Projection, Substitution and Exaltation: Freud's Case Study of ‘Little Hans’ and the Creation of God in Totem and Taboo

Abstract

In this article a new reading of Totem and Taboo is presented: the emergence and further development of totemic and advanced religion is interpreted from the perspective of Freud's case study of Little Hans and his short essay on family romances, in which he elaborates the psychic dynamics involved in father substitution and father exaltation. Freud's view of God as exalted father cannot be interpreted in terms of projection – a mechanism that is primarily associated with animism, belief in demons and philosophies of life – but should be associated with a decrease of hostility, estrangement and distantiation from the physically present father.