This paper is offered partly as an addendum to that of Dr. Judd Marmor, 'Some Observations on Superstition in Contemporary Life', read before the St. Louis, Mo., Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, May 1954.

Belief, superstition and symptoms are different channels for discharge of anxiety. 'Beliefs, and to a lesser extent superstitions are culturally and socially integrative. By contrast, symptoms are socially divisive.'

This difference and others are examined. It is emphasized that 'the anal component, nowadays so unfashionable in psycho-analysis, is quite conspicuous' in these problems.