The book gives a popular version of the concept of the origin of religion, based on archaeological findings and ideas in the field of paleo-anthropology contemporary for the author.
The author kept the extremely ancient (traced back to classic theories) idea of the personification of natural forces as one of the most important factors of shaping the beliefs in spirits and gods. He also based on the Marxist doctrine of the social and economical formation. In general, N. tells about the origin and development of religious beliefs from the rites and Neanderthal funerals, and the cave art – till the shaping of polytheism.
The author used typical ideological cliché of his epoch: ‘powerless wild man in his struggle against nature’, ‘priests’ lie on the innate religious feeling’, and he put a special attention to the social role of religion. At that, the author was longing to demonstrate a connection between the religious concepts and rites of primordial people and the distant past.