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DISCUSSION: Dr. Martin Stein called attention to the parallel between Professor Gombrich's research into visual imagery and the work of the analyst in dealing with the manifest content of dreams. This follows the tradition so brilliantly illuminated by Ernst Kris. The importance of such research could enlarge our understanding of visual imagery whether in dreams or in other conditions involving regression of certain thought processes. The study of visual imagery in a historical context, together with the contribution the analyst can make from the individual one (with its great advantage of fixity in time), may offer a methodological approach for the scientific investigation of complex social and political movements.
Dr. Jacob Arlow found in the material further proof of the well-known phrase that the more a thing changes, the more it remains the same; that what occurred in the French Revolution had happened many times before and was happening even now. The efforts of leaders and artists to create myths by propaganda are doomed to failure and can end only in the creation of a cult. Only when artists and leaders can give form and content to the individual's instinctual needs and direct them toward a common interest can they succeed. He defined a cult as a phenomenon which occurs when an object is offered for the projection of the masses, whereas a myth grows out of the history of individuals and groups.
Dr. Martin Wangh asked if perhaps some common psychological experience of the leaders and the people may not have been an important determining factor in the French Revolution, just as the rise of Hitler may have been prepared for by the experience of the preceding generation after World War I.
Dr. Rudolph Loewenstein suggested that the impact of the dissolution of forces and institutions made a new religion imperative in order to fulfil the deep need of the people for identificatory ideals and symbols. He was impressed with the fact that almost all the figures pr