The psychological problems of religion : 1: Ritual; psycho-analytic studies

Preface by Sigm. Freud.. Transl. from the 2d German ed. by Douglas Bryan.. 1st pub. in Gt. Britain by the Hogarth Press in 1931 as No. 19 of the International Psychoanalytical Library.

Introduction to the American edition. Preface - Sigm[und] Freud. Introduction. Couvade and the psychogenesis of the fear of retaliation. The puberty rites of savages. Some parallels between the mental life of savages and of neurotics. Kol Nidre. The shofar (The ram's horn)

'In the following four essays I have put religious ritual in the foreground of interests. There is a good precedent for this, as ritual has already proved a sound starting-point for the scientific analysis of religion....It thus seems to be advisable, both on psychological and historical grounds, to start our analytic treatment of religious problems with consideration of ritual. In the light of analysis it is possible to lay bare the motives which have led to the origin of ceremonial and the psychic paths which were taken in its development, bu indicating the nature of the repressing forces, and also of the repressed material, as this lastter manifests itself in the process of the "return of the repressed".'

Hardcover