Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/96

 88 COLLECTIVE REVIEWS

being ranged in due order along with other religious ceremonies. Here and in the analysis of the Mosaic law opportunity arises of using the results of analysis to throw sidelights on the psychic developments of Judaism, and an attempt has been nuide to explain its peculiarities and its aloofness on the ground of the reaction of certain psychic qualities to the peculiar destiny of this community. The analysis both of the usage of the Schufar and of the Sinaitic pericope led to views on the religious and cultural development of early Israel, widely divergent from those of prevailing tlieory: of these may be specially mentioned the influence of the totemistic period, and that of the tendencies towards revolt against Jehovah and the reaction tending to suppress such tendencies. In some con- tributions to Bible exegesis (59, 60) the present writer attempts to show the fertility of psycho-analysis when directed on this thorny and jealously guarded subject, pointing out that by making use of analytic methods a solution is approached for problems which have previously resisted every sort of effurt. Levy's valuable articles which so felicitously combine familiarity with sex-symbolism and philological knowledge provide the key to sex-symbolism in tJiose descriptions of Paradise known already to the early Church fathers (31). They further trace out the same syrnbulism in the Bible and the Talmud where it appears in very various and hardly recognisable forms (28, 29, SO, 33). In the analytical exegesis of the Cain legend Levy rightly though on insufiicicnt grounds ad- vises caution (32). Sex-symbolism has a central position also in the analytical explanation given by Ernest Jones in his .studies of the nightmare and its relation to mediaeval forms of super- stition (21).

Jones's work on the Divine-man complex throws light on the psychic presuppositions and mental determinants of the belief in one's own divinity, finding expression in the many psychic peculiarities of the characters treated (20).

The Fish Symbol as a sex representation is traced by Eisler in the religions and mythologies of all races (6).

The mental experiences of Schreber as studied by Freud seem to point to the conviction of a similar mission, his phantasies and hallucinatory system affording valuable analogies to certain con- ceptions of loftier and more primitive religions (11, 12). Of less value are the religious poetical testifyings of Miss Miller, which Jung uses as the starting point of his interesting and far-fetched