REL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Veneration Of The Dead, Animism, Sigmund Freud
25 Sep 2017
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As society becomes more complex, worship becomes institutionalized and religion. You have 3 avenues in which religion grows becomes more complex. Honoring the character of your ancestor so they character becomes a real thing . Wrote a book called primitive culture in 1871. Said religion grew into animism- the belief in spirits. supernatural beings (spirits and souls) inhabit all objects and govern their existence (everything has an energy, current that goes through the religions) religion. A totem is any natural or supernatural object, spirit being, or animal which has symbolic meaning to an individual tribe. Involves identification of a family, clan, or tribe with some animal, celestial or plant spirit. Calls it a primal desire, which is why he connected it to the origins of religion, quickly repressed but, even among the mentally sane, it will arise again in dreams or in literature. Sees the first totem of a symbol of power and guilt.
