Regarding beauty, Freud writes that psychoanalysis has the least to say; Adorno also criticizes the lack of a concept of how art should be understood psychoanalytically. Based on the innovative concept of kinesthetic semantics, the author presents a psychoanalytic aesthetics that interprets the arts through a unifying theory. Engaging with philosophy and ritual theory, it demonstrates how art transforms the consciousness state of the recipient and creates the characteristic, transformative intoxication associated with artistic encounters. Starting from specific analyses in the fields of music, painting, and poetry, the mechanisms of the aesthetic are revealed, which can also be applied to the mass culture of film or product design.