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This work makes available in English a collection of Theodor Reik's studies of religion, dogma and myth. The major work presented is Dogma and Obsessional Idea, in which dogma in the evolution of religion and the psychic mechanisms that govern it are investigated. The analogy between the obsessional neurotic activities and the detail of religious ritual serve as stimulus and point of departure for the study. The author demonstrates that 'religious dogma corresponds, in the history of human evolution, to the obsessional idea of the neurotic; … that it is the most significant expression of the obsessional thinking of the people'. This thesis is painstakingly elaborated, against an interesting and authoritative account of the genesis of dogma.
Further studies include The Prayer Shawl and the Phylacteries of the Jews, Psychoanalytic Studies of Bible Exegesis, Man the Mythmaker, Oedipus and the Sphinx. It is noteworthy that the author writes under the assumption that religion and religious institutions are losing their hold upon the minds and lives of peoples. Either despite or because of fundamental psychoanalytic studies, we are today seeing a militant Church gaining in influence, and a considerable movement toward reconciliation and coördination