Motives for turning to religion. Specific Studies of Religious Feelings

Why do many people believe in omens and superstitions? I think it’s difficult to find at least one person who doesn’t have the well-known “the morning is wiser than the evening” or “if you drive more quietly, you’ll get further” or “spit and knock” flashing through your head from time to time. Fortune telling, horoscopes, predictions - all these are superstitions. Why do we need signs and superstitions, and where did they come from? Let's figure it out.

All signs and superstitions are aimed at finding a logical connection between seemingly incompatible and illogical things. And its roots go back to the distant times of undeveloped science. Today people know a lot about the world, its laws, society and human characteristics, the interaction of man and nature. Previously, in order to get rid of oppressive ignorance and not be afraid to live, one had to rely on signs, superstitions and intuition:

• Someone alone noticed a random coincidence and established a connection between two completely different signs (phenomena).
• This scheme is reinforced by our peculiarity: we remember the confirmation of signs, but forget the refutations. A sign (prophecy, fortune telling) may come true once and not come true 20 times, but it will be remembered in memory as always coming true. That's how it started.

But the peculiarity of the psychology of belief is that the piggy bank of various kinds of beliefs is regularly replenished. Why is it so popular nowadays? Old signs are alive in the public historical consciousness. There's no escaping this. And new ones are born for the same reason - ignorance, fear. Although science has made a huge leap forward, there are still many secrets and mysteries in the world. As a result, we can say that superstitions and signs are the unconscious basis of personality, which cannot be eradicated.

What is a premonition? In the language of psychology, this is a set of natural and useful properties - an assumption (the probability of some event without determining the specific numbers of this probability) and. The likelihood of a person developing a premonition (assumption + anxious expectation) increases in situations of stress, tension, and critical conditions. If the premonition does not justify itself, then it will, of course, be forgotten. Otherwise, it will be remembered. This is how the superstition “premonition never deceives me” is born.

Interesting fact: in 1939, New York psychologists were able to confirm the power of superstitions. At one of the exhibitions, a stepladder was installed, and although it did not interfere in any way, 70% of people preferred the trajectory with extra meters, just so as not to pass under the stepladder (a bad omen).

Approaches to the study of superstitions

Superstition is a belief in forces and laws of nature unknown to man, which positively or negatively influence people, animals and the whole world. Superstitions can be viewed as a psychological phenomenon through several approaches.

Cognitive approach

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

With the help of superstitions, people order the world around them. But the perception of ongoing events is too subjective and situational in nature, distorting the true mechanisms and features of the things that are happening.

He tries to explain everything that goes beyond the usual ideas and knowledge of a person with the help of supernatural forces, omens, superstitions, fortune telling, and astrology. Accordingly, we can say that the higher a person is, the less prone he is to prejudice. Knowing the world through superstition is a simplified form of knowledge that relies on clarity and avoids learning the world through abstract scientific concepts.

Affective-motivational approach

Superstitions are a form of protection of the emotional state and the person. This is the satisfaction and support of your 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 a person’s suggestibility, which intensifies at the moment:

• frustration and psychological fragmentation, for example, with fear of death, aging, reality or the burden 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 for the better,” a person tells 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 about it, for every person’s condition you can find a saying that removes some of the responsibility from him and shifts the burden of what happened onto someone else’s shoulders: “Everything is God’s will.”

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

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

Signs, superstitions, and prejudices relate to the psychology of the masses. This makes it difficult and impossible to completely eradicate beliefs. But it is possible and necessary to work with an individual person if superstitions interfere with his personal development and life, bordering on anxiety-phobic disorders and obsessiveness syndrome.

How to do this? Understand what function superstitions perform in this case. This will help you find the true reasons: lack of knowledge, fear, lack of self-confidence, personal problems and more. Next, you have to work to eliminate this cause and gain a sense of control over yourself and your life through internal resources and a logical, rational understanding of the world. It is worth engaging in the development of creativity and superstitions will begin to fade into the background.

The concept of religion has constantly changed throughout the existence of this word and it is difficult to give an unambiguous definition to it. However, we can say with complete confidence that every person follows one religion or another. 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, the 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 the psychological patterns of 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 have on non-religious spheres of people's lives. Not only religion, but also spirituality is subject to research.

This direction uses various psychological research methods to religious traditions and various movements and arose in the 19th century mainly in the USA and Europe. In its development it has undergone many changes from turning to atheism (denial of the power of God and exalting man in first place) to the creation of directions combining psychology and theology (Christian Association for Psychological Research, biblical counseling Aamsa, etc.).

S. Freud, A. Maslow, James Leib, the Clark school, Friedrich von Hugel, Joseph Marchal, 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:

• Looks for 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 an individual;
• Studies the psychology of religious groups and religious cults, including the mechanisms of behavior and communication of believers, religious consciousness in different historical eras, and the influence of religious rituals on human consciousness;
• Studies the influence of religion on the spiritual development of society.

The psychology of religion does not touch upon philosophical questions about the existence of God, but helps to resolve those psychological conflicts that may arise among believers of one or another concession. 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, a psychologist of this direction does not take on the role of a priest, but solves precisely the psychological problem that has arisen, which provides great assistance in the work of clergy who are far from psychological issues.

As a result of such work, the psychologist helps a person who is actively engaged in spiritual practice to eliminate psychological barriers that arise on the path of spiritual development, to improve their relationships with family and friends, and work colleagues. This contributes to more harmonious personal development. It also helps eliminate fears and doubts that may arise when a person is just beginning 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 turns to him, but also directs him then to a 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 clergy to use psychological data in their activities, as well as help a person in his harmonious and holistic development.

This part of the book examines a number of specific manifestations of mass psychology. All of them have long become natural facts of social life, but they continue to raise numerous questions and remain at the center of quite heated discussions. Sometimes these questions and discussions are associated with an underestimation of the natural socio-psychological nature of these phenomena and the psychology of the masses that underlies them. Analysis shows that outwardly different phenomena turn out to be connected by a common nature. With all their diversity, they are equally necessary for people to express mass human psychology. Historically changing, all these phenomena performed one main function - they formed significant communities of people that made up huge segments of social life, and served both as its socio-psychological regulators and as special factors of social, economic and other progress.
Human nature is dual: the psyche is individual and at the same time mass in nature. It develops in dialectical contradiction, in the unity and struggle of individual consciousness and mass behavior. This contradiction serves as a dynamic source of development. The phenomena of mass psychology discussed below demonstrate this dialectical relationship, reflecting the complex, social-individual psychological nature of man. From primitive gods to modern means of mass communication, humanity has come a long way. But it will never be exhausted - just as the dialectical unity of the individual and the masses is eternal and inexhaustible, so the known and still unknown forms of manifestation of the psychology of the masses are inexhaustible.

Chapter 3.1. Psychology of religion

As you know, the very concept of religion still remains one of the most difficult to define in empirical, operational categories. There is no single definition of religion, and therefore researchers have literally hundreds of definitions in use. Most of them are sociological, while psychological definitions are practically simply absent. And there are certain reasons for this: according to P. Berger, for example, the adoption of some definition of religion, in the end, is generally a matter of taste.
E. Durkheim and M. Weber at one time created the basis for identifying two polar types of definition of religion: nominal and real, as well as functional and substantive, which are close to them. Functional definitions are usually characterized by the fact that the criterion for identifying and classifying phenomena is the function that these phenomena perform: first, the functions that a certain social system “requires” are identified, and then, on the basis of the functions performed, observed social and cultural phenomena are identified and classified. On the contrary, the criterion for meaningful definition is actually the content of these phenomena. R. Robertson proposed to associate nominal, functional definitions with definitions of the inclusive type, and real definitions with exclusive definitions.
Durkheim sought to cover with definitions of religion almost all systems recognized as “religious,” including theistic and non-theistic belief systems. He based such a broad definition on the distinction between the spiritual and the secular, as well as on highlighting the most general functions of religion. However, such a sociological approach is undoubtedly too general and not entirely accurate. A different position was taken by Weber, who believed that religion as a social phenomenon manifests itself in the religious behavior of people guided by the corresponding type of motivation, the analysis of which is especially necessary both for understanding religion and for classifying its varieties. Weber believed that it was impossible to give an empirical, non-dogmatic definition of religion before the start of research - the definition appears as an ideal-typical construction of the phenomenon at one of the stages of work.
Among the functional definitions of religion, the first group consists of those that, like the constructions of M. Weber and P. Tillich, are closely related to the so-called

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the ultimate problems of existence. The most widespread and representative definition of this type belongs to D. Yingren. For him, religion acts as a system of beliefs and practical actions with the help of which a group of people copes with the ultimate problems of human life. It is clear that behind these views one can easily “read” B. Malinovsky (by the way, an ardent follower of E. Durkheim) with his idea that religion helps solve the inevitable problems of human life (for example, the death of a group member). Similar definitions were proposed by W. L. Kolb, K. Dunlop and other authors. Close to this point of view are those researchers who define religion as the highest and most general level of cultural development - this position is characteristic of the older generation of functionalists, sociologists and anthropologists such as T. Parsons, R. Bellach and K. Geertz. V. Piwowarski believes that this approach is a convenient position for the socio-psychological approach (Piwowarski, 1974).
From a psychological point of view, the main thing in religion is the phenomenon of faith. The main components that form the psychological level of the study of religion are associated with it - from the presence of well-defined psychological roots of religion to the psychology of the religiosity of believers and individual psychological manifestations of this religiosity in the form of both faith itself and superstitions derived from it, religious cult, ecstasy, fanaticism and etc.

Roots of religion

Few people now object to the understanding of religion as one of the forms of social consciousness. From a psychological point of view, “the main object of the psychology of religion as a branch of social psychology is the everyday religious consciousness of the broad masses of believers or religious psychology as one of the elements of everyday consciousness as a whole” (Evgenieva, 1988). It is customary to highlight the social, epistemological and psychological roots of religion.
Social roots of religion. Militant atheist socialists, of course, simplified matters somewhat when they wrote: “The powerlessness of the exploited classes in the fight against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to faith in a better afterlife, just as the powerlessness of the savage in the fight against nature gives rise to faith in gods, devils, miracles, etc. .p.” (Lenin, 1967-1984). However, the social functions of religion were also recognized by the Western secular scientific community. A. Radcliffe-Brown, for example, believed that the social function of religion is to force group members to support common fears and hopes and thereby strengthen social ties. Thus, he wrote: “We proceed from the hypothesis that the social functions of religion do not depend on its truth or falsity, that religions that we consider erroneous or even absurd... can be parts of the social mechanism and that without these “false” religions social the evolution and development of modern civilization is impossible” (Radcliffe-Braun, 1959). F. Engels wrote: “... Any religion is nothing more than a fantastic reflection in the heads of people of those external forces that dominate them in their everyday life - a reflection in which earthly forces take the form of unearthly ones.” And he continued: “Fantastic images in which

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initially only the mysterious forces of nature were reflected, now they also acquire social attributes and become representatives of historical forces” (Marx, Engels, 1951-1984). It is in this sense that religion is the opium of the people.
It must be admitted that at certain stages of history, religion really acts as a kind of “painkiller” for many social adversities and troubles. To a large extent, this function is still preserved, but now it should be considered as a socio-psychological function.
Epistemological roots of religion. The first religious primitive beliefs of man arose many millennia ago and were a fantastic reflection in the minds of people of their dependence on nature, a sense of fear of its mysterious forces and the search for means of influencing them. Primitive man, not possessing the necessary knowledge about the outside world, being at a low level of development of productive forces, was almost completely dependent on nature. Accordingly, he needed an explanation of what was happening to him and around him. This is how mythological images and entire “pictures” of the world were born - the ancestral basis of religious pictures of the creation of the world.
All materialists usually explain the general methodological inevitability of the emergence of religion by the spiral-shaped nature of the process of cognition itself. If you try to turn “a piece of this curved line... into an independent, whole, straight line” (Lenin, 1967-1984), that is, in modern language, to absolutize one of the sides of any phenomenon or process, to tear it away from other sides, then as a result we will receive in our consciousness an illusory reflection of the phenomenon or process as a whole, including in the form of religious ideas. Most researchers now agree with this.
Thus, neither the social nor the epistemological roots of religion themselves are clearly unable to independently explain this phenomenon. Even the most militant materialists, faced with these difficulties, were forced over time to turn to subjective factors. It is difficult to object to the thought that is still valid today: “Religions are created by people who themselves feel the need for it and understand the religious needs of the masses” (Marx, Engels, 1951-1984).
Psychological roots of religion. It is obvious that, from a secular point of view, religion is one of the forms of mythological, primitive consciousness. It is a reflection of a certain stage in the development of this consciousness, associated with the prehistory of human development. In a certain sense, the history of religion coincides with the history of the development of mass psychology.
When considering the psychological roots of religion, four groups of factors are distinguished. Firstly, this is the ability of human consciousness to form fairly abstract concepts. Secondly, these are unconscious components of thinking and activity. Thirdly, these are human emotions. Finally, fourthly, this is the psychological dichotomy “we” - “they”, which underlies the formation of all human communities.
With the first group of factors everything is quite clear. Let us limit ourselves to the quotation: “The process of human cognition of the surrounding reality is based on the ability of human consciousness to form abstract concepts, to highlight the general, most significant aspects of this reality and its constituent phenomena.

Social and psychological functions of religion

An analysis of specialized literature shows that it is customary to distinguish five main socio-psychological functions of religion.
The same analysis easily shows that the main function of religion in the socio-psychological context is certainly integrating function. From O. Comte and G. Spencer, almost all researchers considered religion to be the means of achieving “unity,” “unification,” “systematization,” “coordination,” and, finally, “integration.” Religion unites individuals into masses of believers. World religions in their development contributed to the unity of significant masses of people. So. only the Roman Empire, having eliminated political and social differences in the lives of many individual peoples, also eliminated the differences between religions, giving birth to a common Christianity for all. It, in turn, consolidated those achievements

Psychology of faith

The entire history of the study of religion can be represented as a continuous search for what could be designated as the “minimum of religion,” as its kind of “molecular unit” inherent in all religions - from the most primitive to the most complex.

Religious cult: psychology of religious actions

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 and their identification with this community. The totality of such actions usually represents religious cult.
A religious cult for believers is almost any symbolic actions based on the belief in the possibility of influencing supernatural objects and their properties with their help. The cult actions of primitive people were extremely specific. The shaman, turning to the gods and involving his fellow tribesmen in ritual actions, asked to send rain or good luck in the hunt. In modern religions, specific requests are not required. Cult is necessary for believers to prove their faith, which they demonstrate to God through a special system of actions that usually take place in a temple (religious building) under the leadership of clergy. Participation in such actions partially satisfies the basic needs of social existence: the need for communication, to belong to a community.

Psychology of superstitions

According to K.K. Platonov, superstitions are rudimentary fragments of past religions. These are like cemeteries of past gods and related cults in mass psychology. Sometimes, however, these are acquired, new beliefs, close in psychological origin to obsessive-compulsive neurosis. Because of this, it is almost impossible to fight them - they constitute the “everyday lining” of our consciousness.
A typical example of superstition is the idea of ​​a connection supposedly existing between some object acting as an amulet and good luck in business. And also, on the contrary, between a bad omen and subsequent failures and even misfortunes of a person. Any ordinary and common phenomenon in life can serve as a sign. Thus, in European countries, meeting a black cat is considered a harbinger of misfortune. In the USA and Latin America it is believed that anyone who walks under a stepladder will get into big trouble. To test this, in 1939, during the World's Fair in New York, a kind of psychological experiment was conducted. A large stepladder was placed in the lobby. It did not interfere with the passage in any way, but 70% of the several million visitors to the exhibition chose to make a special detour to get around it.
The psychological explanation for most existing superstitions is the search for a logical connection between events that occur one after the other. The well-known formula applies here: after that, therefore, as a result of that. Of course, this is a logical fallacy. However, in mass psychology, ideas about a completely possible supernatural connection between close or coinciding phenomena still continue to persist and serve as a source of belief in omens, premonitions and fortune telling. The special selectivity of our memory also helps here: one fulfilled omen or certain prediction is remembered better than a dozen unfulfilled ones. F. Bacon wrote about this: “This is the basis of almost all superstitions - in astrology, in dreams, in omens, in divine definitions and the like. People who delight themselves in this kind of vanity celebrate the event that has come true, and pass without attention the one that deceived, although the latter happens much more often” (Bacon, 1935).

Motives for turning to religion

Numerous sociological surveys and specialized socio-psychological studies make it possible to differentiate the religious psychology of the masses, to identify groups of believers whose religious community is built on different 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 options for the religious psychology of the masses.
The first group of believers are 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.” But they know very well biblical ontology, the entire mythological basis of religion. God's creation of the world and man, the existence of heaven and hell, and an afterlife are quite real things for them.
The second group includes believers whose main motive is the expectation of heavenly bliss after death. This motive is generated by difficult living conditions, many unmet needs, as well as the fear of death. As you know, in most religions the description of heaven is 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 that is pleasant to drinkers; rivers of purified honey" (Koran, 1963). Of all religious theories, these believers know and remember best the provisions on 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 consciousness of modern believers. It is impossible for the body to avoid it - which means one should take comfort in the immortality of the soul.
The third group of believers in religion is not interested in belief in the supernatural, but in 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 rather the satisfaction of the needs for communication, for identifying themselves with a certain large group, which such participation provides. As a rule, these are lonely people who have not found their place in those groups to which they objectively belong in secular life, and who deeply experience the phenomenon of alienation. They usually have little knowledge of religious dogmas - except those related to cultic actions. The number of such people increases as society becomes marginalized.
The fourth group of believers is characterized by the conviction that religion is necessary for the preservation of human morality. There are especially many such people among Muslims, whose lives are almost completely regulated by Sharia - a set of religious, 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.
The fifth really existing group is the “just in case” believers. Low intensity faith is common in the modern world. Accordingly

Key Findings

1. Religion is one of the forms of social consciousness. The main object of psychology: religion as a branch of social psychology is the everyday 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 are usually associated with the search for some way out of the everyday hardships of life associated with social inequality among people. Epistemological roots - with the limitations of human knowledge, which sometimes distorts the picture of the real world. Socio-psychological roots are associated with four main points;

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firstly, with the ability of consciousness to form abstract concepts such as the concept of “God”; secondly, with unconscious components of thinking and activity, not always understandable to the person himself and associated with otherworldly forces; thirdly, with human emotions that require an outlet - in particular, in religion; fourthly, with the psychological division “us - them”, which underlies the formation of religious communities.

1. Five socio-psychological functions of religion are identified: integrating
   social, communicative, compensatory, ideological and regulatory.
   A special function is to awaken a sense of faith in a person and maintain
   there is this feeling in him.
2. Faith is a feeling that creates the illusion of knowledge and reality of what has been created.
   fantasy involving the same feeling. Faith is a mandatory component
   volume 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 from
   battle in the mind of an individual and are not the result of an analysis of one’s own
   of people's experience. Usually they are introduced into the mass consciousness, and
   in its form. According to the mechanism of propagation, faith is associated with psychological phenomena
   names of suggestion, infection and imitation and as a result of the action of these
   phenomena, and how people are willing to be influenced by them. Feeling of faith like
   every emotional state is susceptible to the influence of a “circular reaction” and
   "emotional whirlpool" Therefore, faith, on the one hand, easily forms a mass
   su believers, and on the other hand, its spread and strengthening occurs
   precisely in the mass. Only among the masses can faith reach the level of uncontrollable af
   fect and take the form of religious ecstasy.
3. Every religion includes a set of special actions necessary for believers to
   expressing one’s belonging to a religious community and strengthening both
   their faith and personal identification with this community. The totality is
   which actions constitute a religious cult. Religious cult for
   believers - these are almost any symbolic actions based on faith
   in the possibility of influencing with their help supernatural objects and their
   stva. The most important elements of religious cult are prayer, various forms of sacrifices
   offerings and confession.
4. Six main motives for turning people to religion are identified. Firstly,
   religion attracts people as a form of knowledge and understanding of the world. Secondly, she is passionate
   repents of the expectation of heavenly bliss after death. Thirdly, it attracts itself
   religious cult and its rituals. Fourthly, religion is considered an important condition
   viem of preserving morality. Fifthly, some turn to religion "at
   just in case." Sixthly, a special motive is to disguise oneself as a believer.
   working for the sake of achieving non-religious goals.
   .

Psychology of superstitions

According to K.K. Platonov, superstitions- these are rudimentary fragments of past religions. These are, as it were, cemeteries of former gods and the cults of mass psychology associated with them. Sometimes, however, these are acquired, new beliefs, close in psychological origin to obsessive-compulsive neurosis. Because of this, it is almost impossible to fight them - they constitute the “everyday lining” of our consciousness.

A typical example of superstition is the idea of ​​a connection supposedly existing between some object acting as an amulet and good luck in business. And also, on the contrary, between a bad omen and subsequent failures and even misfortunes of a person. Any ordinary and common phenomenon in life can serve as a sign. Thus, in European countries, meeting a black cat is considered a harbinger of misfortune. In the USA and Latin America it is believed that anyone who walks under a stepladder will get into big trouble. To test this, in 1939, during the World's Fair in New York, a kind of psychological experiment was conducted. A large stepladder was placed in the lobby. It did not interfere with the passage in any way, but 70% of the several million visitors to the exhibition chose to make a special detour to get around it.

The psychological explanation for most existing superstitions is the search for a logical connection between events that occur one after the other. The well-known formula applies here: after that - therefore, as a result of that. Of course, this is a logical fallacy. However, in mass psychology, ideas about a completely possible supernatural connection between close or coinciding phenomena still continue to persist and serve as a source of belief in omens, premonitions and fortune telling. The special selectivity of our memory also helps here: one fulfilled omen or certain prediction is remembered better than a dozen unfulfilled ones. F. Bacon wrote about this: “This is the basis of almost all superstitions - in astrology, in dreams, in omens, in divine definitions and the like. People who delight themselves in this kind of vanity celebrate the event that has come true, and pass without attention the one that deceived, although the latter happens much more often” (Bacon, 1935).

252 Part 3. Mass socio-psychological phenomena

predictions, fortune telling, horoscopes etc. In the late 80s. In the 20th century, there were 12,000 astrologers in the United States alone, another 175,000 Americans combined astrology with other activities, and 1,250 American newspapers regularly published horoscopes 1 . Today our country is not far behind these indicators. As the poet A. Blok said about similar phenomena a hundred years ago: “The beginning of the century, decadence, insanity of the intelligentsia.”

One of the typical superstitions is the belief in premonitions. Its basis is the substitution of premonition for assumption. An assumption is an assumption of an event whose probability is not yet known. The ability to guess is a valuable property of intelligence. However, the combination of an assumption with a feeling of anxious anticipation is often experienced by people as a premonition. This usually occurs under conditions of real or potential danger and significant nervous tension and stress. If the development of events does not confirm the premonition, then it is easily forgotten. However, confirmation of a premonition, on the contrary, is involuntarily remembered. This creates a superstitious belief, which easily develops into a prejudice: “premonition never deceives me.”

Close to belief in premonitions and belief in wishing, developing according to a similar mechanism. Fortune-telling with a daisy (“loves - does not love ...”), playing “even-odd” and similar habits are also a type of prejudice and superstition.

Superstitions are condemned by dogmatic religion, although the psychological nature and structure of superstition sometimes differs little from canonized faith. The differences often come down mainly to the ideological components that determine the content of superstition.

On the one hand, superstitions are very close to faith. However, on the other hand, they often merge with prejudice. These two phenomena of religious psychology are often confused with each other. The psychological structure of superstition is usually dominated by a feeling of faith, which inhibits thinking. Superstition is more experienced than understood. It is based only on emotions. Even B. Spinoza once rightly stated: “...Fear is the reason due to which superstition arises, is preserved and supported” (Spinoza, 1957). Prejudice however, it is a phenomenon of an erroneous “picture of the world”; its psychological structure is dominated by the element of thinking, misunderstanding, and usually inspired from the outside. Prejudice cannot exist without superstition - the latter is included as an element in its structure. At the same time, both superstitions and prejudices are always phenomena of ordinary mass psychology, united under a common heading.

B. Spinoza considered superstitions, although false, to be natural for the broad masses. He sincerely believed that it was impossible to rid the crowd of superstitions, and, perhaps, it was not necessary. Voltaire proclaimed the famous thesis: “If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.” P. A. Golbach wrote: “...Atheism, like philosophy and all serious abstract sciences, is beyond the reach of the crowd and even the majority of people” (Golbach, 1963). Thus, the psychology of superstition is an even more ancient and broad basis of mass psychology than even the psychology of religion itself.

1 See: Evgenieva T. V. Psychology of religion and problems of working with believers. M.: Publishing House of the Institute of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1988.

Chapter 3.1. Psychology of religion 253

Motives for turning to religion

Numerous sociological surveys and specialized socio-psychological studies make it possible to differentiate the religious psychology of the masses, to identify groups of believers whose religious community is built on different 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 options for the religious psychology of the masses.

The first group of believers are 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.” But they know very well biblical ontology, the entire mythological basis of religion. God's creation of the world and man, the existence of heaven and hell, and an afterlife are quite real things for them.

The second group includes believers whose main motive is the expectation of heavenly bliss after death. This motive is generated by difficult living conditions, many unmet needs, as well as the fear of death. As you know, in most religions the description of heaven is 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 that is pleasant to drinkers; rivers of purified honey" (Koran, 1963). Of all religious theories, these believers know and remember best the provisions on 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 consciousness of modern believers. It is impossible for the body to avoid it - which means one should take comfort in the immortality of the soul.

The third group of believers in religion is not interested in belief in the supernatural, but in 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 rather the satisfaction of the needs for communication, for identifying themselves with a certain large group, which such participation provides. As a rule, these are lonely people who have not found their place in those groups to which they objectively belong in secular life, and who deeply experience the phenomenon of alienation. They usually have little knowledge of religious dogmas - except those related to cultic actions. The number of such people increases as society becomes marginalized.

The fourth group of believers is characterized by the conviction that religion is necessary for the preservation of human morality. There are especially many such people among Muslims, whose lives are almost completely regulated by Sharia - a set of religious, moral, legal and many other norms based on the Koran. The basis of their religiosity is the conviction that without religion, without 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.

The fifth really existing group is the “just in case” believers. Low intensity faith is common in the modern world. Accordingly

254 Part 3. Mass socio-psychological phenomena

a growing number of people, “just in case,” from time to time fulfill the basic, simplest instructions of religion, as if according to a tradition passed down from older members of the family or reference social group. As a rule, these people rarely think about the deep essence of religious instructions, acting on the principle: “What if God really exists?”

Finally, the sixth group is often identified as people masquerading as believers. We are not talking about manipulators, although there are such, and not about those for whom religion is a profession and a source of income. There are also such people, especially among preachers of new-fangled sects - the example of the head of the Moonies sect, S. M. Moon, whose multimillion-dollar fortune was acquired through the labors of ordinary members of the sect, has not been forgotten. There are also politicians among them. For example, it is known that the former dictator of Guatemala R. Montt, shortly after taking office as president in 1982, declared himself a “prophet” appointed by God himself to save the country. To confirm such statements, he used the “Church of the Word” sect specially created by his henchmen, whose activities primarily consisted of supporting and justifying mass repressions. The point, however, is not only in them, but in the very possibility of manipulating faith. The above example is clearly from the field of applied political psychology in the part that studies the manipulation of mass consciousness for political purposes.

The serious problem is that in countries where belonging to a particular religion serves as a criterion for 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. It was not us who said: “Paris is worth a mass!”

Of course, 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 of mixed types - believers whose religiosity is determined simultaneously by several motives. However, even such a very primary analysis of religious motivation seems quite productive for a deeper understanding of that reality, which is usually referred to as “religious psychology of the masses.”

Key Findings

1. Religion is one of the forms of social consciousness. The main object of psychology: religion as a branch of social psychology is the everyday 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 are usually associated with the search for some way out of the everyday hardships of life associated with social inequality among people. Epistemological roots - with the limitations of human knowledge, which sometimes distorts the picture of the real world. Socio-psychological roots are associated with four main points;

Chapter 3.1. Psychology of Religion 255

firstly, with the ability of consciousness to form abstract concepts such as the concept of “God”; secondly, with unconscious components of thinking and activity, not always understandable to the person himself and associated with otherworldly forces; thirdly, with human emotions that require an outlet - in particular, in religion; fourthly, with the psychological division “us - them”, which underlies the formation of religious communities.

2. Five socio-psychological functions of religion are identified: integrating, communicative, compensatory, worldview and regulatory. A special function is to awaken a sense of faith in a person and maintain this feeling in him.

3. Faith is a feeling that creates the illusion of knowledge and reality of what is created by fantasy with the participation of the same feeling. Faith is an obligatory 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 of an individual and are not the result of an analysis of people's own experience. Usually they are introduced into the mass consciousness, and in a ready-made form. According to the mechanism of spread, faith is associated with the psychological phenomena of suggestion, infection and imitation, both 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 influenced by the “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 among the masses. Only among the masses can faith reach the level of uncontrollable affect and take the form of religious ecstasy.

4. Every 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 constitutes a religious cult. A religious cult for believers is almost 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 religious worship are prayer, various forms of sacrifice and confession.

5. Six main motives for turning people to religion are identified. Firstly, religion attracts people as a form of knowledge and understanding of the world. Secondly, it captivates with the expectation of heavenly bliss after death. Thirdly, the religious cult itself and its rituals attract people. Fourthly, religion is considered an important condition for the preservation of morality. Fifthly, some turn to religion “just in case.” Sixthly, a special motive is to disguise oneself as a believer in order to achieve non-religious goals.

__________________________________________________________ Chapter 3.2

Religious psychology and psychology of religion

One of the most widespread and persistent socio-psychological phenomena, religious psychology has accompanied humanity 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 psychology of religion, although they mean different concepts.
Religious psychology is a set of socio-psychological phenomena related to the field of religion as a form of social consciousness. Religious ideas, religious feelings, superstitions are combined with ritual behavior and a number of derivative phenomena: prayer, ecstasy, confession, etc.
Psychology of religion is a branch of social psychology that studies the socio-psychological phenomena of religious consciousness. The latter is also studied by sociology, ethnography, 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 branches of the psychology of religion are: the doctrine of the psychological roots of religious consciousness, of faith, of prayer, spells, sacrifice and confession, of superstitions and prejudices and other phenomena of religious psychology. But the most significant 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 who are indifferent or simply know nothing about religion, but of “militant atheists” who are actively fighting against everyone types of religious survivals.
The most detailed books on the psychology of religion are written either by idealistic psychologists or by theologians themselves. Both contain considerable factual material and are of scientific and historical interest to specialists. A significant contribution to the study of religious psychology has been made by the research of ethnographers and doctors.
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, problems of the psychology of religion are studied at the Institute of Scientific Atheism of the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee and a number of other scientific institutions. A number of works by Soviet psychologists and philosophers have been published.
The importance of the psychology of religion is that it complements sociological studies of religion and is especially necessary in the practice of anti-religious propaganda. For example, sociology, based on specific sociological research, can identify areas of greater religiosity in the population and reveal the reasons for this, and psychology helps to understand why in the same area, under 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 V.I. Lenin spoke about as the deepest sources of religious prejudices in 1918 at the First All-Russian Congress of Working Women, have basically already been destroyed in our country. But religious psychology still exists.
The bearer of religious psychology, or, what is the same, religious consciousness, is the individual. Religious psychology can also be understood through personality, although, of course, religion as a social phenomenon is far from being limited to 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 people's minds 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 fight religion, V.I. Lenin emphasized the importance of eliminating the social roots of religion. At the same time, he pointed out the presence of not only social and historical, but also epistemological roots of religion, certain properties of human cognition and the human psyche that contribute to the emergence of religion.
Engels wrote in Anti-Dühring that “every religion is nothing more than a fantastic reflection in the heads of people of those external forces that dominate them in their everyday life - a reflection in which earthly forces take the form of unearthly ones.” This “fantastic reflection” in a concrete scientific sense should 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 of individual and group consciousness that contribute to the emergence of the phenomena of religious psychology. It is clear that any phenomena of religious psychology, and especially 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 highlighted the psychological roots of religion, to consider each of them separately.
Even Publius Statius, an ancient Roman poet (c. 40-95), fear was understood as the psychological root of religion. Lenin, referring to Statius, showed the importance of fear in the religion of not only primitive man, but also the proletarian in a capitalist society. In 1909, in the article “On the attitude of the workers’ party to religion,” analyzing the “roots of religion” and citing the words of Statius, “fear created the gods,” he connected this psychological root with the social conditions of life of the proletarian under capitalism. “Fear of the blind power of capital, which is blind because it cannot be foreseen by the masses of the people, which at every step of the life of the proletarian and small owner threatens to bring him and brings “sudden,” “unexpected,” “accidental” ruin, death, transformation into a beggar , into a pauper, into a prostitute, death by starvation - this is the root of modern religion, which a materialist must first of all and most of all keep 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, and various kinds of misfortunes that can invade a person’s personal destiny. A Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent, who went to see the Baptist preacher based on a letter from his daughter, tried to figure out how he “hooks” other people’s souls. He found that he sought to find “sore spots” in the minds of his listeners. “The first and most important thing 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 weary hands and fearful looks are trying, forcing themselves to believe in heavenly salvation.”
Lenin revealed the 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 connection of psychological roots: fear and that combination of the conscious and the unconscious, which will be discussed below. Here Lenin essentially talks about religious psychology as a phenomenon of social psychology, returning to this thought in a number of other statements about religion.
Ludwig Feuerbach, in his “Lectures on the Essence of Religion” in 1849, saw the psychological root of religion in the form, as he wrote, of “the 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 unconscious in the human psyche. Lenin, taking notes on this book by Feuerbach in his “Philosophical Notebooks” in 1909, wrote down these words and, marking them with a notabene sign, assessed 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, Feuerbach wrote: “Man with his ego 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 between his successful action and an automated skill, just as he does not understand the reasons for his erroneous action, the reasons for involuntary memory, association, solution found, etc., often seems to him that someone - helps or hinders.
Further, one of the psychological roots of religion should include the emotional pattern of catharsis, which the Pythagoreans already knew long before Plato and Aristotle, and which was mystified by Freud in later times. Catharsis is purification in Greek; Aristotle associated the influence of music and aesthetic experiences with this word. Catharsis is a component of the psychological structure of many religious activities: cursing, prayer, sacrifice, and especially confession in all their various forms.
The most ancient socio-psychological phenomenon is considered to be the emergence in the mind of an individual of the idea of ​​“them”. B.F. Porshnev, exploring this phenomenon, wrote: “A thorough analysis leads to an unexpected result: “you” (and, accordingly, “you”) is a derivative category and corresponds to a later stage than “we” and “they”.” However, having correctly noted this pattern, he did not see in it one of the socio-psychological roots of religion. The fact is that “they” always seem stronger, more powerful than they really are. “They” always cause fear. For primitive man, “they” is the simplest explanation of all incomprehensible troubles. From the concept of “they” with its characteristic emotional coloring, the psychology of the totem, the psychology of the fetish, and the psychology of animism easily arise, although, of course, each is formed and further develops under the influence of various social and psychological conditions. Common to all religions is the belief that “they” can influence “me” and “us.”
This phenomenon, also related to the psychological roots of religious psychology, is closely related to fear and the contradiction between the conscious and the unconscious. It often seems to a person that “they” are interfering in the performance of a highly automated skill, in creativity, in involuntary memory, etc. (“muse, tell me...”, “Pallas Athena threw his spear,” etc.). Of course, in Homer and in the modern poet, turning to the muse has a different psychological meaning. And yet “they” more often hinder than help, and the words “the devil pulled me” in a relict form also contain an element of the same superstition caused by the same thing.

Psychology of faith

The basis of religion is faith. Researchers involved in the history and theory of religion considered faith to be the main feature of the concept of religion. Thus, L. Ya. Sternberg rightly wrote that we need a definition of religion that “would be equally suitable for the beliefs of the Samoyed, who flogs his idol when his hunt is 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 prostitute themselves, giving themselves to the first foreigner they met, and to the religion of the Christian, which requires that people lay down their lives for their neighbors, and to the religion of Buddhism, which is based in essence on complete atheism.. ." L. Ya. Sternberg, like E. Taylor earlier, 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. The minimum of religion is a sense 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, spells, spells, confession and all kinds of superstitions and prejudices.
It would be wrong not to take into account the opinions of the “church fathers” 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: “Now 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 as follows: “... that is, these are the essence of truths that are inaccessible to experience and exceed human reason, which is the difference between faith and knowledge.”
Feuerbach cites the following words of Martin Luther about faith: “All the members of our creed seem stupid and ridiculous to reason... Therefore, one should not inquire whether a given thing is possible; but one should say this: God said, and therefore even what seems impossible will happen. For although I can neither see nor understand this, God can make the impossible possible and make everything out of nothing.” And recently this was repeated: “... the impossibility of complete comprehension by reason of the content of dogmatic truths is one of the main provisions of Orthodox theology.” But the Roman early Christian theologian Tertullian (160-220) most clearly and consistently defined the essence of faith, 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 the same feeling. It is an obligatory component of the structure of religious consciousness and, therefore, the minimum of religion.
In this understanding, faith comes close to a number of other socio-psychological phenomena: with suggestion, mental infection, imitation, which contain elements of irrationality in their structure.
The feeling of faith, reaching, as is typical for any emotion, to the level of affect, takes the form of religious ecstasy, more often developing in a group than individually. It is sometimes called simply ecstasy, but this is incorrect, since other feelings, such as the aesthetic and the feeling of love, can reach aesthetic and love ecstasy. These ecstasies can manifest themselves completely independently of religious ecstasy, but they can also be part of its structure. A group of shamans, hysteria - all these are manifestations of religious ecstasy, the structure of which, to one degree or another, includes sexual feelings.
Religious ecstasy can also take the form of religious fanaticism, which colored religious wars and religious disputes and in which religious fanaticism is always closely intertwined with other socio-psychological phenomena.

Psychology of Religious Actions

Religious actions, which together constitute religious behavior, are diverse. These include prayer, sacrifices, confession. Close to them are actions based on the so-called false faith - superstitions, actions associated with religious prejudices, with faith in premonitions.
The origins of the psychology of prayer lie in a magical conspiracy and spell. A magical conspiracy and spell are words that supposedly had miraculous power to act not only on other people, animals and the forces of nature, but also on spirits and gods: “Get lost! Scatter! Get lost!
A person, having learned the power of words in verbal interpersonal communication, believed that with his words he could protect himself from not only people attacking him, but also spirits. Then the spell became one of gratitude and supplication (in gratitude there is always an element of “a request for next time”). So the spell turned into a prayer, which often contained a request for a miracle. As I. S. Turgenev said, “every prayer essentially comes down to the following: “Make it, Lord, so that two and two are not four, but five.” Prayer can be either group or 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. Thus, the ancient Greek atheist philosopher Lucian said: “The gods do nothing for free, but sell people various benefits...”
A sacrifice, a candle for an icon, the fulfillment of a difficult vow - all this is faith in the possibility of “redemption” 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 icons, no vows.
The psychology of confession includes in its structure much in common with the psychology of prayer and the psychology of sacrifice. After all, repenting of sins, a believer not only “asks for forgiveness,” but also believes that “if you ask well,” then forgiveness will be received.
The unpleasant effort to “confess to what you have done” is experienced as a sacrifice that must be rewarded. But there is one more psychological feature in the psychology of confession. This is a regularity characteristic of man as a social being: “Shared joy is double joy, shared grief is half grief.” In confession, the believer “shifts the weight of his action onto the shoulders of the confessor.” This greatly enhances the effect of catharsis, which is characteristic not only of prayer, but also of simply “an intimate conversation about one’s troubles.” That is why abroad, in conditions of crisis in the church, “psychoanalysts” came to replace “confessors” with their “intimate conversations,” and it was no coincidence that confessors adopted various methods of psychoanalysis.

Psychology of superstitions

Superstitions are sometimes vestigial fragments of past religions. But sometimes these are acquired, new beliefs, close in their psychological mechanisms to obsessive-compulsive neurosis. 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.
Superstitions were condemned by dogmatic religion, although the psychological structure of superstition is not much different from canonized faith. The only difference is in the ideological component, which determines the content of superstition.
On the opposite flank of a number 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 feeling 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 and misunderstanding, usually inspired from the outside, predominates. Prejudice does not exist without superstition, which is always and necessarily included as an element in its psychological structure. Moreover, both superstitions and prejudices are always phenomena of group consciousness.
The origin of superstitions has long been well understood. F. Bacon wrote about them this way: “The mind of man attracts everything to support and agree with what he once accepted, either 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 through distinctions - with great and pernicious prejudice - so that the reliability of those previous conclusions remains undisturbed. And therefore the one who answered correctly was the one who, when they showed him the images of those who had been saved by taking a vow from a dangerous shipwreck hanging in the temple and at the same time sought an answer whether he now recognized the power of the gods, asked in turn: “Where are the images of those who died after that?” How did you make your vow?” This is the basis of almost all superstitions - in astrology, in dreams, in omens, in divine definitions and the like. People who delight themselves with this kind of vanity celebrate the event that has come true, and pass by without attention the one that deceived, although the latter happens much more often.”
The case of the images of survivors, which Bacon wrote about, was borrowed by him from Cicero. This suggests that even in those distant times, progressive minds correctly understood the psychological essence of superstitions.
One of the typical superstitions is belief in premonitions. It is based on the substitution of a premonition for an assumption.
An assumption is an assumption of an event whose probability of occurrence is not yet known. The ability to assume is a valuable property of the mind, specifically studied as thinking with probabilities. This kind of 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 premonition, which more often happens in conditions of danger and nervous tension (stress). If the further 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 faith in premonitions is faith in making a wish, which develops according to a similar mechanism. A man walks down the street and counts the windows of houses or adds up the numbers of car license plates and believes: even means good luck, odd means bad luck. The basis of this prejudice is the neurosis of obsessive calculation, well known in psychiatry, which is associated with selectivity of memory and the expectation of success.
Religious prejudices are only one type of prejudices, although the most clearly expressed and having the greatest social significance. Moral consciousness also contained and still contains many prejudices, an example of which is the belief in the benefits of rods in raising children. But unlike religious prejudices, they are better corrected within fairly broad social groups.

Psychological aspects in atheistic education

The fight against religious remnants is an important task for propagandists of the scientific worldview. But this fight requires considerable skill. V.I. Lenin taught that “we must fight religious prejudices extremely carefully; Much harm is done by those who bring insults to religious feelings into this struggle. We need to 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 necessary.
In addition to understanding the psychological roots and essence of manifestations of religious psychology, the basis of the scientific justification of anti-religious work is also an understanding of their characteristics as religious remnants. The survivals show a tendency for thinking to lag behind being. Moreover, in the field of individual consciousness, it is necessary to distinguish between three types of survivals, which are not identical in their socio-psychological essence.
The first kind of various, including religious, survivals is their simplest kind. These are direct remnants that arose in a person as a form of consciousness that socially corresponded to his existence, and became so firmly entrenched that they cannot be eradicated until the end of his life. The 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 type are remnants that are psychologically very close to the previous ones, but require active educational influence. These are also direct relics, but among young people, arising as a result of unfavorable, but adequate socio-psychological conditions for these relics. They are a direct result of the remnants of a previous generation in the older generation, which creates microsocial and psychological conditions favorable for their revival. This type of remnant more often manifests itself as episodic events (a wedding or the baptism of a child), but sometimes, where ideological work is weakened, under the influence of the inspiring influence of the religious environment, the relics become persistent religiosity, passing into the next genus.
The third type 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 the simultaneous inspiring influences of the religious environment.
In accordance with what has been said, all modern believers can be divided approximately into the following conditional groups.
There are still fanatical fanatics in the dark corners, whose voice of reason is completely silent, drowned out by faith. And not because their faith is very strong, but because their reason is weak and undeveloped.
There are also so-called converts. These are formerly non-religious people, non-believers, to whom religion was “revealed” after a difficult experience, usually purely personal, and sometimes intimate.
The next group of modern believers consists 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 of them “doubt” and make the sign of the cross out of reassurance - “suddenly there is a God.”
The last group is those who believe not in God, but in various superstitions, omens, fortune telling, and amulets. These believers are often the reserve for "conversion."
Each of these groups of believers requires a different approach, which must, moreover, 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 unlikely that effort should be spent on re-educating her, however, the possibility of imitating her should be eliminated. But if the same group includes a young girl who is timid in character and has a tendency toward “conversion,” then there is no time to hesitate with atheistic work. Having found out under whose religious influence she is, it is necessary either to eliminate this influence, or, which is practically easier, to counteract it with a healthy influence, to interest and distract her with something. Even more active measures will be required by the impressionable and unbalanced object of atheistic education, classified as the second group of believers. It is possible that, in addition to ideological work, measures will be required to provide treatment. Religious fanatics who can cause harm to others should not be overlooked. Here atheistic education is carried out with an emphasis on legal education.
There is another group that cannot be ignored in atheistic education, although the people included in this group cannot be called believers. These are young people for whom wearing crosses or an icon over the bed is experienced as “the latest craze.” The psychology of these pseudo-believers, relating to the range of issues of social psychology, can be revealed from the standpoint of fashion psychology. But not only that. A group of pseudo-believers easily becomes infected with all kinds of superstitions and becomes a reserve for “conversion.”
The atheistic education of our youth should form not passive, but militant, active atheists. A passive atheist is simply far from religion, although he represents a reserve of possible “conversion.” That is why those who believe that it is enough only to isolate a Soviet schoolchild from the church are wrong. Such isolation, at best, creates 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 and historical museums, followed by discussions on religious studies and scientific atheism.
An active, militant atheist is familiar with the basics of religious studies and knows that religion has always served and is serving to intoxicate 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.

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