Where does sympathetic collide?

In acoustics, sympathetic resonance (sympathetic vibration) is the forced vibration of an undamped resonator (an open piano string, a sitar's tarab strings, a soundboard) when acoustic energy reaches it at its natural frequency. Weisser and Demoucron (2014) analyze how Hindustani instruments use banks of sympathetic strings to shape resonance. This is a transfer of mechanical energy between oscillators, unrelated to the bodily and ritual meanings below.[1]

Unit

One resonator driven into sympathetic vibration

Recovery means

Sound one source and detect a second, untouched body vibrating at the same frequency.

Measured by

Accelerometer/microphone capture of the passive body's response spectrum near its resonant modes.

In physiology, the sympathetic nervous system is the division of the autonomic nervous system that mobilizes the body for action. Langley (1898), who coined the term autonomic, delineated the sympathetic outflow and its ganglia in a series of papers in The Journal of Physiology. The referent is an anatomical and functional nerve network, not an acoustic resonance or a magical principle.[2]

Unit

One sympathetic efferent pathway or response

Recovery means

Trace preganglionic fibres through sympathetic ganglia to target organs, or elicit a fight-or-flight response.

Measured by

Nerve recordings, catecholamine levels, and end-organ signs (heart rate, pupil, sweat).

In anthropology, sympathetic magic is Frazer's category, named in The Golden Bough (1890), for practices governed by the Law of Similarity (like produces like) and the Law of Contact or Contagion (things once joined act on each other at a distance). The referent is a principle of ritual reasoning, sharing only the metaphor of 'sympathy' with the acoustic and physiological meanings.[3]

Unit

One rite worked by similarity or contagion

Recovery means

Identify a ritual act whose logic is imitation of the goal or contact with a part of the target.

Measured by

Ethnographic description and classification of ritual practice.