Man has a great need for mad, subconscious processes to come into play, without unleashing them to the extent that they become socially destructive - as they do in modern 'equivalents' such as drug-taking and group violence. However, there is an increasing absence of carnivals, dancing in the streets and other forms of public fantasy in modern 'sophisticated' cities and centres of population.
In primitive societies, such outlets were provided by rites, with doctors and shamans. In Western civilization, circuses, fairs and carnivals played their part in community life. All over the earth, people once danced in the streets, as they still do in Bali, where street dancers fall into a whirling trance. In Mexico, every town still has several squares where the mariachi bands play and the neighbourhood comes out to dance. And in Japan, there is the bon odori festival where everybody claps and dances in the streets. But in those parts of the world where people have become 'modern' and technically sophisticated, such practices are dying out. Communities are fragmented; people are uncomfortable in the streets, and there is general embarrassment.