ABSTRACT
The historical origins of psychodrama, like those of theatre, are hidden in the dark night of ages gone by. They are to be found in shamanic and magical rituals from different times and cultures and in the sacred dramas celebrated in various cultures. Anthropologist James G. Frazer relates that spells and magic ceremonies were used by people at a primitive stage of development in order to affect the forces of nature directly through human interference (Frazer 1922: 376ff.). In this way, they practised ‘sympathetic’ magic widely. It may be a valid hypothesis that the most phylogenetically archaic forms of dramatization consisted in representing the forces of nature themselves – the rain, the winds, the succession of the seasons, and the growth and decay of vegetation – in order to control their courses. The magic worked through imitation – that is, through the dramatization of natural processes that needed to be encouraged. Its aim was to obtain particular desired effects.
