The Psychological Analysis of Superstition

There occurs in “The Interpretation of Dreams,” in Freud's discussion of the rôle played by symbolism in dreams, the following sentence of far-reaching significance: “In this connection it may be remarked that this symbolism does not belong peculiarly to the dream, but rather to unconscious thinking, particularly that of the masses, and it is to be found in great perfection in the folk-lore, in the myths, legends, and manners of speech, in the proverbial sayings, and in the current witticisms of a nation than in its dreams” (p. 245).

In the present study we have considered this thesis of Freud's in its implication as regards the repository of unconscious thinking embodied in superstition. Taking the words quoted of Freud as our text, we have aimed to demonstrate that there is inherent in many of the superstitions or proverbial sayings of the masses a symbolization analogous to that which is shown in the dream. Our laboratory is represented in Dr. Edwin Miller Fogel's “Beliefs and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans.”1

In view of the latent sexual content which analysis of the superstitions so frequently discloses, it should be emphasized that the Pennsylvania Germans are a people particularly noted for their high order and morality. One would err greatly to regard the superstitions as representing pornographic elaboration. Like the dream, they embody a symibolization which is unconscious, in no way reflecting upon the integrity of the total personality.

The writer would not be understood as advancing the claim that all superstitions can be psychologically interpreted. We must recognize that though the superstition will very often be illustrative of unconscious complexes and mechanisms, it is not a product of the unconscious invariably. It is not, like the dream, intrinsically conative, expressive of thwarted instinct. Examples of superstitions which are of no interest for the psychoanalyst are those basing