Magic, Science and Religion
Part II, Lecture 4
Totem and Taboo
1. In this lecture we’ll consider Durkheim’s theory of religion before turning to
Freud’s account in Totem and Taboo (1913).
2. Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912) sets out his theory of
religion. Durkheim seeks the origins of religion in the most simple and primitive
societies (the evidence he uses draws on ethnographic studies of Australian
aborigines). He defines religion in terms of the distinction between the sacred and the
profane.
The simplest religions practice totemism – an animal or plant which acts as an
emblem. Rituals involving the totem, and particularly ritual sacrifice and
consumption, are for Durkheim a way of cementing group solidarity. The totem
represents both god (the totemic principle) and society.
3. Freud’s account of totemism is a very different one. Before we turn to it, we need
to understand the role of a number of concepts in Freud’s psychoanalysis (see
reverse), the most important of which is the Oedipus complex. The Oedipus complex
leads to a prohibition on incest, which Freud takes to be universal in human societies.
4. In Totem and Taboo, Freud sets out to explain the universality of the prohibition on
incest by reference to psychic processes and culture. Primitive religion can be
analysed in the same way that neurosis is analyses. Totemism is a sign of repressed
sexual desire, or of the Oedipus complex. More particularly the totem animal
represents the father.
Drawing on Robertson-Smith (Religion of the Semites, 1889) and Darwin (The
Descent of Man, 1871), Freud claims that the ritual sacrifice and consumption of the
totem animal is the symbolic reconstruction of a real event in human pre-history. This
was when the brothers in the primal horde overthrew, murdered and ate the father out
of desire for their mother and sisters, only for guilt to lead them to instituting a social
order prohibiting incest.
It’s important to note that Freud was not arguing that primitive people were neurotics.
Primitive people, neurotics and ‘normal’ people in civilised society are all subject to
processes of sexual repression and cathexis towards particular sexual objects.
5. In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921) and Civilisation and Its
Discontents (1930), Freud uses some of these insights to try and explain social
relations in modern society. Modern social identities are formed through libidinal ties
to each other and the leader (father) in institutions like the church and army.
Civilisation makes men miserable, because their desires are frustrated (both their
sexual and aggressive instincts). Religion and morality places high demands on
people.