What is sympathetic magic with regards to religion and give examples?

Answer 1

Sympathetic magic are icons, or imitations, such as the voodoo doll. You poke a needle in a joint, and that is supposed to cause pain in the intended victim's joint. Cargo cults in the Pacific, after WWII, built mock airstrips and airports in the hope of getting the planes to return.

In religion, a sacrificial lamb would be a possible example of sympathetic magic. The lamb dies as a substitute to avert our physical or spiritual death. Some faith healers palm chicken gizzards as "tumors" they remove from victims, in feats of prestidigitation magic.

I can't really think of good examples in main stream religions just off hand. Most of them tend to focus on spirituality rather than on the physical. The sacrament of the eucharist, eating the host, is symbolic--not really imitative. The same is true for baptism.