Religious cult: the psychology of religious action. What is superstition? Psychology of superstitious behavior

The concept of religion throughout the existence given word constantly changing and it is difficult to give an unambiguous definition of it. However, it can be said with full confidence that each person follows a particular religion, beliefs. And these may not necessarily be traditional religious movements (Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, etc.), we are also talking about atheism, worship of trees, the sun, moon or money, hobbies. All this leaves its mark on the human psyche and is one of the most important factors that psychologists take into account during consultations.

Thus, the need arose for the emergence of such a direction in psychology as psychology of religion. It studies psychological regularity the emergence, functioning, development and disappearance of religious manifestations in individual and group psychology, the direction, structure and content of these manifestations, the role they play in the non-religious spheres of people's lives. Not only religion, but also spirituality are subjected to research.

This direction uses various psychological research methods to religious traditions and different kind currents and arose in the 19th century mainly in the USA and Europe. In her development, she has undergone many changes from going into atheism (denying the power of God and exalting man in the first place) to creating directions that combine psychology and theology (Christian Association psychological research, Aams Bible Counseling, etc.).

Z. Freud, A. Maslow, James Leib, the Clark school, Friedrich von Hugel, Joseph Marshal, Antoine Vergot, Friedrich Heiler, Rollo May and a number of other psychologists had a great influence on the development of the psychology of religion.

Modern psychology of religion:

Seeks explanations for the behavior of believers in general, as well as representatives of various religious movements in particular;
Studies the processes of religious experiences, their role in the life of the individual;
Studies the psychology of religious groups and religious cult, including the mechanisms of behavior and communication of believers, religious consciousness in different historical eras, and the impact on human consciousness of religious rites;
He studies the influence of religion on the spiritual development of society.

The psychology of religion does not affect philosophical questions about the existence of God, but helps to solve those psychological conflicts that may arise among believers of one concession or another. To do this, a psychologist must know the main points of various religious movements, the features of a particular religion, in order to provide qualified assistance.

At the same time, the psychologist of this direction does not take on the role of a priest, but solves precisely the arisen psychological problem, which is of great help in the work of clergy, who are far from questions of psychology.

As a result of such work, a psychologist helps a person who is actively engaged in spiritual practice to eliminate psychological barriers that appear along the way spiritual development improve your relationships with family and friends, work colleagues. This contributes to a more harmonious development of the individual. It also helps to eliminate the fears and doubts that may arise when a person is just starting his spiritual path.

And in this case, there is a difference between pastoral counseling and secular counseling, which differs in that the psychologist not only alleviates the condition of the person who turned to him, but also directs him then to the priest from the tradition of this person.

Thus, the psychology of religion is called upon to find effective means of educating and strengthening religiosity, to teach the clergy to use the data of psychology in their activities, as well as help a person in his harmonious and holistic development.

The book is presented with some abbreviations.

Religious psychology and psychology of religion

One of the most widespread and enduring socio-psychological phenomena, religious psychology has accompanied mankind throughout most of its history and still plays a significant role at the present time. Until now, two terms are often confused: religious psychology and the psychology of religion, although they denote different concepts.
Religious psychology is a set of socio-psychological phenomena related to the field of religion as a form of social consciousness. Religious performances, religious feeling, superstitions are combined with ritual behavior and a number of derivative phenomena: prayer, ecstasy, confession, etc.
The psychology of religion is a section of social psychology that studies the socio-psychological phenomena of religious consciousness. The latter is also studied by sociology, ethnography, the history of religion and, most of all, religious studies. Therefore, the psychology of religion is a section not only of social psychology, but also of religious studies as a social science.
The significance of the psychology of religion for social practice is determined by the fact that atheistic education, as an integral part of communist education, is based on the laws of the psychology of religion. The sections of the psychology of religion are: the doctrine of the psychological roots of religious consciousness, faith, prayer, spells, sacrifice and confession, superstitions and prejudices, and other phenomena of religious psychology. But the most essential for social practice is the section of the psychology of religion, based on all the previous ones and, as it were, summing them up - the psychology of atheistic education, the education not of passive atheists, indifferent or simply ignorant of religion, but of "militant atheists", actively fighting against all types of religious experiences.
The most detailed books on the psychology of religion are written either by idealistic psychologists or by theologians themselves. Both of them contain considerable factual material and are of known scientific and historical interest to specialists. A significant contribution to the study of religious psychology was made by the research of ethnographers and doctors.
The Marxist psychology of religion is developed on the basis of the teachings of K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin about religion as a form of social consciousness. In the USSR, the problems of the psychology of religion are studied at the Institute of Scientific Atheism of the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU and a number of others. scientific institutions. A number of works by Soviet psychologists and philosophers have been published.
The significance of the psychology of religion is that it complements sociological research religion and is especially necessary in the practice of anti-religious propaganda. For example, sociology, on the basis of specific sociological research, can identify areas of greater religiosity of the population and reveal the reasons for this, while psychology helps to understand why in the same area, in the same social conditions, one person is an atheist, and his neighbor is a religious fanatic. Sociology can establish very important general patterns and trends in the development of religious consciousness, but only psychology substantiates an individual and personal approach to atheistic education. And without individual work taking into account the characteristics of each individual, anti-religious propaganda will not be effective enough. After all, the social roots of “poverty and darkness”, which, as the deepest sources of religious prejudice, were spoken of by V. I. Lenin in 1918 at the First All-Russian Congress of Working Women, have basically been destroyed in our country. And religious psychology still exists.
The bearer of religious psychology, or, what is the same, of religious consciousness, is a person. Religious psychology can also be understood through personality, although, of course, religion as a social phenomenon is far from exhausted by psychology and includes, in addition to it, religious ideology, organization, and cult. But here we will talk only about religious psychology.

Psychological roots of religion

The problem of the roots of religiosity in the minds of people is one of the main problems of the psychology of religion. Of course, first of all, when studying religion, it is necessary to find out the true historical and economic roots of the religious fog. Speaking about the need to combat religion, V. I. Lenin emphasized the importance of eliminating the social roots of religion. At the same time, he pointed to the presence of not only social and historical, but also epistemological roots of religion, certain properties of human cognition and the human psyche, which contribute to the emergence of religion.
Engels wrote in Anti-Dühring that "every religion is nothing but a fantastic reflection in the minds of people of those external forces that dominate them in their daily lives - a reflection in which earthly forces take on the form of unearthly ones. This "fantastic reflection" on the concrete scientific plane must be revealed by psychology, and above all through an understanding of the psychological roots of religion.
The psychological roots of religion are those specific features individual and group consciousness, which contribute to the emergence of phenomena of religious psychology. It is clear at the same time that any phenomena of religious psychology, and even more so religious consciousness in general, have not only psychological causes, but arise as a result of the interaction of a number of features of the human psyche with the conditions of his existence, with natural material and social factors. Scientific abstraction not only allows, but also requires, having singled out the psychological roots of religion, to consider each of them separately.
As early as Publius Statius, an ancient Roman poet (c. 40-95), fear was understood as the psychological root of religion. Lenin, referring to Statius, showed the significance of fear in religion not only primitive man but also the proletariat in a capitalist society. In 1909, in the article "On the Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion", analyzing the "roots of religion" and quoting Statius' words "fear created the gods", he connected this psychological root with the social conditions of the life of the proletarian under capitalism. “Fear of the blind force of capital, which is blind because it cannot be foreseen by the masses of the people, which at every step in the life of the proletarian and small proprietor threatens to bring him and brings “sudden”, “unexpected”, “accidental” ruin, death, turning into a beggar , into a pauper, into a prostitute, starvation - this is the root of modern religion, which, first of all and most of all, the materialist must have in mind if he does not want to remain a materialist of the preparatory class, ”wrote Lenin.
Fear is an indispensable element of religious consciousness even under socialism. But this is already a fear of death, illness, all sorts of misfortunes that can invade a person’s personal destiny. The correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda, who went to the Baptist preacher on the basis of a letter from his daughter, tried to figure out how he "clings" other people's souls. He established that he sought to find "sore spots" in the minds of his listeners. “First and foremost is fear. Fear of God, of illness... "Who knows what will happen to you tomorrow?" - asks the preacher, sowing panic in the souls who trusted him. People with hard-working hands and frightened looks are trying hard to force themselves to believe in heavenly salvation.”
Lenin revealed a deep dialectical connection between the various roots of religion, which always act in interdependence; moreover, he showed the relationship not only of the social and psychological roots of religion, but also the relationship of psychological roots: fear and that combination of the conscious with the unconscious, which will be discussed below. Here Lenin, in essence, speaks of religious psychology as a phenomenon of social psychology, returning to this idea in a number of other statements about religion.
Ludwig Feuerbach in "Lectures on the Essence of Religion" in 1849 saw the psychological root of religion in the form, as he wrote, "a combination in one and the same being of consciousness with the unconscious, of the will with the involuntary." More precisely, this second psychological root of religions is the contradiction between the conscious and the unconscious in the human psyche. Lenin, summarizing this book by Feuerbach in Philosophical Notebooks in 1909, wrote out these words and, marking them with a notabene sign, rated them as “an excellent, philosophical (and at the same time simple and clear) explanation of the essence of religion.” On the same pages to which Lenin attributed this assessment of his, Feuerbach wrote: “A person with his own I or consciousness stands on the edge of a bottomless abyss, which, however, is nothing more than his own unconscious being, which seems alien to him.” After all, not only primitive, but also modern man who does not understand the connection of his successful action with an automated skill, as well as who does not understand the reasons for his erroneous action, causes of involuntary memory, association, found solution, etc., it often seems that someone helps or hinders him.
Further, among the psychological roots of religion should be attributed the emotional regularity of catharsis, which was already known to the Pythagoreans long before Plato and Aristotle, and later mystified by Freud. Catharsis - in Greek purification, with this word Aristotle associated the influence of music and aesthetic experiences. Catharsis is a component of the psychological structure of many religious activities: curses, prayers, sacrifices, and especially confessions in all their various forms.
The most ancient socio-psychological phenomenon is considered to be the emergence in the mind of the individual of the idea of "them". B. F. Porshnev, investigating this phenomenon, wrote: “A thorough analysis leads to an unexpected result: “you” (and, accordingly, “you”) is a derivative category and corresponding to a later stage than “we” and “they” ”. However, having correctly noted this regularity, he did not see in it one of the socio-psychological roots of religion. The fact is that "they" always seem to be stronger, more powerful than they really are. "They" always cause fear. For a primitive man, "they" is the simplest explanation for all incomprehensible troubles. The psychology of the totem, the psychology of the fetish, and the psychology of animism easily arise from the concept of "they" with its characteristic emotional coloring, although, of course, each is formed and further develops under the influence of various social and psychological conditions. Common to any religion is the belief that "they" can influence "me" and "us."
This phenomenon, also related to the psychological roots of religious psychology, is closely connected with fear and with the contradiction between the conscious and the unconscious. It often seems to a person that “they” interfere in the performance of a highly automated skill, creativity, involuntary memory, etc. (“Muse, tell me ...”, “Pallas Athena threw his spear”, etc.). Of course, Homer and contemporary poet appeal to the muse has a different psychological meaning. And yet, "they" more often interfere than help, and in the words "the devil pulled me" in a surviving form, there is also an element of the same superstition caused by the same.

The Psychology of Faith

Religion is based on faith. Researchers involved in the history and theory of religion considered faith to be the main feature of the concept of religion. So, L. Ya. Sternberg rightly wrote that such a definition of religion is needed, which “would be equally suitable for the beliefs of the Samoyed who flogged his idol when his hunt was unsuccessful, and for the beliefs of the Phoenicians who burned their children at the stake to please the deity, and to the beliefs of the Babylonians, who sent their daughters and wives to the temple of Astarte to be prostituted, surrendering themselves to the first stranger they met, and to the religion of the Christian, which requires people to lay down their lives for their neighbor, and to the religion of Buddhism, which is based in essence on complete atheism .. .". L. Ya. Sternberg, like earlier E. Taylor, was looking for a "minimum of religion" as an element of the structure of religious consciousness, inherent in all religions - from the most primitive to the most complex. Such a minimum of religion is the feeling of faith.
Without understanding the essence of the psychology of faith, it is difficult to correctly understand many other phenomena of religious psychology, in particular the psychology of prayer, incantations, conspiracies, confessions, and all kinds of superstitions and prejudices.
It would be wrong not to take into account the views of the "fathers of the church" themselves, who thought and wrote a lot about the place and role of faith in religion. They based their understanding of faith on the words attributed to the Apostle Paul: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." Doctor of Theology, Rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy, Archimandrite Anthony, explained this definition in the following way: “... that is, this is the essence of truth, inaccessible to experience and exceeding human reason, which is the difference between faith and knowledge.”
Feuerbach quotes the following words of Martin Luther about faith: “All the members of our creed seem to the mind stupid and ridiculous ... Therefore, one should not try to find out whether a given thing is possible; but one should say this: God has spoken, and therefore even what seems impossible will happen. For although I can neither see nor understand this, yet the Lord can make the impossible possible and make everything out of nothing. And recently it was repeated: "... the impossibility of complete comprehension by the mind of the content of dogmatic truths is one of the main provisions of Orthodox theology." But the Roman early Christian theologian Tertullian (160-220) defined the essence of faith most clearly and consistently, saying: "I believe because it is absurd." This formula has protected faith from the arguments of reason for centuries.
Faith is a feeling that creates the illusion of knowledge and reality of what is created by fantasy with the participation of this same feeling. It is an obligatory component of the structure of religious consciousness and, consequently, the minimum of religion.
In this understanding, faith approaches a number of other socio-psychological phenomena: suggestion, mental infection, imitation, containing elements of irrationality in their structure.
The feeling of faith, reaching, as is typical of any emotion, to the level of affect, takes the form of religious ecstasy, which develops more often in a group than individually. It is sometimes called simply ecstasy, but this is not true, since other feelings, such as the aesthetic and the feeling of love, can reach aesthetic and loving ecstasy. These ecstasies can manifest themselves completely independently of religious ecstasy, but they can also be part of its structure. The company of shamans, hysterics - all these are manifestations of religious ecstasy, the structure of which, to one degree or another, includes sexual feeling.
Religious ecstasy can also take the form of religious fanaticism, which was painted religious wars and religious disputes and in which religious fanaticism always closely intertwined with other socio-psychological phenomena.

The psychology of religious action

Religious actions that together constitute religious behavior are diverse. These include prayer, sacrifice, confession. Close to them are actions based on the so-called false faith, superstition, actions associated with religious prejudices, with faith in forebodings.
At the origins of the psychology of prayer lies a magical conspiracy and a spell. A magical conspiracy and a spell are words that supposedly had a miraculous power to act not only on other people, animals and the forces of nature, but also on spirits, gods: “Get lost! Scatter! Get lost!
A person, knowing the power of the word in speech interpersonal communication, believed that with his words he could protect himself from not only people attacking him, but also spirits. Then the spell became grateful and pleading (in gratitude, after all, there is always an element of “a request for next time”). So the spell turned into a prayer, which often contains a request for a miracle. As I. S. Turgenev said, “any prayer essentially boils down to the following: “Make, Lord, so that twice two is not four, but five.” Prayer can be both group and individual.
Sacrifice is one of the oldest religious cults. It fantastically reflected the form of communication and human mutual assistance: "I am for you, and you are for me." It was especially distorted in class society by the psychology of buying and selling. So, even the ancient Greek atheist philosopher Lucian said: “The gods do nothing for free, but sell people various benefits ...”
A sacrifice, a candle to an icon, the fulfillment of a difficult vow - all this is a belief in the possibility of "payback" or "retribution" for old sins or new blessings. If it were not for this faith, there would be no sacrifices, no candles in front of the icons, no vows.
The psychology of confession includes in its structure much in common with the psychology of prayer and the psychology of the victim. After all, repenting of sins, the believer not only “asks for forgiveness,” but also believes that “if you ask well,” then forgiveness will be received.
The unpleasant effort to "confess" is experienced as a sacrifice that must be rewarded. But there is another psychological feature in the psychology of confession. This is - human as a social being, a pattern: "Shared joy is double joy, shared grief is half grief." In confession, the believer "shifts the burden of his deed onto the shoulders of the confessor." This greatly enhances the effect of catharsis, which is characteristic not only of prayer, but also simply “heart-to-heart conversation about one’s troubles.” That is why abroad, in the conditions of the crisis of the church, “confessors” were replaced by “psychoanalysts” with their “intimate conversations”, and it was not by chance that confessors adopted various tricks psychoanalysis.

The psychology of superstition

Superstitions are sometimes vestigial fragments of past religions. But sometimes these are also acquired, new beliefs, similar in their psychological mechanisms to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Since it is well known that it is useless to fight obsessive states with persuasion, this explains the low effectiveness of the explanatory fight against superstitions, as well as why superstitions sometimes contradict a person’s worldview and are found even among atheists.
Superstition was condemned by dogmatic religion, although the psychological structure of superstition is not much different from the canonized faith. The difference is only in the ideological component, which determines the content of superstition.
On the opposite flank of a series of forms of superstition, they merge with prejudice. These two phenomena of religious psychology are often confused. The psychological structure of superstition is dominated by a sense of faith, which not only prevails, but also inhibits thinking. Superstition is more experienced than understood. "... Fear is the reason due to which superstition arises, is preserved and maintained," said Spinoza.
Prejudice is a phenomenon of an erroneous "picture of the world", in the psychological structure of which the element of thinking, misunderstanding, usually inspired from the outside, predominates. Prejudice does not exist without superstition, which always and necessarily enters as an element in its psychological structure. At the same time, both superstitions and prejudices are always phenomena of group consciousness.
The origin of superstition has long been well understood. F. Bacon wrote about them this way: “The mind of a person attracts everything to support and agree with what he once accepted, whether because it is an object of common faith or because he likes it. Whatever the strength and number of circumstances that testify to the contrary, the mind either does not notice them, or neglects them, or diverts and rejects them by means of distinctions - with a great and pernicious prejudice - so that the reliability of those former conclusions remains intact. And therefore, the one who answered correctly, when they showed him the images hung in the temple of those who were saved by making a vow from a dangerous shipwreck and at the same time sought an answer whether he now recognizes the power of the gods, asked in turn: “Where are the images of those who died after that How did you make a vow? This is the basis of almost all superstitions - in astrology, in dreams, in omens, in divine decrees, and the like. People who indulge in this kind of fuss mark the event that has come true, and ignore the one that deceived, although the latter happens much more often.
The case with the images of the survivors, which Bacon wrote about, was borrowed by him from Cicero. This suggests that even in those distant times, progressive minds correctly imagined psychological entity superstition.
One of the typical superstitions is the belief in forebodings. It is based on the substitution of foreboding assumptions.
An assumption is an assumption of an event, the probability of which is not yet known. The ability to assume valuable property mind, specially studied as thinking by probabilities. Such thinking, in particular, is typical of a military leader. But sometimes the combination of an assumption with a feeling of anxious expectation is experienced as a presentiment, which is more often in conditions of danger and nervous tension(stress). If the future course of events does not confirm the premonition, it is forgotten. But the coincidence of several confirmations is involuntarily remembered, and a superstitious belief is created, which easily turns into prejudice: "a premonition never deceives me."
Close to the belief in forebodings is the belief in fortune-telling that develops according to a similar mechanism. There is a man along the street and counts the windows of houses or adds up the numbers of car numbers and believes: even - there will be luck, odd - failure. This prejudice is based on the obsessive-accounting neurosis well-known in psychiatry, which is associated with the selectivity of memory and the expectation of good luck.
Religious prejudice is only one of the types of prejudice, although it is the most clearly expressed and has the greatest social significance. Moral consciousness contained and also contains many prejudices, an example of which is the belief in the benefits of rods in the upbringing of children. But unlike religious prejudices, they are better corrected within fairly broad social groups.

Psychological moments in atheistic education

The fight against religious relics is important task propagandists of the scientific worldview. But this struggle requires considerable skill. V. I. Lenin taught that “religious prejudices must be fought with extreme caution; much harm is done by those who bring an insult to religious feeling into this struggle. We must fight through propaganda, through education.” These words are an example of a dialectical understanding of the nature of religious psychology and ways to combat it. In anti-religious work, a psychological personal approach is needed.
The basis of the scientific substantiation of anti-religious work, in addition to understanding the psychological roots and essence of the manifestations of religious psychology, is also an understanding of their characteristics as religious survivals. Survivals show a tendency for thinking to lag behind being. Moreover, in the field of individual consciousness, it is necessary to distinguish three types of survivals that are not identical in their socio-psychological essence.
The first genus of various survivals, including religious ones, is their simplest genus. These are direct remnants that arose in a person as a form of consciousness that socially corresponded to his being, and entrenched so firmly that they cannot be eradicated until the end of his life. Old women are still alive, accustomed to going to church "under the tsar" and who have not been re-educated to this day.
The second kind are survivals, psychologically very close to the previous ones, but requiring active educational influence. These are also direct survivals, but already among young people, which arose as a result of unfavorable, but adequate to these survivals, socio-psychological conditions. They are the direct result of the survivals of the previous kind among the older generation, which creates microsocial and psychological conditions. This kind of survivals more often manifests itself as episodic phenomena (the wedding or baptism of a child), but sometimes, where ideological work is weakened, under the influence of the inspiring influence of the religious environment, survivals become persistent religiosity, passing into the next kind.
The third kind of religious survivals is less often episodic, the cause of religious episodes here is more complex, due to socio-psychological neurosis-like influences such as difficult experiences with simultaneous inspiring influences of the religious environment.
In accordance with what has been said, all modern believers can be roughly divided into the following conditional groups.
Still preserved in the dark corners are fanatic fanatics, whose voice of reason is completely silent, muffled by faith. And not because their faith is very strong, but because their reason is weak and not developed.
There are also so-called converts. These are non-religious people in the past, non-believers, to whom religion was “opened” after a difficult experience, usually purely personal, and sometimes intimate.
The next group of modern believers is made up of believers by tradition, by habit, adopted from older relatives, from those around them, under whose influence they fell. Some of them are deeply religious, but more are “doubters” and cross their foreheads because of reinsurance - “suddenly there is a god.”
The last group - believers not in God, but in various superstitions, signs, divination, amulets. These believers are often a reserve for "conversion."
Each of these groups of believers requires a different approach, which, moreover, must be strictly individual and personal.
So, for example, if a quiet old woman of about seventy is assigned to the third group, then it is hardly necessary to spend energy on her re-education, however, the possibility of imitating her should be eliminated. But if a young girl, timid in character, who has a tendency to "conversion" is assigned to the same group, then here one cannot delay with atheistic work. Having found out under whose religious influence it is, it is necessary either to eliminate this influence, or, which is practically easier, to oppose it with a healthy influence, to interest and distract it with something. Even more active measures will be required by the impressionable and unbalanced by nature object of atheistic education, assigned to the second group of believers. It is possible that, in addition to ideological work, measures will be required to ensure treatment. We must not miss the religious fanatics, who can cause harm to others. Here, atheistic education is carried out with an emphasis on legal education.
There is another group that cannot be passed by in an atheistic upbringing, although the people included in this group cannot be called believers. These are young people who feel the wearing of pectoral crosses or an icon over the bed as "the latest fashion statement." The psychology of these pseudo-believers, referring to the range of issues of social psychology, can be revealed from the standpoint of the psychology of fashion. But not only. A group of pseudo-believers is easily infected with all sorts of superstitions and becomes a reserve for "conversion".
The atheistic upbringing of our youth should form not passive, but militant, active atheists. The passive atheist is simply far from religion, although he represents a reserve of possible "conversion". That is why those who believe that the Soviet schoolchild "suffices only to be isolated from the church" are wrong. Such isolation, at best, forms only passive atheists, and more often causes unhealthy interest, as in any “forbidden fruit”. It is useful to take high school students on excursions to churches like historical museums, after which they conduct conversations on religious studies and scientific atheism.
An active, militant atheist is familiar with the fundamentals of religious studies and knows that religion has always served and serves to stupefy the working class, working people, therefore a consistent and skillful struggle is necessary against religious prejudices. And he not only knows this, but also actively puts his knowledge into practice.

Approaches to the study of superstition

Superstition is a belief in the forces and laws of nature unknown to man, positively or negatively affecting people, animals and the whole world. Considering superstition as a psychological phenomenon can be done through several approaches.

cognitive approach

From the position of this approach, superstition is an attempt to comprehend the unknown and inexplicable. Superstitions are passed down from generation to generation psychological features: infection, imitation, suggestion. With the help of signs and superstitions, a person tries to gain control over the whole world. In this context, superstition is the result of the work of memory and.

With the help of superstitions, a person organizes the world around him. But the perception of ongoing events is too subjective and situational, distorting the true mechanisms and features of things happening.

Everything that goes beyond the usual ideas and knowledge of a person, he tries to explain with the help of supernatural forces, signs, superstitions, divination, astrology. Accordingly, we can say that the higher a person, the less he is prone to prejudice. Cognition of the world through superstition is a simplified form of cognition, based on visibility and avoiding cognition of the world through abstract scientific concepts.

Affective-motivational approach

Superstition is a form of protection of the emotional state and the person. This is the satisfaction and support of their unconscious desires,. At the same time, in this concept, superstitions are considered as a means of providing psychotherapeutic assistance: stress relief.

Belief is closely related to the suggestibility of a person, which intensifies at the moment:

frustration and psychological fragmentation, for example, with fear of death, aging, reality or the hardships of loneliness;
grief experiences;
job loss;
unrequited love;
cultural and socio-economic instability of society;
awareness of one's own powerlessness.

“What is not done is all for the better,” a person says to himself, and the pain from personally significant misfortunes that have happened is no longer so acute. Signs and this kind of superstition can give a person the strength to overcome depression and other undesirable conditions. Think, after all, for every state of a person, you can find a saying that removes a share of responsibility from him and shifts the burden of what happened on someone's shoulders: "God's will for everything."

On the one hand, this is good, but on the other hand, it seems to me that it deprives a person. How can you grow and draw conclusions from what happened, avoiding responsibility for own life? Is it possible to develop if you do not really know your thoughts and feelings, do not consciously struggle with fears and do not accept inevitable realities, for example, death? I think in this case superstitions are a form of escape from reality and impede personal growth.

Afterword

Superstition is the victory of emotions over reason. And one of the main driving forces is fear. This is blind faith that slows down thinking. Prejudices similar to superstitions:

superstition is an element of the structure of prejudices;
prejudice - an erroneous perception of something, caused by information imposed from outside (superstitions and signs).

Signs, superstitions, prejudices belong to the psychology of the masses. This causes the complexity and impossibility of the complete eradication of beliefs. But it is possible and necessary to work with an individual person if superstitions interfere with his personal development and life, border on anxiety-phobic disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

How to do it? Understand what function superstitions perform in this case. This will help you find real reasons: lack of knowledge, fear, self-doubt, personality problems and other. Further, we have to work on eliminating this cause and gaining a sense of control over ourselves and our lives at the expense of internal resources and a logical rational understanding of the world. It is worthwhile to engage in the development of creative and, and superstitions will begin to fade into the background.

Ecology of knowledge: In the modern world, new signs still appear and wars are declared against current superstitions. About why we still have not got rid of "grandmother's" precepts, which professions are more prone to superstition and what role the collective consciousness plays in this,

In the modern world, new signs are still appearing and wars are being declared against current superstitions. About why we still have not got rid of "grandmother's" precepts, which professions are more prone to superstition and what role collective consciousness plays in this, Andrey Moroz, head of the educational and scientific laboratory of folklore at the Russian State Humanitarian University, told Theory and Practice.

http://www.vanityfair.com/

I am engaged in the study of traditional Slavic culture, the refraction of Christianity in traditional culture, ritual culture, the influence of language on traditional culture, and so on. I also have works connected with the forms of contemporary folklore. In particular, in recent times I am studying protest folklore with some of my colleagues that emerged in the winter of 2011-2012.

We must immediately define the terms: I would not use the word "superstition" in a scientific context, because it is not a term and does not mean anything specific. This evaluative designation is not from a scientific lexicon and is appropriate in a priest's sermon when he says how to build one's own religious life. The priest proceeds from the concept of "correct faith" and what is outside this very correct faith. For scientific analysis, it is important how signs, beliefs, rituals work, and not how they can be characterized from one point of view or another. On the other hand, superstition can be called a sign, a ritual, and just a belief that does not translate into any actions, and so on. Therefore, the word "superstition" I would immediately discard. As for signs, yes, they are included in the circle of my interests as one of the aspects that cannot exist in isolation from others and constitutes organic part traditional culture in general.

It turns out that non-participation in the religion of a certain action can be called superstition? And do you mind if I continue to use the word "superstition" in the conventional sense?

I still have to object to the word "superstition", because it's not just a matter of context, but also that there is nothing concrete behind it. We will have to agree with you in advance what to call superstition. First, religion is the most complex set of ideas based on written texts created in different eras different people and hence there are inconsistencies. Secondly, this is a tradition, that is, the same oral tradition, which by its nature cannot be clear, unambiguous and monolithic. Thirdly, there is the point of view of specific church hierarchs (not only in the Russian Orthodox Church), who, within the framework of own understanding all of the above can be assessed differently by accepted norms.

There is no single general line that would answer all questions at once, there is a set of opinions. For example, the apostolic rule, according to which a woman is forbidden to walk in men's clothes, usually results in the persecution of women in Russians, I emphasize, in Russian Orthodox churches, if they come there in pants. Wherein great amount other Orthodox churches and a huge number of churches within the Russian Orthodox Church are quite calm about this. I'm not talking about the fact that pants have long ceased to be men's clothing. This may be called superstition, or it may be called observance of the apostolic rule. Both will be true to a certain extent.

Then the line between superstition and omen becomes indistinguishable.

A sign is a very narrow thing. We can talk about it as a genre of folklore, because a sign exists as a certain idea, formulated in a verbal expression that has a more or less stable form: if X happens, then Y will happen, or more simply: if X, then Y. All signs are something like this arranged.

Superstition, in a certain context, can be called any human action. For example, you come home from the street and wash your hands. You will motivate this by the fact that you grabbed the handrails in the subway and picked up a fallen wallet from the ground, but I will tell you that this is superstition. And will I be wrong? And there is no definite answer here.

For example, spilled salt or a fork that fell to the floor - what is it?

This is just an omen. With a fork, it is clear how the logic of signs works - if the fork fell off the table, then a man will come. With salt it is more difficult, because different interpretations are possible. The sign sounds like this: salt crumbled - to a quarrel. But this can be formulated differently - you can’t sprinkle salt so that there is no quarrel, so you should be careful at the table. This will be a ban - you can not do some actions in order to avoid something more unpleasant.

And, for example, a black cat that crosses the road?

What do you think? Any sign can give rise to a ban, which in turn entails a certain set of beliefs and actions. The cat crossed the road, and you need to go there. For this, there is a certain prescription on how to act so that misfortune passes you. This is undoubtedly an omen. For those who do not believe in this, it will be superstition. For those who believe, this will not be superstition, but will be a fact.

How do omens appear? Is it possible in the modern world the emergence of new superstitions, signs, and what is behind their appearance?

Yes, this happens regularly, and there is psychology behind it. Man acts not as an individual, but as part of a collective. Speaking of such things as omens, we always mean collective or mass consciousness.

There is no sign of one person. More precisely, there are, but we don’t really know about it. Special person can believe in a million things he doesn't tell anyone about. Suppose someone never leaves the house without buttoning his coat on the stairs, because if he buttons it at home, then some kind of trouble is sure to happen on the way. For some, this may be a sign, but it will not be a fact of collective consciousness.

Therefore, we are talking about collective things: at some point, a certain “rule” begins to regulate the behavior of people united in some way. It can be anything: professional activity, place of work or residence, age, gender, social status etc. It is important that these people have something in common that unites them and allows them to form a certain cultural environment, in which there is a spread of one or another belief, sign, prohibition, ritual. The tendency of humanity to delegate certain ideas, functions and roles to a superhuman force, an attempt to explain randomness by logic or to find logic in randomness - this is an almost universal feature of our consciousness. It is absolutely ineradicable and is not connected with the state of scientific and technological progress and knowledge about the structure of the universe. Always in the corners of consciousness there is an unreflected idea of the existence of the supernatural. In addition, I repeat, in the minds of most people this formulation is not, but there is some almost biological, subconscious feeling. Actually, all traditional culture and its new forms are organized on this mechanism. That is, if everyone does it, then so should I. Or I do it because everyone does it.

Of the popular modern signs, the following can be distinguished: of the modern ones, the following: firstly, the student rite of catching freebies on the eve of the exam. It is necessary to open the record book, lean out of the window and call: "Freebie, come." Then close and put under the pillow. It appeared in the 1970s and 80s.

Secondly, pipe lovers gather to smoke the Sherlock Holmes monument - to sit next to Holmes. This should help develop the mind. The idea seems to have been thrown by the actor Livanov at the time of the opening of the monument. And recently there was a monument to a dog killed in the subway, at the Mendeleevskaya station. Flowers are brought to him and I write, touch, stroke, make wishes.

The collective consciousness determines which signs remain relevant, and which are a thing of the past?

Not certainly in that way. Each individual factor can easily lose relevance, be forgotten, disappear, and so on. For example, the idea that one should determine the time of plowing the land by sitting on the ground with his bare bottom and feeling its warmth. By origin, it is not at all connected with temperature sensations, but with some eroticism inherent in agricultural culture, a kind of symbolic fertilization of the earth takes place. But then the rite acquires a new explanation - you need to feel the warmth of the earth, but then disappears along with a change in the forms of agriculture. This was influenced primarily by the socialization of the land, if we are talking about the Soviet tradition, and mechanization, which abolished the old agricultural rituals. Now it is no longer necessary to determine whether the land is ready or not, because now, as the agronomist says, so be it. But in general, such a phenomenon as belief, omen, ritual, and so on - they do not go anywhere.

Is it possible to somehow typify signs?

Well, firstly, as we have already said, it is possible according to the environment in which they exist. Secondly, there are some ritualized forms of behavior, like “rubbing a monument”. For example, back in the 1930s, there was a tradition of rubbing the nose of a dog at the Ploshchad Revolutsii station, and now every second person, passing by, automatically touches the dog's nose or leg. Some do it consciously, and some unconsciously. This is an indelible thing.

Is there a connection between superstition and religion? Is there any reason for warning against superstition?

Each religion has its own more or less a complex system, and none of them can be called superstition for a number of reasons. This is always the most complex philosophical and theological system, developed by extremely educated and wise people of their time. To a large extent, religion opposes superstition, and the very word "superstition" appears precisely in a religious context.

Any single act or belief associated with a particular religion may well turn out to be superstition, but it depends more on its carriers. For example, put a candle in the temple. From the ecclesiastical point of view, this is a symbolic action, behind which there is no expectation of benefits, and it represents a conditional sacrifice to God. The candle itself is a beautiful and elegant convention. But a person comes to church twice a year, buys candles and puts them near each icon, thus making up for the lack of religious communion. From the point of view of the Christian church, this is superstition. If we do not delve into the religious system, do not try to understand the meaning of what is happening, but simply repeat the actions conditionally required by religion, be it the sign of the cross, observance of the Sabbath, circumcision, prayer, and so on, then this will be superstition.

It turns out that there is always an interpenetration between religion and superstition: some religious elements become a sign, and superstitions, on the contrary, become part of religion?

Yes, both exist. As for the elements religious culture, which begin to be interpreted and understood in a completely new way and in a different context - this is all the time. During baptism, a person's hair is cut four strands of hair crosswise, covered with wax and thrown into a font of water. And then there is a folklore interpretation: they look to see if the hair is drowned or not. If they drown, then the child will not live long, and if they swim, then everything will be fine. Since religion does not exist in an isolated space, very often the church tradition begins to take on that non-religious, which is an ineradicable form. human behavior and fact human consciousness trying to give it new meaning or appropriate form. Let's say birch branches that are brought in Orthodox Church on the Trinity, have, on the one hand, some parallel in Judaism, and on the other hand, this is based on some folk rituals.

Why is this happening?

There are things that are very in tune with each other, and therefore they easily penetrate from folk culture to the church. For example, the veneration of sources is an extremely ancient phenomenon and is characteristic of almost any religion. For example, in Judaism, washing in running water plays a significant role. Accordingly, through Judaism it comes to Christianity. At the same time, there is a popular veneration of sources associated with specific events or expectations. These things very easily approach each other, reservoirs become holy, begin to be elevated to some kind of fact of religious experience or history. The day of celebration of the Nativity of Christ is associated with the day of the winter solstice, and this was established quite deliberately with the aim of replacing one holiday with another.

Signs can fulfill or replace social functions? Do they become regulators of behavior?

The most obvious function is a ban, but there are signs that justify some further expectations. Suppose if Easter is sunny and warm, then all the major holidays of the year will be warm. Nothing follows from this. Often calendar signs look very strange. For example, on the day of St. Simeon the Stylite (September 1, old style), flies disappear. This is a sign: the day of Simeon the Stylite has come - the flies should disappear, but this is not always the case. Signs of this kind not only have an impact on surrounding life how many serve mnemonic rules. Such signs serve to systematize the idea of time.

Can such practices be used as mechanisms of power?

Usually it is not used in any way to influence one group of people on another. If there is a certain law or fact that is relevant for a certain number of people, then they form one group within which this law exists. The most obvious are religious injunctions. For example, a woman comes to church wearing pants. We perceive her as our own, because she came to the temple, although she does not know elementary rules. There are different ways to act: expel us in disgrace, ask us to wear a skirt and not offend our religious feelings, or simply ignore it, because this is not a criterion for us.

What professions are most prone to superstition and omens?

First of all, these are professions associated with increased danger: firefighters, pilots, miners, and so on. The second reason why signs may appear in a professional environment is the isolation of the team. The more the type of activity is associated with isolation - more often in social relations, - all the more it contributes to the existence of some traditions within the team.

Why then are actors considered very superstitious?

I do not know how superstitious they are, but the existence of signs and beliefs is due to the fact that this is an absolutely closed environment. When the actors go on stage, the people in the audience are “they”, and on the stage they are “we”. The world of theater and cinema is different, alternative life. And the fear of portraying a dead person on stage is mostly associated with the fear of death. The image of the deceased is a very traditional thing, since death is one of the most mysterious phenomena for a person, and no one is given to know for sure what will happen there. Hence the emphasis on death. It can be realized in different ways: in some cases, in traditional culture, the dead are depicted on purpose. With death, perhaps, there are the most superstitions.

Are you superstitious?

Each religion includes a set of special actions necessary for believers both to express their belonging to a religious community and to strengthen their faith, their identification with this community. The combination of such actions usually constitutes a religious cult.

Religious cult for believers- almost any symbolic actions based on the belief in the possibility of influencing supernatural objects and their properties with their help. Participation in such activities partially satisfies the basic needs of social life: the need for communication, for belonging to a community.

They do and specific psychological functions, in particular, relieving the emotional stress of believers.

Socio-psychological analysis group worship in the church allows us to distinguish three successive stages in it, during which there is an increase in emotional tension, then a climax, and finally a discharge in the form of an increase in calm positive emotions. This manifests a kind of psychotherapeutic effect of the cult.

The phenomenon of mutual emotional infection, usually observed during religious holidays involving a large number believers, always creates a common emotional condition, contributing to the effective action of the mechanisms of suggestion and self-hypnosis.

At the origins psychology of prayer lie a magical conspiracy and spells. These are words that have a miraculous power and property to act not only on other people, animals and the forces of nature, but also on spirits and gods (the suggestive power of a word and verbal interpersonal communication on oneself, which in a similar way can protect oneself from attacking people, animals and evil spirits) Over time, the spell became both grateful and pleading.

Psychology of confession associated with the psychology of prayer and sacrifice. Repenting of sins, the believer does not just “ask for forgiveness” - he believes that if you ask, then forgiveness will actually be received.

The other side of confession, reflecting worldly wisdom: shared joy is double joy, shared grief is half grief. In the process of confession, the believer, as it were, shifts the burden of the deed on the shoulders of the confessor, shares with him both the deed and the responsibility for it. This enhances the effect of catharsis, which is characteristic not only of prayer, but also of any heart-to-heart conversation with a friend about one's problems and troubles. This is the key to the success of not only confessors, but also psychoanalysts and psychotherapists of various schools.

The psychology of superstition

According to K. K. Platonov, superstitions are rudimentary fragments of past religions and related cults in mass psychology. These are also acquired, new beliefs, close in psychological origin to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Because of this, it is almost impossible to fight them - they constitute the "everyday lining" of our consciousness.

Psychological explanation majority existing superstitions- search for a logical connection between events that occur one after the other. Here the formula works: after that, it means, because of that. In the psychology of the masses, the notion of a quite possible supernatural connection between phenomena close or coinciding in time still continues to be preserved and serve as a source of faith in omens, forebodings and divination. The special selectivity of our memory also helps here: one omen that has come true or some kind of prediction is remembered better than a dozen that have not come true.

Motives for turning to religion

Numerous opinion polls and specialized socio-psychological studies make it possible to differentiate the religious psychology of the masses, to isolate groups of believers whose religious community is built on various motives for turning to religion.

It is the motive of conversion that stands at the center of the mass that is psychologically formed around the church. There are six quite obviously different motives - accordingly, we can talk about six variants of the religious psychology of the masses:

· The first group of believers- people for whom religion acts as their own form of knowledge of the world. Usually these are extremely poorly educated people who simply do not have any other “picture of the world”. On the other hand, they know very well the biblical ontology, the entire mythological basis of religion. God's creation of the world and man, the presence of heaven and hell, the afterlife are quite real things for them.

· To the second group include believers whose main motive is the expectation of heavenly bliss after death. Such a motive is generated by difficult living conditions, many unsatisfied needs, as well as the fear of death. As you know, in most religions, the description of paradise is just filled with the most pleasant things. The Koran, born in the drought of the Arabian desert, teaches about paradise: “In it are rivers of water that does not spoil, and rivers of milk, the taste of which does not change, and rivers of wine, pleasant for drinkers; rivers of purified honey” (Koran, 1963). Of all religious theory, these believers best know and remember the principles of the immortality of the soul and the existence of an afterlife. The fear of death, although not always in a conscious form, occupies a significant place in the minds of modern believers. It is impossible for the body to avoid it, which means that one should console oneself with the immortality of the soul.

· The third group of believers in religion, it is not belief in the supernatural that is of interest, but the religious cult itself. The motive for their participation in cult activities is not so much the belief that with their help they can influence supernatural forces, but the satisfaction of the needs for communication, in identifying themselves with a certain big group which gives such participation. As a rule, these are lonely people who have not found their place in the groups to which they objectively belong in secular life, deeply experiencing the phenomenon of alienation. Usually they do not know religious dogmas well - except for those related to cult activities. The number of such people is increasing as society is marginalized.

· For the fourth group believers are characterized by the belief in the need for religion to preserve human morality. There are especially many such people among Muslims, whose life is almost completely regulated by Sharia - a set of both religious and moral, legal and many other norms based on the Koran. The basis of their religiosity is the conviction that without religion, without the fear of God's punishment, any universal moral norms will be constantly violated. The main thing for them is not participation in a religious cult, but the dissemination of moral and ethical religious principles.

· Fifth real-life group- these are believers "just in case." In today's world, low intensity of faith is common. Accordingly, the number of people is growing, “just in case”, from time to time fulfilling the basic, most simple prescriptions of religion, as if according to a tradition that has passed from older family members or a reference social group. As a rule, these people rarely think about the deep essence of religious prescriptions, acting on the principle: “What if there really is a God?”.

· As the sixth group people masquerading as believers are often singled out. It's about not about manipulators, although there are some, and not about those for whom religion is a profession and a source of income (among the preachers of newfangled sects, the example of the head of the Moonist sect S. M. Moon, the former dictator of Guatemala R. Montt, is not forgotten shortly after joining the office in 1982, declared himself a "prophet" appointed by God himself to save the country).

Serious problem lies in the fact that in countries where belonging to a particular religion serves as a criterion of political and social "reliability", the main, and sometimes the only motive for turning to religion is the desire to acquire a higher social status. Naturally, it is for this status that they go to church.

The listed groups and the differences between their representatives are largely conditional. They far from exhaust all possible motives for turning to religion, they do not exclude the existence mixed types- believers whose religiosity is determined simultaneously by several motives. However, even this, the most primary analysis of religious motivation seems to be quite productive for a deeper understanding of the reality that is commonly referred to as the "religious psychology of the masses."

Main conclusions

1. Religion is one of the forms of social consciousness.

The main object of the psychology of religion as a section of social psychology is the ordinary religious consciousness of the broad masses of believers, or, in other words, religious psychology as one of the elements of everyday consciousness as a whole. From a secular point of view, there are three main groups of roots of religious psychology. social roots usually associated with the search for some way out of the daily hardships of life associated with social inequality of people. Epistemological roots - with limited human knowledge, sometimes distorting the picture of the real world.

Socio-psychological roots are associated with four main points:

1. First, with the ability of consciousness to form abstract concepts such as the concept of "God".

2. Secondly, with unconscious components thinking and activity, not always clear to the person himself and associated with otherworldly forces.

3. Thirdly, with human emotions that require an outlet - in particular, in religion.

4. Fourthly, with the psychological division "we - they", which underlies the formation of religious communities.

There are five socio-psychological functions of religion: integrating, communicative, compensatory, ideological and regulatory.

Special Feature is the awakening in a person of a sense of faith and the maintenance of this feeling in him.

Faith - a feeling that creates the illusion of knowledge and the reality of what is created by fantasy with the participation of the same feeling. Faith is an essential component of religious consciousness. As a rule, faith is expressed in the acceptance of certain statements without evidence. Statements of this kind do not arise spontaneously in the mind. individual person and are not the result of analysis own experience of people. Usually they are introduced into the mass consciousness, and in ready-made. According to the propagation mechanism, faith is associated with psychological phenomena suggestion, infection and imitation and as a result of the action of these phenomena, and as the willingness of people to succumb to their action. The feeling of faith, like any emotional state, is subject to the influence of "circular reaction" and "emotional whirling". Therefore, faith, on the one hand, easily forms a mass of believers, and on the other hand, its spread and strengthening occurs precisely in the mass. Only in the mass can faith reach the level of irrepressible passion and take the form of religious ecstasy.

Any religion includes a set of special actions necessary for believers to express their belonging to a religious community and strengthen both their faith and personal identification with this community. The totality of such actions is a religious cult. religious cult for believers, these are practically any symbolic actions based on the belief in the possibility of influencing supernatural objects and their properties with their help. The most important elements of a religious cult are prayer, different forms sacrifice and confession.

There are six main motives conversion of people to religion

1. Firstly, religion attracts as a form of knowledge and understanding of the world.

2. Secondly, it captivates with the expectation of heavenly bliss after death.

3. Thirdly, it attracts the religious cult itself, its rituals. Fourth, religion is considered important condition preservation of morality. Fifth, some turn to religion "just in case." At sixth, special motive it turns out to be a disguise as believers for the sake of achieving non-religious goals.

Portal for the student. Self-training

Religious cult: the psychology of religious action. What is superstition? Psychology of superstitious behavior

Popular site articles from the section "Dreams and Magic"

Approaches to the study of superstition

cognitive approach

Affective-motivational approach

Afterword

Portal for the student. Self-training

Popular site articles from the section "Dreams and Magic"

Approaches to the study of superstition

cognitive approach

Affective-motivational approach

Afterword

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