The Encyclopedia of World Religions

384 S religion, theories of origin of

ers. In the perfect society to come, religion would not be necessary. Early-20th-century views of religion tended to emphasize social and psychological factors. Émile D URKHEIM (1858–1917) pointed to the societal ori gins of religion in the “social effervescence” of a tribe or group in dance and festival. The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund F REUD (1856–1939), viewed religion as the relic of an unspeakable pri mal crime for which religion atones: the primal patricide, or killing of a father by his sons. Freud ianism tends to see all of religion as a “projection” of childhood experiences: all-powerful parents made into gods, childish guilt needing punishment and wanting expiation, desire for “magical” ways to deal with intractable life situations. A disciple of Freud who later broke with him, C. G. J UNG (1875–1961) viewed religion as stem ming from the almost infinite world of the uncon scious, whose nameless but powerful currents could be named and crystallized by means of “archetypes,” figures familiar from MYTH and reli gion. These include the Great Mother (I SIS , K ALI , M ARY ), the Wise Old Man (Z EUS , God the Father), the Hero, the Divine Maiden, and the Shadow (S ATAN , Mara). Other thinkers, more strictly in the history of religion tradition, looked for the origin of reli gion in a single psychological capacity. For G. van der Leeuw (1890–1950) religion was the quest for power. For the influential Rudolf Otto (1869– 1937), it was the sense of the “numinous,” that which is “wholly other” to humans and is both terrifying and fascinating. Mircea E LIADE (1907–86) made basic the experience of the Sacred, which can be thought of in terms of the special feeling a believer has in a great cathedral, temple, or any place long hallowed by belief in the presence of a god or in a time of religious festivity. The Sacred is set against the Profane or ordinary world, and reli gion involves the interaction of these two realms of human experience. RECENT THOUGHT More recent thought has tended away from seeking the origin of religion in any single key experience

of religion—its churches, RITUAL , and doctrine ( see DOGMA AND DOCTRINE )—as superstition, probably crafted by PRIESTS to keep the masses subservient. THE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES In the 19th century, theories about religion abounded, now aided by far more actual anthropo logical fieldwork than previously. The great pioneer anthropologist Edward B. Tylor (1832–1917) theo rized that religion started in ANIMISM , or belief in the SOUL separable from the body. He thought this con cept must have been first suggested by the experi ence of dreams, in which the sleeper apparently left the body to travel to far places where he or she could meet souls of the deceased. It was no great extrapolation to develop a doctrine of the AFTERLIFE from animism. Souls could be found in other enti ties as well, in animals or the moving wind and sun, which could be made into gods. This further step led to POLYTHEISM (belief in many gods) and finally to MONOTHEISM (belief in one G OD ). However, Andrew Lang (1844–1912), a dis tinguished Scottish folklorist, was disturbed by reports that, contrary to animist theory, some undeveloped peoples nonetheless believed in a quasi-monotheistic “high god.” He proposed a pri mal monotheism whose deity was the creator and first lawgiver. On the other hand, R. R. Marett (1866–1943), an English anthropologist, traced religion back past animism to a pre-animist state of “anima tism,” sheer divine energy known by such names as mana or wakan. Sir James Frazer (1854–1941), in his much-cited The Golden Bough, put magic in first place, saying religion began with sorcery and only gradually conceived of gods. Also in the 19th century, but adopting a differ ent perspective, Karl M ARX (1818–83) put religion in the context of his fundamentally economic con cept of the evolution of human society. In the feu dal and capitalist stages of society, which depended on the exploitation of one class by another, religion provided sanctions and explanations for injustice, offered emotional release for the exploited (through devotion to gods and expectation of reward after death), and salved the consciences of the exploit