ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the phenomenology of scapegoating, both as an externally visible, inter-psychic process between people, and as an internal, or intra-psychic one between different parts of the self. It considers what it represents in terms both of very polarised states of mind and of the dynamics underlying those states. The chapter explores the Old Testament account of the Hebrew Day of Atonement ritual where the 'scapegoat' originated. The nature and function of the twin goats, the scapegoat and the sacrificial goat, in the Day of Atonement rituals describe between them very different modes of mental functioning. The Day of Atonement rituals pertain to the social and religious well-being of the wider community and raise some important issues in terms of the nature of the external culture within which primitive aspects of the group may flourish, at the expense of the more moderate, thinking self.
