*Religion

This article summarizes the literature on the religious mind and connects it to archeological and anthropological data on the evolution of religion.

Reviews the article Magic and Religion by J. H. Leuba (1909). Two theses are supported in this article: (1) The primary forms of magic probably antedated religion; (2) whether magic antedated religion or not, religion arose independently of magic; they are different in principle and independent in origin. While magic and religion may be combined as in a prayer addressed to a personal being, they never fuse.

Reviews the book, Religion and the Mind of To-day by Joseph A. Leighton. The author believes that, under the guidance of the special sciences, a new civilization is coming into being and that a reconstruction or intellectual recasting of our inherited religion and social ethics to guide and inspire this civilization is imperative. Professor Leighton here undertakes this recasting and places the essential teachings of Christianity in the setting of modern scientific thought and problems.

Reviews the book, La Religion et La Foi by H. Delacroix (1922). The reviewer notes that this book is concerned with the several forms of religious faith: Implicit or Naive faith, and with the several Faith, and the Faith of Trust (confidence). The influence of the religious society and of the practice of the religious rites constitutes a double source of Implicit Faith (pp. 1-91). The former, called by Delacroix the culte extatique, is concerned with the exciting effect of the crowd; it gives rise to confused states of mind which lend themselves to a spiritual interpretation.

361 titles are reviewed under the headings: psychoanalytic studies; non-psychoanalytic studies; theoretical studies (divided into studies on children, students, other youth, and adults, and employing as methods statistics, case histories, introspections, questionnaires, literary effusions, etc.); practical studies (for psychiatrists, for teachers, for clergymen, faith healing, and church methods and prayer); and non-scientific studies.

Reviews the book "The Psychological Problems of Religion. Ritual: Psychoanalytic Studies" by Theodor Reik (see record 1947-00539-000). A knowledge of the nature of the original impulses from which the present rituals were derived can throw significant light on modern as well as ancient religion. In his book, Dr. Reik attempts to develop such understanding by reconstructing from the forms of expression and hidden tendencies which the ritual, as he interprets it, still presents. For this purpose, he selects for analysis religious customs that are still practiced.

Reviews the book The individual and his religion by G. W. Allport (see record 1950-04571-000). In his search for a definition of the religious sentiment, the author appears to be partial to the German writers Schleiermacher, Otto, Wobbermin, Max Weber. Yet it was in France that the psychology of religion had its beginning, and it was largely the French influence which gave impetus to William James.

Three functions traditionally recognized as being in the domain of religion are increasingly being assumed by mental health practitioners: 1) explanation of the unknown; 2) ritual and social functions; and 3) the definition of values. The authors recommend that religious and mental health practitioners define their functions and roles more clearly, so that they may interact more constructively

The tenuous relationship between religion and medical practice is explored through this case report of a patient presenting with a conversion reaction to a family physician. The reciprocal effect of physician on patient and patient on physician is explored. The potential of use of prayer as an adjunct to treatment of certain selected patients is discussed.

Comments on the four articles in the special section on spirituality, religion, and health in the January 2003 issue of American Psychologist (2003, Vol 58, 24-74). These articles acknowledged the long tradition of research in this area but cited no work prior to William James (1902) and Durkheim (1897/1951). This is a pity, as Francis Galton, the father of differential psychology, published pioneering works 30 years earlier in his book Hereditary Genius (1869) and in a paper titled "Statistical Inquiries Into the Efficacy of Prayer" (1872).