Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud audiobook.

Genre: science

In Totem and Taboo, Sigmund Freud turns the tools of psychoanalysis outward, asking how the hidden forces that shape an individual mind might also shape entire societies. Across four connected essays, he explores the strange power of taboos, the emotional logic behind ritual prohibitions, and the recurring patterns he sees linking so-called primitive customs with modern neuroses. Freud examines topics such as fear of the dead, rules around purity and contamination, the avoidance of incest, and the anthropological puzzle of totemism - the symbolic animal or object that becomes a marker of group identity and a focus of reverence and restriction. Threading through the discussion is Freud's provocative attempt to connect family conflict, desire, guilt, and authority with the origins of religion, moral law, and social cohesion. Part cultural critique, part speculative anthropology, and part clinical thought experiment, Totem and Taboo challenges listeners to consider why certain thoughts feel forbidden, how communities enforce shared boundaries, and what we inherit psychologically from the deep past. It is influential, controversial, and designed to spark debate about the roots of belief and behavior.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:09:56) Chapter 01

(00:50:50) Chapter 02

(01:34:56) Chapter 03

(02:14:28) Chapter 04

(03:06:29) Chapter 05

(04:03:29) Chapter 06

(04:48:44) Chapter 07

(05:37:01) Chapter 08

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