Elements of Folk Psychology: Outlines of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind represents Wilhelm Wundt’s ambitious attempt to synthesize his extensive researches into a single, accessible volume. The work emerged from Wundt’s larger project, the multi-volume Völkerpsychologie, which analyzed language, art, mythology, and religion across human cultures. This shorter volume, translated into English by Edward Leroy Schaub, Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University, was intended to offer a condensed and unified perspective on the whole sweep of human mental development.
“The sole impetus to architecture is furnished by the immediate needs of practical life.”
The book differs methodologically from Wundt’s earlier exhaustive treatments. Rather than examining separately each major form of folk-mind expression—language, myth, custom—Wundt here studies phenomena synchronously, showing their common conditions and reciprocal relations. He describes the work as a “synthetic survey,” analogous to understanding the development of a physical organism by examining how its organs cooperate rather than by dissecting each organ in isolation. The volume thus represents not a summary of his earlier work but a complementary approach, one that Wundt believed was required to fulfill the chief purpose of folk psychology investigations.
The work draws necessarily upon specialized sciences for its material. Human beliefs, institutions, art products, labor modes, food-getting practices, marriage customs, and warfare—all cultural elements—are treated as essentially mental processes. Wundt insists that any theory of these phenomena must respect psychological principles, and he repeatedly exposes what he regards as the untenability of rationalistic and erroneous explanations offered by ethnologists and sociologists who lack psychological training.
The book presents itself not as a philosophical evaluation but as “a descriptive account of human development”—an account of what beliefs and practices actually prevailed among various peoples and their psychological explanation. Wundt emphasizes that his work neither represents nor renders unnecessary a philosophy of history, and that it is likewise neither equivalent to nor a negation of ethics, jurisprudence, theology, epistemology, or metaphysics. The translator notes that the work’s significance lies partly in its stimulation of empirical interest in philosophy, citing Royce’s The Problem of Christianity as demonstrating the contribution of Wundt’s approach to metaphysical problems.
Context
Wundt wrote during a period of intense scholarly interest in the origins and development of human culture. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw anthropology and ethnology establishing themselves as distinct disciplines, with competing theories about primitive peoples, the evolution of religion, and the development of social institutions. The age was marked by what the translator describes as a keen interest in interpreting human experience, and Wundt’s influence on both philosophy and psychology was already widely acknowledged, with many scholars having received stimulus from instruction at Leipzig.
Wundt first won recognition in physiology but gained eminence through contributions to physiological psychology, logic, ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. His English translators had already rendered several of his major works available to Anglo-American readers, beginning with the Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology and continuing with the first volume of the Principles of Physiological Psychology, the Outlines of Psychology, the Introduction to Psychology, and the Ethics. The present volume appeared in German in 1912, following defensive and supplementary articles published in 1911 as Probleme der Völkerpsychologie.
The intellectual context was marked by vigorous debates about the nature of primitive mentality and the origins of religion. Wundt engages directly with these controversies. He discusses Roskoff’s conclusion that no peoples exist without some religion, and the Sarasins’ contrary claim that the Veddahs of Ceylon have no religion—a dispute Wundt regards as premature given the lack of agreement on what religion itself means. He critically examines the “nature-mythology” school, which held that heavenly phenomena originally fascinated primitive thought and that all mythology was therefore originally nature-mythology. He also confronts the theory, associated with Julius Kollman and William Schmidt, that the Pygmy peoples of Africa and Asia represent the childhood peoples of humanity, a view Wundt rejects on multiple grounds.
The work also participates in contemporary debates about totemism. Wundt engages with the theories of Herbert Spencer, Andrew Lang, James Frazer, and others, subjecting each to critical scrutiny. He challenges the assumption that Australian totem groups are merely clans like those of American Indians, and he disputes rationalistic explanations of exogamy’s origins. The book thus stands as both a synthesis of existing knowledge and a critical intervention in ongoing scholarly controversies.
Wundt’s folk psychology depends upon his general psychology—his system of physiological psychology. It assumes “the reality of collective minds,” not dogmatically but because opposing theories have failed. Folk psychology supplements individual psychology’s methods, principles, and laws. The translator notes that English and American psychologists tend to retain the individual consciousness viewpoint even when considering social-group phenomena, a tendency Wundt regards as a limitation.
Structure of the Book
The book is organized into four major chapters that trace human mental development through successive ages. The first chapter, “Primitive Man,” examines the earliest stage of human culture. Wundt discusses the relative nature of primitiveness, noting that we know nothing of absolutely primitive man and that the peoples we call primitive already possess beginnings of culture borrowed from nature. He examines primitive tools, the acquisition of fire, secret barter, gesture-language, and the loss of original languages among primitive tribes. He addresses the question of whether primitive peoples have religion, concluding that their mythology consists of belief in magic and demons engendered by death and sickness.
The second chapter, “The Totemic Age,” is the most extensive, reflecting Wundt’s view that this period requires detailed treatment. He examines the organization of totemic tribes, the dual division of tribal groups, the three forms of exogamy, and the various theories of exogamy’s origin. He considers modes of contracting marriage—by capture, purchase, and contract. He investigates the origin of totemism, critically examining the hypotheses of Spencer, Lang, Howitt, Spencer and Gillen, and Frazer, before presenting his own view that the totem is the embodiment of a soul. He traces the development of soul-conceptions from the corporeal soul to the breath-soul, the rise of blood-magic and anthropophagy, and the transition from animal to human ancestors. He examines totemic cults, birth customs, death cults, sacrifice, initiation ceremonies, and the development of secret societies. He considers the art of the totemic age—tattooing, ceramics, and the beginnings of sculpture and architecture.
The third chapter, “The Age of Heroes and Gods,” covers the transition to more complex social organization. Wundt discusses the taming of the ox, the origin of castration, the raising of milch cows, the individualization of labor, the rise of private property, changes in warfare, and the emergence of social classes. He examines the development of trade, colonization, and the division of labor. He considers the transformation of marriage and family arrangements in the political age.
The fourth chapter, “The Development to Humanity,” traces the further evolution of human culture toward its modern forms. The book concludes with Wundt’s reflections on the lawfulness of mental development and the relationship between his psychological history of development and the philosophy of history.
Wundt explains that his allocation of space reflects practical considerations rather than relative importance. Better-known phenomena receive brief sketch, while less familiar or generally unknown material receives detailed discussion. Thus he treats at length original tribal organization, marriage consummation, soul and demon and totem cults, and primitive culture phenomena, but gives only the barest outline to State-founding, cities, and legal systems.
Main Arguments
Wundt’s central argument concerns the lawfulness of mental development. The broader question animating the entire work is whether mental development is subject to law, and his answer is affirmative. Human communities develop according to psychological principles that can be discerned through careful study, just as physical organisms develop according to biological laws. This conviction underlies the book’s subtitle and shapes its method.
A second major argument concerns the inadequacy of rationalistic explanations of cultural phenomena. Again and again, Wundt shows that theories attributing cultural institutions to deliberate human design fail to account for the evidence. The institution of exogamy, for example, cannot be explained as the work of wise elders who recognized the harmful effects of close marriage, since primitive peoples lack the conceptual apparatus such a decision would require. Similarly, the origin of castration cannot be explained as a deliberate invention for making bulls tractable, since its results must have been known before such a purpose could exist. Wundt consistently seeks explanations that accord with psychological probability—explanations grounded in the emotions, impulses, and thought-forms actually available to people at given stages of development.
A third argument concerns the reality of collective minds. Wundt maintains that folk psychology must assume collective mental phenomena that cannot be reduced to individual consciousness. This assumption is necessitated by the failure of opposing theories that attempt to explain social and cultural phenomena purely in terms of individual psychology. The translator notes that this position distinguishes Wundt from English and American psychologists who tend to retain the individual consciousness viewpoint even for social-group phenomena.
A fourth argument concerns the relative nature of primitiveness. Wundt insists that the concept “primitive” is never valid except in a relative sense. Of an absolutely primitive man we know nothing at all, and such a being would belong to the animal level and therefore to the prehuman stage of existence. Primitive man is relatively primitive: he possesses beginnings of culture, but these are in no respect more than mere beginnings, all borrowed from nature and from the direct means of assistance nature offers. Yet these elementary acquisitions already differentiate primitive man from the animal.
A fifth argument concerns the origin of religion. Wundt maintains that truly primitive peoples possess belief neither in one god nor many gods, nor any coherent celestial mythology. Their mythology consists of belief in magic and demons, engendered by the experiences of death and sickness. The idea of gods arises later, through a process Wundt traces across the totemic and heroic ages. He argues that the god-idea resulted from the fusion of the hero ideal with prior demon belief—a hypothesis that is necessarily conjectural since direct demon-to-god transition cannot be certainly shown, yet one that moves on the factual plane.
A sixth argument concerns the development of soul-conceptions. Wundt traces a turning-point in the totemic age. Primitive man regards the corporeal soul as the principal soul; at death the soul remains in the body, so primitive man flees the corpse. Change comes from strife and warfare arising from tribal migrations, which bring the spectacle of sudden death. One killed in battle exhibits the life-death contrast directly, permitting the development of more advanced conceptions. Two sets of ideas develop: the soul departs with the blood, giving rise to blood magic; and the soul departs with the last breath, giving rise to the breath-soul or psyche.
Key Concepts
Folk Psychology (Völkerpsychologie). Wundt’s term for the psychological study of collective mental phenomena—language, myth, custom, religion, art. The word is new in German, dating from about mid-nineteenth century, and appears with two meanings. The first refers to investigations of relations among peoples’ intellectual, moral, and mental characteristics and their influence on politics, art, and literature—the characterization of peoples, emphasizing cultural peoples. The second, which Wundt follows, refers to the mental sciences’ realization of their need for a psychological foundation.
Collective Minds. Wundt’s assumption that social groups possess mental phenomena that cannot be reduced to individual consciousness. This assumption is necessitated by the failure of opposing theories.
Relative Primitiveness. The concept that no known people is absolutely primitive. All peoples we can study possess beginnings of culture, however elementary.
Corporeal Soul. The primitive conception of the soul as the body itself, the vehicle of life. At death the soul remains in the body, causing primitive man to flee the corpse. The dead person becomes a demon, an invisible being able to seize, overpower, or sicken the living.
Breath-Soul (Psyche). A later conception in which the soul departs with the last breath. This idea arises from the spectacle of sudden death in warfare. The breath-soul proves the most permanent form of soul-belief.
Blood-Soul. The conception that the soul departs with the blood, making blood the chief vehicle of the soul. This gives rise to blood magic and to beliefs about consuming blood to acquire the soul-powers of the sacrificed.
Demon. An invisible being, product of fear and fright, capable of seizing, overpowering, or sickening the living. Demons are engendered by death and sickness.
Magic. The primitive belief system involving practices to influence supernatural forces. Counter-magic leads to the development of medicine-men or shamans.
Totemism. The cultural system of the totemic age, in which groups are associated with animal (or occasionally plant) species that serve as cult objects and ancestral beings.
Totem. The embodiment of a soul—either an ancestor’s or a protective being’s soul incorporated in an animal. Originally the totem was probably always an animal, particularly animals with rapid movement, flight, or features arousing surprise or uncanny dread—snake, lizard, mouse, birds.
Exogamy. The practice of marrying outside one’s own group. Wundt distinguishes three forms: unlimited exogamy, limited exogamy with direct maternal or paternal descent, and limited exogamy with indirect descent.
Cult Associations. Wundt’s term for Australian totem groups, which he views as cult associations within tribal divisions rather than mere clans.
Soul Animals. Animals particularly suited to be receptacles of human souls after death—those with rapid movement, flight, or uncanny features.
Fetish. An inanimate object associated with magical ideas. The introduction of the plant totem mediates the transition from totem to fetish.
Ancestor Worship. The cult of human ancestors, which develops as totemism dissolves. True ancestor cult is bound to hearth and family.
Secret Barter. The practice by which primitive peoples exchange goods with neighboring tribes without direct contact, depositing offerings and returning later to find exchanged goods.
Gesture-Language. A primitive form of communication using expressive movements. Gesture-language originates not from intellectual reflection but from emotion and involuntary expressive movements accompanying emotion.
Medicine-Man (Shaman). A special group of men who practice counter-magic, ostensibly removing sickness as a piece of wood or stone. The medicine-man’s function changes from magician to priest in the totemic age.
Intichiuma Ceremonies. Magic ceremonies for multiplying totems, in which totem members scatter grass seed or form clay figures of animals. These are natural precursors of later vegetation festivals.
Conception Totemism. Frazer’s theory that totemism arises from dreams mothers experience before childbirth. Wundt regards this as an anomaly, rare within totemic culture.
Phallus Cult. The cult of the external sexual organs as vehicles of generative power. The phallus was not a mere symbol but the very vehicle of masculine power, a productive, creative potency characteristic of the deity.
Themes
A recurring theme is the interpenetration of material and spiritual culture. Wundt repeatedly shows that practical achievements and religious impulses form an interrelated totality. The taming of the ox and the development of milk production, for example, seem partly due to cult motives. The castration of bulls may have originated as sacrifice of generative organs—the most accessible soul vehicles—before its results were applied to making animals tractable for drawing the deity’s chariot and then the plough. External culture and inner religious impulses cannot be separated into independent spheres.
Another theme concerns the gradual emergence of individuality. Primitive man lives in close association with fellow-tribesmen but secludes himself from other tribes. The totemic age brings tribal organization and collective cults. The political age brings the individualization of labor—the individual guides his own plough, unlike the common field work of hoe-culture—and this parallels individual prominence in political development and legend. The heroic age differentiates propertied from propertyless classes, and the individual hero emerges as a distinct figure.
A related theme is the transformation of fear into reverence. Primitive man flees from the corpse, fearing the demon the dead become. Totemic culture loses its fear of the dead, reacting upon disposal practices. The corpse is no longer left at the place of death but stretched out on a mound of earth—the platform method, a transition to burial. Death cults appear when fear of the dead demon vanishes and reverence grows. This psychological transformation underlies the development of ancestor worship and, ultimately, of god-ideas.
The theme of psychological explanation versus rationalistic invention runs throughout. Wundt consistently rejects explanations that attribute cultural institutions to deliberate design. The institution of exogamy cannot be explained as wise elders preventing harmful marriages. The origin of fire cannot be explained as human invention; rather, man found fire while making utensils. The development of agriculture cannot be explained as a deliberate discovery. Wundt seeks explanations grounded in the emotions and impulses actually available to people at given stages of development.
The theme of developmental lawfulness unifies the work. Wundt maintains that mental development is subject to law, and that this lawfulness can be discerned through psychological analysis. His psychological history of development differs from philosophy of history in that its hypotheses never refer to backgrounds inaccessible to experience—only assumptions about conjectured empirical facts eluding positive detection. Psychological probability guides where direct observation is impossible.
The theme of the collective mind’s reality underlies Wundt’s whole approach. Human beliefs, institutions, art products, labor modes—all cultural elements—are essentially mental processes. Theories of culture must respect psychological principles, and many ethnological and sociological hypotheses are unpsychological because they ignore this requirement.
The Author’s Conclusions
Wundt concludes that the development of human mental life follows discernible psychological laws. His survey from primitive man through the totemic age and the age of heroes and gods to the development to humanity reveals a coherent pattern of transformation in which earlier forms are not simply replaced but are incorporated and transcended. The primitive belief in demons and magic does not disappear with the rise of totemism but is transformed; totemism does not vanish with the emergence of ancestor worship and god-ideas but persists in modified forms.
The book’s final chapter traces the development to humanity, showing how the various strands of cultural evolution—material culture, social organization, religious belief, artistic expression—converge in the emergence of more complex forms of human community. Wundt emphasizes that this development is not a matter of simple progress but involves losses as well as gains, transformations that preserve elements of earlier stages while creating genuinely new formations.
Wundt concludes that folk psychology rests on the same experiential basis as the empirical sciences, similar to history. Its hypotheses never refer to backgrounds inaccessible to experience—only assumptions about conjectured empirical facts eluding positive detection. The psychological history of development differs from philosophy of history in its empirical task, yet Wundt believes that philosophy of history’s basis should henceforth be psychological history of development, though the latter should not intrude on the former’s problems.
The work ends with Wundt’s conviction that the study of folk psychology reveals the fundamental unity of human mental life beneath its diverse manifestations. The collective mind is as real as the individual mind, and its development follows laws that can be discovered through careful psychological analysis. The book thus concludes not with a summary of findings but with an affirmation of the scientific status and philosophical significance of folk psychology as a discipline.
Significance
Elements of Folk Psychology represents a landmark attempt to place the study of human culture on a psychological foundation. Wundt’s insistence that cultural phenomena are mental phenomena, and that theories of culture must respect psychological principles, challenged the emerging disciplines of anthropology and ethnology to attend to the psychological dimensions of their subject matter. His critique of rationalistic explanations—of exogamy, of fire-making, of castration, of agriculture—offered a methodological lesson that extended far beyond the specific cases he examined.
The work’s significance also lies in its synthetic ambition. Wundt sought to trace the whole development of human mental life from primitive beginnings to complex civilization, integrating evidence from linguistics, ethnology, archaeology, and comparative religion into a single psychological narrative. This ambition was unprecedented in scope, and even where later scholarship has questioned Wundt’s specific conclusions, the comprehensiveness of his vision remains impressive.
Wundt’s concept of folk psychology, with its assumption of collective minds, anticipated later developments in social psychology and the psychology of culture. His insistence that social-group phenomena cannot be adequately understood from the individual consciousness viewpoint alone has found echoes in various twentieth-century intellectual movements, from Durkheim’s collective representations to contemporary theories of cultural cognition.
The book also holds significance as a document of its intellectual moment. It engages with debates—about primitive mentality, the origin of religion, the nature of totemism—that animated early twentieth-century scholarship. Wundt’s critical discussions of Spencer, Lang, Frazer, Howitt, Kollman, Schmidt, and others preserve a record of these controversies and offer a distinctive psychological perspective on them.
For the general reader, the work offers a comprehensive introduction to Wundt’s mature thinking about human culture. It presents his ideas in more accessible form than the monumental Völkerpsychologie, while retaining the breadth of vision that characterized his approach. The translator’s prophecy that Wundt’s studies in folk psychology would gain significance not inferior to his earlier writings reflects the judgment of contemporaries who recognized the importance of this dimension of his work.
The book’s significance ultimately rests on its central claim: that mental development is subject to law, and that the study of human culture in all its diversity reveals the operation of psychological principles that can be systematically investigated. Whether or not one accepts Wundt’s specific hypotheses, his demonstration that cultural phenomena can be approached psychologically, and that psychological phenomena can be approached culturally, opened avenues of inquiry that continue to be explored.
Inside the Book
Translator’s Preface and Author’s Preface
Edward Leroy Schaub opens the English edition by situating Wundt within the intellectual currents of the age, noting the widespread recognition of his influence on both philosophy and psychology, with many scholars having received their stimulus at Leipzig. Schaub reviews the sequence of Wundt’s works that had already appeared in English—beginning with the translation of the Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology and proceeding through the Principles of Physiological Psychology, the Outlines of Psychology, the Introduction to Psychology, and the Ethics—and prophesies that Wundt’s labors in folk psychology will prove no less significant than these earlier achievements. He describes the monumental Völkerpsychologie as five large volumes exceeding three thousand pages, devoted to language, art, mythology, and religion, with the present Elements representing a condensed and synthetic statement of its conclusions. Schaub emphasizes that the work draws necessarily upon specialized sciences for its material, since human beliefs, institutions, art products, modes of labor, food-getting, marriage, and warfare are all essentially mental processes, and he stresses that many ethnological and sociological hypotheses fail precisely because they are unpsychological. The folk psychology presupposes the reality of collective minds, not dogmatically but because opposing theories prove untenable, and it supplements the methods of individual psychology. Schaub notes that English and American psychologists tend to retain the individual consciousness as their standpoint even when treating social phenomena, and he suggests that Wundt’s approach offers a corrective. The book, he insists, is not a philosophical evaluation but a descriptive account of human development—what beliefs and practices actually prevailed and their psychological explanation—and Wundt himself maintains that it neither represents nor renders unnecessary a philosophy of history, nor is it equivalent to ethics, jurisprudence, theology, or metaphysics. Schaub acknowledges the translation challenges posed by German long sentences, explains that “folk psychology” is an imperfect but unavoidable rendering of Völkerpsychologie since Wundt rejects Sozialpsychologie and Gemeinschaftspsychologie, and notes the translator’s decision to render Bildende Kunst as “formative art” and to use “saga” while retaining “märchen,” since Wundt contends the märchen was the earliest progenitor of myth forms.
Wundt’s own preface, dated Leipzig, March 31, 1912, explains the methodological difference of this volume from his larger treatment. Instead of considering successively the main forms of folk-mind expression, the present work studies phenomena synchronously, exhibiting their common conditions and reciprocal relations. Wundt had become convinced that such a procedure was required as a supplement, and that the chief purpose of folk psychology investigations should be a synthetic survey, just as the history of the physical organism’s development requires understanding the co-operation of organs. The broader question concerns whether mental development is subject to law, hence the subtitle. Only outlines are possible, not exhaustive detail: better-known phenomena receive brief sketch, while less familiar material receives detailed discussion—hence the lengthy treatment of original tribal organization, marriage consummation, soul and demon and totem cults, and primitive culture phenomena, with only the barest outline for state-founding, cities, and legal systems. This reflects practical considerations rather than relative importance. Wundt acknowledges that folk psychology relies largely on suppositions and hypotheses, since questions about the beginnings of human society, the origin of gods, religion, myth development, and cult forms are all disputed. Its hypotheses, however, never refer to backgrounds inaccessible to experience, only to conjectured empirical facts eluding positive detection. The assumption that the god-idea resulted from the fusion of a hero ideal with a prior demon belief is hypothetical, since a direct demon-to-god transition cannot be certainly shown, yet the conjectured process moves on the factual plane. Psychological probability guides where direct observation is impossible, and this empirical task differentiates the psychological history of development from the philosophy of history. Wundt believes the latter’s basis should henceforth be the former, though the former should not intrude on the latter’s problems.
The Meaning of Folk Psychology
The introduction traces the word Völkerpsychologie to about the mid-nineteenth century, when it appeared with two distinct meanings. The first refers to investigations of the relations among peoples’ intellectual, moral, and mental characteristics and their influence on politics, art, and literature—the characterization of peoples, with emphasis on cultural peoples such as the French, English, Germans, and Americans. These questions occupied the “young Germany” literary period, and Karl Hillebrand’s Zeiten, Völker und Menschen exemplifies this approach. The present work follows a radically different direction. The second use arose as the mental sciences realized their need for a psychology of social communities.
The Relativity of the Primitive
The discussion of primitive culture culminates in the question of the acquisition of fire, which made a deep impression on the human mind whose effects long survived in legend. The totemic age is replete with legends of beneficent animals bringing fire to man; in the heroic age, the fire-bringing animal is displaced by the fire-bringing hero, as with Prometheus, who brought fire from heaven and drew upon himself the vengeance of the gods. The question of fire’s original production is simple: as with many utensils and tools, we must look to natural conditions presenting themselves in experience. Man did not invent the art of kindling fire; he found it while making his utensils. The first age, designated by its tools, was not an age of stone but of wood. With a sharp sliver of bamboo, a bamboo-stem is sawed into pieces; if this occurs during dry weather, the wood is pulverized and the heated sawdust becomes ignited, and the worker blows upon it until the fire flames up. This mode of sawing is probably the oldest in origin. After fire was accidentally produced, it became possible to kindle it at will, developing into a skillful art. Later, the need to drill holes into wood gave rise to the method of drilling, which produces fire more quickly. Both methods are laborious, and the savage regards as a magician the European who lights a match by friction. Because of the difficulty of producing fire, its preservation plays an important role, and when the savage changes his dwelling-place he takes live fire with him.
Primitive man lives in close association with his fellow-tribesmen but secludes himself from other tribes, which threaten his means of subsistence or may even make him their prey, as the Pygmies of Central Africa fall to the anthropophagic Monbuttus. Yet primitive man early feels the need of useful articles he cannot produce himself, giving rise to “secret barter.” The Veddah goes by night to a Singhalese smith’s house and deposits game or ivory, with a representation of an arrow-head made of palm-leaves; the next night he finds real iron arrows left in exchange. The smith knows that if he took the goods without delivering the arrows, he would be struck by an arrow from ambush. Thus iron, clothing materials, and adornments reach primitive man, raising his culture somewhat. The retrospective survey shows that “primitive” is never valid except in a relative sense; of an absolutely primitive man we know nothing. Primitive man is relatively primitive, possessing beginnings of culture borrowed from nature, yet these elementary acquisitions already differentiate him from the animal. He has the beginnings of dwelling and dress, the bow and arrow as the highest achievement of the age, and these beginnings contain the possibilities of higher achievements—the hut from the wind-break, the lance from the staff, the woven basket from the gourd, and the preparation of food by fire.
The Disappearance of Original Languages
Knowledge of peoples now regarded as primitive led to the conviction that the Asiatic and African tribes described earlier were primitive only in a relative sense, and questions about their language attracted attention from ethnologists, philologists, and psychologists alike. Language is bound up with thought, so language phenomena permit inferences about thought characteristics. Fundamental differences such as those between Chinese and Indo-Germanic tongues do not allow direct conclusions about quantitative differences in mental culture, but they imply divergent directions and forms of thought, which react upon language in ceaseless change. Linguistic investigations revealed that the original languages of primitive tribes largely no longer exist. In the vocabularies of the Semangs and Senoi of Malacca, the Veddahs of Ceylon, and the Negritos of the Philippines, single words appear that do not occur in neighboring tribal languages—notably, bow and arrow are the objects most frequently designated by such words, proving these are relatively primitive inventions. Yet the Veddahs speak the language of the Singhalese and Tamils; the Semangs, Senoi, and Philippine Negritos speak that of Malay neighbors; the Central African Pygmies appropriated the Monbuttus’ language; and the Bushmen speak Hottentot. These tribes formerly possessed their own languages, being absolutely distinct races physically.
The Critique of Totem-Group Interpretations
The discussion opens by challenging a prevailing assumption in anthropology: that the totem groups of the Australian aborigines are simply clans or subclans analogous to those found among American Indians. This misreading, the author argues, has led to profound confusion in describing Australian tribal organization. Early investigators like Howitt labored under significant misconceptions regarding group names, making the social relations appear far more complex than they truly were. Because these researchers were largely ignorant of native languages and dependent on interpreters, their reports warrant considerable skepticism. The author insists on a fundamental distinction between the two cultural phenomena. Among the Iroquois, totem names have become pure clan designations, stripped of their cultic significance. In Australia, however, the totem animal remains a living cult object, common to all members of the group. Australians maintain separate names for their clans, whereas American Indians designate their clans by the totem names themselves. The author proposes viewing Australian totem groups as “cult associations” that exist within broader tribal divisions, while American totem names represent a totemism in a state of decline, where the animal has been reduced to a mere coat of arms. The totem poles of the Northwest Coast support this view: human heads representing ancestors are crowned by the head of the totem animal, symbolizing an enlarged and heraldic coat of arms.
The Origin of Dual Division and the Forms of Exogamy
The dual division of tribes is presented not as a mysterious institution but as a natural consequence of population spread. A tribe of gatherers and hunters must separate as its numbers increase or as food supplies fail, and the first division would naturally be into two groups based on hunting grounds. Deviations from this dual division occur most frequently in subordinate groups, which is entirely consistent with the logic of natural dispersion. This leads to a discussion of exogamy, a term introduced by McLennan, which the author carefully distinguishes from later marriage regulations. He outlines three distinct forms. The first is unlimited exogamy, where a man of Class A may marry any woman from the subgroups of Class B, but marriage within his own class is forbidden; this occurs only where tribal divisions number no more than two. The second is limited exogamy with direct maternal or paternal descent, where a member of Class A may marry only from a specific subgroup of B, and the children remain in the clan and totem of the mother or father. Maternal descent was probably the original form. This represents a “reapproach to endogamy,” not a stricter form of exogamy. The third is limited exogamy with indirect descent, where children count to the parent’s clan but enter a different totem group. This creates a stricter exogamy, prohibiting father-daughter and cousin marriages. Some Australian tribes circumvent these restrictions by declaring a man the son of his paternal grandfather, thereby transferring him to another totem.
Theories on the Origin of Exogamy
The author systematically rejects rationalistic theories for the origin of exogamy. Morgan’s “Ancient Society” and Frazer’s “Totemism and Exogamy” propose that wise elders instituted the practice to prevent harmful marriages—an implausible notion for people who lacked numbers beyond four. Andrew Lang’s biological hypothesis, which suggests younger brothers were driven out, fails to explain why the rule would apply to older members. MacLennan’s sociological theory derives exogamy from war and marriage by capture, citing the Iliad, the rape of the Sabines, and passages from Deuteronomy and Judges. However, this theory collapses under scrutiny: captured women are always from strange tribes, whereas totemic exogamy occurs between clans of the same tribe. Furthermore, captured women are secondary wives, not chief wives. The modes of contracting marriage, however, do form a developmental series. Marriage by capture within the same tribe is probably as old as exogamy itself. It developed into exogamous marriage by barter, then by gift, then by purchase, and finally by contract. The causes of totemic exogamy are found in its developmental series. Totems must be as old as the first tribal division, since identical totems appear in both halves. At the first division, cult groups were too weak to resist separation; at the second, clans separated strictly according to totems. The “totem friendships” between groups—where one may slay but not eat the totem animal while a friendly totem may eat it—help explain the transition from unlimited to limited exogamy, as friendly totems entered into marriage relationships. This transition was gradual, as shown among the Dieri, where some totems have limited marriage while others retain unlimited exogamy.
Hypotheses on the Origin of Totemism
The author then surveys earlier hypotheses on the origin of totemism itself. Herbert Spencer held that it arose from individual totem names, which were originally nicknames, and that from the individual totem arose the tribal totem. The name then became identified with the animal itself, which became a protective and ancestral figure. Andrew Lang rejected the nickname theory but retained the belief that the name was primary, with the animal or plant substituted later. This theory finds support in primitive thought, which closely associates name and object; primitive man regards his name as part of himself, similar to the terror felt when a sketch is made, believing a part of the soul is carried away. However, this is prima facie improbable as a source for so widespread a phenomenon. Among the Iroquois, personal names are clearly defined but never identical with totems or animals, sometimes borrowed from flower names, with no indication they designated totems. The hypothesis of Howitt and Spencer and Gillen holds that hunting-life conditions are reflected in totemic beliefs: animals of the chase were the first totem animals, and plant totems were added where plant food gained importance. Evidence comes from the Intichiuma ceremonies for multiplying totems, which are magic ceremonies anticipating sowing and harvest festivals. Against this, the author argues that these multiplication ceremonies are probably not indigenous to Australia but were introduced from without, along with plant totems, which came from the Melanesian Islands. Frazer’s theory traces all totemism back to conception totemism, deriving it from dreams mothers experience before childbirth. Though conception and sex totemism may connect with such phenomena, totemism as a whole can scarcely derive from dreams, as conception totemism is an anomaly, rare within totemic culture.
The Totem as Soul Embodiment
The author posits that the totem is itself the embodiment of a soul—either an ancestor’s or a protective being’s soul is incorporated in the animal. Plants and totem fetishes are derivative. Originally, the totem was probably always an animal, particularly represented as capable of becoming the receptacle of a human soul after death. Soul animals are those with rapid movement, flight, or features arousing surprise or uncanny dread—such as the snake, lizard, mouse, and birds. The totemic age marks a turning-point in soul conceptions. Primitive man regards the ‘corporeal soul’ as the principal soul; at death, the soul remains in the body, so primitive man flees the corpse. Change comes from strife and warfare, which bring the spectacle of sudden death. One killed in battle exhibits the life-death contrast directly, permitting the co-presence of advanced conceptions. Two sets of ideas develop: the soul departs with the blood, making blood the chief vehicle of the soul and giving rise to blood magic; and the inner parts of the body exposed in violent death become vehicles, with the idea of sudden departure transferring to the dying generally—with the last breath the soul departs. The soul is conceived as a moving form, particularly an animal, bird, gliding snake, or lizard. The original and most common totem is the animal, and the earliest totem animals are identical with soul animals. Other animals later become totems, especially game animals. Soul motives become less prominent, and the totem animal acquires significance fluctuating between ancestral idea and protective demon. Totemic ideas arise from the diremption of primitive soul ideas into corporeal soul and breath-soul.
Blood, Sacrifice, and the Corporeal Soul
The converse aspect of the blood-soul idea is the fear of shedding blood, as the wounded would lose their soul. This leads to the belief that consuming the blood of a sacrificed person or animal grants the consumer the victim’s soul powers, an idea extended to other body parts, especially the heart and kidneys. A conflict of emotions arises between fear and the striving for power, with the latter tending to dominate, particularly in war. Drinking an enemy’s blood and consuming his heart are impulses where the passion to annihilate and the desire to appropriate soul powers intensify each other. These ideas are proposed as the origin of anthropophagy, which is not a prevalent custom among primitive tribes and is often entirely lacking. It appears only where intertribal wars occur, beginning in the totemic age. In religious development, human sacrifice gave way to animal sacrifice, and cult anthropophagy was displaced by eating the sacrificial animal.
The Synthesis of Cults and the Rise of Initiation Rites
The festivals that reached their fullest development in the totemic age were not simple outgrowths of a single practice but resulted from a synthesis of vegetation and celestial cults. As they grew more complex, they incorporated other cults, though they excluded those tied to specific, undeferable circumstances, such as death cults. Among the Zuni and Navajos, the most important incorporated ceremony was the initiation of youths into manhood, with analogous ceremonies for women. The emphasis shifted decisively to celestial phenomena, which came to determine the timing of festivals. Instead of being held at the variable times of seedtime and harvest, the two main festivals were held at fixed dates corresponding to the summer and winter solstices, thereby making the cults independent of the unpredictable circumstances of the agricultural year.
Among the Zuni, a ceremony analogous to the declaration of manhood occurred much earlier, around the age of four or five, signifying the child’s reception into the cult community—a practice comparable to baptism. Later, in the same festival, adulthood was celebrated for youths and maidens around their fourteenth or fifteenth year. In this ceremony, the initiates were beaten with consecrated rods. The present generation interprets this as a test of hardihood, but the use of consecrated rods by priests indicates an original magical purpose. Many adults crowd in to receive the blows, believing they have a protective influence, which proves that the original meaning persists alongside the newer interpretation.
Sick persons sought healing at these festivals, and this desire gave rise to the sweat-lodges erected near the festival places. Their primary aim was to expel sickness demons, but healthy persons also used them for lustration. The ceremony served to purify from guilt or to protect against future impurities, acquiring significance as a sanctification ceremony similar to baptism or the bath of the Brahman. The cult association performing the vegetation festivals became the representative of the tribe’s cult and belief, preparing the transition from totemic to deity cults. Sacrifice likely originated as sacrifice to the dead but developed with the higher vegetation cults. The Zuni and Navajos erected altars adorned with cloths, bird plumage, plants, and grains. This vegetable sacrifice was exclusively magical—an offering of grains to magically affect the prosperity of those very grains, not a gift to a deity. The idea of offering to gods arose later, connected with sacrifice to the dead, where gifts were carried to a world beyond.
Secret Societies and the Medicine-Man
The cult community underwent a more thorough organization, with separate associations forming under priestly guidance. Priests served as magic-priests and magic-doctors, preserving traditions. This is the typical medicine-man, whose function changed from magician to priest. Associated with him was a restricted group forming secret societies. These presumably derived from the primitive men’s clubs that united males into age-groups. As tribal organization and family bonds developed, the age associations dissolved into more restricted societies. Membership became limited to mature men, often privileged members, and secrecy led to ranks graded by familiarity with secret doctrines. This organization appears in African and American Indian medicine-men associations, the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries, Christian and Buddhistic orders, and secular counterparts like the Rosicrucians and Freemasons. These societies have special emblems, such as body drawings or tattooings. The men’s club belongs exclusively to the totemic age, while secret societies belong to a transitional stage, and their emblems and usages are often totemic.
An example is the snake society of the Hopi Indians of New Mexico, which has the rattlesnake as its totem. In the snake festival, each member carries a rattlesnake in his mouth, holding it behind the head. An associate follows each bearer, tickling the snake’s tail to divert its attention. If a bearer is bitten, a companion sucks out the wound.
The Art of the Totemic Age
The most prominent artistic activity of the totemic age was formative art. Australia has cave drawings of possible cult significance, but they remain uninterpreted. Otherwise, formative art was limited to carvings on weapons and face painting for cult festivals. Polynesia is the chief centre of artistic tattooing, which used prick tattooing to form symmetrical designs. This art reached its highest perfection early in culture, declining with the appearance of clothing. Tattooing is now practised by criminals, prostitutes, and sailors, a fact explained by their long periods of leisure. The development of tattooing was favoured by the combination of totemism with celestial mythology. Maori tattooing includes pictures of the sun as spiral ornamentations, and Marquesas tattoo-patterns contain elements of celestial mythology, though today they are mostly geometrical. Early tattooings included animals; plants were less common. A reversal occurred where animal forms were retranslated into conventionalized geometrical objects.
The art of decorating vessels, or ceramics, dates back to the beginning of the totemic period. The totemic cult furnished motives for decoration or magical protection. The clay vessel was modelled after natural objects or the woven basket, which may itself have been copied from a bird’s nest. The discovery that clay hardens by fire led to its use for cooking. Geometrical forms were apperceived as outlines of animal or plant forms. In American Indian ceramics, one can trace the development of linear drawings into animal designs and then regressively into geometrical figures. Ceramics developed a combination of natural objects framed by geometrical ornamentation. In ceramics, as in tattooing, the animals represented were primarily totem animals—snakes, fish, birds, and the alligator. The decorations scarcely ever include the human figure, a mark distinguishing totemic art from early Greek art. One exception is the vessel representing a head or skull, which is connected to head-hunting. There is no real sculpture, except crude fetish-like idols that are precursors of divine images, and there is no architecture.
The Taming of the Ox and the Origin of Castration
The development of ox-drawing for wagons was preceded by cattle taming, though the exact process remains conjectural. Bulls remained unmanageable, making hitching them to wagons impossible. Cows were not forced into this service where milk was valued. The castrated male, the ox, proved stronger than cows and more tractable for drawing wagons. However, castration could not have originated for this purpose, since its results must have been known before such a purpose existed. Eduard Hahn suggested that ancient Asiatic cults—of Phrygian Cybele and Syrio-Phœnician Astarte—resembled the vegetation festivals found among the Pueblo peoples of America. These orgiastic cults arose among agricultural peoples anxious for the welfare of their grain. Earlier hoe-culture vegetation cults developed into deity cults connected with plough-culture. Ecstatic motives extended beyond vegetation cults into universal deity cults. Numerous demoniacal beings became centralized in a single goddess mother, with focus on the life-giving deity’s activity and human procreation. Cult ecstasy became self-mortification; priests lacerated and emasculated themselves, creating the earliest eunuchs of history. Survivals persist in Turkish harem guardians and Sistine Chapel singers. When these emasculated priests paced beside the goddess’s chariot, they might have conceived the idea of hitching castrated animals to wagons.
This hypothesis avoids assuming an impossible invention but leaves questions: priestly castration may result from religious excitement, yet bull castration remains unexplained. Sacrifice provides another factor—man offering himself or body parts such as blood, hair, or fingers. Survivals include the Catholic practice of laying wax replicas of diseased body parts on altars, and the Russian Skopzi sect practices self-emasculation. Sacrifice extended to animal parts; kidneys with their connected organs were regarded as soul vehicles and sacrificed. Bull castration may originally have been a sacrifice of the generative organs—the most accessible soul vehicles. Observing the changed characteristics in such animals fitted them for drawing the deity’s chariot, and then the plough. This hypothesis presupposes the joint influence of orgiastic vegetation cults and ancient sacrificial usages, though it is not susceptible to positive demonstration. It offers a psychologically plausible explanation for the transition from field cults to later agriculture.
Milch Cow Raising
Whether milch cow raising coincided with ox taming cannot be determined. Plough-culture and the milk industry are not necessarily connected. The Chinaman loathes milk despite his advanced agriculture, while the Hindoo prizes it as food and sacrifice. The Israelites received the promise of Canaan as a land “flowing with milk and honey”—milk representing the product of later culture, honey valued by primitive man. Milk production represents the more difficult task. Ox taming affects only individual animals, requiring repetition with each male calf. Cows naturally produce little milk except during suckling. Only through generations of effort and the inheritance of acquired characteristics could over-production develop, requiring systematic striving from the outset.
The Polytheistic Theory and Its Limits
The book first takes up the long-dominant view that polytheism, not monotheism, is the true starting point of all mythology. For generations, mythologists assumed that the earliest god-ideas were direct responses to celestial phenomena—the sun, moon, clouds, and storms—since most deities were thought to dwell in heaven. These theories treated gods as products of intellectual activity, a primitive and fantastical explanation of nature governed more by emotion than reason. Over the past century, the favored celestial object shifted: first storms and lightning were deemed foundational, then the sun as chief god, and most recently the moon, with its changing phases, has received the greatest emphasis. The “man in the moon” survives as a fragment of such thinking. The crescent moon suggested swords, clubs, or boats—weapons and implements of the gods. According to this scheme, gods gradually became distinguished from the celestial objects themselves, emerging as independent persons. Heroes of saga were then described as “degenerated gods,” and the märchen-hero, at the lowest rung, was seen as a faded celestial deity. The märchen thus represented the final stage of myth’s decline.
Wundt finds these theories one-sided. They proceed without investigating the gods and myths actually living in folk-belief, interpreting instead only hypothetical original conceptions. He offers a telling example: every feature of the Biblical Paradise legend has been claimed as lunar—Paradise itself is the moon, the angel’s flaming sword is the crescent moon, Adam is the half-moon or man-in-the-moon, and Adam’s rib, from which Eve was created, is again the crescent moon. Such treatment leaves out the mythological ideas that genuinely occupy the human mind. Celestial phenomena may enter as assimilative elements, but they cannot be exclusively responsible, for they are always interwoven with terrestrial elements drawn from humanity’s immediate environment. The Greeks did not identify Helios with the sun, nor Zeus with thunder and lightning. These celestial phenomena were only attributes of the deities; the god himself stood in the background, and human heroes’ images played no less a part in shaping them.
Assimilative Fusion and the Making of Gods
The overlooked psychological factor, Wundt argues, is the “assimilative fusion of psychical elements of differing origins.” No external object is ever perceived precisely as given; numerous internal elements fuse with the given elements to produce what we call perception or apprehension. Emotions greatly influence this assimilation. A frightened person sees thunder and lightning as a god hurling his bolts—either the sky assumes anthropomorphic form, or the thunder leads the gaze to the clouds behind which the thundering Zeus is vaguely discovered. Theatrical scenery and puzzle pictures illustrate the same process: foliage drawings containing hidden human faces or cat heads remain unseen until attention is directed to them, after which they cannot be suppressed. The observer reads the head into the drawing through imagination. Apollo and Helios were represented by the sun’s image, but this was inadequate; the Greeks imagined the radiant sun as the deity’s attribute—his shield, chariot, or missiles—while having in mind an anthropomorphic god who could become independent of the natural phenomenon.
Even nature gods like Helios or lightning-hurling Zeus are thus products of psychological assimilation, and the most important elements come from terrestrial life. Where nature myth is complete, gods appear in human form. Only in ages influenced by totemic ideas does zoomorphism occur, the longest-surviving form being a human body with an animal head, as in ancient Egypt. After this connection disappeared, animals accompanied deities as mere symbols in art. The lamb as Christ’s symbol may be a late survival of semi-totemic deity belief, influenced by the sacred animals of older cultural religions. The essential elements of god-conceptions remained terrestrial; celestial phenomena were at best exciting stimuli, often doubtful influences. The crescent moon’s connection with Paradise’s flaming sword or Hercules’ club is possible but undemonstrable. Even celestial gods are conceived as men or anthropomorphic beings, with the earth as the scene of their activity.
The Ancestor Theory and Usener’s Demon Theory
Theories of the god-idea’s originality have been displaced by views that gods developed from lower mythological thought forms. The first and older interpretation is the ancestor theory, a form of animism in which the ancestor’s soul becomes a god and worship is reverence paid to ancestors. Evidence comes from actual ancestor worship among many peoples. Prior to the Jahve religion, such a cult supposedly prevailed among the Israelites, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob appearing as ancestors of Israel’s tribes. More significant are the ancestor cults of China and Japan, which have persisted since ancient times. However, these cults are only elements of more extensive mythological conceptions. The ancestor theory is arbitrary, presupposing that all mythology traces to a single source. That Zeus or Jahve was a human ancestor elevated to deity lacks empirical confirmation.
Hermann Usener, a prominent classical philologist, developed the “demon theory” as an alternative. Usener agreed that exalted celestial deities were not the first worshipped beings; there were more temporary gods—demoniacal beings that were yet primitive gods. He distinguished three stages. First came the “god of the moment”—a flash of lightning or a thunderclap felt as divine, but vanishing with the impression. Second came a demoniacal power associated with a particular place, giving rise to local gods, and then gods representing the guardian powers of tribes, vocations, or social groups. Third, the “particular god” acquired a personal nature, becoming a fully developed deity.
The Saga and the Märchen
Turning to the relationship between saga and märchen, Wundt identifies a key difference: when magic enters the saga, the hero himself is not the chief vehicle of magical powers. At most, he has been equipped by others with magical powers and implements. Demoniacal powers are usually vested in accessory persons. This connects to the self-dependent character of the hero-personality, who possesses only human attributes unless externally equipped. The Argonaut saga exemplifies this—it is replete with magic and contains pure märchen motives: the golden fleece, the talking ship, the closing cliffs, the sorceress Medea, and the wonderland of Colchis. Yet those who man the Argo are not magicians but heroes in the strictly human sense. The Odysseus saga shows this even more strikingly in its Homeric form: an entire cycle of tales with widely distributed elements, but in the midst stands the absolutely human hero who overcomes obstacles by his own shrewdness and resourcefulness.
The märchen-myth was preparatory to the hero saga. When the hero ideal arose, old märchen ideas were still current and found their way into the heroic age alongside belief in demons and magic. They became secondary themes subordinate to heroic delineation. Heroic elements gradually increased; märchen ideas disappeared except when a poet intentionally selected them, as the author of the Odyssey obviously did.
Historical Recollections and the Religious Legend
The disappearance of märchen elements must partly be attributed to the increasing influence of historical recollections, closely bound up with heroic-age culture. Greek and Germanic sagas illuminate this. The Hercules and Argonaut sagas belong to a relatively early stage—purely mythical creations referring to no actual events. The Trojan saga, however, clearly exhibits traces of historical recollections, causing events to approximate real life. Ancient magical motives still cast shadows, but the miracle appears rationalized: the magician gives place to the seer who predicts the future, and what miracle once effected is now accomplished by overpowering might and baffling cunning. The wooden horse said to have been invented by Odysseus may once have been an actual magical horse or a help-bringing deity in märchen or saga; the poet may present a rationalistic reinterpretation to exalt his hero’s craftiness. In accounts of Achilles’ youth and the story of Helen, märchen-ideas affect the action, but these purely mythical features belong to antecedent history rather than the plot itself. The same holds for the German Niebelungen saga: Siegfried, like Achilles, was a mythical hero taken into historical saga, but märchen motives—the dragon fight, invulnerability through bathing in dragon’s blood, the helmet of invisibility—belong to his past history, mentioned only incidentally. By referring märchen miracles to the past, the saga says its heroes were once märchen-heroes.
The saga may approach no closer to historical reality than the purely mythical tale, but it increasingly approximates what is historically possible. Sagas centering on historical heroes are not particularly free from märchen elements—often the reverse. An original märchen-hero may become central to a historical saga; conversely, an historical personality may become so interwoven with märchen tales that history disappears. Germanic mythology offers a striking antithesis: Siegfried of the Niebelungen saga originates purely as a märchen-hero, while Dietrich of Bern is historical.
Sanctification Ceremonies and Their Culmination
The third and highest form of cult practice, sanctification, emerges as a development intimately bound to both sacrifice and prayer. While reinforced by accompanying prayers, it arises directly from sacrifice, particularly when the act of sacrifice brings humanity into a closer association with the deity. Sanctification is thus a supplementary activity to sacrifice, an impulse that gains dominance over the sacrificial idea when the sacrificer’s desires concerning his own personal worth overcome purely external motives. This subjective interest appears only after religious life has matured; in its earliest stages, it is combined with sacrificial practices centered on external possessions. When fully freed from these trappings, sacrifice becomes purely a means of enhancing personal worth—a means of sanctification. At this highest stage, the idea of a gift to the deity completely disappears, resembling the earliest purely magical sacrifices. If this self-sanctifying sacrifice retains any connection with the gift-conception, the sacrificer offers himself to the deity, while the deity also gives himself to the sacrificer.
Sanctification ceremonies and sacrifice have essentially diverse origins, adopting different paths and meeting only at the height of their development. Sanctification is rooted in magical belief like sacrifice, but in primitive sacrifice the magic is directed externally, whereas in sanctification the object of the magic is the human being himself. Sanctification therefore occupies a higher level even in its earliest stages and is subsequent in origin to sacrifice. Practices presaging sanctification appear in more primitive purification ceremonies, traceable to the totemic age. Water and fire were used for magical purification even in the period of demon-belief, functioning as counter-magic against evil spells resulting from contact with corpses or taboo objects. Purification by fire, requiring more elaborate preparations, tends from the beginning toward public cult celebration, passing from counter-magic into magic proper—a common reversal. At this point purification becomes sanctification, whose original purpose is protection against future demoniacal attacks or, in later religious interpretation, against personal transgressions arising from inner nature. The belief that sanctification is necessary arises only with deity beliefs, being bound up with retribution ideas, which depend on personal guilt feelings and belief in personal gods who avenge sins.
Baptism, Circumcision, and the Methods of Sanctification
The same development occurs with water, most evident in baptism. Christian baptism partly retains lustration—the newborn child, though not conscious of wrongdoing, is tainted by original sin through inherited guilt. Baptism incorporates both purification and sanctification, with sanctification dominant. The Anabaptists insisted that man is unworthy unless he submits of his own free will, thus preserving both ideas. Baptism with this twofold meaning occurs outside Christianity—among the Hebrews, to whom Christianity is indebted for the cult, and among Semitic and African peoples. Sometimes it accompanies circumcision; sometimes it appears without it; elsewhere circumcision occurs without real baptism. This diversity testifies to the essential difference between the two practices. Circumcision is not purification or sanctification but a sacrifice—belonging with hair-offering in death cults and blood-pouring in deity worship to that form of sacrifice where the object gains value as a vehicle of the soul. Circumcision’s object may be a substitute for internal organs like the kidneys or testicles, prized as soul-vehicles but difficult to offer among the living.
Sanctification and lustration originally employed identical methods, but the need for external distinction arose: ablution became purification’s method, while sprinkling became sanctification’s. Lustration removes demoniacal impurity; sanctification provides water with magical powers. Purification water fell into disuse with the decline of demon-belief, but sanctification water remained available. The priest conducting baptism emphasizes now one, now the other phase. When sprinkling serves sanctification, ordinary water no longer suffices—the water itself needs sanctification. Ancient mystery cults sprinkled members with water from sacred springs. The Greek Catholic Church’s Jordan festival uses water from that river or ordinary water magically converted into Jordan water. Burning incense relates to lustration by fire as sprinkling relates to lustration by water, though incense’s sanctification idea has almost entirely suppressed its purification aims. Balsamic substances were used—first among them incense resin, whose exciting and narcotic odour enhances its magical effect. Herbs and resins thrown into flames were also sacrificial gifts, whose ascending odours would render the gods favourably disposed.
The Sacrificial Feast and the Culmination of Sanctification
Sanctification ceremony and sacrifice become merged; the highest sanctification originates in sacrifice itself, appearing when intercourse with the deity becomes communion—especially in the sacrificial feast. When sacrificial food is sanctified by the deity’s partaking, sanctification imparts itself to the humans sharing the sacrifice. Sanctification culminates in human sacrifice, where the sacrificed person represents both the sacrificial community and the deity—sanctification becomes deification for every participant. After human sacrifice disappeared, this idea continued with substituted sacred animals, then with bread as sacrificial food after bloody sacrifice was abandoned. In diverse cults of the Old and New Worlds, bread was moulded into human or animal forms. Christianity’s sacrificial cult unites these elements: bread and wine perpetuate the memory of the most exalted human sacrifice, with the unity of sacrificial person and deity surviving in the redeeming deity cult. Elements of related cults survive—the paschal lamb from the Jewish Passover, and the substitution of wine as in the Dionysian mysteries for the sacrificed god’s blood.
Christian sacrificial sanctification has had three meanings, frequently intermingled: magical, mystical, and symbolical interpretations—stages through which all sanctification ceremonies pass. The uncritical mind takes the bread as Christ’s actual body; then comes mystical union with the Redeemer, not corporeal but spiritual; finally the cult action becomes a symbol of religious exaltation, possible without external manifestation but reinforced by it. In all three cases, participation in the common sacrificial meal evidences membership in the religious society. The sacrificial meal has been regarded from early times as the most important ceremony expressing religious affiliation. The end of development thus returns to its beginning, for the earliest magical sacrifices were also communal meals shared with the deity, and in this final form the circle of religious evolution is completed, with the individual’s sanctification achieved through union with the divine in the shared feast.
