Philosophy – Theme 1: Challenges to religious belief - Freud and Jung

The psychology of religion examines the relationship between the human mind and religious belief.

Sigmund Freud:

• Sought - why are humans religious? He found two possibilities:
• Reductive - it is a function or product of human mind.
• Non-reductive - is the result of revelation, experience. Real.
• Freud favoured reductive view. He believed the human mind contained 'unconscious' material which the person concerned was not aware of.
• He said that this unconscious material helped to explain why. For him, religion was an illusion, a construct of the human mind.
• His research method - 'psychoanalysis'
• Neurosis: an imbalance of 'id', 'ego' and 'superego'
• 'ID' - unconscious desires, natural human desires, sex and libido
• 'Ego' - individual personality, ideas of which we are aware.
• 'Superego' - unconscious, conscience.

In what ways can religion be seen as an illusion?

• Seeing what you want to
• Being told things with no proof or evidence
• Making you feel safe
• Traditions
• Way of controlling?
• Death and life after death

'Religion is an illusion'

• Illusion conjured up by the unconscious mind
• Sign of weakness and lack of mental maturity
• Argued religious belief (specifically God of classical theism) kept humans from developing into full maturity and personal autonomy
• Not necessarily false but something that answers inner needs
• Overcomes inner fears and turmoils within the id
• Thus, suggesting to Freud that religion is a form of neurosis

If traumatic experiences are not resolved they are ‘locked away’ in the subconscious mind. If this locking away is unsuccessful the memory can re-emerge and lead to trauma.

Freud noted the attitudes some of his patients had towards hygiene. Parents take great pains to instil their children the importance of cleanliness. As an adult, the individual may still feel ‘unclean’ and washes, even though they are clean.

Freud’s treatment for these neuroses was to allow the patient to investigate their repressed memories, and to see their obsessions for what they truly were.

Freud saw religion operating on a similar level – the ritualistic nature of religious activity is a compulsive obsessive neurosis – this he called the “universal obsessional neurosis”.  Freud argued that religion arises from a fear of a chaotic an unordered world.

A person’s resolution of this traumatic perception of the world is to project on to it their memory of their father, who provided a world of order and regularity while they were a child. God becomes this father figure.

• More complex supressed feelings involved:
• Breast-fed; weaned, child becomes more aware:
• Sees father replacing them, jealousy; OC
• Used Greek myth of Oedipus: believed that one of the repressed feelings was the desire to kill father
• Therefore, the child represses this into subconscious mind; repressed memory takes form of a neurotic obsession:
• Jealousy felt manifests itself in religious obsession - God, father.

Primal Horde:

• Respect and jealousy for dominant males of horde - ambivalent. Plot to kill.
• Idolise after death, setting up as totem. Experiences guilt, transferred to object/animal. Mind deflects feelings of guilt onto new totem.
• Totem becomes way of controlling guilt: animism
• then traced the process to second stage; religious. Mass.
• Mass - slaughter of God recreated, the representatives of the original horde eat the symbolic body. Guilt feelings dealth with.

Frued argued that religion is a way of dealing with the inner guilt experienced as a result of the Oedipus complex (with its feeling of sexual repression), coupled with the natural fear of a disordered universe. Feelings of powerlessness are dealth with through the totemic projection of a father figure and the ritualistic practices of religion.

• Freud said religion was a kind of 'wish-fulfilment'. Argued:
• Humans cannot be solitary
• They feel they need comforting and protecting
• The desire to be at one with God is simply the desire which every human has to be back, safe in their mother's womb
• This is an act of regression, not maturity
• To have psychological health ('maturity'), the individual needs to face up to, and come to terms with, the contents of the unconscious mind

Freud quote:

'it would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but is is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be'

•Carl Jung (1875-1961) was a psychologist who, like Freud, believed that religion came from the ‘unconscious’ aspect of the human mind. •He also followed the reductivist viewpoint, but, unlike Freud, he saw religion not as an illusion, but as a reality at the psychic or unconscious level of the mind and which was vitally important for psychological maturity, which he called ‘individuation’. •Jung opposed what he saw as Freud’s negative view of religion which, he believed, reduced all human behaviour to sexuality. For Jung, Freud was dogmatic and irrational.

Jung believed in the notion of the ‘unconscious mind’ but, unlike Freud, saw religion as a projection from the unconscious mind. Religion was not an illusion, but a reality of the unconscious mind.

•The collective unconscious is present in every human being, regardless of their personal experiences. •It is made up of archetypes which Jung describes as, “identical psychic structures common to all.” •Jung believed that the collective unconscious is the oldest part of the human mind.

• All humans have the same ideas and images contained within their collective unconscious.

•These ideas and images come to humans in dreams and in their concept of God.

• For example, Jung found that many people liken their god to light.

• Therefore, he concluded that the relationship between light and religion is part of the collective unconscious.

• All humans share a common idea of God as it is part of the collective unconscious, shared by all humanity.

Dante's Hell - Jung felt hell represented the disturbing aspect of the collective unconscious.

•Jung believes that every human has archetypes which are a priori (gained prior to experience).

• Examples of archetypes include the mother figure and the hero figure.

• Jung states that the archetypes which make up the collective unconscious are “unconscious organisers of ideas.”

• The fact that all humans have the same archetypes means that they are likely to form similar ideas about things, like God.

• For Jung, the five most important archetypes are:
1. Persona
2. Shadow
3. Anima
4. Animus
5. Self

•The Persona is what we show to the world – it is a mask.

• We hide the parts of our characters which we think people won’t like and which society does not like and show off the parts which are pleasing to society.

If the persona archetype is too strong we have dreams about appearing naked in the work place.

•The Persona is what we show to the world – it is a mask.

• We hide the parts of our characters which we think people won’t like and which society does not like and show off the parts which are pleasing to society.

If the persona archetype is too strong we have dreams about appearing naked in the work place.

•The Shadow is made up of the parts of our personalities which we do not believe are acceptable in society and therefore are not suitable as part of the Persona. •Because we can’t faceit is as individuals the shadow is projected out as particular figures, sucha s the devil or ‘baddies’ in myths and legends.

•The Anima is the feminine side of the male.

• The Animus is the masculine side of the female.

• Males are keen to include the masculine elements of their personality in the Persona, but repress their feminine characteristics.

• Likewise, women have a feminine Persona and repress the masculine parts of their personalities.

• They need to be in balance for psychological health.

•So when partnerships form they are merely reaching out for balance. •The women that a man is attracted to will have the characteristics of his Anima; those he is not attracted to will have characteristics which conflict with his Anima and the same for women.

•Jung believed that the Self is the most important part of the psyche.

• The Self seeks the integration of all of the parts of our characters.

• It guides us through life.

• It can be seen as the ‘God within’, the mystical part of humans

or the soul.

•Individuation.