To explain the psychological theories, Freud says that the totem was meant to represent a safe place of refuge where the soul is deposited in order to avoid the dangers that threaten it. After primitive man had housed his soul in his totem he became invulnerable and he naturally took care of himself not to harm the bearer of his soul.
To also explain the origin of totemism, Freud explains the relation between human and animals. At first the child attribute full equality to the animals; he feels more closely related to the animal that to the adult that is still mysterious to him. At a part of his
adolescence, the child suddenly begins to fear certain animal species and to protect himself against seeing or touching any individual of this species. Also one of the oldest form of sacrifice, older than the use of fire and the knowledge of agriculture, was the sacrifice of animals, whose flesh and blood was eaten by the God. According to Freud, ?psychoanalysis has revealed to us that the totem animal is really a substitute for the father, and this really explains the contradiction that it is usually forbidden to kill the totem animal, that the killing of it results in a holiday and that the animal is killed and yet mourned.?
In this book, the attempt was to find the original meaning of totemism through its infantile traces. Both totem and taboo are ?held to have their roots in the Oedipus complex, which lies at the basis of all neurosis? and, as Freud argued, it was also ?the origin of religion, ethics, society, and art?