Relationship between child training and supernaturals (gods and ghosts) “Religion is behaviors acknowledging gods.” William E. Paden This study is about prediction/explanation of religious beliefs and practices by psychoanalytic and learning theories. Religious beliefs transmitted as cognitive structures from one generation to the next as part of a group’s cultural heritage. The belief system represents the child’s perceptions of his world, which are derived from his early socialization experiences. Conceptions of supernatural beings correspond to the child’s parental (or parent surrogate) imagos (imago is an unconscious, idealized mental image of someone, especially a parent, that influences a person's behavior). Rituals-techniques for interacting with and influencing the supernaturals-correspond to and are generalizations from modes of interaction used by children to influence their parents. This paper reports the findings for but two sets of hypotheses, dealing with the benevolence and malevolence of supernatural beings and with those activities which, putatively, can influence them. In this study the child training process is analyzed in terms of five behavior systems-oral, anal, sex, aggression, dependence. Each system is in turn divided into an initial pre-training and a subsequent training period. Societies may thus be rated on the degree to which the infant is indulged in the first period and frustrated in the second. It is assumed that variations in initial indulgence by parents are accompanied by variations in “initial satisfaction” in infants, and that variations in the severity of training are accompanied by variations in “socialization anxiety.” Benevolent behavior can be contingent (conditional) or non-contingent. That is, the supernaturals may act nurturantly (reward, help, assist) regardless of the people’s behavior (non-contingent), or their nurturance may be attendant upon some activity performed by the people (contingent or conditional). The latter may in turn, be divided into two subclasses, which may be termed “ritual” and “obedience.” That is, the supernaturals may be influenced to act nurturantly if the people obey their commandments or conform to their prescriptions (obedience), or if they perform some ritual whose function is to incur supernatural assistance. Ritual too may be divided into two subclasses, compulsive and propitiatory. While the former is efficacious in compelling, the latter merely solicits (asks for) supernatural assistance. Like benevolence, malevolence may also be analyzed in terms of the conditions of its arousal. Thus the supernaturals may be non-contingently punitive, or they may act punitively when the people disobey them or violate their prescriptions. Diagrammatically, these dichotomies yield the following schema: A. All nurturance: 1. Non-contingent: nurturance received regardless of Ego’s activity. 2. Contingent: nurturance received only if Ego engages in some activity. a. Obedience: Ego’s activity, upon which nurturance is contingent, consists in obedience to the commands of the supernatural. b. Ritual: Ego’s activity, upon which nurturance is contingent, consists in the performance of some ritual designed to elicit nurturance. (1) Compulsive ritual: a ritual which compels the supernatural to grant nurturance. (2) Propitiatory ritual: a ritual which solicits nurturance from the supernatural. B. All punishment: 1. Non-contingent (unconditional): punishment received regardless of Ego’s activity. 2. Contingent (conditional): punishment received only if Ego engages in activity which violates supernatural demands, either prescriptive or proscriptive. It is to be emphasized that these various dichotomous classes, though analytically distinct, are not assumed to be empirically exclusive. On the contrary, it is not an unlikely assumption that both classes of these dichotomies are to be found in any religion. The important question is the degree to which one rather than the other is highhanded within the belief system. It should be noted that in this research supernatural beings included separate sections for “major” and “minor” deities, as well as for ghosts and for witches. The rationale for this procedure-of lumping gods and ghosts together-is simple: though differentially conceived within the religious systems, the postulated mechanism for their creation-projection-is identical for both. Moreover, they are conceived by us as serving identical psychological functions. Gods and ghosts, when perceived as major supernatural beings, are psychologically equivalent and can be assigned to the same functional class. Hypotheses and the general theories (rationales) Contingent Rewards: Hypothesis 1. The greater the initial satisfaction of dependence, the greater the degree to which supernatural nurturance is contingent upon the employment of compulsive ritual. Rationale: What is the rationale for the postulated relationship between high indulgence of dependence and the perception of supernatural beings who are (1) nurturant, (2) contingently (rather than non-contingently) upon the use of (3) ritual (rather than obedience) of a (4) compulsive (rather than propitiatory) nature? These questions may be answered seriatim, the answers serving as a paradigm for the rationale of the hypotheses to follow. (1) Since the parents are nurturant, the parental imago-and hence the projected supernatural being-is nurturant. (2) But parental nurturance is contingent upon the infant’s actions-which in this case consist of crying, whining, moving, and so forth. Since the infant must do something, perform some action-which is responded to by the parent as a sign of some need-in order to obtain nurturance, so supernatural nurturance is contingent upon adult activity. (3) This infantile nurturance is attendant upon some motor or vocal activity expressive of the infant’s needs, rather than upon some activity expressive of, and in response to, the parent’s needs (obedience). Hence, ritual (verbal and motor behavior) is an adult means for obtaining supernatural assistance. (4) Finally, the infant who enjoys high initial satisfaction of dependency perceives himself to be omnipotent. And why not? A mere cry, whine, gesture of the hand, gives rise to the warm arms, the welcome nipple, the dry diaper, or whatever it is that he desires. In his phenomenology he compels the external agents of gratification to satisfy his needs, rather than being at the mercy of their caprice. He does not cajole or plead; he orders. Hence compulsive ritual is efficacious in adult life. Hypothesis 2. The greater the initial satisfaction of the oral drive, the greater the degree to which supernatural nurturance is contingent upon the employment of compulsive ritual. Rationale: Since satisfaction of the oral drive is a highly nurturant act, the logic of hypothesis 1 applies without change to hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 3. The greater the socialization anxiety of dependence, the greater the degree to which supernatural nurturance is contingent upon propitiatory ritual. Rationale: High socialization anxiety of dependence means that the child receives assistance from his parents only by actively soliciting their assistance. This holds true for the period of initial indulgence as well. Whereas the infant perceives his gestures as compulsive vis-à-vis the external world, the child realizes his highly dependent condition. Hypothesis 4. The greater the total socialization satisfactions of all systems, the greater the degree to which supernatural nurturance is contingent upon obedience to supernatural demands. Rationale: Since conformity to parental socialization prescriptions entails rewards, so supernatural rewards are contingent upon obedience to the demands of the supernatural beings. Non-contingent Rewards: Hypothesis 5. The lower the socialization anxiety of dependence, the greater the degree to which supernatural nurturance is non-contingent. Rationale: Since parents are nurturant toward children even in the absence of solicitation, the supernaturals too are non-contingently nurturant. Hypothesis 6. The highest degree of initial satisfaction of dependence is associated with the greatest degree of non-contingent supernatural nurturance. Rationale: Since this hypothesis seems to be in conflict with hypothesis 1, additional explanation is required. High initial satisfaction of dependence can comprise two distinct types of parental nurturance whose consequences should be quite different. One type consists of the parents satisfying the infant’s needs immediately upon their manifestation. Hypothesis 1, which predicts compulsive ritual as a consequence of high initial satisfaction of dependence, refers to this type of initial satisfaction. The second type of high satisfaction, however, consists in the parent satisfying the infant’s needs even prior to the expression of such needs by means of cries or gestures. It is the latter type which is referred to in the present item by the expression “the highest degree. . . .” This type corresponds to Ferenczi’s first post-natal stage of reality-“magical-hallucinatory omnipotence.” Since in this stage the infant is presumed to obtain satisfaction without the necessity of activity, supernatural nurturance too is non-contingent. Non-contingent Punishments: Hypothesis 7. The lower the degree of initial satisfaction of all behavior systems, the greater the degree to which supernatural punishment is non-contingent. Rationale: It is assumed that interference by parents in the early satisfaction of drives is not only perceived by the infant as punishment but, since the infant cannot understand the motive for such interference, it-and therefore supernatural punishment-is perceived as entirely capricious. Hypothesis 8. The earlier the age of socialization, the greater the degree to which supernatural punishment is viewed as non-contingent. Rationale: Since the child who is trained early is too young to understand the rationale for the frustrations imposed upon him, these-and therefore supernatural punishments-are perceived as capricious. Hypothesis 9. The greater the inconsistency in socialization (that is, the same behavior may be both rewarded and punished), the greater the degree to which supernatural punishment is viewed as non-contingent. Rutionale: Since parental punishment is clearly capricious, supernatural punishment too is non-contingent. Contingent Punishments: Hypothesis 10. The greater the socialization anxiety of all behavior systems, the greater the degree to which supernatural punishment is contingent upon disobedience of supernatural demands. Rationale: Since disobedience of parents entails severe punishment, so too supernatural punishment is attendant upon disobedience of the supernaturals. Summarized from: A Cross-Cultural Study of Some Supernatural Beliefs By: Melford E. Spiro & Roy G. D’Andrade Page 1 of 4