luckier". That is also the logic of the law of similarity: a person resembling a lucky model can transmit luck.
Why avoid using a dead person's belongings?
Kind of knowledge: Folk beliefFolk belief. What people believe, avoid or pass on by word of mouth, recorded as a belief, not as a checked fact. The five labelsMany Vietnamese families avoid reusing clothes, beds or personal items of someone who has just died for a period, sometimes permanently. The stated reason is often "to let them rest", or "not wanting to carry their essence".
According to the contagious magic framework, this is the law of contact in its strongest form: an object that once belonged to the dead still carries them. In the context of funerals, this feeling blends with longing and fear of death, so it is much stronger than the feeling toward a living person's belongings. Malinowski noted that funerals are one of the times when magic and ritual are most densely concentrated, because that is when the community faces loss and needs to re-establish order.
It should be clear: this avoidance is not a matter of "right or wrong" physically. It is a way the community manages emotions and divides the boundary between the living and the dead.
Why ask for the essence of someone who passed an exam?
Kind of knowledge: Folk beliefFolk belief. What people believe, avoid or pass on by word of mouth, recorded as a belief, not as a checked fact. The five labelsThe custom of asking for the essence of someone who passed an exam, or asking for calligraphy at the start of the year, relies on the law of similarity: a person successful in one thing can transmit that quality through contact, through words, or through a small object.
Here, the law of similarity and the law of contact often go together. The person asking usually wants to touch the successful person, ask for one of their objects, or ask for a blessing. The feeling of "having received" comes from the combination of the two laws.
Why does understanding the mechanism not make the feeling disappear?
This is a point many people wonder about. If we know contagious magic is category confusion, why do we still feel uneasy?
The answer lies in the structure of cognition. Rozin and colleagues (1986) noted that even participants who clearly understood the irrationality of their reaction could not comfortably drink the fruit juice that had touched the cockroach. Understanding at the rational level does not erase the reaction at the automatic level.
Lindeman and colleagues (2015) showed that category confusion is a fairly stable cognitive trait, not disappearing just because of education. This does not mean education is useless. It means education changes what we say and what we decide to do, but not necessarily the body's first reaction.
Malinowski saw this as early as 1925: magic is not false science, but a psychological response to uncertain areas that science does not fully cover. So the persistence of this feeling is not a failure of reason. It is a sign that humans operate with multiple systems at once.
The effect is real, but born from belief
Kind of knowledge: UnprovenNot enough evidence. Someone has claimed it, but no source or study is strong enough to confirm it. The five labelsOne point needs to be clear to avoid both extremes. When a person believes that New Year's luck brings good fortune, that belief can change their behavior: they are more confident, more proactive, more social. Those behavioral changes can lead to better practical outcomes. The effect is real, but it is born from belief and behavior, not from a supernatural mechanism of the object.
In other words, the effect is real but born from belief. This phrasing keeps both: not calling it the system predicting correctly, nor denying what people actually experience.
Where evidence is still lacking
Studies on contagious magic were conducted mainly in the United States and Finland, on adults, in Western laboratory settings. Extending the results to other cultures, including Vietnam, requires separate research. To date, no published study has directly measured these two laws on Vietnamese people with an equivalent experimental design.
Additionally, the link between category confusion and specific daily behaviors, for example how long to avoid a dead person's belongings, has not been quantified. This is an open area.
Conclusion
The feeling that "objects carry a person's essence" is not unique to one culture or era. It is a universal feature of human cognition, measured in the laboratory since the 1980s and replicated many times since. Understanding its mechanism does not make it disappear, and that is fine. What matters is understanding it enough not to judge someone experiencing it, whether they are seeking New Year's luck or feeling uneasy about opening the wardrobe of someone recently deceased.
