AQA special
Freud and the psychology of religion
Why are individuals religious? What happens in the mind when a person has a conversion experience? In this ‘AQA special’, Jon Mayled looks at Sigmund Freud’s arguments in relation to some of the questions that the psychology of religion asks
Psychology is the science of the nature, functions and phenomena of the human mind. One key issue that psychology explores is whether religious belief is simply a product of the human mind. For example, are people religious because it gives them hope or brings them comfort? If these human needs or desires are the true origin of religion, there is no need to believe that God exists. Rather, God is a product or construction of the human mind. The two best-known commentators on psychology and religion are Sigmund Freud and his friend, and later rival, Carl Gustav Jung.
Freud and religion
Anthony Kenny describes the basis of Freud’s work as:
‘that the greater part of our mental life, whether of feeling, thought or volition, is unconscious; […] that sexual impulses, broadly defined, are supremely important not only as potential causes of mental illnesses but as the motor of artistic and cultural creation.’
AQA: RSS03 AS Unit C: Philosophy of Religion
Kenny 1998
Freud argued that religion derives from the unconscious and that our sexual impulses are closely related to religion. He wrote that religion was an illusion and an obsessional neurosis.
Freud’s approach to religion can be summarised as follows:
■ While science is based on observation of the world, religion is not.
■ Psychoanalysis as a science can help to explain why religious beliefs are appealing.
■ Religious belief is brought about by the wish for a father figure who saves the believer just as a father will save his child.
Religion as an obsessional neurosis
In Obsessive Acts and Religious Practices (1907) Freud argues that religion is an obsessional neurosis — referring to the symptoms of illnesses such as hysteria. According to Freud, neuroses are caused by the mind repressing traumatic experiences from conscious thought and so placing them in the unconscious part of the mind. This can lead to problems, and sometimes the unconscious repressed experience surfaces again as a neurosis. Freud’s evidence for the existence of the unconscious comes from so-called Freudian slips, dreams and neuroses. He argued that these neuroses were caused by repressed sexuality, which he linked to the Oedipus complex.
He first linked religion with neurosis because at the Salpêtrière mental hospital in Paris he noticed that many patients who suffered from hysteria also displayed obsessive behaviour. Often they followed complicated routines for even simple tasks such as getting dressed. If the routine was not followed exactly the patient became very distressed. He believed that these patterns of behaviour mirrored some religious practices (e.g. the complicated rituals of actions to be followed in some church liturgy). It often distresses worshippers if the priest fails to follow the ritual exactly.
In his article ‘The Aetiology of Hysteria’ (1896), Freud defended the ‘seduction theory’, which asserted that the sexual abuse of children was the single cause of hysteria in adults, and especially adult women.
The Oedipus complex
The Oedipus complex is the name given to Freud’s belief that young boys are sexually attracted to their mother. He said that the boy became attracted to the mother and resented the presence of his father. These feelings diminish because of fear that the father will take revenge and castrate the boy. According to Freud this is normal. He also suggested that a similar idea applied to girls, but he never fully explained this. (This was later explored by Jung as the Electra complex.) Freud argued that young boys are used to receiving attention from their mother, by being bathed and breast-fed for example. As they grow older they continue to desire that attention from their mother. Eventually these feelings for the mother are repressed into the unconscious.
The wolf man
Freud also gives phobias about animals or insects as an example of neurosis. He wrote about an adult patient of his called Sergei Pankejeff. This man was terrified of wolves, suffered from serious depression and was obsessively religious. Freud saw this as a form of Oedipus complex. He considered that the man had repressed homosexual feelings and suffered from the trauma of witnessing his parents having sexual intercourse when he was a young child. His fear of his father was substituted by a fear of wolves.
The possible origins of religion
In Totem and Taboo (1913), Freud attempted to establish a link between neurosis and religion. He linked religion to animism. Animism is the belief that spirits can be controlled by certain rituals and actions. Freud considered that early peoples who believed in animism overestimated the mind’s ability to control the environment through magic. Freud did not believe that spirits were real — animism for Freud was a way of looking at the world that was constructed by the mind.
The repression of sexual instincts and hysteria
‘[At] the bottom of every case of hysteria there are one or more occurrences of premature sexual experience, occurrences which belong to the earliest years of childhood.’
‘The Aetiology of Hysteria’ (Freud)
For Freud religion was like animism. It is a way in which the mind interprets the world where God is used as the explanation of why things are as they are. He said that religious acts of worship, such as praying or the Eucharist, are like the magic in animism —a way of understanding a disorderly world and making it explainable. Hence he called religion an obsessional neurosis: the mind does not see the world as it actually is.
Primal horde theory
Freud developed an idea first suggested by Charles Darwin that early human beings lived like the great apes in a horde that was ruled over by a dominant male. This male was powerful and had many wives and children. Younger males were driven out of the horde to prevent them from becoming rivals to the dominant male.
Freud went on from this idea to suggest that the young males united together one day and killed the dominant father, so becoming dominant over the horde and gaining wives. Later, the young males felt guilty because, although they had wanted to replace the father, they also admired him. Instead of trying to replace the father they formed a tribe and replaced the father with a totem which united the tribe like a god. Commonly the totem was an animal. The horde worshipped the totem and it was forbidden to kill the totem animal. Memories like this are then passed on in the unconscious.
There are two important points to note about the primal horde theory:
■ Freud suggests something which could be a historical event.
■ The god father figure has its origins in this first murder.
Freud believed that some of his child patients exhibiting the Oedipus complex feared a particular animal rather than their father.
He suggested that this primal horde murder was the beginning of belief in a god. He went on to suggest that Christianity recalled the memory of the primal horde through the story of Jesus — the father figure who is killed and then remembered by his followers and honoured as a god. In this way religion appears as a collective neurosis in the sense that although it exists in many forms it originates from the single primal horde event.
Religion as an illusion
Freud is perhaps best remembered for arguing that religion is an illusion, by which he meant that it expresses people’s desires and is what they want to believe. Therefore, it can meet people’s psychological needs.
Some particular human psychological needs that religion may address include:
■ Providing the ability to cope with threats in the natural world by the creation of gods who are believed to control that world Freud suggested that early human beings saw the forces of nature as being chaotic, terrifying and beyond comprehension. He argued that belief in gods who were the controllers of nature provided a coping mechanism.
■ Controlling human instinct in particular aggression and sexual instincts Freud believed that religion helped people to direct and control their libido (a person’s desires and their need to be satisfied). Religion does this by having strict laws for behaviour in society (e.g. those concerning sexual intercourse, or the just war theory).
Freud went on to suggest that this universal longing for a father figure could be met by the idea of a god. The belief that a god can at once be a loving figure and a harsh judge suggests that it is a reflection of people’s relationship with their own father. As children obey their father so adults follow religious rules. Towards the end of his career Freud argued that religion has sometimes greatly benefited people and society.
However, he wrote that it has also not made people happy on occasions. Therefore, with scientific developments religion should be abandoned as a neurosis.
Freud’s arguments and the end of religion
Freud believed that his arguments would lead to the end of religion once people accepted that religion was a neurosis that could be cured. He believed that his theories supported David Hume’s claims that religious beliefs, such as in miracles, were about wish fulfilment.
Freud’s theories are not widely accepted and have been the subject of much criticism.
■ The Oedipus complex There is no general agreement about whether the Oedipus complex actually exists. Malinowski suggests that there is no evidence that the Oedipus complex is universal or inherited.
■ God as father figure Freud’s image of God as a father figure is limited, in the sense that it is not the only image of God and would be rejected by many feminists. Also, anthropologists have discovered matriarchal cultures where the father’s role in bringing up the child is very limited.
■ Evidence Totemism is not a stage of religious development that all communities have experienced. Also, there is little evidence for sexual aggression among our nearest relatives, such as chimpanzees.
■ Causes of mental illness There are many possible causes of obsessional neuroses, not just the Oedipus complex. The medical profession understands that the causes of depression are varied, and conditions such as bipolar disorder can be linked to genetics.
This ‘AQA special’ is the responsibility of RELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW and has been neither provided nor approved by AQA.
References
Kenny, A. (1998) A Brief History of Western Philosophy, Wiley-Blackwell.