cording to Wundt, this was done through the transference of taboo prohibitions from the sphere of demons to that of theistic conceptions. The antithesis of sacred and unclean coincides with the succession of two mythological stages the first of which did not entirely disappear when the second was reached but continued in a state of greatly lowered esteem which gradually turned into contempt. It is a general law in mythology that a preceding stage, just because it has been overcome and pushed back by a higher stage, maintains itself next to it in a debased form so that the objects of its veneration become objects of aversion.[1]
Wundt’s further elucidations refer to the relation of taboo to lustration and sacrifice.
2
He who approaches the problem of taboo from the field of psychoanalysis, which is concerned with the study of the unconscious part of the individual’s psychic life, needs but a moment’s reflection to realize that these phenomena are by no means foreign to him. He knows people who have individually created such taboo prohibitions for themselves, which they follow as strictly as savages observe the taboos common to their tribe or society. If he were not accustomed to
- ↑ l. c. p. 313.
