ABSTRACT

Inasmuch as the individual devices call almost irresistibly for psychoanalytic interpretation, it is but logical to postulate that this frame of reference should consist of the application of a more comprehensive, basic psychoanalytic theory to the agitators’ overall approach. Such a frame of reference has been provided by Freud himself in his book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, published in English as early as 1922, and long before the danger of German fascism appeared to be acute. The method of Freud’s book constitutes a dynamic interpretation of Gustave Le Bon’s description of the mass mind and a critique of a few dogmatic concepts – magic words, as it were – which are employed by Le Bon and other pre-analytic psychologists as though they were keys for some startling phenomena.