The psychoanalytic method, generally speaking, can be compared with historical analysis and synthesis. Suppose, for instance, we did not understand the meaning of baptism as practised in our churches to-day. The priest tells us the baptism means the admission of the child into the Christian community. But this does not satisfy us. Why is the child sprinkled with water? To understand this ceremony, we must choose out of the history of rites, those human traditions which pertain to this subject, and thus we get material for comparison, to be considered from different standpoints.
I. The baptism means obviously an initiation ceremony, a consecration; therefore all the traditions containing initiation rites have to be consulted.
II. The baptism takes place with water. This special form requires another series of traditions, namely, those rites where water is used.
III. The person to be baptized is sprinkled with water. Here are to be consulted all those rites where the initiated is sprinkled or submerged, etc.
IV. All the reminiscences of folklore, the superstitious practices must be remembered, which in any way run parallel with the symbolism of the baptismal act.
In this way, we get a comparative scientific study of religion as regards baptism. We accordingly discover the different elements out of which the act of baptism has arisen. We ascertain further its original meaning, and we become at the same time acquainted with the rich world of myths that have contributed to the foundations of religions, and thus we are enabled to understand the manifold and profound meanings of baptism. The analyst proceeds in the same way with the dream. He collects the historical parallels to every part of the dream, even the remotest, and he tries to reconstruct the psychological history of the dream, with its fundamental meaning, exactly as in the analysis of the act of baptism. Thus, through the monographic treatment of the dream, we get a profound and beautiful insight into that mysterious, fine and ingenious network of unconscious determination. We get an insight, which as I said before, can only be compared with the historical understanding of any act which we had hitherto regarded in a superficial and one-sided way.
