The primal horde

Freud concluded that religion itself was a form of neurosis caused by traumas deep within the psyche

• He sought to explain the origins of these traumas in Totem and Taboo (1913)
• He based his theory on Charles Darwin's suggestion that human  beings had originally lived in small 'hordes' or groups
• Freud then speculated that the horde had been dominated by single dominant males who seized the women for themselves and drove off or killed all rivals, including their sons
• A band of prehistoric brothers expelled from the alpha male's group returned to kill their father, whom they both feared and respected, enabling them to become dominant over the horde and gain women for themselves
• The young brothers felt guilty over their father's death and had become rivals themselves
• Burdened by guilt and faced with…