The origin of religions, in fact, is one of the sides of the main question of philosophy - about the relation of consciousness to being. This problem also has an important practical aspect - we are referring to the conditions and circumstances of the reproduction of religion in modern societies. In a broad sense, the conditions for the emergence of religion are at the same time the conditions for its reproduction .1 Due to these features, the problem of the origin of religion has been the subject of intense controversy between the main opposing philosophical trends-materialism and idealism-since the emergence of philosophical thinking, that is, from antiquity to the present day. The course of this polemic, or, more precisely, the party struggle, can form the content of an extensive and multifaceted study that would show how, at various levels of scientific knowledge, the question of the origin of religion is filled with new content and becomes more and more multifaceted. In other words, this question has its own very instructive and informative history.

In Soviet historiography, the problem of the origin of religion occupies a significant place. Monographs, articles, and review publications are devoted to it2 . The latest discoveries of historical sciences (archeology, anthropology, ethnography, etc.) confirm and deepen the Marxist concept of religion and the theory of its origin. Figuratively speaking, historical knowledge works for atheism. A different process is observed in bourgeois fideist religious studies. Every new scientific discovery about the ancient past of mankind inevitably comes into conflict with theological versions and dogmas about the origin of man and his consciousness. These conflicts between historical knowledge and Fideist conceptions of man and religion have become particularly acute in our era. During the last two decades, the question of the origin of religion in bourgeois religious studies has moved to one of the first places and has become almost the number one problem .3 The fact is that during this time, the following transactions were made:

1 See K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 3, p. 24.

2 Yu. P. Frantsev. At the origins of religion and Freedom of Thought, Moscow, 1959; S. A. Tokarev. Rannie formy religii [Early Forms of Religion], Moscow, 1964; A.D. Sukhov. Philosophical problems of the origin of religion, Moscow, 1967; A. F. Anisimov. Etapy razvitiya pervobytnoy religii [Stages of development of primitive religion], Moscow, 1967; V. F. Zybkovets. A man without religion. U istokov obshchestvennogo soznaniya [At the Origins of public consciousness], Moscow, 1967; B. F. Porshnev. Search for generalizations in the field of the history of religion. Voprosy istorii, 1965, No. 7; B. I. Sharevskaya. Problems of primitive religion in the works of modern bourgeois scientists. "Research and materials on primitive religious beliefs". Collection of articles, Moscow, 1959, et al.

3 In the post-war years, a number of voluminous monographs and collections on the genetic problems of religions in England, Italy, the USA, France and Germany were published: M. Polanyi. Science, Faith and Society. L. 1946; G. Mensching. Sociologie der Religion. Bonn. 1947; ejusd. Geschichte der Religionswissenschaft. Bonn. 1948; J. Noss: Man's

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numerous scientific discoveries about ancient man that refute the creationist concept of man, and with it the creationist concept of religion .4 These circumstances have caused a wave of new hypotheses and theories about the origin of religion in the West. First of all, we are talking about fundamental paleoanthropological and paleoarchaeological discoveries: the discovery and research of the synanthropus in 1927-1943, the discovery of the Piltdown fake in 1953, the discovery of the Ternifinsky Atlantrop in 1954 and the Oldovai man in 1960, as well as numerous finds of Neanderthal cultural monuments. New data have enormously expanded the scientific understanding of the origin of the human race, " about the conditions and circumstances of the formation of man and human society, as well as the main social institutions - the family, property, classes, the state, morality, religion, the church. In the light of these discoveries, the creationist concept of man looks more naive and obscurantist than ever before. In this connection, the fate of the prominent Jesuit priest P. Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), who for several years participated in paleoanthropological research in Southeast Asia and China and, as a result of his own research, abandoned the creationist concept, which caused a great stir in the Vatican, is characteristic. We should also mention Levi-Bruhl's repudiation of his theory of primitive thinking, a theory that for several decades enjoyed great influence among cultural historians, sociologists and psychologists, including in our country; and his exposure in 1956. a proto-monotheistic theory of the origin of religion, which also enjoyed great influence and wide distribution in the West; and, finally, on the publication in 1957 of the philosophical treatises of P. Teilhard de Chardin "The Phenomenon of Man"and" The Future of Man".

Let's consider the impact of these events on the development of genetic problems of religion (we will not touch on clerical publications here).

According to P. P. Efimenko, the greatest expert on the Paleolithic era, the discovery of the Sinanthropus culture "could not fail to attract great attention from the entire scientific world." 5 The cognitive and ideological significance of the discovery of the synanthropic culture is really huge: it turned out that the archanthropes, who lived on our planet about half a million years ago and still possessed a number of morphological features of their animal ancestors, owned such a powerful tool as fire; that they hunted many animals, including large and fast-running ones; that synanthropes lived in groups in permanent dwellings-caves. Regarding the consciousness of Sinan-

Religion. N. Y. 1949; W. C. Dampier. A History of Science and its Relations with Philosophy and Religion. Cambridge. 1949; E. O. James. The Beginnings of Religion. L. 1950; M. Argyle. Religions behaviour. L. 1958; R. Lovie. Primitive Religion. L. 1952; R. Pettazzoni. La religione nella Grecia antica fino ad Allesandro. Torino. 1953; C J. Ducasse. A Philosophical Scrutiny of Religion. N. Y. 1953; M. Leach. The Beginning. Creation Myth. L. 1956; G. Zwerenz. Magie, Sternglaube, Spiritismus. Leipzig. 1956; U. Bianchi. Problemi di storia delle religioni. Roma. 1958; J. Wach. Sociology of Religion. Chicago. 1958; B. Russel. Religion and Science. L. 1958; J. Maringer. The Gods of Prehistoric Man. N. Y; 1960; H. Ringgren et A. Strom. Les religions du monde. P. 1960; E. Patte. Les Hommes prehistoriques et religion. P. 1960; J. Lissner. Man, God and Magic. N. Y. 1961; P. Schebesta und andere. Ursprung der Religion. West Berlin. 1961; C. Berg. The Origin and Development of the Mind. L., 1962; S. Spenser. Misticism in World Religion. Baltimore. 1963; J. Hawkes. Prehistory. N. Y. 1963; H. Watts. The Modern Reader's Guide to Religions. N. Y. 1964.

4 Creationist theorists explain the origin of the world on the basis of the recognition of"divine creation."

5 P. P. Efimenko. Primitive society. Kiev, 1953, p. 136.

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on the basis of anthropological and archaeological data, at least two propositions can be considered indubitable: synanthropes were intelligent beings, because it is proved that they purposefully worked using fire as a tool of labor; they were also moral beings, since joint work and living in a common dwelling are impossible without observing certain minimum norms governing relations between individuals, as well as between the individual and the collective.

The discovery of the sinanthropic culture caused several attempts to make religion more ancient in foreign religious studies. Thus, the American sociologist, historian and ethnographer P. Radin writes: "The Peking man (sinanthrope) knew how to make fire, and I believe that more than a hundred millennia ago, man considered the objective world as a simple projection of his emotions and fantasies. I assume that among the earliest people there were individuals who had the capacity for consistent thinking, that man was originally not only Homo faber, but also Homo oeconomicus-politicus and Homo religious. " 6 Based on numerous facts, Radin concluded that there were non-religious individuals among the ethnographically recorded primitive peoples. But, in his opinion, the highest type of humanity is connected with religiosity: a religious person is a thinker, a man of reason, and, on the contrary, a non - religious person is just a doer, a man of action, that is, a worker, a labor force. Radin found corresponding "psychic types" and "psychic structures" in Maori, Eskimos, and the Australian Arunta tribe .7 So, guided by the Fideist concept of religion, according to which it is eternal, Radin, in connection with the discovery of synanthropus, arbitrarily pushed the lower limit of religion to the level of synanthropus, without even making an attempt to present at least some evidence in favor of his version.

The concept of sinanthropic religiosity is also defended by the Catholic anthropologist Priest G. Breuil, who took part in the excavation of a cave near the village of Zhoukoudian, near Beijing. In this cave, several human skulls were found with traces of their deliberate destruction, apparently to extract the brain. G. Breuil claims that the split human skulls from Zhoukoudyan are traces of human sacrifice. G. Breuil's theological bias in this case is quite obvious; his arbitrary interpretation of the Zhoukoudian finds was rejected by the Soviet paleoarchaeological school8 . The opinion of H. Breuil also coincides with the opinion of E. James, the largest representative of modern bourgeois religious studies in England, a member of the editorial board of Numen magazine. In his opinion, the fragments of Sinanthropic skulls in Zhoukoudian are proof that the inhabitants of the cave near Beijing observed the "cult of skulls" 9 .

So, the discovery of the synanthropus presented bourgeois religious studies with a difficult task: the postulate about the eternal nature of religion was under attack, since the lack of religion of the synanthrope is quite obvious. Bourgeois religious studies had to push back the lower historical limit of religion to the level of a synanthropist. What's next? What was below this limit? Bourgeois Science has come to a complete standstill before these questions, because they cannot be answered from the standpoint of fideism: it is impossible to reconcile the evolution of man in the Paleolithic with the creationist concept of man and religion.

6 P. Radin. The World of Primitive Man. N. Y. 1953, p. 69.

7 Ibid., pp. 70, 79, 81.

8 P. P. Efimenko. Op. ed., p. 141.

9 E. O. James. Prehistoric Religion. L. 1957, p. 17.

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When solving the genetic problems of religion, Soviet religious studies proceeds from V. I. Lenin's thesis on the subordination relations of forms of social consciousness. This thesis is a conclusion drawn from the study of the world-historical experience of mankind. V. I. Lenin considered religion as a secondary, parasitic, empty-flowered formation on the living tree of living, fruitful, true ,powerful, all-powerful, objective, absolute, human cognition. 10 Archaeological and anthropological evidence about the synanthrope, in our opinion, fully confirms Lenin's interpretation of the subordination of forms of social consciousness: gnostic and ethical consciousness is already certainly present; we can only speak about the aesthetic attitude of the synanthrope to reality and about the aesthetic comprehension of the world by him, but there is not the slightest reason for any doubts about his religiosity. V. V. Bunak convincingly showed that the level of intellectual development of the synanthrope excluded even the slightest possibility of such mental abstractions, which are the basis of mysticism and religion .11
The discovery of Australopithecus introduced new data into human science regarding the complexity, complexity and complexity of the process of humanization of anthropoids, about the multiplicity of attempts of this kind; figuratively speaking, anthropoids did not take the barrier separating the zoological from the human at the first attempt. What was this barrier? Is it an art to make tools out of stone? Or maybe in the comprehension of fire? Or in some special form of social organization? Or in the unity of all these three components? But regardless of this, the discovery of Australopithecus once again refuted the Creationist concept of man and once again confirmed the Marxist concept of man, and on the basis of new facts of great historical depth.

One of the attempts of bourgeois anthropologists to support the creationist concept of man was the" discovery "of the infamous "Piltdown skull". In an effort to prove that the European type of man is a higher-order being, and that he is not genetically related to the so-called lower races, some English public figures (lawyer G. Dawson and others) fabricated a paleoanthropological fake. Dating back to different eras, the ape's jaw and the human skull were artfully combined into one skull, which was named "Piltdown" after the place of "discovery". To make it more convincing, this "skull" was painted with a solution of potassium dihromate, as a result of which it acquired the chocolate color that bones of great antiquity possess. In such an undignified way, an attempt was made to support the racist theory of the eternal inequality of human races and the "incomprehensible" origin of homo sapiens, which, in fact, supported the creationist version of human origin. The Piltdown forgery was only recently exposed; it was created in 1912. For almost forty years, it has caused doubts and disputes among anthropologists and historians of primitive society, and, undoubtedly, was a significant obstacle to the development of scientific knowledge about ancient man. In this connection, it is appropriate to recall that the Piltdown "nakhodka" long before the exposure of its inspirators and preparators was recognized by the most prominent Soviet specialists in all fields of science and technology.-

10 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 29, p. 322.

11 V. V. Bunak. Speech and intelligence, stages of their development in anthropogenesis. "Hominid fossils and human origins". Collection of articles, Moscow, 1966.

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wearing questionable clothing 12 . The well-known London monthly " Nature "in November 1953 published a very laconic article" The Piltdown man", which reported on the forgery of G. Dawson, But what was the ideological purpose of this fake, not a word was said.

One of the major failures of Fideist religious studies is the renunciation of Levi-Bruhl's theory of "pralogical thinking". This renunciation became known in 1949 (L. Levig Bruhl died in 1939 )in connection with the publication of his notebooks. 13 The concept of L. Levy-Bruhl supported the Fideist model of the genesis of religion in one of its main points: he argued that human consciousness is initially oriented mystically. Despite the fact that Levi - Bruhl's abdication is half-hearted, it is impossible not to notice that he took this step under the influence of materialistic criticism of him.

The next major failure is the exposure of the so-called proto-monotheistic theory of the origin of religion. The author of this theory is the English journalist A. Lang, who published the book "The Creation of Religion"in London in 189814 . The book contains numerous evidences of "missionary ethnography", on the basis of which Lang tries to prove that some primitive peoples, who do not yet know the concept of the soul and spirits, already have a cult of the one god, that is, a monotheistic religion. Lang's book met with a very friendly attitude in leading Catholic circles. Further development and promotion of the new "theory" was taken up by the Austrian Catholic priest Wilhelm Schmidt, who spent forty years writing a twelve-volume treatise " The Origin of the idea of God. Historical-critical and positive research " 15 . In this essay, Schmidt sought to prove that the belief in one God is original, that its traces are supposedly recorded ethnographically, and that these traces can be correctly understood only in the light of the biblical story of revelation, as taught by the Catholic Church. It is no exaggeration to say that Schmidt was the most prominent exponent of the Catholic reaction to the progress of historical knowledge and, in particular, to the progress of evolutionary genetic religious studies, which was formed by the beginning of our century thanks to the works of M. Muller, D. Lubbock, E. Taylor, J. Fraser and which objectively, regardless of the will of these authors, contributed to atheistic criticism religions.

Proto-monotheistic theory has enjoyed credit and notable influence in the West for about half a century. However, it cannot be said that this loan was unconditional. Among the ideologists of Protestant, so-called "liberal theology" there were also those who more or less strongly criticized Schmidt for his too straightforward and primitive judgments. For example, let us mention the prominent Protestant religious scholar K. Klemen, who wrote: "In England, Lang's work attracted a lot of attention, while in Germany, on the contrary, they were treated with skepticism... The hypothesis of pramonotheism, even in the inaccurate sense in which Schmidt's followers and supporters use the word, is untenable... Its authors unconsciously proceeded from the logical presumption of the forefather-

12 M. A. Gremyatsky. Solving an anthropological mystery. "Soviet Ethnography", 1954, No. 1, pp. 154-157; P. P. Efimenko. Op. ed., pp. 95-97.

13 "Les Carnets de Lucien Levy-Bruhl. P. 1949.

14 A. Lang. The Making of Religion. L. 1898.

15 W. Schmidt. Ursprung der Gottesidee. Eine historisch-kritische und positive Studie Bd. 1 - 12. Munster in Westialen. 1912 - 1955.

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They used it to justify, generalize, and exaggerate, the true meaning of which should have long been clear to researchers with a different point of view. In the interests of the religious histories of primitive society, I consider it my duty to warn against this hypothesis as a fiction. " 16
In Soviet literature, Schmidt was repeatedly subjected to extensive criticism. Let us refer at least to A. M. Zolotarev's review of the third volume of The Origin of the Idea of God, which is half devoted to the primitive religions of the peoples of Asia. 17 A. M. Zolotarev shows many examples of Schmidt's dishonesty in dealing with sources. Schmidt's acquaintance with literature about the peoples of the North, as the author of the review shows, is extremely superficial. A number of major works are completely unknown to him. He does not know, in particular, that the Russian expert on Siberian ethnography N. Tretyakov wrote:: "All the tribes we have mentioned (Tungus, Samoyeds, Ostyaks), who have grown up in their own prejudices and beliefs, have no idea about the supreme being, which we call god" 18. A. M. Zolotarev refers to the testimonies of those authors to whom Schmidt refers, and shows that they provide material not in favor of Schmidt's theory, but against it. A. M. Zolotarev states that Schmidt does not distinguish mythological representations from religious ones at all. As a result, all folk traditions about mythological ancestors and heroes who supposedly live in the sky and often have totemic features fall into the category of pramonotheism in Schmidt. A. M. Zolotarev proves that Schmidt is biased and arbitrarily interprets the facts of Siberian ethnography, using the method of overexposure and silencing evidence that contradicts his concept.

So, back in 1933, a Soviet ethnographer exposed Schmidt in elementary bad faith, incompatible with science. But it was only in the 1950s that Western European religious scholars finally recognized that Schmidt's version did not fit in with the evidence of ethnography, and the evidence presented by Schmidt and his supporters was specially dissected. In particular, the author of the acclaimed monograph on pygmies, a certain G. Tril, was exposed in this. His book Pygmies of the Equatorial Forests , 19 which Schmidt highly valued and recommended as one of the fundamental primary sources in favor of the proto-monotheistic theory, turned out to be not a primary source, not a collection of ethnographic observations, but a low-grade fake.

The official burial of the proto-monotheistic theory took place on the pages of Numen magazine, the organ of the International Association for the Study of the History of Religion (IAHR). In the April 1956 issue of this magazine, in the section "Brief notes", a chronicle report was published under the title " The end of Pramonotheism?". The author of this peculiar obituary was the president of the IAHR, Professor Raphael Pettazzoni of the University of Rome, who noted the futility of Schmidt's attempts to prove the existence of non-existent (that is, Pramonotheism), although he also admitted that he himself was once involved in these attempts. The recognition of Pettazzoni, this representative of bourgeois religious studies, is very significant. The destruction of the proto-monotheistic theory presented bourgeois religious studies with a number of complex problems. It was a big nuisance-

16 C. Clemen. Der sogenannte Monotheismus der Primitiven. "Archiv fur Religions- wissenschaft". Bd. XXVII, 1929, N 3 - 4.

17 "Problems of the history of material culture". 1933, N 1-2, pp. 69-73.

18 N. Tretyakov. Turukhansky krai. Yeniseysk, 1874, p. 206.

19 H. Trilles. Les Pigmees de la foret equatoriale. P. 1932.

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not only for clerical circles, but to a certain extent also for secular foreign religious studies. First, it has been shown once again, and on a global scale, that the interference of the clergy in the affairs of history, archeology and ethnography is extremely harmful to scientific knowledge. Secondly, it turned out that it is impossible to reconcile the creationist concept of man with the evidence of historical knowledge. Third, it became clear that the prestige of Christian theology and all that scientific literature that has been propagated for more than half a century by numerous clerical institutions and departments dealing with "ecclesiastical archaeology" and "missionary ethnography"was dealt a crushing blow.

But although Numen magazine recognized the collapse of the proto-monotheistic theory, the disciples and admirers of Father Schmidt did not stop their "rescue work". Their efforts are aimed at saving the scientific reputation of their teacher, and with it the so-called "Vienna school", preserving the prestige of Catholic well-intentioned and scientific "missionary ethnography" represented by W. Schmidt, and protecting from rationalistic and especially atheistic criticism the central position of Catholic doctrine: the dogma of creation and revelation.

In this regard, one of the prominent representatives of the "Vienna school", I. Haeckel, is particularly active, who published several works in defense of Schmidt .20 Haeckel highly appreciates Schmidt's contribution to "historical ethnology" and "comparative religious studies", respectfully calling his work " The Origin of the Idea of God "a monumental work, and the author himself - "the founder (Nestor) of historical folk studies". Haeckel claims that Schmidt's works "on scientific research and clarification of the idea of God are a turning point in comparative religious studies." At the same time, he admits that a serious researcher cannot accept the theory of "ancestral revelation", which is now trying to replace the rejected theory of proto-monotheism .21 According to this new theory, the original faith was diffuse (vague, vague) and was not necessarily focused on a single God; the important thing is that it (faith) exists initially.

Schmidt is also defended by another prominent figure of the "Vienna school", P. Schebest, who edited Schmidt's collection " The Origin of Religion. Results of prehistoric and ethnographic research " 22 . P. Shebesta's group represents the extreme right wing of modern bourgeois religious studies in Western Europe. The authors of the collection "The Origin of Religion" are the participants of the " Vienna Ethnological Seminar "(as they are called in the preface to the collection): K. Klostermayer, G. Loizkandl, J. Thiel, J. Zgraggen, V. Dupre, G. Hochegger, J. Fabian. Each of them presents several articles that cover a wide range of genetic problems of religion: the definition of religion, the typology of religions, the relationship between religion and magic, knowledge and faith, animism, manism, fetishism, totemism, the essence of prayer and sacrifice, myth-making and religion, worldview

20 I. Haekel. The Concept of a Supreme Being among the North-West Coast Tribes of North America. "Wiener Volkerkund. Mitteil.". Wien. 1954; ejusd. Die Bedeutung P. Wilhelm Schmidts fur die Ethnologie. "Bulletin der Schwitz. Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie und Ethnologie". Zurich. 1955; ejusd. Prof. P. W. Schmidts Bedeutung fur die Religionsgeschichte der vorkolumbischen Amerika. "Saeculum". Freiburg-Munchen. 1956. Bd. 7,N 1; ejsd. Zum heutigen Forschungsstand der historischen Ethnologie. "Die Wiener Schule der Volkerkunde". Wien. 1956.

21 I. Haekel. Prof. P. W. Schmidts Bedeutung..., S. 1, 3, 38, 39.

22 "Ursprung der Religion. Ergebnisse der vorgeschichtlichen und volkerkundlichen Forschungen". West Berlin. 1961.

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The collection ends with the article by K. Klostermeier "Eternal religion or Eternal atheism?", which deals with the problem of primitive man, the problem of irreligious primitive society, the religion of some primitive peoples (Australians, Negroes, Ognezeltsy, etc.), criticism of the Marxist concept of religion, the problem of the development of religions, the problem of the relations of religions with the economy, science and culture.

The authors ' worldview position is the same: they all proceed from the fact that "God is reality". However, a caveat is made: "God is a reality for those who believe in him." 23 Of course, the authors are silent about the fact that from this point of view, witches, devils, brownies, goblins, and ghouls are just as "real". This idealistic approach to the nature of religious images and to the interpretation of their reality has long been criticized by materialism. The ideological orientation of the collection can be characterized as follows: it is an evil and cynical obscurantism, a sharp, reckless hatred of materialism and atheism. Here are some examples. In the article" The problem of the origin of religion", K. Klostermayer lists the theories of the origin of religion proposed by European scientists in the 19th and 20th centuries, starting with J. Lubbock (1870) and ending with K. Dittmer (1954), and concludes: "Many opinions and lack of solutions" 24. The reader who is disoriented and misinformed in this way gets the impression that there really is no clue to the origin of religion. In the section "150 definitions of religion to choose from?", K. Klostermeier cites the definitions of religion formulated by Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Feuerbach, Mill, Schopenhauer, Reinak and many other Western European scientists , 25 but does not mention the exhaustive, multidimensional definition of religion formulated by K. Marx, the definitions of F. Schleiermacher and many other Western European scientists. Engels, V. I. Lenin, and G. V. Plekhanov. Ch. is subjected to vicious attacks. Darwin as the author of the evolutionary theory; his opinion about the irreligious nature of primitive man, an opinion based on the study of the life of the ognezeltsy during the journey of Ch. Darwin on the Beagle 26 . K. Klostermeier declares the Marxist view of religion as a socially conditioned and historically transitory phenomenon unacceptable and argues that much of the" Marxist solution " remains problematic. But with genuine enthusiasm, he writes about the activities of Christian missionaries who, since the discovery of America by Columbus, studied and described the religions of non-European peoples and thus allegedly laid the foundation for religious studies as a science. In the final article by K. Klostermeier's "Eternal religion or eternal atheism?" anathematizes atheism and proclaims toast to the eternal god, who is not afraid of any atheistic propaganda 27 .

Apparently, under the influence of the numerous exposures that "missionary ethnography" has undergone, a new trend has emerged among researchers of primitive religions, according to which ethnographic descriptions of the religions of backward peoples cannot be correlated with the beliefs and ideas of Paleolithic man at all. This trend is represented by the French historian of primitiveness A. Leroy-Gourand, author of the book "Prehistoric (Paleolithic) Religions"28 . The rejection of ethnographic analogies impoverishes the work of A. Leroy-Gourand in a concrete cognitive and conceptual sense.-

23 Ibid., S. 172.

24 Ibid., S. 11 - 13.

25 Ibid., S. 38.

26 Ibid., S. 124 - 127.

27 Ibid., S. 19 - 21, 171 - 172, 241.

28 A. Leroi-Gourhan. Les religions de la prehistoire (Paleolithique). P. 1964.

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and thus testifies against his method. Another thing is that the ethnographic sources are littered with missionary speculations "for the glory of God" and it is high time to carry out strict cleansing work here.

Soon after the exposure of the proto-monotheistic theory, Fideist religious studies suffered another blow. This time it came from within, from the Catholic hiding place where it was least expected: the Society of Jesus, which is considered the mainstay of Catholicism and enjoys the special patronage of the Pope. The fact is that in the highest circles of the Catholic clergy, concerned with the success of historical human studies, at the end of the last and at the beginning of the present century, a trend emerged that could be defined as a movement for the theological development of paleoarchaeology and paleoanthropology (there is no need to talk about ethnography in this case, because "missionary ethnography" is almost the same age as the general ethnography, and here the Catholic Church has always felt in the saddle). G. Obermayer, O. Mengin, G. Menage, G. Breuil, J. Buissoni 29 - this is not a complete list of the most prominent figures of the Catholic Church who are trying to direct paleoanthropology and paleoarchaeology in a theological direction.

Among Catholic paleoanthropologists, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Catholic priest, member of the Society of Jesus, president of the French Geological Society, academician, and one of the first researchers of the synanthropus, stands out. Teilhard was not trusted in the French Catholic hierarchy and spent almost half of his life in a foreign country; for about 25 years, he served in China as a geologist adviser. Teilhard published several major works on the problems of the most ancient history of mankind .30
Teilhard did not take the path of falsifying paleoanthropological evidence in the spirit of creationist dogma. While engaged in geological and paleoanthropological research, he gradually revised his worldview, bringing it into line with the facts of human evolution that became known to him personally - the only way possible for a true thinker. Teilhard's philosophical works were not published during his lifetime: Catholic censorship, to which Teilhard could not disobey, without breaking with the "Society of Jesus" and remaining a priest, did not allow them to be published. Some of Teilhard's philosophical works were reproduced on the rotator. His major philosophical treatise, The Phenomenon of Man, was written in Peking in 1938-1940; published shortly after the author's death, it made Teilhard's name widely known in philosophical circles and became the subject of controversy about the "Teilhard phenomenon".

Teilhard's paleoanthropological publications, written in an evolutionist spirit, alarmed the Jesuits. In 1939, a general of the Jesuit order, meeting Teilhard in Beijing, said::

"Reverend Father, you are undesirable because you are an evolutionist and a communist.

29 H. Obermayer. Fossil Man in Spain. L. 1925; O. Menghin. Der Nachweis des Opfers in Altpalaolithikum. "Wiener prahistorische Zeitschrift. Wien. 1926; ejusd. Weltgeschichte der Steinzeit. Wien. 1931; N. Breul. Fruhe Menschheit. "Historia Mundi". Bd. I. Bern. 1952; Th. Mainage. Les Religions de la prehistoire. L'age paleolithique. P. 1921; J. Bouyssonie. La grotte Tarte. Touluse. 1939.

30 R. Teilhard de Chardin. Le paleolithique en Chine. "Arch, de l'inst. Paleont. Humaine". P. 1928; ejusd. The Lithic Industry of the Sinanthropus Deposits in Choucoudien. "Bull, of the Geol. Soc. of China". Peiping. 1932; ejusd. Fossil Man; Recent Discoveries and Present Problems. Peking. 1943; ejusd. La question de l'homme fossil. P. 1948; ejusd. Australophitheques, Pithecanthropes et structure phyletique des Hominiens. P. 1952.

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"No, I'm not a communist.

"You're an evolutionist, and that's enough to prove you're a communist."

Indeed, the main thing in Teilhard's philosophy is the evolutionist concept of being and consciousness. For Teilhard, man is "evolution made aware of itself." 32 But evolutionism is the antithesis of creationism. Therefore, Teilhard, having come to the evolutionist concept of being and consciousness, inevitably had to find himself in the ranks of opponents of the Christian dogma of creation and revelation. The Congregation for the Holy Office of the Vatican (this institution is better known as the Inquisition) issued a decision in December 1957: "The books of Father Teilhard de Chardin, a member of the Society of Jesus, should be removed from the libraries of Catholic theological seminaries and Catholic ecclesiastical institutions; they should not be sold in the bookstores of the Catholic Church, and they should not be translated to other languages". On June 30, 1962, the Holy Office issued an official warning against Teilhard's writings. The organ of the Papal Curia, the newspaper Osservatore Romano, gave an extensive commentary on the decision in its July 1 issue. The commentary clarifies what it is in Teilhard's writings that " offends Catholic doctrine." Vatican orthodoxists blame Teilhard above all for his evolutionist conception of man. 33
Having rejected the Christian dogma of creation and revelation, Teilhard inevitably had to search for the point on the evolutionary spiral where religion arises. But he did not find this point, because he was not completely free from the influence of theology.

Nowadays, Teilhard has become one of the most widely read philosophers abroad; his works are reprinted and translated. Some authors tend to attribute Teilhard to Marxism, while others to "mystical materialism." 34 Teilhard, of course, is not a Marxist, but elements of spontaneous materialist dialectic are present in his works. And although he is not a Marxist, the Teilhard phenomenon shows at the same time that the method and ideas of materialist dialectics penetrate even into the recesses of Catholicism, taking possession of the consciousness of everything that is thinking, honest and progressive.

From the events and circumstances considered, it is natural to conclude that bourgeois religious studies is experiencing a deep crisis. It is not surprising that in the current situation, one of the features of this branch of knowledge is the search for a new, more elastic concept of religion. It is elastic in the sense that it does not come into an obvious contradiction with modern objective science and at the same time preserves at least the appearance of religious sovereignty, if not in solving, then at least in highlighting and posing fundamental scientific problems. And since the idea of development has proved disastrous for bourgeois social thought, including for religious studies and, in particular, for genetic religious studies , the search for a new concept is accompanied by attacks on the idea of development.

The theoretical pillars of modern bourgeois religious studies are A. Toynbee and C. Jung, the first in the field of sociology, the second in the field of psychology. Toynbee asserts that a certain transcendent goal or divine idea manifests and realizes itself in history, and that this is precisely why the actual content of any qi is-

31 Items. Teilhard Chardin. The phenomenon of man, Moscow, 1965, p. 21.

32 Ibid., p. 217.

33 Ibid., p. 27.

34 I. Salleron. La pensee de P. Teilhard de Chardin. P. 1958, p. 12; "Syntheses", 1960, N 169 - 170, p. 353.

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basically, the basis of culture is religion. Toynbee counted about twenty civilisations, or civilised societies, which at various times arose, flourished, and collapsed. It puts them in the following order: Sinai, Minoan, Sumerian, Mayan, Indian, Syriac, Hellenic, Far Eastern (Korea and Japan), Russian (Orthodox), Hittite, Mexican, Iranian, Western, Far Eastern (main part), Hindu, Arabic, Orthodox Christian (main part), Babylonian. Toynbee contrasts these civilized societies with primitive uncivilized societies. He describes "the difference between civilizations and primitive societies", seeing the main feature of primitive societies in their huge numerical superiority over civilized societies. According to him, in 1915 three well-known Western European anthropologists compiled a list of primitive societies, including 650 objects. However, this list is far from complete, because, according to Toynbee, we do not know a huge number of primitive societies, even by name. Toynbee likens civilized societies to elephants, and primitive societies to rabbits. And while there are legions of primitive societies, he goes on to argue, they are relatively short-lived, limited to relatively narrow geographical spaces, and include a relatively small number of people. But as soon as a social religion appears, primitive societies are consolidated and a civilization, a civilized society, is formed. "Our first criterion (for the emergence of civilization ) is the emergence of a social religion," 35 Toynbee writes. Of course, the question of who creates a religion does not exist for Toynbee: in his opinion, it arises by itself, according to a transcendental plan.

Confining ourselves to what has been said about the general historical concept of Toynbee, we refer the reader to the article by E. A. Kosminsky, where this issue is considered in detail 36 . But in the days when E. A. Kosminsky was writing his article, a new work by Toynbee was published - "A Historical Approach to Religion", which, of course, was not considered in this article. Therefore, we consider it necessary to focus on the characterization of this work by Toynbee.

In the new book, which is an edited transcript of lectures delivered by the author at the University of Edinburgh in 1952 and 1953, Toynbee gives the quintessence of his religious and mystical concept of the historical process. This book should not be called "A Historical Approach to Religion", but" A Religious Approach to History", which would more accurately express its essence. Toynbee declares that the emergence of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam is "the epiphany of the higher religions." At the same time, he speaks in favor of Schmidt's concept, which has already been discussed, and according to which the so-called "higher religions" with their monotheistic faith are not an innovation or, so to speak, an invention of a higher culture, but are the revival of some original, sought-after faith of the first people, instilled in them by divine revelation in full accordance with the testimony of the " Book genesis" of the biblical canon. In order to discredit the search of primitive historians for more and more reliable evidence of the irreligious spiritual life of the earliest human societies, Toynbee categorically rejects the very possibility of studying primitive society and its ideology.

35 A. Toynbee. A Study of History. Vol. I. L. 1930, pp. 132, 148, 149, 183.

36 E. A. Kosminsky. The Historiosophy of Arnold Toynbee. Voprosy Istorii, 1957, No. 1.

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According to him, primitive man is inaccessible and impenetrable to study 37 .

The second theoretical pillar of modern genetic religious studies in the West is student Z. Freud - C. G. Jung, the founder of the so-called depth psychology. Jung discusses the genetic problems of religion in several treatises38 . We will only touch on Jung's relevant statements in his treatises On Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious and Psychology and Religion.

Of course, Jung as a philosopher is unacceptable to us, because Jung's philosophy is mysticism and idealism, it is an apology for religion. But there is also Jung, a psychiatrist, experimenter, and observer who has extensive experience in the study and treatment of psychoses, including religious psychoses. From this point of view, Jung is interesting for science. He believes that the human psyche is a kind of unity (complex) of two components: conscious and unconscious; in turn, the unconscious consists of a personal unconscious and a collective unconscious. The most profound and powerful layer in man is the collective unconscious, in the sense that in modern man psychic experiences and experiences that have long since passed away continue to exist latently .39 According to him, these long-forgotten forms of psychic life break through in the actions of the neurotic and in the dreams of the healthy person.

Jung's observations and judgments are not objectionable in themselves. In other terms, but essentially the same, I. P. Pavlov describes the mental structure of a person 40". But the conclusions of Jung and Pavlov are diametrically opposed. If Pavlov concludes that the soul as an immaterial substance exists only in the imagination of mystics and that the psychic, in general, is a function of the material, then Jung asserts something quite different. He's writing: "It's a ridiculous prejudice to assume that you can only exist physically." "We could firmly say,"he concludes," that, on the contrary, physical existence is simply our conclusion. " 41
What arguments does Jung use to justify his idealistic concept of the soul? He cites numerous facts of personal psychotherapy practice, which, in his opinion, testify in favor of his concept, describes cases when deep physiological and mental disorders were cured "in one moment by simple confession" 42 . Without being able to go into a detailed discussion of the subject here, we will point out that numerous facts that characterize the enormous power of psychotherapy, and in particular and in particular suggestion and autosuggestion, were widely known long before Jung. They are described by Soviet authors even in popular publications, hypnosis is widely used by Soviet doctors. But no one comes to the conclusion on the basis of these facts that the soul exists as an immaterial substance .43
37 A. Toynbee. An Historian's Approach to Religion. L. 1956, pp. 20, 77.

38 C. G. Yung. Zur Psychologie und Pathologie sogenannten okkulten Phanomene. Zurich. 1902; ejusd. Uber die Archetypen des kollektiven Unbewussten. Zurich. 1934; ejusd. Uber die Archetypen. L. 1937; ejusd. Psychologie und Religion. Basel. 1937; ejusd. Antwort auf Hiob. Basel. 1952.

39 C. G. Yung. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. The Selected Works. Vol. IX. Part. I, L. 1959, pp. 3 - 4.

40 I. P. Pavlov. A test of physiological understanding of the symptomology of hysteria, L. 1932, pp. 30-34.

41 S. G. Yung. Psychology and Religion. L. 1955, p. 11.

42 Op. cit., p. 10.

43 See V. E. ROZHNOV, M. A. Rozhnova. Hypnosis and "miraculous healings", Moscow, 1960; L. L. Vasiliev. Suggestion at a distance. M. 1962; his. Mysterious phenomena of the human psyche, Moscow, 1964.

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Jung's views on the" archetypes of the soul " are profoundly mystical. In Jung's words, there is "something spiritual" besides the material world. This is a single and common layer for all mankind (the"collective unconscious"), from which human souls, spiritual individualities originate. In special situations, these deep "soul archetypes" manifest themselves in the mentally ill, in the child, in the artist, in the mystic. Jung emphasizes that the term "soul archetype" he adopted is not his invention, but has a long literary tradition dating back to antiquity. According to him, the "archetype of the soul" coincides with the concept of "the image of God in man" in the writings of Philo of Alexandria and with Plato's eidos .44
Jung claims that the psychic basis of the primary religion and religion in general is supposedly numinosum. This term, which has many meanings, is used by Jung in the sense that it is human nature to worship and worship, " to believe and trust, to be guided in actions and intentions by the highest moral motives." But in reality, the psychological characteristics of a religious individual listed by Jung are not necessarily a feature of religion at all; these characteristics (worship, trust, moral purity) can be (and indeed are) also properties of an atheist. A pious atheist, that is, a highly noble, modest, decent person, as D. Diderot has already shown, 46 is a very real phenomenon. Soviet society-an atheist society-proves this on a massive scale, as even bourgeois moralists admit .47 The basis of religion is not numinosum, but the belief in the duality of the world.

Jung argues that "religion is unquestionably the earliest and most universal activity of the human mind" and that "religion is not only a sociological or historical phenomenon, but also something very significant in the personal character of a large number of individuals." 48 Jung, of course, is wrong about the immemorial and universal nature of religion. The fact that religion is by no means the primary form of human spiritual life is proved by Marxism with sufficient evidence. In the history of mankind there was a very long non-religious (pre-religious) era. Knowledge, morality, and the beginnings of an aesthetic attitude to reality arose before religion and independently of it.

Toynbee's mystical sociology and Jung's equally mystical "deep psychology" form the basis on which modern bourgeois genetic religious studies are based. They are used to construct new theories of the origin of religion, trying to reconcile the creationist concept with the latest scientific achievements. There are at least two such theories: prateistic and entelechic. Clearly influenced by Jung's ideas, a prateistic theory of the origin of religion is being developed. This theory is an elastic version of Schmidt's proto-monotheistic theory. The essence of the prateistic theory boils down to the fact that its proponents, avoiding solving the problem of a specific form of primary religion and any definite dating of its origin, only assert that faith in the divine and striving for the divine is the original property of man, that it forms the deepest and most intimate layer in the human psyche. Most expressive

44 C. G. Yung. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, pp. 4, 5 - 11.

45 C. G. Yung. Psychology and Religion, pp. 6 - 7.

46 D. Diderot. Additions to the "Journey of Bougainville". Selected atheistic Works, Moscow, 1956, pp. 182-183.

47 P. Sloan. The Ethical Code in Soviet Russia. "The Humanist", 1962, N 3, p. 240.

48 C. G. Yung. Psychology and Religion, p. 1.

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The prateistic theory, which is at the stage of being formed, is presented in the already mentioned article by K. Kropotkin. Klostermeier, who asserts that faith in "a transcendent reality, the divine" is the eternal, deepest ability of man, which cannot be said about unbelief and atheism49.

It is easy to see that the basis of the prateistic theory is the presumption of religion. The presumptive nature of the original thesis makes criticism of the entire construction more difficult at the level of everyday consciousness. Apparently, the main point of the search of P. Shebesta's group is precisely to make the theory of religion so scientific that, on the one hand, it does not come into striking contradictions with the data of modern science, and on the other, it retains at least the appearance of a positive content of theology. The obscurantist nature of these attempts is obvious.

The author of the entelechic theory is Professor of the University of Amsterdam, editor-in-chief of the journal Numen, President of the IAHR K. Bleeker. Since 1954, that is, for 16 years, he has been persistently developing and proclaiming his theory .50 Referring the reader to an article on entelechic theory published in the journal Voprosy Filosofii [Voprosy Filosofii], 51 we will confine ourselves to a very brief description of it.

According to Bleecker, he accepts "historical laws formulated by A. J. Toynbee"as the sociological basis of his theory. 52 On the other hand, in entelechic theory, the influence of Jung's panpsychic concept is quite obvious. Entelechic theory in general can be reduced to the following propositions. First, religion has a supposedly hidden essence that is unknowable; this essence is the " entelechy of religious phenomena." Second, religion develops purposefully, teleologically, and is the essence of the historical process and human culture; it is the entelechic " creative power of the spirit." Third, religion is the eternal friend and most reliable companion of man, and in its innermost essence is eternal and indestructible. Fourth, the cult of " evil spirits "("Satanism") is not a religion at all, but a"delusion of man". It is easy to see that the ideological basis of this theory is the most trivial mysticism.

The search for new, elastic concepts of religion is a significant phenomenon of modern bourgeois social thought. Bourgeois society is alarmed by the catastrophic decline in the prestige of religions and the loss of the "religious and moral ideal"by the masses. But the time has long passed for the success of such research. This is a magnificent epoch of the liberation of mankind from all religions and mysticism of any kind: the scientific, communist worldview becomes the social consciousness of all working humanity.

49 "Ursprung der Religion", S. 241.

50 C. Bleeker. The Relation of the History of Religions to Kindred Sciences, Particularly Theology, Sociology of Religion, Psychology of Religion and Phenomenology of Religion. "Numen", 1954, vol. 1, N 2; ejusd. Some Remarcs on the Entelecheia of the Religious Phenomena. "Scritti in onore di Giuseppe Furlani". Part II. Roma. 1957; ejusd. The Future Task of the History of Religions. "Numen", 1960, vol. VII, N 2 - 3; ejusd. The Pattern of the Ancient Egyptian Culture. "Numen", 1964, vol. XI, N 1; ejusd. Guilt and Purification in Ancient Egypt. "Numen", 1966, vol. XIII, N 2.

51 V. F. Zybkovets. On the entelechic concept of religion. Voprosy Filosofii, 1965, No. 7.

52 C. Bleeker. Some Remarcs on the Entelecheia, p. 704.

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