Critically discuss Freud's account of the origin of religion

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Samantha Whyte        Page         3/12/2009

Critically discuss Freud’s account of the origin of religion.

Freud’s account of the origins of religion is entirely reliant on the ‘possibility that there [can] be powerful mental processes which nevertheless remain hidden from the consciousness of men’. The origins of religion are psychical and yet buried in the unconscious by man’s powers of repression. Thus religion is purely an illusory invention borne of his human desire, primitive guilt and anthropological history.

         A need to account for the origins of religion was borne of Freud’s lack of religious conviction despite his Jewish heritage that he embraced but regarded as cultural rather than metaphysical. It has been said that for Freud the emotional needs met by a belief in God or Immortality ‘found expression, first in rather vague philosophical cogitations and, and soon after in an earnest adherence to the principles of science’.

        As we shall see, it is the lack of ‘adherence to the principles of science’ in much Freud’s work that is possibly the most compelling criticism of Freud’s account of the origins of religion. Though Freud appears to remain convinced of the scientific basis for his work and always referred to himself as a reductionist. He viewed religion not as an a priori untruth but one which must be viewed with an extremely critical eye and judged solely on the basis of the evidence with which one is presented. The science of the mind and psyche was Freud’s chosen academic field and it was his firm belief that classical theism was nothing but ‘psychology projected into the eternal world…a supernatural reality, which is destined to be changed back once more by science into the psychology of the unconscious…and to transform metaphysics into metapsychology.

        Freud does not provide one single, coherent account of the origins of religions as the subject arises in a plethora of his works. However the common thread in all such works is that religion is a neurosis, a maladaptive response to the repression of Oedipal guilt. Freud notes that obsessive behaviour, what might be termed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder today, resembles acts of religious ritual. Both are compulsive acts which resolve the anxiety of the individual; the compulsive hand washing of the obesessional neurotic is no less ‘sacred’ an act than repeated Rosary recital.

        This observance, detailed in ‘Obsessive Acts and Religious Practices’ is merely an observation that the two acts resemble each other. It is not until ‘Totem and Taboo’ that the root causes of both types of behaviour is explored. Firstly, it is important to note that non-religious obsessive rituals are often used as acts of self-absolution; acts which relieve feeling of guilt for past misdemeanors and provide the neurotic with a feeling of protection from punishment. So the question becomes where does the guilt arise from that plagues the wider consciousness and drives the wider community to act with obsessive piety?

        According to Freud this arises from the incest taboo, which when observed among many ‘primitive peoples’ is often so strong that it leads to ‘exogamy’ or seeking sexual partners from outside the immediate society. This is characteristic of totemistic society where it is deeply engrained that we are all born of one common ancestor, or totem. Thus, however exogamic relationship may appear the participants ma still be plagued by incestuous guilt. So the incest taboo is present and experienced in all totemistic society but may be repressed and emerge as ‘taboo sickness’. Since unconsciously any sexual impulse is directed at sons or daughters of the totem, thus breaking the incest taboo, the unconscious requires one to perform obsessive ritual in order to absolve oneself.  This is only possible because of the human belief in the ‘Omnipotence of thoughts’. The defiance of the natural order and almost complete faith in the omnipotence of the human mind, exemplified by beliefs such as ‘If I order my room in a particular way my house will not burn down’, or ‘if I say this rosary ten times I will not be subject to any divine retribution’. Such thoughts, albeit scaled down, are  present in the psyche of most people.

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        Freud does not stop there. In the fourth essay in Totem and Taboo he discusses ‘The Return of Totemism’. This significantly contains a modification of Darwin’s primal horde theory. Darwin’s theory states that ‘the lives of primitive men mirror red those of higher apes: they lived in small groups or ‘hordes’ ruled over by a powerful father, who had many wives and many children. To maintain his position this dominant male drove the young males out of the tribe to find mates, and young females could expect to mate only with him…owing to the leaders ...

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