BSTC 1003

Lecture Notes 7

Psychological Approaches to Studying

Religion:
Sigmund Freud and Religion

G. A. Somaratne
HKU
2023
 Functionalist approach to religion
[mostly
psychological/sociological
Functionalist theorists
origins = how in human
attempt to explain religion by
history, religion arises in
showing its “origin”.
response to certain
individual/group needs]

They look beneath or behind As they claim, certain

the conscious thoughts of underlying social structures
religious people to find or unnoticed psychological
something deeper and pressures are the real cause
hidden. of religious behaviour.

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 Freud’s psychoanalytic approach to Religion

From childhood onward a Religion is very similar to a

Freud sees resemblance between
neurotic person passes through neurosis. Neurotic people believe
the activities of religious people
stages of early trauma, defence, and do irrational things; religious
and the behaviours of his
latency, outbreak of neurosis, and people also believe and do
neurotic patients.
return of the repressed. irrational things.

A nun who spends hours at

devotions moving her prayer
beads and a neurotic who spends
hours counting the buttons on his
shirt are both engaged in the
same form of behaviour.
Prayer is an abnormal behaviour
– it arises not from rational Religion is the universal
motives but from irrational ones obsessional neurosis of humanity.
located in the unconscious.

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 Freud on religion
Why does religion persist
even when it has been
discredited by science or
philosophy?
Religion is best seen as an
obsessional neurosis.
Believers would not give up
their faith because it has
been proved irrational.
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The real and ultimate source
of religion’s appeal is not the
rational mind but the
unconscious.
This is like a neurotic who
would not give up
continuous handwashing
because someone has
pointed out that his hands
are already quite clean.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
Religion arises from
emotions and conflicts that
originate early in childhood
and lie deep beneath the
rational, normal surface of
the personality.
The normal causes we see
on the surface of things are
not the real causes of the
behaviour.
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Functionalist reductionism
Once psychoanalysis has
Religion arises only in
scientifically resolved such
response to deep emotional
Freud is a psychological problems, the illusion of
conflicts and weaknesses
functionalist or reductionist. religion quite naturally
which are the true and
disappears from the human
fundamental causes.
scene.

Religion can be reduced to a

collection of ideas and
Freud claims not just to
beliefs that turn out to be
explain religion but to
illusory wish fulfilments
explain it away.
generated by the
unconscious.

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 Freud and Religion
He had also developed a useful
In childhood, Freud had gained a
working knowledge of
From his psychoanalysis, Freud basic acquaintance with the
Christianity, drawn from his life in
found religion a most promising teachings of Judaism. He knew
Catholic Vienna and his wide
subject of study. well the stories and writings of
reading in the history and
the Hebrew Bible.
literature of Western civilization.

His personal stance, however,

was one of complete rejection of
Further, religious ideas, imagery, Freud found no reason to believe
religious belief. The biographer
and parallels figured prominently in God. Therefore, he saw no
tells: “he went through life from
in the neuroses of some of his value or purpose in the rituals of
beginning to end a natural
first patients. religious life. *
atheist.”* [Jones, Life and Work of
Freud, 3: 351]

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 Why does religion persist?
Freud’s approach to religion is quite
the opposite of that of the
believers.
The believers claim that they
believe because
• God has spoken to them through the Bible,
• a divinity has touched their hearts,
• or what their church or synagogue teaches is
the truth.
Freud is quite sure that religious
ideas do not come from a God or
gods, for gods do not exist;
nor do such beliefs come from the
sort of sound thinking about the
world that normally leads to truth.

but they raise important questions

For Freud, religious beliefs are
surely erroneous and are
superstitions,
about human nature:
• Why, if they are so obviously false, do so
many people persist in holding these beliefs, Freud finds the answers to these
and with such deep conviction? questions in psychoanalysis.
• If religion is not rational, how do people
acquire it?
• And why do they keep it?

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 Activities of religious people and the behaviors of
neurotic patients
In it, he discusses a close
In 1907, Freud wrote an
resemblance between the
article titled: “Obsessive
activities of religious people
Actions and Religious
and the behaviours of his
Practices”.
neurotic patients.

Both place great emphasis

on doing things in a
patterned, ceremonial
fashion. Both feel guilty
unless they follow the rules
of their rituals to perfection.
In both cases, the
ceremonies are associated
with the repression of basic
instincts.

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 Activities of religious people and the behaviors of
neurotic patients
Sexual repression results in an
Psychological neuroses arise
individual obsessional
from repression of the sex
neurosis. Similarly, religion
drive. Religion demands
practiced widely by humans
repression of selfishness,
could be “a universal
control of the ego-instinct.
obsessional neurosis.” [p. 126]

Religious behaviour resembles

This comparison suggests a
mental illness. Accordingly, the
theme that is fundamental to
concepts most suited to
everything Freud writes on
explaining religion are those
religion.
developed by psychoanalysis.

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 Three books
taking this basic
approach
Freud writes three
(psychoanalytic
books on religion,
explanation of religion)
in distinctive ways.

and notice the pattern

Let us give some
of psychoanalytic
consideration to each
explanation.

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 Totem and Taboo (1913)
This book presents a
psychological interpretation of
the life of primitive peoples.
We find clues to the personality
of individual adults in their earlier
character as children.
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It shows the influence of
evolutionary thinking:
• the Darwin’s theory of biological
evolution
• and the general ideas of intellectual and
social evolution.
Similarly, we find in the character
of past cultures important clues
to the nature of civilization in the
present.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
We have evolved not only
physically but also intellectually.
Over the ages, our social
institutions have traced an
upward line of progress.
The past includes our civilized
ancestors (like the Greeks and
Romans) as well as prehistoric
cultures and peoples (those
communities of humans who first
descended from their animal
ancestors).
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The use of animal totems and the custom of taboo

Freud turns to
(1) The use of (2) The custom of
two practices of
animal “totems”: “taboo”:
primitive peoples:

A tribe or clan chooses to

Some person or thing is
associate itself with a
called “taboo” if a tribe
specific animal (or plant),
wants to declare it “off
which serves as its sacred
limits” or forbidden.
object, its “totem.”

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 Taboos
(1) No incest.
• Marriage must always be
Most early societies have “exogamous” (outside the
strictly prohibited two immediate family or clan).
things: • Among primitives there is a “horror
of incest.”
(2) No killing or eating of the
totem animal.
• Except on certain rare ceremonial
occasions (when this rule was
solemnly broken), eating the
“totem” was “taboo.”

But if so, why make them

What is the point in making
taboos (in publicly
disallowing these things),
unless people wanted to do
them?
crimes in the first place?
Evidently, these are crimes
Why make everyone
that people did try to
miserable by creating rules
commit.
that no one really wanted to
keep?

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Religious behaviour from the intellectual
standpoint
Human religious behaviour It also demonstrates a
Their rites of “taboo” and
represents a conscious effort failure to reason correctly.
rituals of totemism cannot
to use reason to understand Religious people try to be
achieve what they suppose.
the world. rational but fail.

The personalities of both

If it is a mistake to believe in
disturbed and normal
totems and taboos, why They want to do certain
people alike are strongly
should anyone continue to things, and at the same time
marked by ambivalence—by
do so? Freud finds the they do not.
the clash of powerful
answer in the unconscious.
opposing desires.

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Guilt and hate
The neurotic person
Yet on probing the unconscious, unconsciously wants the parent
Obsessively neurotic people will
Freud finds: What causes their to die. Yet—once the death has
feel extreme grief when a loved
emotion is not love but guilt and occurred—he/she goes on to
one (a father or mother) dies.
hate. feel intense guilt for having
harboured such a terrible wish.

In their use of magic, too, they

To cope with the stress, the
Tribal peoples show this trait, imagine that the world is just an
neurotic may even project onto
thinking of their dead ancestors extension of their own selves. By
the dead person certain negative
as demons, or “wicked spirits,” thinking about the sound of
characteristics, so that the death
who deserve their hate. thunder and imitating it, they
wish will seem justified.
suppose they can make real rain.

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 A psychic ambivalence
The first human beings were
The practices of totemism and
living (like their animal
taboo in primitive cultures Within these groups there were
ancestors of apes) in “primal
inform a psychic ambivalence loyalty, affection, and security
hordes”—extended families of
(human emotions) in the against danger.
women and children dominated
earliest age of humanity.
by one powerful male.

The young males sexually

For the young males, there was
also frustration and envy.
But they had to suppress their
desired the females, all of
desires as they feared and
whom were their father’s
wives. respected their father.

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 Thou shalt not kill
Torn between their need for
In a fearsome turn of events
the security of the horde
(which undoubtedly the sons banded together
and their suppressed sexual
occurred many times in and murdered their father.
urges, they were at length
different hordes),
driven to a fateful act.

Since they were cannibals, and proceeded to take

they consumed his body, possession of his wives.

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Thou shalt not kill
At first this primeval murder
in the horde brought a sense
of joy and liberation, but
grave second thoughts soon
followed.
Before it, they swore the
oldest of all taboos: “Thou
shalt not kill the totem.”
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Wanting desperately to
restore the father they had
The sons were overcome killed, they found in the
with guilt and remorse. totem animal a “father
substitute” and symbol and
agreed to worship it.
Over time, this rule was
generalized to the entire
“Thou shalt not kill,” the first
clan and became the
moral rule of the humans.
universal commandment
against all murder:
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003 18
Thou shalt not take thy father’s wives
The same powerful feelings The sons regretted their
The sons agreed to a
of remorse led quickly to act and recognized that
second commandment:
the second taboo—the seizing the father’s wives
“Thou shalt not take thy
commandment against would only create new
father’s wives.”
incest. conflict among themselves.

that lay behind the

In order to live together, These prehistoric
mythical “social contract”
the sons had to agree to agreements of the brothers
which philosophers call the
find any new wives only may have been the real
foundation of human
“outside the clan.” events
society.

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 Totem Sacrifice
Freud explains the first taboo
referring to “totem sacrifice.”
From the standpoint of
psychoanalysis, the totem sacrifice
makes sense only as a deeply
emotional ceremony in which the
community re-enacts the primeval
murder of the first father, who,
through death, has now become its
god.
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Normally the totem’s life was sacred.
However, there were certain sacred
occasions on which the pattern was
reversed.
In the ritual, the sons publicly
reaffirm their love for him
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
The totem animal then was killed and
consumed by all in a ritual feast.
and quite unconsciously also release
the hate caused by the sexual
renunciation they now endure. *
[Totem and Taboo, in Standard
Edition, 13: 132–42]
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Totem sacrifice
The original murder of the
father was a crime,
committed in the childhood
of the human race.
Out of jealous desire for
their father’s wives (a desire
for their own mothers),
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It is the acting out in history
The brothers’ assault upon
of the powerful, double
their father is in essence the
human emotions that
crime of Oedipus enacted
converge in every male’s
thousands of years before
infancy to form the Oedipus
the story.
complex.
the first sons committed a To the human race, these
murder which was followed extraordinary events have
by a great ritual of remorse left a legacy of profound
and affection. emotional ambivalence.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003 21
Totem sacrifice
On the level of conscious
By projection, they give him They offer him their worship
activity, the members of the
the status of divinity and by eating the totem flesh
tribe identify the animal in
confess that they are all and chaining their sexual
the totem sacrifice with
children. desire.
their dead father.

However, on the deeper The ritual by its very nature and thereby releases the
plane of the unconscious, recreates their original deed frustration and hate that
they express quite the of rebellious murder and arise from the ongoing
opposite emotions. cannibalism, denial of their oedipal urges.

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 Christian Communion from the psychoanalytic perspective

In the communion, the flesh and

Seen in this light, a modern blood of Christ, God’s son
Like the ancient totem ritual, it
sacrament like the Christian (symbolizing the eldest brother,
re-enacts, and seeks to reverse,
communion shows its true leader of the rebellion) are
the original crime of humanity.
character. eaten in remembrance of his
crucifixion

Since the father and son are

On behalf of his brothers, Christ
(a death suffered as punishment
atones for their prehistoric
for the “original sin” of the
crime. Yet the atonement is also
primeval rebellion).
re-enactment.
one, the sacrament of the son’s
death is symbolically in the
same moment the sacrament of
the father’s murder. Thus, the
communion secretly recalls
oedipal hate as well as love.

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 The origin of religion
A long process of evolution stands
between the totem rites of early
cannibals and the communion meal
of Christianity.
The birth of belief is to be found in
the Oedipus complex, in the
powerful, divided emotions that led
humanity to its first great crime,
then turned a murdered father into
a god and promised sexual
renunciation as a way to serve him.
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Over time, the totem animal was
reduced to a simple sacrificial gift.
• Its place was taken first by animal-human
deities, later by the gods of polytheism, and
finally by the father God of Christianity. But
these are details.
“Totemic religion arose from the
filial sense of guilt, in an attempt to
allay that feeling and appease the
father by deferred obedience to
him.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
Freud’s main concern is to show the
striking connection between
present-day religion and the dark
ceremonies of the primitive past.
These grim events and deep
psychological tensions reveal the
origin of religion.
All later religions are seen to be
attempts at solving the same
problem.” *[Totem and Taboo, in
Standard Edition, 13: 145]
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 Totem and taboo as the foundation of civilization
For Freud, the murder in the
prehistoric herd is an event
of momentous importance
in the history of human
social life.
Taken together, totem and
taboo thus form the very
foundation of all that has
come to be called
civilization.
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In the incest taboo—the
agreement to protect the
In the powerful emotions it
clan in its aftermath—we
produced, we find the origin
can see the origin of
of religion.
morality and the social
contract.
[Freud’s this book, Totem
and Taboo, met with
Christian critics found the
approval from his associates
book particularly insulting.]
in psychoanalysis but with
outrage from everyone else.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003 25
The Future of an Illusion (1927)
14 years later, Freud The Future of an Illusion
Totem and Taboo looks
returned to the subject considers religion in the
backward into the
of religion in The Future present and looks
prehistoric past.
of an Illusion (1927). ahead.

It centres on the It puts a focus on ideas

“manifest motives” of and beliefs—
religion in all places and particularly belief in
times. God.

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The battle between nature and culture
Human life has arisen, or
evolved, out of the natural
world, an arena that is not
necessarily friendly to our
enterprises.
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Though it has produced our
species, nature constantly
threatens also to destroy us
through predators, disasters,
disease, or physical decline.
Through it we gain security,
but at a price.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
For protection, we have
joined into clans and
communities, thereby
creating what we call
civilization.
27
The battle between nature and culture
We must restrain our instincts,
We cannot just kill when anger compensating ourselves with
Society can survive only if we
seizes us, take what we do not other satisfactions we can hope
bend our personal desires to its
own, or satisfy sexual desires as to find in, say, the joys of art
rules and restraints.
we want. and leisure or the ties of family,
community, and nation.

In the battle between nature

Yet even with these sacrifices
and comforts, civilization
cannot fully protect us.
In the face of disease and
and culture, nature’s laws of
death, we are all ultimately
decay and death will always
helpless. finally win.

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Childhood security

Then there was always a

None of us finds this We would rather face
father to reassure us
unhappy truth easy to things as we did in the
against the dangers of
accept; it runs counter to sunnier days of our
the storm and the
all we treasure most. childhood.
darkness of the night.

As adults, we all continue

Then there was always a
to crave that childhood The voice of religion
voice of strength to say
security, though in reality makes us think that
that all would be well in
we can no longer have it. indeed we can.
the end.
Or can we?

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 Projection onto the external world a God
Following the childhood pattern,
religious belief projects onto the
external world a God
In the eyes of such faith, even death
loses its sting:
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who through his power (1) dispels
the terrors of nature, (2) gives us
comfort in the face of death, and (3)
rewards us for accepting the moral
restrictions imposed by civilization.
We can be certain that our immortal
spirits will one day be released from
our bodies and live on with God.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
Religion claims: “over each one of us
there watches a benevolent
providence which … will not suffer us
to become a plaything of the
overmighty and pitiless forces of
nature.” *[Freud, The Future of an
Illusion, in Standard Edition, 21: 19]
In denying our desires, we not only
help society but also obey the
eternal laws of a just and righteous
Lord.
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 Belief in God is an illusion [not delusion]
An illusion is not the same as a
delusion.
Freud is not here calling belief in
God as Father a delusion; in fact, he
calls it an illusion.
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An illusion is a belief whose main
characteristic is that we very much
want it to be true.
• My belief that I am destined for greatness
would be a case in point.
• It could turn out someday to be true, but
that is not why I hold it.
• I hold it because I strongly wish it to be true.
“To assess the truth-value of
religious doctrines does not lie
within the scope of the present
enquiry.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
Delusion is something I may also
want to be true but which everyone
else knows is not, and perhaps
never could be so.
• If I were to claim that I will one day be 8 feet
tall (which, being now fully grown, I most
certainly will not), I would be holding to a
delusion.
It is enough for us that we have
recognized them as being, in their
psychological nature, illusions.”*
• *[The Future of an Illusion, in Standard
Edition, 21: 33]
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 Religious teachings are the strongest and most urgent
wishes of the human beings

nor are they logical

Religious teachings are not
truths revealed by God,
They are ideas whose main
conclusions based on
feature is that we dearly
scientifically confirmed
want them to be true.
evidence.

The secret of their strength

They are “fulfilments of the lies in the strength of those
oldest, strongest and most wishes.”*
urgent wishes of mankind. • *[The Future of an Illusion, in
Standard Edition, 21: 30]

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 Religious beliefs are in the end delusions
Religious beliefs are teachings
For Freud, the distinction we have no right to believe
Even if they cannot be
between “illusion” and because they cannot pass the
absolutely proved to be such,
“delusion” comes to very little. test of the scientific method
religious beliefs are in the end
It hardly makes a difference • (which is the only way we have of
delusions.
which term we use. reliably telling us what is true and
what is not).

It is the habit of believers to Hence, we ought never to put

draw on nothing more than our trust in religion, even if its
personal feelings and intuitions, teachings can be shown to have
and these are notorious for provided certain services for
being often mistaken. humanity in the past.

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Religion’s contribution to the growth of civilization
Certainly, the early totem
At times, religious beliefs
made a contribution,
may have been of some
through its role in the
small assistance in the
denunciation of murder and
growth of civilization.
incest.
We do not want to build
But civilization is now
today’s society on such
mature and established.
superstition and repression.
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Later religion did its part
when these and similar
crimes were discouraged by
presenting them as offenses
deserving of punishment in
Hell.
It is like we do not want to
force grown men and
women to obey the rules of
behaviour that we lay down
for children.
34
Religious teachings are those suitable to the childhood
of the human civilization
In the earlier history of
Religious teachings are
humanity (“the times of its like an episode of neurosis
beliefs and rules suitable to
ignorance and intellectual that individuals pass
the childhood of the
weakness”), religion was through in their childhood.
human race.
inescapable,

However, when there is a

failure to overcome the
traumas and repressions of
earlier life and the neurosis
persists into adulthood,
then psychoanalysis knows
The same is true for the
that the personality is in
growth of civilization.
disorder.

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Religion is the universal obsessional neurosis of
humanity
Religion that persists into
the present age of human
history can only be a sign of
illness;
like the obsessional
neuroses of children, it
arose out of the Oedipus
Complex, out of the relation
to the father.
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to begin to leave it behind is
the first signal of health.
If this view is right, it is to be
supposed that a turning-
away from religion is bound
to occur with the fatal
inevitability of a process of
growth,
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
“Religion would thus be the
universal obsessional
neurosis of humanity;
and that we find ourselves
at this very juncture in the
middle of that phase of
development.”*
• * [The Future of an Illusion, in
Standard Edition, 21: 43]
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 Religion must be discarded
and we may now argue
It is best “to view that the time has
religious teachings ... as probably come, as it
neurotic relics, does in an analytic
treatment,
for replacing the effects
of repression by the
results of the rational
operation of the
intellect.”*

As humanity grows into not by superstition and

Mature people allow faith.
adult life, it must discard
their lives to be guided
religion and replace it • * [The Future of an Illusion, in
by reason and by
with forms of thought Standard Edition, 21: 44]
science,
suitable to maturity.

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 Presented in a dialogue format
The critic insists
• (1) that it is wrong to talk of religion as
The Future of an Illusion in its arising merely from our emotional needs, In one of these objections, Freud
dialogue format answers the • (2) that religion ought to be believed on is asked why he seems to have
objections of an imaginary critic the basis of tradition, and changed his theme since Totem
who takes the side of religion. • (3) that if religion is discarded as the and Taboo.
ground for morals, society will collapse
into violence and chaos.

His answer was: That book was

also about the origin of religion,
but its subject was totemism and
Has the theory now changed?
the father-son relationship; this
one talks mainly about human
helplessness.

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God is an image, an illusion
Freud’s answer to the question (Has
the theory now changed?) is
instructive:
in the face of nature’s crushing
power, they will always be as weak
as children and in need of a loving
Father to defend them.
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Totem and Taboo explored only one
element of what goes into religion:
the two-sided feeling of both love
for and fear of the father who ruled
the primeval horde.
Still, whatever the motives, the
result in Freud’s eyes is always the
same:
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
The Future of an Illusion explores
“the other, less deeply concealed
part”: the realization of adults that
The God whom people call upon in
prayer is not a being who belongs
to reality; he is an image, an illusion
projected outward from the self
and onto the external world out of
the deep need to overcome our
guilt or allay our fears.
39
Moses and Monotheism
Freud’s interest in religion did
not end with The Future of an
Illusion.
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In a series of essays
At the very end of his career,
undertaken between 1934 and
he returned to the subject for
1938, he focused his attention
one final effort—writing this
on the figure of Moses,
time on Judaism, his own
examining his foundational
religious tradition.
role in Jewish life and thought.
These essays were then
brought together in a single
volume and published in the
year of his death under the
title Moses and Monotheism.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003 40
Was Moses really a Hebrew?
This book presents a set of
new claims about certain
events in religious history, in
particular Jewish history.
But how do we know Moses
was really a Hebrew?
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The Bible presents Moses as
It shows how the concepts
and comparisons drawn
from psychoanalysis can
help to explain them.
A close look at the texts
reveals that Moses was an
Egyptian prince, a ruler and
follower of the radical
Pharaoh Akhenaton
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
the great Hebrew prophet
who inspired the Israelites
by his leadership and
shaped their lives by giving
them the God’s law.
who tried to replace the
worship of many gods of
ancient Egypt with a strict
devotion to one and only
one deity—the sun god
Aten.
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The worship of Aten

It stressed a purely spiritual

The worship of Aten god of love and goodness, When Akhenaton died, his
employed neither images who was also revered as new religion failed in Egypt,
nor superstitious rituals. the strong guardian of an but not entirely.
eternal moral law.

He united them behind the

One of those who kept it
Moses adopted the Hebrew new faith, and with great
alive was this same man,
slaves as his people. courage led them out of
Moses.
their captivity.

21/3/2023 G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003 42

 The worship of Yahweh
Later, buffeted by their
Initially those who
misfortunes in the
followed Moses They renounced his god
desert, Moses’ chosen
prospered under his and put him to death.
people rebelled against
leadership.
his leadership.

His monotheistic religion the god whom Israelites

was then overlaid by a worshipped as they
new cult dedicated to a fought their bloody
violent, volcano-deity battles to win the Land
named Yahweh, of Promise.

21/3/2023 G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003 43

The new religion
Later, in writing their scriptures,
Jewish scribes attached the name
of Moses also to the founder of
this second faith.
with the rituals, superstitions,
and bloody animal sacrifices we
find in Israel during the age of the
great Hebrew kings.
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However, this sleight of hand
could not disguise the differences
between the new religion and the
earlier monotheism of the
original Moses, their first and
true spiritual leader.
Degraded as it appears to us, the
new religion managed almost
completely to push out the old,
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
The new faith replaced the pure
spirituality and morals of the old
leaving behind little more than a
faint memory of the original
Moses and his faith.
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Worship of the one universal God of Moses
Yet that is not where the story
ends.
Their words thus marked a
decisive turn that affected not
just Jewish history but the entire
world.
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Centuries later, the Israelites
found themselves face to face
with the great monotheistic
prophets (like Amos, Isaiah, and
others) who had their mission to
recover and revive the old faith of
the tribe.
For it was out of the soil of this
revived Jewish monotheism that
Christianity would rise to become
a great world religion.
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
These prophets
• (1) denounced the religion of sacrifices;
• (2) demanded worship of the one
universal God announced by the first
Moses;
• (3) called again for obedience to his stern
moral law.
From the time of the Hebrew
prophets forward, faith in the
awesome and righteous God of
Moses took its place as the
immovable centre of both Jewish
and Christian belief.
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How did a true monotheism come back to
life?
Moses was an Egyptian,
This quite extraordinary
that he was murdered, that
retelling of Hebrew history
It is not easy to find in the two persons were given his
would trouble both the
Bible any clear proof that name, or that the early
historian and the biblical
Hebrews ever had two
scholar.
different religions.

Much more interesting to

him is the mystery of how,
To Freud, all these
over many centuries, a true
problems are hardly a
monotheism was somehow
concern.
born, apparently died, and
then came back to life.

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 Religion is best conceived along the lines of a neurosis

only to revive centuries later

How can it be that the faith Theologians may be at a loss
in dramatic fashion and win
of the original Moses to answer such a question,
back the hearts and minds
virtually disappeared from but psychoanalysis certainly
of the entire Jewish
the life of his people, is not.
community?

Freud asks us to suppose And he restates his view that

once again that a parallel and what happens in history, religion is best conceived
can be found between what over a much longer time, to along the lines of a neurosis.
happens psychologically to an entire community of Those premises in place, he
an individual person over people like the Jews. proceeds to the following
the course of a life ingenious argument.

21/3/2023 G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003 47

 The stages of personal neurosis and the sequences in
the Jewish history
They start, often in early Then at a later point (often at the
childhood, with a traumatic, onset of puberty or in early
Psychoanalytic theory has clearly
disturbing event that is pushed adulthood) the irrational
demonstrated that cases of
out of memory for a time. There behaviour (which is the sign of
personal neurosis follow a
follows a period of “latency,” neurosis) suddenly makes its
familiar pattern.
when nothing shows; all seems appearance. We find that there is
normal. a “return of the repressed.”

And as we do, we can recall the

Now if these stages are indeed
points made in the earlier books Do they not fit with an almost
identifiable, we can compare
about ambivalent emotions, uncanny desire for the figure of a
them with the sequences
tribal murder, and religion as father? Do they not fit with an
discovered in the history of
childlike desire for the figure of a almost uncanny accuracy?
Judaism.
father.

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Yahweh religion of the second Moses
The powerful personality of
The message of monotheism
Moses recalled the imposing
spoke to the Jews’ natural human
figure of the first father in the
longing for a divine father.
primeval horde.
Once the murder had been
an event no less traumatic for the
committed, the Hebrew
Jews than the first murder was
community, in an act of collective
for the sons and brothers in the
repression, sought to relieve its
prehistoric human tribe.
guilt
21/3/2023 G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
His death in a desert rebellion
was a re-enactment of the
primeval murder of the great
father,
by striving to erase the entire
memory of Moses—both the
monotheism and the murder—
from community life, thus
allowing the crude Yahweh
religion of the second Moses to
take its place.
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The law of neurosis
a long period when it lay
For the true Mosaic religion, And yet the law of neurosis
submerged and almost
this was the period of its is clear: Whatever is
forgotten in the Judaic
latency, repressed must return.
communal mind.

Henceforth, pure
After centuries in eclipse,
monotheism, the religion of
the pure and ancient creed
loving devotion to the
of the founder made its
Creator and Lord of the
powerful return in the
Covenant, became again the
oracles of the prophets.
faith all Jews.

21/3/2023 G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003 50

A two-sided emotional outcome: love and fear
Even the role of Christianity
as Judaism’s successor
comes into clearer focus
once we read its history
through the eyes of
psychoanalysis.
Christianity feels the same
mix of affection and guilt
but responds by declaring
the need for atonement.
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It is clear from Totem and
Taboo that the revolt in the
primeval horde had a two-
sided emotional outcome:
love and fear.
As framed by its chief
thinker, the Jewish rabbi
Paul: Christian theology
centres not on God the
Father but on Christ the Son
and his death;
G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
Judaism recalls the urge to
idealize the Father, to make
him into a loving God and
repress the guilt left behind
by his murder.
on God who in the form of
the firstborn Son goes to his
death to atone for the
original sin committed by
the first sons in the
prehistoric horde.
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A psychoanalytic portrait of religion
Freud here offers a
psychoanalytic portrait of both
Jewish and Christian
monotheism that few
theologians or historians
would dare attempt.
These doctrines are empty
because they lie beyond any
chance of proof.
21/3/2023 G. A. Somaratne, HKU, BSTC1003
The appeal of religions lies not
in the truth of their teachings
about a god or a saviour, their
claims about miracles or a
chosen people, or their hopes
of a life after death.
The real power of religions is
to be found beyond their
doctrines, in the deep
psychological needs they fill,
and the unconscious emotions
they express.
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