In this paper Dr. Pfister describes two examples of magical healing among the Navaho Indians of Arizona and New Mexico. He argues, in both cases, that the shaman's unconscious correctly interpreted his patients' symptoms, and that symbolic rites which he prescribed tended to remove the real cause of the anxiety or inhibition.

The first patient, who had been perfectly healthy till about the age of fifty, dreamed that his children were dead. After this he suffered from such anxiety and depression that he could neither eat nor work. The lame medicine man, whom he consulted, told him that, as a small child, he must