CHAPTER III
ANIMISM, MAGIC AND THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THOUGHT
1
IT is a necessary defect of studies which seek to apply the point of view of psychoanalysis to the mental sciences that they cannot do justice to either subject. They therefore confine themselves to the rôle of incentives and make suggestions to the expert which he should take into consideration in his work. This defect will make itself felt most strongly in an essay such as this which tries to treat of the enormous sphere called
animism[90].
Animism in the narrower sense is the
theory of
psychic concepts, and in the wider sense, of spiritual beings in general. Animatism, the
animation theory of seemingly
inanimate nature, is a further subdivision which also includes animatism and
animism. The name
animism, formerly applied to a definite philosophic
system, seems to have acquired its present meaning through E. B. Tylor[91].
What led to the
formulation of these names is the
insight into the very remarkable conceptions of nature and the world of those
primitive races known to us from history and from our own times. These races populate the world with a multitude of spiritual beings which are benevolent or
malevolent to them, and attribute the
causation of natural processes to these spirits and demons; they also consider that not only animals and plants, but
inanimate things as well are animated by them. A third and perhaps the most important part of this
primitive 'nature philosophy' seems far less striking to us because we ourselves are not yet far enough removed from it, though we have greatly limited the existence of spirits and to-day explain the processes of nature by the
assumption of
impersonal physical forces. For
primitive people believe in a similar '
animation' of human individuals as well. Human beings have souls which can leave their habitation and enter into other beings; these souls are the bearers of spiritual activities and are, to a certain extent, independent of the 'bodies'. Originally souls were
thought of as being very similar to individuals; only in the course of a long
evolution did they lose their material character and attain a high degree of 'spiritualization'[92].
Most authors incline to the
assumption that these
soul conceptions are the original
nucleus of the animistic
system, that spirits merely
correspond to souls that have become independent, and that the souls of animals, plants and things were formed after the analogy of human souls.
How did
primitive people come to the peculiarly dualistic
fundamental conceptions on which this animistic
system rests? Through the
observation, it is
thought, of the phenomena of sleep (with dreams) and death which resemble sleep, and through the effort to explain these conditions, which affect each
individual so intimately. Above all, the problem of death must have become the starting point of the
formation of the
theory. To
primitive man the continuation of life-immortality-would be self-evident. The
conception of death is something accepted later, and only with hesitation, for even to us it is still
devoid of content and unrealizable. Very likely discussions have taken place over the part which may have been played by other observations and experiences in the
formation of the
fundamental animistic conceptions such as
dream imagery, shadows and reflections, but these have led to no conclusion[93].
If
primitive man reacted to the phenomena that stimulated his reflection with the
formation of conceptions of the
soul, and then transferred these to objects of the outer world, his
attitude will be judged to be quite natural and in no way mysterious. In view of the fact that animistic conceptions have been shown to be similar among the most varied races and in all periods, Wundt states that these "are the necessary
psychological product of the
myth-forming
consciousness, and
primitive animism may be looked upon as the spiritual expression of man's natural state in so far as this is at all accessible to our
observation"[94]. Hume has already justified the
animation of the
inanimate in his Natural History of Religions, where he said: "There is a universal
tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves and to
transfer to every
object those qualities with which they are
familiarly acquainted and of which they are intimately
conscious"[95].
Animism is a
system of
thought, it gives not only the
explanation of a single
phenomenon, but makes it possible to comprehend the totality of the world from one point, as a
continuity. Writers maintain that in the course of time three such systems of
thought, three great world systems came into being: the animistic (
mythological), the religious, and the
scientific. Of these
animism, the first
system is perhaps the most consistent and the most
exhaustive, and the one which explains the nature of the world in its
entirety. This first world
system, of mankind is now a
psychological theory. It would go beyond our scope to show how much of it can still be demonstrated in the life of to-day, either as a worthless survival in the form of
superstition, or in living form, as the foundation of our language, our
belief, and our philosophy.
It is in reference to the successive stages of these three world systems that we say that
animism in itself was not yet a religion but contained the prerequisites from which religions were later formed. It is also evident that myths are based upon animistic foundations, but the detailed relation of myths to
animism seem unexplained in some
essential points.
2
Our psychoanalytic work will begin at a different point. It must not be assumed that mankind came to create its first world
system through a purely
speculative thirst for knowledge. The practical need of mastering the world must have contributed to this effort. We are therefore not astonished to learn that something else went hand in hand with the animistic
system, namely the
elaboration of directions for making oneself master of men, animals and things, as well as of their spirits. S. Reinach[96] wants to call these directions, which are known under the names of '
sorcery and magic', the strategy of
animism; With Mauss and Hubert, I should prefer to compare them to a
technique[97].
Can the conceptions of
sorcery and magic be separated? It can be done if we are willing on our own authority to put ourselves above the vagaries of
linguistic usage. Then
sorcery is
essentially the art of influencing spirits by treating them like people under the same circumstances, that is to say by appeasing them, reconciling them, making them more favourably disposed to one, by
intimidating them, by depriving them of their power and by making them subject to one's will; all that is
accomplished through the same methods that have been found
effective with living people. Magic, however, is something else; it does not
essentially concern itself with spirits, and uses special means, not the ordinary
psychological method. We can easily guess that magic is the earlier and the more important part of animistic
technique, for among the means with which spirits are to be treated there are also found the magic kind[98], and magic is also applied where spiritualization of nature has not yet, as it seems to us, been
accomplished.
Magic must serve the most varied purposes. It must subject the processes of nature to the will of man, protect the
individual against enemies and dangers, and give him the power to injure his enemies. But the principles on whose assumptions the magic activity is based, or rather the
principle of magic, is so evident that it was recognized by all authors. If we may take the opinion of E. B. Tylor at its face value it can be most tersely expressed in his words: "mistaking an ideal connection for a real one". We shall explain this
characteristic in the case of two groups of magic acts.
One of the most widespread magic procedures for injuring an enemy consists of making an
effigy of him out of any kind of material. The
likeness counts for little, in fact any
object may be 'named' as his image. Whatever is subsequently done to this image will also happen to the hated
prototype; thus if the
effigy has been
injured in any place he will be afflicted by a disease in the
corresponding part of the body. This same magic
technique, instead of being used for private enmity can also be employed for pious purposes and can thus be used to aid the gods against evil demons. I quote Frazer[99]: "Every night when the sun-god Ra in ancient Egypt sank to his home in the glowing west he was assailed by hosts of demons under the leadership of the archfiend Apepi. All night long he fought them, and sometimes by day the powers of darkness sent up clouds even into the blue Egyptian sky to obscure his light and weaken his power. To aid the sun-god in this daily struggle, a ceremony was daily performed in his temple at Thebes. A figure of his foe Apepi, represented as a crocodile with a hideous face or a serpent with many coils, was made of wax, and on it the
demon's name was written in green ink. Wrapt in a
papyrus case, on which another
likeness of Apepi had been drawn in green ink, the figure was then tied up with black hair,
spat upon, hacked with a stone knife and cast on the ground. There the priest trod on it with his left foot again and again, and then burned it in a fire made of a certain plant or grass. When Apepi himself had thus been effectively disposed of, waxen effigies of each of his
principle demons, and of their fathers, mothers, and children, were made and burnt in the same way. The service accompanied by the
recitation of certain prescribed spells, was repeated not merely morning, noon and night, but whenever a storm was raging or heavy rain had set in, or black clouds were stealing across the sky to hide the sun's bright disk. The fiends of darkness, clouds and rain, felt the injury inflicted on their images as if it had been done to themselves; they passed away, at least for a time, and the
beneficent sun-god shone out triumphant once more"[100].
There is a great mass of magic actions which show a similar
motivation, but I shall lay stress upon only two, which have always played a great rôle among
primitive races and which have been partly preserved in the myths and cults of higher stages of
evolution: the art of causing rain and fruitfulness by magic. Rain is produced by magic means, by imitating it, and perhaps also by imitating the clouds and storm which produce it. It looks as if they wanted to 'play rain'. The Ainos of Japan, for instance, make rain by pouring out water through a big
sieve, while others fit out a big bowl with sails and oars as if it were a ship, which is then dragged about the village and gardens. But the fruitfulness of the soil was assured by magic means by showing it the spectacle of human sexual intercourse. To cite one out of many examples; in some part of Java, the peasants used to go out into the fields at night for sexual intercourse when the rice was about to blossom in order to
stimulate the rice to fruitfulness through their
example[101]. At the same time it was feared that proscribed incestuous relationships would
stimulate the soil to grow weeds and render it unfruitful[102].
Certain negative rules, that is to say magic precautions, must be put into this first group. If some of the inhabitants of a Dayak village had set out on a hunt for wild-boars, those remaining behind were in the meantime not permitted to touch either oil or water with their hands, as such acts would soften the hunters' fingers and would let the quarry slip through their hands[103]. Or when a Gilyak
hunter was pursuing game in the woods, his children were
forbidden to make drawings on wood or in the sand, as the paths in the thick woods might become as intertwined as the lines of the drawing and the
hunter would not find his way home[104].
The fact that in these as in a great many other examples of magic influence, distance plays no part,
telepathy is taken as a matter of course-will cause us no difficulties in grasping the peculiarity of magic.
There is no doubt about what is considered the
effective force in all these examples. It is the
similarity between the performed action and the expected happening. Frazer therefore calls this kind of magic imitative or homœopathic. If I want it to rain I only have to produce something that looks like rain or recalls rain. In a later
phase of
cultural development, instead of these magic conjurations of rain, processions are arranged to a house of god, in order to
supplicate the saint who dwells there to send rain. Finally also this religious
technique will be given up and instead an effort will be made to find out what would influence the atmosphere to produce rain.
In another group of magic actions the
principle of
similarity is no longer involved, but in its stead there is another
principle the nature of which is well brought out in the following examples.
Another method may be used to injure an enemy. You possess yourself of his hair, his nails, anything that he has discarded, or even a part of his clothing, and do something hostile to these things. This is just as
effective as if you had dominated the person himself, and anything that you do to the things that belong to him must happen to him too. According to the
conception of
primitive men a name is an
essential part of a personality; if therefore you know the name of a person or a
spirit you have acquired a certain power over its bearer. This explains the remarkable precautions and restrictions in the use of names which we have touched upon in the essay on
taboo[105]. In these examples
similarity is evidently replaced by relationship.
The
cannibalism of
primitive races derives its more sublime
motivation in a similar manner. By absorbing parts of the body of a person through the act of eating we also come to possess the properties which belonged to that person. From this there follow precautions and restrictions as to diet under special circumstances. Thus a pregnant woman will avoid eating the meat of certain animals because their undesirable properties, for
example,
cowardice, might thus be transferred to the child she is nourishing. It makes no difference to the magic influence whether the connection is already abolished or whether it had consisted of only one very important
contact. Thus, for instance, the
belief in a magic bond which links the fate of a
wound with the weapon which caused it can be followed unchanged through thousands of years. If a Melanesian gets possession of the bow by which he was wounded he will carefully keep it in a cool place in order thus to keep down the
inflammation of the
wound. But if the bow has remained in the possession of the enemy it will certainly be kept in close
proximity to a fire in order that the
wound may burn and become thoroughly inflamed. Pliny, in his Natural History, XXVIII, advises spitting on the hand which has caused the injury if one regrets having
injured some one; the pain of the
injured person will then immediately be eased. Francis Bacon, in his Natural History, mentions the generally
accredited belief that putting a salve on the weapon which has made a
wound will cause this
wound to heal of itself. It is said that even to-day English peasants follow this
prescription, and that if they have cut themselves with a
scythe they will from that moment on carefully keep the instrument clean in order that the
wound may not
fester. In June, 1902, a local English weekly reported that a woman called Matilde Henry of Norwich
accidentally ran an iron nail into the sole of her foot. Without having the
wound examined or even taking off her stocking she bade her daughter to oil the nail thoroughly in the
expectation that then nothing could happen to her. She died a few days later of tetanus[106] in consequence of postponed antisepsis.
The examples from this last group illustrate Frazer's distinction between
contagious magic and imitative magic. What is considered as
effective in these examples is no longer the
similarity, but the
association in space, the
contiguity, or at least the imagined
contiguity, or the memory of its existence. But since
similarity and
contiguity are the two
essential principles of the processes of
association of ideas, it must be concluded that the
dominance of associations of ideas really explains all the madness of the rules of magic. We can see how true Tylor's quoted
characteristic of magic: "mistaking an ideal connection for a real one", proves to be. The same may be said of Frazer's idea, who has expressed it in almost the same terms: "men mistook the order of their ideas for the order of nature, and hence imagined that the control which they have, or seem to have, over their thoughts, permitted them to have a
corresponding control over things"[107].
It will at first seem strange that this illuminating
explanation of magic could have been rejected by some authors as unsatisfactory[108]. But on closer consideration we must sustain the objection that the
association theory of magic merely explains the paths that magic travels, and not its
essential nature, that is, it does not explain the misunderstanding which bids it put
psychological laws in place of natural ones. We are apparently in need here of a
dynamic factor; but while the search for this leads the critics of Frazer's
theory astray, it will be easy to give a satisfactory
explanation of magic by carrying its
association theory further and by entering more deeply into it.
First let us examine the simpler and more important case of imitative magic. According to Frazer this may be practised by itself, whereas
contagious magic as a rule presupposes the imitative[109]. The motives which
impel one to exercise magic are easily recognized; they are the wishes of men. We need only assume that
primitive man had great confidence in the power of his wishes. At bottom everything which he
accomplished by magic means must have been done solely because he wanted it. Thus in the beginning only his wish is accentuated.
In the case of the child which finds itself under
analogous psychic conditions, without being as yet capable of
motor activity, we have elsewhere advocated the
assumption that it at first really satisfies its wishes by means of hallucinations, in that it creates the satisfying situation through
centrifugal excitements of its
sensory organs[110]. The adult
primitive man knows another way. A
motor impulse, the will, clings to his wish and this will which later will change the face of the earth in the service of wish fulfilment is now used to represent the
gratification so that one may experience it, as it were, through
motor hallucination. Such a representation of the gratified wish is altogether comparable to the play of children, where it replaces the purely
sensory technique of
gratification. If play and imitative representation suffice for the child and for
primitive man, it must not be taken as a sign of modesty, in our sense, or of
resignation due to the realization of their
impotence, on the contrary; it is the very obvious result of the excessive valuation of their wish, of the will which depends upon the wish and of the paths the wish takes. In time the
psychic accent is displaced from the motives of the magic act to its means, namely to the act itself. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that
primitive man does not become aware of the over-valuation of his
psychic acts until it becomes evident to him through the means employed. It would also seem as if it were the magic act itself which compels the fulfilment of the wish by virtue of its
similarity to the
object desired. At the stage of animistic thinking there is as yet no way of demonstrating objectively the true state of affairs, but this becomes possible at later stages when, though such procedures are still practised, the
psychic phenomenon of scepticism already manifests itself as a
tendency to
repression. At that stage men will acknowledge that the conjuration of spirits avails nothing unless accompanied by
belief, and that the magic effect of prayer fails if there is no piety behind it[111].
The possibility of a
contagious magic which depends upon
contiguous association will then show us that the
psychic valuation of the wish and the will has been extended to all
psychic acts which the will can command. We may say that at present there is a general over-valuation of all
psychic processes, that is to say there is an
attitude towards the world which according to our understanding of the relation of
reality to
thought must appear like an over-
estimation of the latter. Objects as such are over-shadowed by the ideas representing them; what takes place in the latter must also happen to the former, and the relations which exist between ideas are also postulated as to things. As
thought does not
recognize distances and easily brings together in one act of
consciousness things spatially and temporally far removed, the magic world also puts itself above
spatial distance by
telepathy, and treats a past
association as if it were a present one. In the animistic age the reflection of the inner world must obscure that other picture of the world which we believe we
recognize.
In summing up we may now say that the
principle which controls magic, and the
technique of the animistic method of
thought, is 'Omnipotence of Thought'.
3
I have adopted the term 'Omnipotence of Thought' from a highly intelligent man, a former sufferer from
compulsion neurosis, who, after being cured through psychoanalytic
treatment, was able to demonstrate his efficiency and good sense[113]. He had coined this phrase to designate all those peculiar and
uncanny occurrences which seemed to pursue him just as they pursue others afflicted with his
malady. Thus if he happened to think of a person, he was actually confronted with this person as if he had conjured him up; if he inquired suddenly about the state of health of an acquaintance whom he had long missed he was sure to hear that this acquaintance had just died, so that he could believe that the deceased had drawn his attention to himself by
telepathic means; if he uttered a half meant
imprecation against a stranger, he could expect to have him die soon thereafter and burden him with the responsibility for his death. He was able to explain most of these cases in the course of the
treatment, he could tell how the illusion had originated, and what he himself had contributed towards furthering his
superstitious expectations[114]. All
compulsion neurotics are
superstitious in this manner and often against their better judgment.
The existence of
omnipotence of
thought is most clearly seen in
compulsion neurosis, where the results of this
primitive method of
thought are most often found or met in
consciousness. But we must guard against seeing in this a distinguishing
characteristic of this
neurosis, for
analytic investigation reveals the same
mechanism in the other neuroses. In every one of the neuroses it is not the
reality of the experience but the
reality of the
thought which forms the basis for the
symptom formation. Neurotics live in a special world in which, as I have elsewhere expressed it, only the '
neurotic standard of currency' counts, that is to say, only things intensively
thought of or affectively conceived are
effective with them, regardless of whether these things are in harmony with outer
reality. The hysteric repeats in his attacks and fixates through his symptoms, occurrences which have taken place only in his phantasy, though in the last
analysis they go back to real events or have been built up from them. The
neurotic's guilty conscience is just as
incomprehensible if traced to real misdeeds. A
compulsion neurotic may be oppressed by a sense of guilt which is appropriate to a wholesale murderer, while at the same time he acts towards his fellow beings in a most
considerate and scrupulous manner, a behaviour which he evinced since his childhood. And yet his sense of guilt is justified; it is based upon
intensive and frequent death wishes which unconsciously
manifest themselves towards his fellow beings. It is motivated from the point of view of
unconscious thoughts, but not of
intentional acts. Thus the
omnipotence of
thought, the over-
estimation of
psychic processes as opposed to
reality, proves to be of unlimited effect in the
neurotic's
affective life and in all that emanates from it. But if we subject him to psychoanalytic
treatment, which makes his
unconscious thoughts
conscious to him he refuses to believe that thoughts are free and is always afraid to express evil wishes lest they be fulfilled in consequence of his utterance. But through this
attitude as well as through the
superstition which plays an
active part in his life he reveals to us how close he stands to the
savage who believes he can change the outer world by a mere
thought of his.
The primary
obsessive actions of these neurotics are really altogether of a magical nature. If not magic they are at least anti-magic and are destined to ward off the
expectation of evil with which the
neurosis is wont to begin. Whenever I was able to pierce these secrets it turned out that the content of this
expectation of evil was death. According to Schopenhauer the problem of death stands at the beginning of every philosophy; we have heard that the
formation of the
soul conception and of the
belief in demons which
characterize animism, are also traced back to the impression which death makes upon man. It is hard to decide whether these first
compulsive and
protective actions follow the
principle of
similarity, or of contrast, for under the conditions of the
neurosis they are usually
distorted through
displacement upon some trifle, upon some action which in itself is quite insignificant[115]. The
protective formulæ of the
compulsion neurosis also have a
counterpart in the incantations of magic. But the
evolution of
compulsive actions may be described by pointing out how these actions begin as a spell against evil wishes which are very remote from anything sexual, only to end up as a substitute for
forbidden sexual activity, which they
imitate as faithfully as possible.
If we accept the
evolution of man's conceptions of the universe mentioned above, according to which the animistic
phase is succeeded by the religious, and this in turn by the
scientific, we have no difficulty in following the fortunes of the '
omnipotence of
thought' through all these phases. In the animistic stage man ascribes
omnipotence to himself; in the religious he has ceded it to the gods, but without seriously giving it up, for he reserves to himself the right to control the gods by influencing them in some way or other in the interest of his wishes. In the
scientific attitude towards life there is no longer any room for man's
omnipotence; he has acknowledged his smallness and has submitted to death as to all other natural necessities in a
spirit of
resignation. Nevertheless, in our reliance upon the power of the human
spirit which copes with the laws of
reality, there still lives on a fragment of this
primitive belief in the
omnipotence of
thought.
In retracing the development of
libidinous impulses in the
individual from its mature form back to its first beginnings in childhood, we at first found an important distinction which is stated in the Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex[116]. The manifestations of sexual impulses can be recognized from the beginning, but at first they are not yet directed to any outer
object. Each
individual component of the sexual
impulse works for a gain in pleasure and finds its
gratification in its own body. This stage is called autoerotism and is distinguished from the stage of
object selection.
In the course of further study it proved to be practical and really necessary to insert a third stage between these two or, if one prefers, to divide the first stage of autoerotism into two. In this
intermediary stage, the importance of which increases the more we investigate it, the sexual impulses which formerly were separate, have already formed into a unit and have also found an
object; but this
object is not external and foreign to the
individual, but is his own
ego, which is formed at this period. This new stage is called narcism, in view of the
pathological fixation of this condition which may be observed later on. The
individual acts as if he were in love with himself; for the purposes of our
analysis the
ego impulses and the
libidinous wishes cannot yet be separated from each other.
Although this narcistic stage, in which the hitherto dissociated sexual impulses combine into a unity and take the
ego as their
object, cannot as yet be sharply differentiated, we can already
surmise that the narcistic organization is never altogether given up again. To a certain extent man remains narcistic, even after he had found outer subjects for his libido, and the objects on which he bestows it represent, as it were, emanations of the libido which remain with his
ego and which can be
withdrawn into it. The state of being in love, so remarkable psychologically, and the normal
prototype of the psychoses, corresponds to the highest stage of these emanations, in contrast to the state of self-love.
This high
estimation of
psychic acts found among primitives and neurotics, which we feel to be an overestimation, may now appropriately be brought into relation to narcism, and interpreted as an
essential part of it. We would say that among
primitive people thinking is still highly sexualized and that this accounts for the
belief in the
omnipotence of
thought, the unshaken confidence in the capacity to
dominate the world and the inaccessibility to the obvious facts which could enlighten man as to his real place in the world. In the case of neurotics a considerable part of this
primitive attitude had remained as a constitutional factor, while on the other hand the sexual
repression occurring in them has brought about a new sexualization of the processes of
thought. In both cases, whether we deal with an original
libidinous investment of
thought or whether the same
process has been
accomplished regressively, the
psychic results are the same, namely, intellectual narcism and
omnipotence of
thought[117].
Only in one field has the
omnipotence of
thought been retained in our own civilization, namely in art. In art alone it still happens that man, consumed by his wishes, produces something similar to the
gratification of these wishes, and this playing, thanks to artistic illusion, calls forth effects as if it were something real. We rightly speak of the magic of art and compare the artist with a magician. But this comparison is perhaps more important than it claims to be. Art, which certainly did not begin as art for art's sake, originally served tendencies which to-day have for the greater part ceased to exist. Among these we may suspect various magic intentions[119].
4
Animism, the first
conception of the world which man succeeded in evolving, was therefore
psychological. It did not yet require any science to establish it, for science sets in only after we have realized that we do not know the world and that we must therefore seek means of getting to know it. But
animism was natural and self-evident to
primitive man; he knew how the things of the world were constituted, and as man conceived himself to be. We are therefore prepared to find that
primitive man transferred the
structural relations of his own
psyche to the outer world[120], and on the other hand we may make the attempt to
transfer back into the human
soul what
animism teaches about the nature of things.
Magic, the
technique of
animism, clearly and unmistakably shows the
tendency of forcing the laws of
psychic life upon the
reality of things, under conditions where spirits did not yet have to play any rôle, and could still be taken as objects of magic
treatment. The assumptions of magic are therefore of older
origin than the
spirit theory, which forms the
nucleus of
animism. Our psychoanalytic view here coincides with a
theory of R. R. Marett, according to which
animism is preceded by a pre-animistic stage the nature of which is best indicated by the name Animatism (the
theory of general
animation). We have practically no further knowledge of pre-
animism, as no race has yet been found without conceptions of spirits[121].
While magic still retains the full
omnipotence of ideas,
animism has ceded part of this
omnipotence to spirits and thus has started on the way to form a religion. Now what could have moved
primitive man to this first act of
renunciation? It could hardly have been an
insight into the incorrectness of his assumptions, for he continued to retain the magic
technique.
As pointed out elsewhere, spirits and demons were nothing but the
projection of
primitive man's emotional impulses[122]; he personified the things he endowed with effects, populated the world with them and then rediscovered his inner
psychic processes outside himself, quite like the ingenious paranoiac Schreber, who found the fixations and detachments of his libido reflected in the fates of the 'God-rays' which he invented[123].
As on a former occasion[124], we want to avoid the problem as to the
origin of the
tendency to project
psychic processes into the outer world. It is fair to assume, however, that this
tendency becomes stronger where the
projection into the outer world offers
psychic relief. Such a state of affairs can with certainty be expected if the impulses struggling for
omnipotence have come into
conflict with each other, for then they evidently cannot all become
omnipotent. The morbid
process in
paranoia actually uses the
mechanism of
projection to solve such conflicts which arise in the
psychic life. However, it so happens that the model case of such a
conflict between two parts of an
antithesis is the
ambivalent attitude which we have analysed in detail in the situation of the mourner at the death of one dear to him. Such a case appeals to us especially fitted to
motivate the
creation of
projection formations. Here again we are in agreement with those authors who declare that evil spirits were the first born among spirits, and find the
origin of
soul conceptions in the impression which death makes upon the survivors. We differ from them only in not putting the intellectual problem which death imposes upon the living into the
foreground, instead of which we
transfer the force which stimulates inquiry to the
conflict of feelings into which this situation plunges the
survivor.
The first
theoretical accomplishment of man, the
creation of spirits would therefore spring from the same source as the first moral restrictions to which he subjects himself, namely, the rules of
taboo. But the fact that they have the same source should not prejudice us in favour of a simultaneous
origin. If it really were the situation of the
survivor confronted by the dead which first caused
primitive man to reflect, so that he was compelled to surrender some of his
omnipotence to spirits and to sacrifice a part of the free will of his actions, these
cultural creations would be a first recognition of the ??????, which opposes man's narcism. Primitive man would bow to the superior power of death with the same gesture with which he seems to deny it.
If we have the courage to follow our assumptions further, we may ask what
essential part of our
psychological structure is reflected and reviewed in the
projection formation of souls and spirits. It is then difficult to dispute that the
primitive conception of the
soul, though still far removed from the later and wholly
immaterial soul,
nevertheless shares its nature and therefore looks upon a person or a thing as a
duality, over the two elements of which the known properties and changes of the whole are distributed. This
origin duality, we have borrowed the term from Herbert Spencer[125], is already identical with the dualism which manifests itself in our customary separation of
spirit from body, and whose
indestructible linguistic manifestations we
recognize, for instance, in the description of a person who faints or raves as one who is 'beside himself.'[126]
The thing which we, just like
primitive man, project in outer
reality, can hardly be anything else than the recognition of a state in which a given thing is present to the senses and to
consciousness, next to which another state exists in which the thing is
latent, but can reappear, that is to say, the co-existence of
perception and memory, or, to
generalize it, the existence of
unconscious psychic processes next to
conscious ones[127]. It might be said that in the last
analysis the '
spirit' of a person or thing is the faculty of remembering and representing the
object, after he or it was
withdrawn from
conscious perception.
Of course we must not expect from either the
primitive or the current
conception of the '
soul' that its line of
demarcation from other parts should be as marked as that which contemporary science draws between
conscious and
unconscious psychic activity. The animistic
soul, on the contrary, unites determinants from both sides. Its flightiness and
mobility, its faculty of leaving the body, of permanently or temporarily taking possession of another body, all these are characteristics which remind us unmistakably of the nature of
consciousness. But the way in which it keeps itself
concealed behind the personal appearance reminds us of the
unconscious; to-day we no longer
ascribe its unchangeableness and indestructibility to
conscious but to
unconscious processes and look upon these as the real bearers of
psychic activity.
We said before that
animism is a
system of
thought, the first complete
theory of the world; we now want to draw certain inferences through psychoanalytic
interpretation of such a
system. Our
everyday experience is capable of constantly showing us the main characteristics of the '
system'. We
dream during the night and have learnt to interpret the
dream in the daytime. The
dream can, without being untrue to its nature, appear confused and
incoherent; but on the other hand it can also
imitate the order of impressions of an experience, infer one
occurrence from another, and refer one part of its contents to another. The
dream succeeds more or less in this, but hardly ever succeeds so completely that an absurdity or a gap in the
structure does not appear somewhere. If we subject the
dream to
interpretation we find that this
unstable and irregular order of its components is quite unimportant for our understanding of it. The
essential part of the
dream are the
dream thoughts, which have, to be sure, a significant,
coherent, order. But their order is quite different from that which we remember from the
manifest content of the
dream. The
coherence of the
dream thoughts has been abolished and may either remain altogether lost or can be replaced by the new
coherence of the
dream content. Besides the
condensation of the
dream elements there is almost regularly a re-grouping of the same which is more or less independent of the former order. We say in conclusion, that what the
dream-work has made out of the material of the
dream thoughts has been subjected to a new influence, the so-called
secondary elaboration, the
object of which evidently is to do away with the incoherence and incomprehensibility caused by the
dream-work, in favour of a new 'meaning'. This new meaning which has been brought about by the
secondary elaboration is no longer the meaning of the
dream thoughts.
The
secondary elaboration of the product of the
dream-work is an excellent
example of the nature and the pretensions of a
system. An intellectual function in us demands the
unification,
coherence and comprehensibility of everything perceived and
thought of, and does not hesitate to construct a false connexion if, as a result of special circumstances, it cannot grasp the right one. We know such
system formation not only from the
dream, but also from phobias, from
compulsive thinking and from the types of delusions. The
system formation is most ingenious in
delusional states (
paranoia) and dominates the
clinical picture, but it also must not be overlooked in other forms of neuropsychoses. In every case we can show that a re-arrangement of the
psychic material takes place, which may often be quite violent, provided it seems comprehensible from the point of view of the
system. The best indication that a
system has been formed then lies in the fact that each result of it can be shown to have at least two motivations one of which springs from the assumptions of the
system and is therefore eventually
delusional,-and a hidden one which, however, we must
recognize as the real and
effective motivation.
An
example from a
neurosis may serve as illustration. In the chapter on
taboo I mentioned a patient whose
compulsive prohibitions
correspond very neatly to the
taboo of the Maori.[128] The
neurosis of this woman was directed against her husband and culminated in the defence against the
unconscious wish for his death. But her
manifest systematic phobia concerned the mention of death in general, in which her husband was altogether eliminated and never became the
object of
conscious solicitude. One day she heard her husband give an order to have his dull razors taken to a certain shop to have them sharpened. Impelled by a peculiar unrest she went to the shop herself, and on her return from this reconnoitre she asked her husband to lay the razors aside for good because she had discovered that there was a
warehouse of coffins and funeral accessories next to the shop he mentioned. She claimed that he had intentionally brought the razors into permanent relation with the idea of death. This was then the
systematic motivation of the
prohibition, but we may be sure that the patient would have brought home the
prohibition relating to the razors even if she had not discovered this
warehouse in the neighbourhood. For it would have been sufficient if on her way to the shop she had met a
hearse, a person in mourning, or somebody carrying a wreath. The net of determinants was spread out far enough to catch the prey in any case, it was simply a question whether she should pull it in or not. It could be established with certainty that she did not
mobilize the determinants of the
prohibition in other circumstances. She would then have said it had been one of her 'better days'. The real reason for the
prohibition of the razor was, of course, as we can easily guess, her resistance against a pleasurably accentuated idea that her husband might cut his throat with the sharpened razors.
In much the same way a
motor inhibition, an abasia or an
agoraphobia, becomes perfected and detailed if the
symptom once succeeds in representing an
unconscious wish and of imposing a defence against it. All the patient's remaining
unconscious phantasies and
effective reminiscences strive for
symptomatic expression through this outlet, when once it has been opened, and range themselves appropriately in the new order within the sphere of the disturbance of
gait. It would therefore be a futile and really foolish way to begin to try to understand the
symptomatic structure, and the details of, let us say, an
agoraphobia, in terms of its basic assumptions. For the whole logic and strictness of connexion is only apparent. Sharper
observation can reveal, as in the
formation of the façade in the
dream, the greatest
inconsistency and
arbitrariness in the
symptom formation. The details of such a
systematic phobia take their real
motivation from
concealed determinants which must have nothing to do with the
inhibition in
gait; it is for this reason that the form of such a
phobia varies so and is so
contradictory in different people.
If we now attempt to retrace the
system of
animism with which we are concerned, we may conclude from our
insight into other
psychological systems that '
superstition' need not be the only and actual
motivation of such a single rule or custom even among
primitive races, and that we are not relieved of the obligation of seeking for
concealed motives. Under the
dominance of an animistic
system it is absolutely
essential that each rule and activity should receive a
systematic motivation which we to-day call '
superstitious'. But '
superstition', like 'anxiety', 'dreams', and 'demons', is one of the preliminaries of psychology which have been
dissipated by psychoanalytic investigation. If we get behind these structures, which like a screen conceal understanding, we realize that the
psychic life and the
cultural level of savages have hitherto been inadequately appreciated.
If we regard the
repression of impulses as a measure of the level of culture attained, we must admit that under the animistic
system too, progress and
evolution have taken place, which unjustly have been under-estimated on account of their
superstitious motivation. If we hear that the warriors of a
savage tribe impose the greatest
chastity and cleanliness upon themselves as soon as they go upon the war-path[129], the obvious
explanation is that they dispose of their refuse in order that the enemy may not come into possession of this part of their person in order to harm them by magical means, and we may
surmise analogous superstitious motivations for their
abstinence. Nevertheless the fact remains that the
impulse is renounced and we probably understand the case better if we assume that the
savage warrior imposes such restrictions upon himself in compensation, because he is on the point of allowing himself the full satisfaction of cruel and hostile impulses otherwise
forbidden. The same holds good for the numerous cases of sexual
restriction while he is
preoccupied with difficult or responsible tasks[130]. Even if the basis of these prohibitions can be referred to some
association with magic, the
fundamental conception of gaining greater strength by foregoing
gratification of desires
nevertheless remains unmistakable, and besides the magic
rationalization of the
prohibition, one must not neglect its
hygienic root. When the men of a
savage tribe go away to hunt, fish, make war, or collect valuable plants, the women at home are in the meantime subjected to numerous
oppressive restrictions which, according to the savages themselves, exert a sympathetic effect upon the success of the far away expedition. But it does not require much
acumen to guess that this element acting at a distance is nothing but a
thought of home, the longing of the absent, and that these disguises conceal the sound
psychological insight that the men will do their best only if they are fully assured of the
whereabouts of their guarded women. On other occasions the
thought is directly expressed without magic
motivation that the
conjugal infidelity of the wife thwarts the absent husband's efforts.
The countless
taboo rules to which the women of savages are subject during their menstrual periods are motivated by the
superstitious dread of blood which in all probability actually determines it. But it would be wrong to overlook the possibility that this blood dread also serves æsthetic and
hygienic purposes which in every case have to be covered by magic motivations.
We are probably not mistaken in assuming that such attempted explanations expose us to the reproach of attributing a most improbable delicacy of
psychic activities to contemporary savages.
But I think that we may easily make the same mistake with the psychology of these races who have remained at the animistic stage that we made with the
psychic life of the child, which we adults understood no better and whose richness and fineness of feeling we have therefore so greatly undervalued.