Mankind
Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Fall 2007)
pp.
99-116
Ancient Sun Cults: Understanding Religious Rites
in Terms of Developmental Psychology
Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff
University of Karlsruhe, Germany
Animistic attitudes towards natural objects as prevailing
forms
of understanding nature and reality are found in all
pre-modern
societies. The sun and moon, like other physical objects,
are
understood in terms of animate and conscious beings
or persons.
Ancient peoples felt that they had a personal relationship
to the
heavenly bodies, worshipped them as gods and offered
them
sacrifices to feed them. The sun cults of the Aztecs
and the
ancient Egyptians, chosen as typical examples to demonstrate
these phenomena, can only be explained in the context
of
animistic, magical belief systems. Developmental psychology
of
cognitive structures explains the prevalence of these
belief systems
as parts of the cognitive development of mankind.
Thus,
developmental psychology can explain the ubiquity
of animistic
thinking and sun cults across pre-modern societies
as far back as
the stone ages. The rise of formal operations among
the educated
classes in 17th century Europe accounts for the surpassing
of
magical-animistic thinking and the rise of mechanical
philosophy,
of the mechanical theory of heavens and of the physical
sciences.
The beginning of physical sciences is the end of animistic
thinking and solar cults.
