Psychoanalysis and Religion

Religion preoccupied Sigmund Freud for almost the entirety of his writing life. What purposes do religious belief and faith fulfill? How does religious belief continue to shape human experience across generations? Although Freud was not the first to offer a psychological answer to these questions, his examination of religious beliefs contributed something unique to this long standing inquiry: religious rituals, myths, and doctrines, he argued, could be understood as manifestations of unconscious processes. From his early reflections on the relationship between religious practices and obsessive actions to his progressively more nuanced and systematic analyses in Totem and Taboo, The Future of an Illusion, Moses and Monotheism, and Civilization and its Discontents, Freud—who considered himself a staunch atheist—developed insights that have inspired extensive psychoanalytic exploration into religious phenomena. How have these insights continued to inform and challenge our understanding of the role and relevance of religion?

In this course, we will engage in a close study of Freud’s key texts on religion, situating them within the broader cultural milieu of early 20th-century Europe. We will trace how his psychoanalytic understanding of religion and its relationship to ‘reality’ evolved over time, from its initial link to ‘illusion’ (neurosis) to ‘delusion’ (psychosis).  Along the way, we will pay close attention to several key ideas in his theory, including: the distinctions that Freud made between the Abrahamic religions; the relationship between the development of religion and the evolution of humanity; the meaning of the word ‘secular’; the interplay between religion and intergenerational trauma; the role of religion in illuminating ‘historical truth’; and, finally, Freud’s Enlightenment view of the future of religion. Alongside these primary texts, we will also read a selection of work by theorists and psychoanalysts who have challenged and/or extended Freud’s insights into the realms of the political, the theological, and the ethical, such as Oskar Pfister, Carl Jung, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Ana-María Rizzuto, Norman O. Brown, Philip Rieff, Slavoj Žižek, Phillis Sheppard, Fethi Benslama, Omnia El Shakry, and Eric L. Santner.

Course Schedule

Wednesday, 6:30-9:30pm ET
November 13 — December 11, 2024
4 sessions over 5 weeks
Class will not meet Wednesday, November 27th.

$335.00

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