Participation mystique

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Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
Group photo taken in front of Clark University in 1909 . Front: Sigmund Freud , Granville Stanley Hall, Carl Gustav Jung . Back: Abraham A. Brill , Ernest Jones , Sandor Ferenczi .
Granville Stanley Hall, circa 1910

The ethnological theory of Participation mystique describes a special kind of emotional bond. The expression comes from Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1857–1939), who created it in 1910 on the basis of cultural-historical considerations and a comparative development history of peoples. His work in this regard can also be related to Sigmund Freud's (1856–1939) contemporary ethnological studies on the background of neurotic diseases in modern people of civilization.

More detailed definition

The “ mystical participation” (participation mystique) can be understood as connection with all earthly and divine beings, with the cultural environment, the family and nature. According to the definition of mysticism based on the derived meaning of the ancient Greek μύω (myo) = close your eyes and μυστικός (mystikos) = mysterious , sensual impressions recede in mystical thinking - in favor of the experience that is " seen " in a blurred and blurred manner , but a more holistic one Have character. The term “primitive mentality” (1922) used by Lévy-Bruhl must therefore initially not be understood in a qualitatively derogatory sense. Rather, the original and archaic bond observed among primitive peoples and the prelogical thinking that is characteristic of them seem to speak for a special emotional- affective quality. This style of thinking should by no means be understood as just a gradual gradation of logical thinking. In modern industrialized nations and societies characterized by rationalism and individualism , isolation and alienation, including the discomfort in culture, speak for the loss of such a quality.

The often existing overemphasis on the external objects facing Western thinking and the awareness it causes is opposed to the more inward-looking and intuitively oriented attitude of the Eastern mentality.

Historical theories

According to the principle of the basic psychogenetic law of Stanley Hall (1904), ethnology in its human-historical dimension is a reflection of individual developmental psychology . Hall's basic psychogenetic law corresponds to Haeckel's basic biogenetic law and is also intended to express an ontogenetic connection between psychogenesis and phylogenesis according to the motto: "The physical and psychological intrauterine and postpartum childhood development repeats the history of the evolutionary development of humans and animals".

The ethnological foundations of this u. a. psychological theory are also the subject of z. B. Ethnopsychiatry and Ethnopsychoanalysis . Freud represented similar theoretical foundations with his doctrine of primary narcissism and in his writings Totem and Tabu (1912) and The Man Moses and the Monotheistic Religion (1939). In 1909 Otto Rank , a student of Freud, illuminated the prehistory of subjectivity in a small script and disclosed the content of the primary process . Myths therefore not only represent the symbolic expression of primal experiences of certain peoples, so-called founding myths (Moses, Oedipus), but they also embody essential individual, psychogenetically important events (so-called life events in stress theory , Oedipus complex as a classical psychoanalytic theory, archetypal experiences after C. G Jung).

According to CG Jung , Participation mystique is a “remnant of the primordial indistinguishability of subject and object, ie of the primordial unconscious state”, an unconscious preliminary stage of the subject-object split . It is based on the emotionally experienced identity of the indigenous peoples with nature and their own tribe or on the emotional identity of the toddler with his caregivers, especially with the mother. The latter is referred to by psychoanalysis as the transference ratio. Corresponding phenomena among primitive peoples are based to a certain extent on a magical relationship with nature and the collective . The interpretation of the Participation mystique described by Lévy-Bruhl is not only important in terms of developmental history. B. also aspects of collective consciousness understandable. Jung dealt with Lévy-Bruhl to clarify his theory of the collective unconscious , which put him in opposition to Sigmund Freud , see also the different methods of interpretation on the object level and on the subject level .

Logic and linguistics

The above-mentioned aspect of the primary process also includes problems of comparative linguistics or logic such as B. the cultural or developmental meaning of the principle of contradiction (style of so-called primitive thinking ). Erich Fromm has z. In this context, for example , reference is made to the paradoxical logic , which is related to the concept of God . Carl Gustav Jung calls this way of thinking enantiodromy . Participation mystique is not just about a bond with people or a bond with periods that are far apart in time, but also a logical bond between completely opposing ideas. One can imagine cultural development in such a way that the emergence of one possibility of two logical alternatives is caused by the collective repressing of the other possibility. In the context of individual concern ( neurosis ), repression can also explain the disturbing emergence of certain one-sided contents of consciousness.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lucien Lévy-Bruhl : Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures. Les Presses universitaires de France, Paris. 1 re éd .: 1910. 9 e éd .: 1951, 474 pages. classiques.uqac.ca
  2. ↑ a b Sigmund Freud : Totem and Tabu. Some similarities in the soul life of savages and neurotics (1912/1913). Collected Works in Individual Volumes, Volume IX. 3. Edition. S. Fischer-Verlag, 1952
  3. ^ Heinrich Schmidt : Philosophical Dictionary (= Kröner's pocket edition. 13). 21st edition, revised by Georgi Schischkoff . Alfred Kröner, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-520-01321-5 ; P. 472 on the lemma “mysticism”.
  4. ^ Karl-Heinz Hillmann : Dictionary of Sociology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 410). 4th, revised and expanded edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-520-41004-4 , p. 489 on Lemma: "Lévi-Bruhl".
  5. ^ Sigmund Freud : The discomfort in the culture . (1930) In: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. XIV, “Works from the years 1925–1931”, Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / M 1999, ISBN 3-596-50300-0 , pp. 419–506.
  6. ↑ Willy H. Fischle: The way to the middle . Symbols of change in Tibetan thangkas. Bechtermünz 1985, ISBN 3-8289-4857-X , pp. 33-44.
  7. ^ Wilhelm Karl Arnold et al. (Ed.): Lexicon of Psychology . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-508-8 , on tax base “Psychogenetic Basic Law”: column 1729, for further references see there
  8. ↑ Ernst Haeckel's short formula is: "Ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis." It is interpreted here in a somewhat more detailed manner in the sense of Stanley Hall.
  9. ^ Georges Devereux : Normal and abnormal. - Essays on general ethnopsychiatry. 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1974, ISBN 3-518-06390-1 , especially p. 131 ff.
  10. ↑ Otto Rank : Myth of the birth of the hero. An attempt at a psychological interpretation of myths (1909), reprint of the 2nd edition from 1922. Turia and Kant, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-85132-141-3
  11. ^ A b Carl Gustav Jung : Definitions. In: Collected Works , paperback, special edition, volume 6. Walter-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, ISBN 3-530-40081-5 ; (a) on tax authority “Participatiuon mystique”: p. 486, § 780 and p. 469, § 740; (b) Re. “Enantiodromy”: page 458 f., § 716–718
  12. ↑ Erich Fromm : The art of loving. Ullstein, book no. 35258, Frankfurt 1984, ISBN 3-548-35258-8 , chap. Love of God, p. 85 ff.
  13. ↑ Mario Erdheim : The social production of unconsciousness. An introduction to the ethno-psychoanalytical process . 2nd Edition. suhrkamp pocket book science 456, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-28065-1 ; in particular p. 201 ff.