When Freud investigated ritual, he decided it was a type of
obsessional neurosis. He saw people pathetically repeating the
same action over and over, like Lady Macbeth washing her
hands, because they were incapable of facing a world that
would require something new. Freud was right as far as he
went. But just as his investigation of fantasy centered mainly
on its defensive and compensatory side, his understanding of
ritual was also limited. What he saw were religious rituals in
their distorted condition. Ideology is the social equivalent of
neurosis and rituals are its symptoms, the spastic gestures
anxious groups use to express their collective dementia. But all
fantasy behavior on the part of individuals is not neurotic.
Some of it is pioneering, the personal “embodiment” of untried
insights. Likewise, not all ritual is ideological. Just because an
action is patterned, or performed by more than one person, or
has symbolic ingredients, does not make it repressive or neurotic. Ritual can be liberating. People burn tyrants’ flags as
well as salute them. They can shake their fists as well as bow
their heads. Symbolic movement can be used to liberate man,
not just to oppress him.