Fromm Erich

Psychoanalysis and religion

Foreword

This book can be considered a continuation of "Man for himself" - a study in the psychology of morality. Ethics and religion are closely related, there are certain intersections between them. But in this book I have focused not on ethics, but on religion. The views expressed in the following chapters are by no means generally accepted for "psychoanalysis". There are psychoanalysts who practice religion, and there are others who see interest in religion as a symptom of unresolved emotional conflicts. My position is rather characteristic of the third group of psychoanalysts. I want to express my gratitude to my wife not only for the many comments that were directly taken into account in the text, but also, most importantly, for what I owe to her searching and sharp mind, which significantly influenced my development and, consequently, my views regarding religion. E.F.

Problem

Never before has man come as close as today to realizing his most cherished hopes. Our scientific discoveries and technological advances bring closer the time when the table will be set for all the hungry, when humanity will overcome disunity and become united. It took thousands of years for the intellectual abilities of man to be revealed, for him to learn the rational organization of society and the concentration of forces. Man has created a new world, with its own laws and its own destiny. Looking at his creation, he can say: verily, this is good. But what will he say about himself? Has he come close to realizing another dream of the human race - the perfection of man himself? - A person who loves his neighbor, is just, truthful and realizes what he is potentially, as an image of God? It's embarrassing to even ask this question - the answer is too clear. We have created marvelous things, but we have not been able to make ourselves into beings worthy of the tremendous effort put into these things. There is no brotherhood, happiness, contentment in our life; it is a spiritual chaos and a hodgepodge close to insanity - and not to medieval hysteria, but rather to schizophrenia - when contact with inner reality is lost, and thought is separated from affect. Let us pay attention only to some of the events reported in the morning and evening newspapers. In connection with the drought, prayers for rain are read in the churches; At the same time, they try to cause rain by chemical means. For more than a year now, flying saucers have been reported: some claim that flying saucers do not exist, others that they are real and represent the latest weapons - our own or foreign; still others seriously interpret that these are machines sent by aliens. We are told that never before has such a brilliant future opened up before America as today, in the middle of the twentieth century; but on the same page the possibility of war is discussed, and scientists are arguing whether atomic weapons will destroy our planet or not. People go to church and listen to the sermons of love and mercy; and those same people will consider themselves fools or worse if they doubt for a moment whether it is worth selling goods at a price that the buyer cannot afford. Children are taught in Sunday school that honesty, directness, concern for the soul should be the main guidelines in life, while "life teaches" that following these principles makes us, at best, groundless dreamers. We have incredible communications capabilities - print, radio, television; but we are daily regaled with nonsense that would seem insulting even to a child's mind, if children were not fed on it. It is proclaimed that our way of life makes us happy. But how many people are happy today? Recall a recent snapshot in Life magazine (1): on a street corner, several people are waiting for the green light. It is amazing and scary - but these stunned and frightened people are not witnesses of the catastrophe, but ordinary citizens hurrying about their business. We cling to the thought that we are happy; we teach children that our generation is more progressive than any other that lived before us, that sooner or later none of our desires will remain unfulfilled and nothing will be unattainable. What is happening seems to confirm this belief, which is endlessly hammered into us. But will our children hear the voice that tells them where to go and why to live? Somehow they feel, like all human beings, that life must have meaning - but what is it? After all, he is not in contradictions, not in duplicity and cynical humility, encountered at every step? They are drawn to happiness, truth, justice, love, devotion; but can we answer their questions? We are as helpless as children. We do not know the answer, because we have even forgotten that such a question exists. We pretend that our life has a solid foundation, and do not pay attention to the anxiety, anxiety, confusion that haunts us. For some, the way out is to return to religion: not in order to believe, but in order to save themselves from unbearable doubt; they do it not out of piety, but for the sake of security. The student of the present situation, the student of the human soul - and not the church - sees this step as a symptom of a nervous breakdown. Those who are trying to find a way out in a return to traditional religion are influenced by the views of churchmen, according to which we are forced to choose one of two things: either religion, or a way of life where we only care about satisfying instinctive needs and material comfort; if we do not believe in a god, we have no reason - and no right - to believe in the soul and its demands. It turns out that professionally only priests deal with the soul, only they speak on behalf of the ideals of love, truth, and justice. But it was not always so. While in some cultures, such as Egypt, priests were indeed "healers of the soul," in others, such as Greece, this function was at least partially performed by philosophers. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (2) in caring for human happiness and the soul relied not on revelation, but on the authority of reason. They considered man an end in itself and the most important subject of study. In their treatises on philosophy and ethics, psychological questions were also dealt with at the same time. The ancient tradition was continued during the Renaissance, and it is characteristic that the first book, in the title of which the word psychologia is used, was subtitled "Hoc est de Perfectione Hominis" ("This is about the perfection of man"). During the Age of Enlightenment(3), this tradition reached its peak. Believing in reason, the philosophers of the Enlightenment argued that a person should be free both from the shackles of politics and from the shackles of prejudice and ignorance. They called for the destruction of the conditions of existence that gave rise to illusions, and their psychological research was aimed at identifying the prerequisites for human happiness. The condition of happiness, they said, is the inner freedom of man; only in this case can he be healthy in soul. Subsequently, however, the character of Enlightenment rationalism(4) changed dramatically. Intoxicated with material prosperity and success in conquering nature, man ceased to regard himself as the first concern - both in life and in theoretical research. The mind, as a means of discovering the truth and penetrating the surface of phenomena to their essence, has given way to intellect - a simple tool for manipulating things and people. Man lost faith in the ability of the mind to establish the correctness of the norms and ideals of human behavior.

This change in the intellectual and emotional atmosphere had a profound effect on the development of psychology as a science. Except for exceptional figures such as Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, psychology, as the study of the soul, aimed at achieving virtue and happiness, has disappeared. Academic psychology, trying to imitate natural science with its laboratory methods of weighing and measuring, was concerned with anything but the soul. Studying man in the laboratory, she argued that conscience, value judgments, knowledge of good and evil are metaphysical concepts that go beyond the limits of psychological problems, and most often solved minor problems that corresponded to the accepted "scientific method"; and it has not put forward any new methods for investigating the most important human problems. Thus, psychology as a science has lost its main subject - the soul; she began to deal with "mechanisms", the formation of reactions, instincts, but bypassed the most specific phenomena for a person: love, reason, conscience, values. I use the word "soul" and not "psyche" or "consciousness" because that is what is associated with these higher human forces. Then came Freud, the last great exponent of Enlightenment rationalism and the first to show its limitations. He dared to interrupt the songs of triumph that pure intellect was singing. Freud showed that reason, the most valuable and most humane of human qualities, is itself subject to the distorting influence of passions, and only understanding of these passions can free the mind and ensure its normal operation. He showed both the strength and the weakness of the human mind and elevated the guiding principle of the new therapy to the words "The truth will set you free" (5). At first, Freud thought he was dealing with certain forms of disease and their treatment, but gradually he realized that he had gone far beyond medicine, resuming the tradition that psychology, as the study of the human soul, is the theoretical basis for the art of living and achieving happiness. Freud's method - psychoanalysis made possible the most subtle and intimate study of the soul. The analyst's "laboratory" is uninstrumented, he cannot weigh or calculate his discoveries, but he has the ability to penetrate - through dreams, fantasies and associations - into the patients' hidden desires and anxieties. In his "laboratory", relying only on observation, reason and his own experiences, he discovers that mental illness cannot be understood without addressing moral problems; that the patient is ill because he neglected the needs of the soul. The analyst is not a theologian or philosopher, and does not claim to be competent in these fields; but as a healer of the soul, the analyst deals with the same problems as philosophy and theology - the human soul and its healing. Having defined the tasks of the psychoanalyst, we find that at present two groups are professionally engaged in the study of the soul: priests and psychoanalysts. What is their relationship? Does the psychoanalyst claim to take the place of the priest, and is enmity between them inevitable? Or are they allies who should complement each other and provide each other with theoretical and practical assistance? The first view is expressed both by psychoanalysts and representatives of the church. Freud's "The Future of an Illusion" and Sheen's "Peace of the Soul" emphasize the moment of opposition; the works of K. Jung and Rabbi Liebman are characterized by attempts to reconcile psychoanalysis and religion. The fact that a significant proportion of priests study psychoanalysis shows how deeply the idea of ​​the union of psychoanalysis and religion has penetrated into the sphere of their practical activity.

FOREWORD

This book can be considered a continuation of "Man for himself" - a study in the psychology of morality. Ethics and religion are closely related, there are certain intersections between them. But in this book I have focused not on ethics, but on religion.

The views expressed in the following chapters are by no means generally accepted for "psychoanalysis". There are psychoanalysts who practice religion, and there are others who see interest in religion as a symptom of unresolved emotional conflicts. My position is rather characteristic of the third group of psychoanalysts.

I want to express my gratitude to my wife not only for the many comments that were directly taken into account in the text, but also, most importantly, for what I owe to her searching and sharp mind, which significantly influenced my development and, consequently, my views regarding religion.

PROBLEM

Never before has man come as close as today to realizing his most cherished hopes. Our scientific discoveries and technological advances bring closer the time when the table will be set for all the hungry, when humanity will overcome disunity and become united. It took thousands of years for the intellectual abilities of man to be revealed, for him to learn the rational organization of society and the concentration of forces. Man has created a new world, with its own laws and its own destiny. Looking at his creation, he can say: verily, this is good.

But what will he say about himself? Has he come close to realizing another dream of the human race - the perfection of man himself? - A person who loves his neighbor, is just, truthful and realizes what he is potentially, as an image of God?

It's embarrassing to even ask this question - the answer is too clear. We have created marvelous things, but we have not been able to make ourselves into beings worthy of the tremendous effort put into these things. There is no brotherhood, happiness, contentment in our life; it is a spiritual chaos and a hodgepodge close to madness - and not to medieval hysteria, but rather to schizophrenia - when contact with inner reality is lost, and thought is separated from affect.

Let us pay attention only to some of the events reported in the morning and evening newspapers. In connection with the drought, prayers for rain are read in the churches; At the same time, they try to cause rain by chemical means. For more than a year now, flying saucers have been reported: some claim that flying saucers do not exist, others that they are real and represent the latest weapons - our own or foreign; still others seriously interpret that these are machines sent by aliens. We are told that never before has such a brilliant future opened up before America as today, in the middle of the twentieth century; but on the same page the possibility of war is discussed, and scientists are arguing whether atomic weapons will destroy our planet or not.

People go to church and listen to the sermons of love and mercy; and those same people will consider themselves fools or worse if they doubt for a moment whether it is worth selling goods at a price that the buyer cannot afford. Children are taught in Sunday school that honesty, directness, concern for the soul should be the main guidelines in life, while "life teaches" that following these principles makes us, at best, groundless dreamers. We have incredible communications capabilities - print, radio, television; but we are daily regaled with nonsense that would seem insulting even to a child's mind, if children were not fed on it. It is proclaimed that our way of life makes us happy. But how many people are happy today? Recall a recent snapshot in Life magazine: on a street corner, several people are waiting for the green light. It is amazing and scary - but these stunned and frightened people are not witnesses of the catastrophe, but ordinary citizens hurrying about their business.

We cling to the thought that we are happy; we teach children that our generation is more progressive than any other that lived before us, that sooner or later none of our desires will remain unfulfilled and nothing will be unattainable. What is happening seems to confirm this belief, which is endlessly hammered into us.

But will our children hear the voice that tells them where to go and why to live? Somehow they feel, like all human beings, that life must have meaning - but what is it? After all, he is not in contradictions, not in duplicity and cynical humility, encountered at every step? They are drawn to happiness, truth, justice, love, devotion; but can we answer their questions?

We are as helpless as children. We do not know the answer, because we have even forgotten that such a question exists. We pretend that our life has a solid foundation, and do not pay attention to the anxiety, anxiety, confusion that haunts us.

For some, the way out is to return to religion: not in order to believe, but in order to save themselves from unbearable doubt; they do it not out of piety, but for the sake of security. The student of the present situation, the student of the human soul - and not the church - sees in this step a symptom of a nervous breakdown.

Those who are trying to find a way out in a return to traditional religion are influenced by the views of churchmen, according to which we are forced to choose one of two things: either religion, or a way of life where we only care about satisfying instinctive needs and material comfort; if we do not believe in a god, we have no reason - and no right - to believe in the soul and its demands. It turns out that professionally only priests deal with the soul, only they speak on behalf of the ideals of love, truth, and justice.

But it was not always so. While in some cultures, such as Egypt, priests were indeed "healers of the soul," in others, such as Greece, this function was at least partially performed by philosophers. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, in their concern for human happiness and the soul, relied not on revelation, but on the authority of reason. They considered man an end in itself and the most important subject of study. In their treatises on philosophy and ethics, psychological questions were also dealt with at the same time. The ancient tradition was continued during the Renaissance, and it is characteristic that the first book, in the title of which the word psychologia is used, was subtitled "Hoc est de Perfectione Hominis" ("This is about the perfection of man"). During the Age of Enlightenment, this tradition reached its peak. Believing in reason, the philosophers of the Enlightenment argued that a person should be free both from the shackles of politics and from the shackles of prejudice and ignorance. They called for the destruction of the conditions of existence that gave rise to illusions, and their psychological research was aimed at identifying the prerequisites for human happiness. The condition of happiness, they said, is the inner freedom of man; only in this case can he be healthy in soul. Subsequently, however, the nature of Enlightenment rationalism changed dramatically. Intoxicated with material prosperity and success in conquering nature, man ceased to regard himself as the first concern - both in life and in theoretical research. The mind, as a means of discovering the truth and penetrating the surface of phenomena to their essence, has given way to intellect - a simple tool for manipulating things and people. Man lost faith in the ability of the mind to establish the correctness of the norms and ideals of human behavior.

This change in the intellectual and emotional atmosphere had a profound effect on the development of psychology as a science. Except for exceptional figures such as Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, psychology, as the study of the soul, aimed at achieving virtue and happiness, has disappeared. Academic psychology, trying to imitate natural science with its laboratory methods of weighing and measuring, was concerned with anything but the soul. Studying man in the laboratory, she argued that conscience, value judgments, knowledge of good and evil are metaphysical concepts that go beyond the limits of psychological problems, and most often solved minor problems that corresponded to the accepted "scientific method"; and it has not put forward any new methods for investigating the most important human problems. Thus, psychology as a science has lost its main subject - the soul; she began to deal with "mechanisms", the formation of reactions, instincts, but bypassed the most specific phenomena for a person: love, reason, conscience, values. I use the word "soul" and not "psyche" or "consciousness" because that is what is associated with these higher human forces.

Then came Freud, the last great exponent of Enlightenment rationalism and the first to show its limitations. He dared to interrupt the songs of triumph that pure intellect was singing. Freud showed that reason - the most valuable and most humane of human qualities - is itself subject to the distorting influence of passions, and only understanding of these passions can free the mind and ensure its normal operation. He showed both the strength and weakness of the human mind and elevated the guiding principle of the new therapy to the words "The truth will set you free."

At first, Freud thought he was dealing with certain forms of disease and their treatment, but gradually he realized that he had gone far beyond medicine, resuming the tradition that psychology, as the study of the human soul, is the theoretical basis for the art of living and achieving happiness.

Freud's method - psychoanalysis made possible the most subtle and intimate study of the soul. The analyst's "laboratory" is uninstrumented, he cannot weigh or calculate his discoveries, but he has the ability to penetrate - through dreams, fantasies and associations - into the patients' hidden desires and anxieties. In his "laboratory", relying only on observation, reason and his own experiences, he discovers that mental illness cannot be understood without addressing moral problems; that the patient is ill because he neglected the needs of the soul. The analyst is not a theologian or philosopher, and does not claim to be competent in these fields; but as a healer of the soul, the analyst deals with the same problems as philosophy and theology - the human soul and its healing.

Having defined the tasks of the psychoanalyst, we find that at present two groups are professionally engaged in the study of the soul: priests and psychoanalysts. What is their relationship? Does the psychoanalyst claim to take the place of the priest, and is enmity between them inevitable? Or are they allies who should complement each other and provide each other with theoretical and practical assistance?

The first view is expressed both by psychoanalysts and representatives of the church. Freud's "The Future of an Illusion" and Sheen's "Peace of the Soul" emphasize the moment of opposition; the works of K. Jung and Rabbi Liebman are characterized by attempts to reconcile psychoanalysis and religion. The fact that a significant proportion of priests study psychoanalysis shows how deeply the idea of ​​the union of psychoanalysis and religion has penetrated into the sphere of their practical activity.

In embarking on a discussion of the problem of the relationship between religion and psychoanalysis, I want to show that the alternative "irreconcilable opposition - or identity of interests" is false; a careful and impartial discussion of the matter reveals that the relationship between religion and psychoanalysis is too complex to be squeezed into this simple and convenient alternative.

It is not true that we should give up the care of the soul if we do not adhere to religious views. The psychoanalyst is obliged to study the human reality, which is hidden behind both religion and non-religious symbolic systems. He understands that the whole question is not whether a person will return to religion and faith in God, but whether he lives in love and whether he thinks in truth. If so, then the symbolic systems he uses are secondary. If not, then they don't matter at all.

FREUD AND JUNG

Freud dealt with the problem of the relationship between religion and psychoanalysis in one of his most profound and brilliant works, The Future of an Illusion. Jung, the first psychoanalyst to realize that myths and religious ideas are the expression of deep insights, discussed the same issue in a 1937 lecture published under the title "Psychology and Religion".

I will try to briefly summarize their positions. In doing so, I will have three goals in mind:

1. Outline the state of the problem and indicate the starting point of my reasoning.

2. To preface what follows with an explanation of some of the fundamental concepts used by Freud and Jung.

3. To challenge the widely held belief that Freud is "against" religion and Jung is "for" it will allow us to see the falsity of this oversimplification and to discuss the ambiguities involved in the words "religion" and "psychoanalysis".

What is Freud's position on religion in The Future of an Illusion?

According to Freud, religion arises from man's helplessness before the opposing forces of nature and internal instinctive forces. Religion appears at an early stage in the development of mankind, when man cannot yet apply reason to cope with these external and internal forces, and must suppress or control them, resorting to "counter-effects" and other emotions, the function of which is to suppress and control over what the mind can't handle.

In doing so, a person creates what Freud calls "illusion"; material is taken from the individual childhood experience of a person. Feeling dangerous, uncontrollable and incomprehensible forces inside and outside of himself, a person, as it were, recalls his childhood experience and returns to the time when he felt that he was under the protection of his father, who had the highest wisdom and strength, and could win his love and protection, obeying orders and trying not to violate the prohibitions.

So religion, according to Freud, is the repetition of childhood experiences. A person defends himself from the forces that threaten him in the same way as in childhood; he learns to cope with his own vulnerability by relying on his father, admiring him and fearing him. Freud compares religion to childhood obsessional neuroses. For him, religion is a collective neurosis caused by circumstances similar to those that cause childhood neurosis.

By analyzing the psychological roots of religion, Freud tries to show why people formulated the idea of ​​God. But the matter is not limited to revealing these psychological roots: Freud proves that the theistic concept is an illusion based on human desires. (Freud himself argues that just because an idea satisfies a desire does not necessarily mean that it is false. Since psychoanalysts have sometimes made such an erroneous conclusion, I would like to dwell on this remark by Freud. Indeed, there are many ideas both true and false. to which a person comes, wishing that one of them turned out to be true. Most great discoveries are born from such a desire. Although the presence of this kind of interest arouses suspicion in the observer, it cannot in any way disprove the correctness of a concept or statement. The criterion of correctness is not psychological motivation, it is based on the study of evidence for or against some hypothesis).

Freud is not limited to proving the illusory nature of religion. He says that religion is dangerous because it sanctifies the evil human institutions with which it has been associated throughout its history; further, by teaching people to believe in illusions and by forbidding critical thinking, religion is responsible for the impoverishment of the mental faculties (Freud points out the contrast between the brilliant mental faculties of children and the impoverishment of reason in the average adult (Denkschwache). He believes that "the deepest inner nature "A person is not so irrational as long as the person does not fall under the influence of irrational teachings). This accusation, like the first, was already brought against the church by the thinkers of the Enlightenment. But in Freud it sounds stronger. In his analytical work, he was able to show that the ban on critical thinking in relation to a single subject leads to the impoverishment of a person's critical ability in other areas of thinking and, therefore, makes it difficult to use the mind as a whole. Freud's third objection is that religion is too shaky a basis for morality. If the correctness of ethical norms is determined by the fact that they are the essence of God's commandments, then the future of ethics turns out to be dependent in its existence on faith in God. And since, according to Freud, religious faith is on the verge of extinction, the continued union of religion and ethics leads to the destruction of our moral values.

Religion, according to Freud, threatens precisely ideals and values. But we don't even have to specifically deal with the deduction of consequences from Freud's critique of religion. Freud himself explained in detail what are the norms and ideals in which he believes: this is brotherly love (Menschenliebe), truth and freedom. Reason and freedom, according to Freud, are interdependent. If a person discards the illusion of a paternal god, if he realizes his loneliness and his insignificance in the universe, then he becomes like a child who has left his father's house. But the task of human development is precisely the overcoming of infantile attachment. Man must learn to deal with reality. If he knows that he has nothing to rely on except his own strength, then he will learn to use them correctly. Only a free man - a man freed from the power of authority, a power that both threatens and protects - can correctly use reason and understand the world and his role in it objectively, without falling into illusions; he is also able to develop and use his inherent abilities. Only when we grow up and are no longer children, fearful and dependent on authority, can we dare to think for ourselves; but the reverse is also true: only if we dare to think will we free ourselves from the dominion of authority. In this context, it is important to note that, according to Freud, the feeling of helplessness is the opposite of religious feeling. Bearing in mind that many theologians—as we shall see, partly Jung included—consider the feeling of dependency and helplessness to be the core of religious experience, Freud’s assertion is significant, characteristic—albeit implicitly present—of his own conception of religious experience as an experience of independence and a person's self-confidence. I will show further that this discrepancy forms one of the central problems in the psychology of religion.

Turning now to Jung, we see that his views on religion are in almost every way the opposite of Freud's.

Jung begins by discussing the general principles of his approach. While Freud, although he is not a professional philosopher, approaches the problem, like William James, Dewey and MacMurray, from a psychological and philosophical point of view. Jung states at the beginning of his book: "I confine myself to the observation of phenomena and refrain from any application of metaphysical or philosophical considerations." He then explains how, as a psychologist, one can analyze religion without resorting to philosophical considerations. He calls his position "phenomenological, that is, occupied with incidents, events, experiences, in a word - facts. Its truth is a fact, not a judgment. For example, when discussing the motive of the immaculate conception, psychology is only interested in the fact that such an idea exists, but not question whether it is true or false in any other sense. It is psychologically true simply because it exists. Psychological existence is subjective if only one individual has an idea, and objectively if it is accepted by society, by means of a consensus gentium "(Consensus gentium - consent of the genus (lat.). - Note .. translation).

Before embarking on an exposition of Jung's views on religion, it seems necessary to critically evaluate these methodological premises. Jung's position on the question of truth is questionable. He claims that "truth is a fact, not a judgment," that "an elephant is true because it exists," but he forgets that truth always necessarily belongs to a judgment, and not to a phenomenon that we perceive with the help of the senses and designate with a verbal symbol. Jung claims that an idea is "psychologically true because it exists." But an idea "exists" whether it is a delusion or corresponds to a fact. The existence of an idea does not mean that it is "true". A practicing psychiatrist cannot even work without taking into account the truth of an idea, that is, its relation to the phenomena it seeks to represent. Otherwise, he could not judge a hallucination or a paranoid system of ideas. But Jung's approach is unacceptable not only from the point of view of psychiatry: it is the preaching of relativism, which, although on the surface more friendly to religion than the views of Freud, is fundamentally opposed in spirit to such religions as Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism. For these religions, the search for truth is one of the main virtues and duties of man, they insist that their teachings, obtained by revelation or by the power of reason alone, are subject to the criterion of truth.

Jung, of course, sees the difficulties of his position, but, unfortunately, the way he resolves them also turns out to be unsuitable. Jung distinguishes between "subjective" and "objective" existence, despite the well-known unreliability of such terms. He apparently means that the objective is more correct and true than something subjective. His criterion for distinguishing between the subjective and the objective is this: does the individual have an idea, or is it shared by society? But have we not witnessed the folie a millions, the madness of large groups of people in our age? Have we not seen that millions, driven by irrational passions, can believe in ideas that are no less hallucinatory and irrational than those of a single individual? What then is the point of saying that they are "objective"? In fact, this criterion for distinguishing between the subjective and the objective is the same relativism that was discussed above. More precisely, it is sociological relativism, which considers the acceptance of an idea by a community as the criterion of its validity, truth, or objectivity.

Discussing the methodological prerequisites. Jung lays out his views on the central problem: what is religion? what is the nature of religious experience? His definition is similar to that of theologians. Briefly, it can be formulated as follows: the essence of religious experience is in obedience to higher powers. However, it would be better to quote Jung directly. He argues that religion is "a careful, careful observation of what Rudolf Otto aptly called numinosum, that is, a dynamic existence or action not caused by an arbitrary act of will. On the contrary, it captures the human subject and controls him; the latter is always a victim rather than creator" (Psychology and Religion, p. 4).

By defining religious experience as being captured by an external force. Jung further interprets the concept of the unconscious as a religious concept. According to him, the unconscious cannot be just a part of individual consciousness, but is an uncontrollable force breaking into our consciousness. "The fact that you perceive the voice [of the unconscious] in a dream does not prove anything, for you can hear voices in the street, but you would not attribute them to yourself, would you? There is only one condition under which you could legitimately call your voice, namely when you believe that your conscious personality is part of a whole or a circle enclosed in a larger circle.A small bank employee, introducing a friend to the city, points to the bank building and says: "And this is my bank." In this case, he enjoys the same privilege."

From Jung's definition of religion and the unconscious, it necessarily follows that, due to the nature of the unconscious, its influence on us "is a basic religious phenomenon." Hence both religious dogma and dreams are equally religious phenomena, because they are expressions of being captured by an external force. Needless to say, according to this logic, madness should also be called an outstanding religious phenomenon.

So, is it true that Freud is an enemy and Jung is a friend of religion? A brief comparison of their views shows that this assumption is an erroneous simplification of the essence of the matter.

Freud believes that the goal of human development is to achieve such ideals as knowledge (reason, truth, logos), brotherly love, to alleviate suffering, gain independence and responsibility. These ideals are the ethical core of all the great religions on which Eastern and Western cultures are based - the teachings of Confucius and Lao Tzu, the Buddha, the prophets and Jesus. And although there are some differences in emphasis - for example, the Buddha emphasizes the importance of alleviating suffering, the prophets - the importance of knowledge and justice, Jesus - brotherly love - it is remarkable to what extent these religious teachers agree with each other regarding the goal of human development and norms. that a person should be guided by. Freud defends the ethical core of religion and criticizes its theistic and supernatural aspects, which, from his point of view, interfere with the full implementation of ethical goals. He explains that while theistic and supernatural concepts were once necessary and progressive, they are now, in fact, a barrier to human development. Therefore, the notion that Freud is allegedly "against" religion is misleading until we determine exactly what religion or aspects of religion he criticizes and what he defends.

According to Jung, religious experience is characterized by a special kind of emotion: submission to a higher power, whether this higher power is called "god" or the unconscious. No doubt this is indeed characteristic of a certain type of religious experience: thus, in the Christian religions, this emotion forms the core of the teachings of Luther or Calvin; however, for another type of religious experience, represented, for example, by Buddhism, this is not typical. Jung's relativism on the question of truth is opposed to the point of view of Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity, for which the search for truth is a human obligation and a necessary postulate. Pilate's ironic question "What is truth?" is a symbol of the anti-religious approach, not only from the point of view of Christianity, but also from the point of view of other great religions.

Summarizing the essence of the views of Freud and Jung, we can say that Freud criticizes religion in the name of ethics - an approach that can also be called "religious"; Jung reduces religion to a psychological phenomenon, while at the same time elevating the unconscious to the level of a religious phenomenon*.

* It is interesting to note that Jung's position in The Psychology of Religion is largely anticipated by William James, while Freud's position is similar in essential points to that of John Dewey. James W. The Varieties of Religious Experience. Modern Library, p. 51). Like Jung, he compares the unconscious with the theological concept of God: "At the same time, the theologian's thesis that a religious person is driven by an external force is proved, because one of the features of the operation of the subconscious is that it takes on objective guises and appears to the subject as an external force. (loc. cit, p. 503). In this connection between the unconscious (or, in the terminology of James, the subconscious) and God, Jeme sees a link connecting religion and psychological science. John Dewey distinguishes between religion and religious experience. For him, the supernatural dogmas of religion have weakened and withered the religious attitude in man. "The opposition between religious values ​​(in my understanding) and religions cannot be overcome. Precisely because these values ​​are so important, their identification with beliefs and cults must be destroyed" (Dewey I. A Common Faith. Yale University Press, 1934, p.28). Like Freud, Dewey states: "Men have never made full use of their own powers for the good of life, because they hoped for some force external to themselves and to nature—hoped that it would do what they themselves were responsible for" (loc cit., p. 46). Let us also turn to the position of John MacMurray in his The Structure of Religious Experience (Mastiggau 1. The Structure of Religious Experience. Yale U. Press, 1936). He emphasizes the distinction between rational and irrational, good and evil religious emotions. Against Jung's relativism, he argues: "No reflective activity can be justified unless it achieves truth and validity and avoids error and falsehood" (loc. cit., p. 54).

ANALYSIS OF SOME TYPES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

A hindrance to any discussion of religion are terminological ambiguities. Although we know that there have been and still are many other religions besides the monotheistic ones, we still associate religion with a system that places God and supernatural forces at the center; we tend to regard monotheistic religion as the standard for understanding and evaluating all other religions. And then we ask ourselves the question: can religions without God, such as Buddhism, Taoism or Confucianism, be called religions at all? Secular systems such as modern authoritarianism are not called religions at all, although from a psychological point of view they well deserve it. We simply do not have a word for religion - as a universal human phenomenon - that would not cause some association with this or that particular type of religion. In view of the absence of such a word, I shall henceforth use the term "religion"; but I would like to make it clear from the outset that by religion I mean any system of thought and action shared by a group that enables the individual to lead a meaningful existence and provides an object for devotional service.

In fact, there was no such culture - and, apparently, there never will be - in which there would be no religion in this broad sense. It is not necessary, however, to dwell on such a purely descriptive statement. In studying man, we begin to understand that the need for meaning and service is rooted deep in the human condition. My book Man for Himself analyzes the nature of this need. I'll give you quotes.

"Self-consciousness, reason and imagination have disturbed the "harmony" of animal existence. Their appearance has turned man into an anomaly, into a whim of the universe. Man is part of nature, he is subject to physical laws and is not able to change them; and yet he goes beyond nature. He is separated being a part, he is homeless and yet chained to the house in which he lives with all other beings.Thrown into this world at a certain place and time, he is expelled from it in the same random way.Aware of himself, he understands his helplessness and limitations of his own existence. He foresees the end - death. He will never be free from the dichotomy of his existence: he cannot get rid of the mind, even if he wanted to; he cannot get rid of the body while he is alive, and the body makes him desire life.

“Reason, the blessing of man, is also his misfortune; it forces him to solve an insoluble problem all the time. The human being differs in this respect from all other organisms; he is in a state of constant and inevitable disequilibrium. Human life cannot be “lived” by repeating species patterns Man must live his own life Man is the only animal who can be bored, dissatisfied, who can feel expelled from paradise Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem, he must solve it, and he He cannot return to the pre-human state of harmony with nature and must develop his mind until he becomes the master of nature and himself.

With the advent of the mind, a dichotomy has formed inside a person, forcing him to always strive for new solutions. Reason, this reason for the development of the human world - a world in which a person feels calm and treats others in the same way - has an inherent dynamism. Each stage reached nevertheless leaves a person dissatisfied and encourages to look for new solutions. There is no innate "striving for progress" in man; on the path he follows, he is driven by a contradiction in his existence. Expelled from paradise, having lost unity with nature, he becomes an eternal wanderer (such as Odysseus, Oedipus, Abraham, Faust); he is forced to go forward and by constant effort to know the unknown, filling the gaps in the space of his knowledge with answers. A person must explain to himself himself and the meaning of his existence, he strives to overcome this internal gap, he is tormented by the desire for "absoluteness", that harmony that will remove the curse that separated him from nature, from other people, from himself.

The disharmony of human existence gives rise to needs that go far beyond its bestiality. These needs cause an urgent need to restore unity and balance between him and the rest of nature. A person tries to recreate unity and balance primarily with the help of thinking, constructing a comprehensive picture of the world in his mind, starting from which one could answer the question of where he is and what he should do. But such thought systems are not sufficient. If man were a disembodied intellect, the goal would be achieved; but since a person is a being endowed not only with consciousness, but also with a body, he must respond to the dichotomy of his existence, relying not only on thinking, but also on the process of life, on his feelings and actions. A person must strive for the experience of unity and merging in all spheres of being in order to find a new balance. Therefore, any satisfactory system of orientation presupposes that in all areas of human effort not only the intellectual elements but also the elements of feeling and sensation will be realized. Devotion to a goal, idea, or power that transcends man, such as God, is an expression of this need for the fullness of life.

The need for a system of orientation and service is inherent in human existence, so we can understand the reasons why it is so intense. In fact, there is no other equally powerful source of energy in man. Man is not free to choose between having and not having "ideals"; but he is free to choose between different ideals, between the service of power, destruction, or the service of reason and love. All people are "idealists", they strive for something that goes beyond physical satisfaction. People differ precisely in what ideals they believe in. Both the best and the most satanic manifestations in man are the expression of his "idealism", his spirit, and not the movements of the flesh. Therefore, relativism, according to which any ideal or any religious feeling is valuable, is dangerous and erroneous. We must understand ideals, including those belonging to secular ideologies, as expressions of the same human need, and must judge them by their truth, their ability to reveal human powers and become a real answer to man's need for balance and harmony in his world."

What has been said about man's idealism is also true of his religious need. There is no such person who does not have a religious need - a need for a system of orientation and an object for service; but this tells us nothing about the specific context of its manifestation. A person may worship animals, trees, golden or stone idols, an invisible god, a holy man, or leaders with devilish appearances; he may worship ancestors, nation, class or party, money or success; his religion can contribute to the development of a destructive principle or love, oppression or brotherhood of people; it can assist his mind or bring the mind into a state of paralysis; a person may consider his system to be religious, distinct from systems of a secular nature, but may also think that he has no religion, and interpret his service to certain supposedly secular goals - such as power, money, or success - only as a concern for practical and useful. The question is not religion or its absence, but what kind of religion: either it is a religion that promotes human development, the disclosure of human forces proper, or a religion that paralyzes these forces.

It is curious that the interests of a zealous religious person and a psychologist coincide here. The theologian has a vested interest in the positions of religion because the specific truth of his faith matters to him, as opposed to all other truths. Equally, a psychologist should be vitally interested in the special content of religion, for it is important for him what kind of human attitude is expressed in it and what effect - good or evil - it has on a person, on the development of human forces. He is interested in finding out not only the psychological roots of various religions, but also their value.

The thesis that the need for a system of orientation and an object for service is rooted in the conditions of human existence seems to be sufficiently supported by the fact of the universal presence of religion in history. This fact has been taken up and developed by theologians, psychologists and anthropologists, and I need not discuss it in detail. I would only like to point out that in this matter the adherents of the traditional religion have often sinned by erroneous reasoning. They defined religion so broadly that the definitions included every possible religious phenomenon, but they themselves remained associated with monotheism, so they considered all non-monotheistic forms either forerunners of "true" religion, or deviations from it, and ended up proving that belief in god - in the sense of Western religious tradition, it is inherent in man.

The psychoanalyst, whose "laboratory" is his patient, and who himself is an observer of the thoughts and feelings of another person, adds his arguments in favor of the fact that some need for orientation and an object of service is inherent in a person. While studying neuroses, he finds himself studying religion. Freud just saw the connection between neurosis and religion; but although he interpreted religion as humanity's collective infantile neurosis, his assertions can be reversed: we can interpret neurosis as a personal form of religion, more precisely as a return to primitive forms of religion opposed to officially recognized patterns of religious thought.

Neurosis can be viewed from two angles. First, attention can be focused on the neurotic phenomena themselves, the symptoms, and other specific life difficulties generated by neurosis. On the other hand, we meet with the neurotic's inability to fulfill the fundamental goals of human existence, to be independent and creative, to love and think. Any person who is unable to achieve maturity and wholeness suffers from one or another neurosis. Such a person cannot live “simply”, he is disturbed by this inability of his, he is not satisfied with food, drink, sleep, sex and work; otherwise we would have proof that a religious attitude, although it seems to be desirable ", is not an essential part of human nature. But the study of man shows that this is not so. If a person has not achieved success by combining his efforts in achieving a higher Self, then he directs them to lower goals; if a person does not have a picture of the world close to the truth and ideas about his place in it, then he creates an illusory picture, which he will cling to with the same persistence with which a religious person believes in his dogmas. Indeed, “man does not live by bread alone.” But he also has a choice - between the best and worst, higher and lower, constructive and destructive forms of religion and philosophy.

What is the position of religion in modern Western society? It surprisingly resembles the picture that an anthropologist who studies the religion of North American Indians observes. The Indians were converted to Christianity, but their ancient pre-Christian beliefs by no means disappeared. Christianity served only as a cover for these old religions, and in many ways mixed with the latter. In our own culture, the monotheistic religion, and the atheistic and agnostic philosophies, are simply a shell to hide religions that are in many ways much more "primitive" than those of the Indians; being the purest idolatry, they are even more incompatible with monotheism. A powerful collective form of modern idolatry is the worship of the strength, success and power of the market; but besides these collective forms there is something else. Many individualized primitive forms of religion are hidden in modern man. Many of these are called neuroses, but they might as well be given religious names: ancestor worship, totemism, fetishism, ritualism, the cult of purity, etc.

But do we really have a cult of ancestors? In fact, the ancestor cult is one of the most widespread primitive cults in our society, and nothing will change if we call it, as psychiatrists do, neurotic attachment to father or mother. Consider the following example. A beautiful and very capable woman, an artist, was so attached to her father that she refused all intimacy with men; she spent her free time with her parent, a pleasant but rather boring man who was widowed early. Apart from drawing, nothing else attracted her. What she said about her father was ridiculously far from reality. After his death, she committed suicide and left a will in which she asked only that she be buried next to her parent.

Another man, very intelligent and gifted, highly valued by all, led a secret life entirely dedicated to the cult of his father; while the latter, to put it mildly, was just a cunning businessman, busy with money and prestige. The son created for himself the image of the most intelligent, loving, devoted parent, destined by God to show him the right path in life; he considered every action and every thought in terms of whether his father would approve or not, and since in real life he usually treated his son unimportantly, the patient most of the time felt "out of favor" and tried his best to earn approval; this continued for many years, and even after the death of a parent.

The psychoanalyst seeks to discover the causes of such pathological attachments, hoping to help the patient free himself from the oppressive cult of the father. But here we are not interested in the causes and not in the methods of treatment, but in phenomenology. We see dependence on the father lasting with unchanging intensity for many years after his death, disfiguring the patient's assessments, making him incapable of love, making him feel like a child, in constant danger and fear. This building of life around the ancestor, spending most of the energy on worship is no different from the religious ancestor cult. It gives meaning and a unifying principle of service. Therefore, the patient cannot be cured by pointing out to him the irrationality of his behavior and the harm that he causes to himself. Often the patient understands this intellectually, but emotionally he is completely devoted to his cult. And only if a profound change occurs in the whole personality of the patient, if he becomes free to think, to love, to switch to another center of orientation and service, is he freed from the slavish attachment to the parent; only the highest form of religion can bring liberation from its lowest form.

Numerous forms of personal ritual can be found in neurotics. A person whose life revolves around guilt and the need for redemption may choose obsessive ablution as his main life ritual; another person, whose obsessive state manifests itself more in thinking than in actions, will perform a ritual in accordance with which he will think or pronounce certain formulas that prevent misfortune or give a guarantee of success. Whether we call them neurotic symptoms or rituals depends on the point of view; in essence, these symptoms are rituals of personal religion.

Is there totemism in our culture? Yes, there is, and it is very common, although people suffering from it usually do not find it necessary to seek the help of a psychiatrist. A person who is exclusively devoted to the state or a political party, for whom their interests are the only criterion of value and truth, for whom the flag, as a symbol of the group, is a sacred object, professes the religion of the clan and the cult of the totem, even if all this seems to him to be a completely rational system ( adherents of any primitive religion, of course, believe in the rationality of their behavior).

Another form of personal religion that is very common, though not fundamental to our culture, is the religion of purity. Its adherents adhere to one main criterion, according to which they evaluate people - this is cleanliness and accuracy. This phenomenon was clearly manifested in the American soldiers in the last war. Often without any political convictions, they judged allies and enemies in terms of this religion. The British and Germans were high on this scale of values, the French and Italians were low. The religion of cleanliness is, in fact, not much different from some ritualistic religious systems, which see the way to get rid of evil in performing cleansing rituals, and gain a sense of security by doing this as neatly as possible. There is one important difference between the religious cult and neurosis, which puts it much higher than the latter - it concerns the satisfaction received from the ritual. Let us imagine that a patient with a neurotic attachment to his father lives in a culture where ancestor worship is widely practiced as a cult; here he might not feel lonely and would share his feelings with those around him. After all, it is precisely the feeling of loneliness, alienation that is the painful sting of neurosis. Even the most irrational orientation, when shared by a significant number of people, gives the individual a sense of unity, a certain security and stability. There is nothing so inhuman, evil or irrational that cannot provide some comfort when it is shared by a group. The most convincing proof of this is the cases of mass insanity that we have witnessed and still continue to witness. When a doctrine, no matter how irrational, takes power in society, millions of people will choose it rather than exile and loneliness. This leads to one important consideration concerning the function of religion. If man so easily reverts to a more primitive form of religion, do not the monotheistic religions today function to save man from such a return? Doesn't faith in God serve as a protection against the cult of ancestors, the totem or the golden calf? This would be the case if religion succeeded in molding the character of a person in accordance with the ideals it proclaims. But religion capitulated and continues again and again to enter into compromises with the secular authorities. She is far more concerned with dogma than with the daily practice of love and humility. Religion could not resist, with relentlessness and perseverance, secular power when it violated the spirit of the religious ideal; on the contrary, religion has again and again become an accomplice in such violations. If the churches observed not only the letter but also the spirit of the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule, they would be powerful forces against idolatry. But since this is the exception rather than the rule, the question must be asked, not from an anti-religious point of view, but from a concern for the human soul, whether we can trust organized, traditional religion, or should we, in order to prevent the decay of morality, regard religious needs as something independent?

In pondering this question, it should be remembered that a reasonable discussion of it is impossible as long as we are talking about "religion in general" and do not distinguish between different types of religion and religious experience. A description of all types of religion is hardly appropriate here, we will not be able to discuss now even much of what is interesting from a psychological point of view. Therefore, I will deal with only one distinction, which, in my opinion, is the most significant. It applies to both non-theistic and theistic religions: it is a distinction between authoritarian and humanistic religions.

What is an authoritarian religion? The Oxford Dictionary, trying to define religion in general, rather gives a precise definition of authoritarian religion: "[Religion is] the recognition by a person of some higher invisible power that controls his destiny and requires obedience, reverence and worship."

The emphasis here is on the fact that a person is controlled by a higher power standing outside. But what makes it authoritarian is the idea that this power, ruling, is authorized to demand "obedience, reverence and worship." I emphasize the word "empowered" because it indicates that the reason for worship, obedience and reverence is not the moral qualities of the deity, not love or. justice, but the fact that it dominates, that is, has power over a person. Moreover, this word implies that a higher power has the right to force a person to worship it, and refusal to honor and obey means committing a sin.

An essential element of authoritarian religion and authoritarian religious experience is total surrender to a force outside of the individual. The main virtue of this type of religion is obedience, the worst sin is disobedience. As far as the deity is recognized as omnipotent and omniscient, to the extent that a person is considered powerless and insignificant, he seeks favor or help from the deity only in case of complete submission. Obedience to strong authority is one of the ways in which a person avoids feelings of loneliness and limitation. In the act of surrender, he loses independence and integrity as an individual, but gains a sense of security, becoming, as it were, part of an awe-inspiring force.

Calvin's theology gives us a picture of authoritarian, theistic thinking. “For I will not call it humility,” says Calvin, “if you assume that there is still something left in us ... We cannot think of ourselves as we should think without completely despising everything that may seem the best Humility is the sincere obedience of a mind filled with a deep sense of its own fall and poverty, for that is the usual description of it by the word of God" (Calvin Johannes. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1928, p. 681.).

The experience that Calvin describes - the complete contempt of oneself, the subjugation of the mind filled with its poverty - is the essence of all authoritarian religions, whether they are clothed in secular or theological language. In an authoritarian religion, God is a symbol of power and strength. He rules because he has supreme power, while man, on the contrary, is completely powerless.

The secular authoritarian religion follows the same principle. The life of an individual is considered insignificant, and the dignity of a person is considered precisely in the denial of his dignity and strength. Often an authoritarian religion postulates an abstract and distant ideal with little connection to the real lives of real people. For the sake of such ideals as "life after death" or "the future of mankind", one can sacrifice the life and happiness of people living here and now; supposed ends justify any means and become symbols in the name of which religious or secular "elites" dispose of other people's lives.

Humanistic religion, on the contrary, chooses the center of man and his power. A person must develop his mind in order to understand himself, his relationship to others and his place in the universe. He must comprehend the truth, in accordance with his limitations and his capabilities. He must develop the capacity to love others as well as himself, and feel the unity of all living beings. He must have principles and norms that would lead him to this goal. Religious experience in this type of religion is the experience of unity with everything, based on the relationship of man with the world, comprehended by thought and love. The goal of man in humanistic religion is to achieve the greatest power, not the greatest impotence; virtue is in self-realization, not in obedience. Faith - in the reliability of belief, it is based on the experience of thought and feeling, and not on thoughtlessly accepting other people's judgments. The prevailing mood is joy, not suffering and guilt, as in an authoritarian religion.

If humanistic religions are theistic, God in them is a symbol of the forces of the person himself, realized by him in life, and not a symbol of violence and domination, not a symbol of power over a person.

Early Buddhism, Taoism, the teachings of Isaiah, Jesus, Socrates, Spinoza, some trends in the Jewish and Christian religions (especially mysticism), the religion of Reason in the French Revolution can serve as examples of humanistic religions. Obviously, the distinction between authoritarian and humanistic religion does not coincide with the distinction between theistic and non-theistic religion, religion in the narrow sense of the word and philosophical systems of a religious nature: the point is not in the system of thought as such, but in the human attitude underlying these teachings.

One of the best examples of a humanistic religion is early Buddhism. Buddha is a great teacher, he is the "awakened one" who comprehended the aunt about human existence. He speaks not for supernatural power, but for reason, and appeals to every person to apply their own reason and see the truth that the Buddha was able to see first. If a person takes even one step towards the truth, he should strive to live by developing the abilities of reason and love for all human beings. Only to the extent that he succeeds can he free himself from the fetters of irrational passions. Although a person, according to Buddhist teaching, must recognize his own limits, he must also be aware of his inner forces. The concept of nirvana, as a state of fully awakened consciousness, is not a concept of helplessness and obedience, but, on the contrary, a concept of the development of higher human powers.

One of the stories about the Buddha is very revealing. Once a rabbit fell asleep under a mango tree. Suddenly he heard a terrible noise. Deciding that the end of the world was coming, he rushed to run. When the other rabbits saw this, they asked him, "Why are you running so fast?" He replied: "The end of the world is coming." Hearing this, the rabbits began to run after him. The deer saw the rabbits and asked them, "Why are you running so fast?" and they replied, "We are running because the end of the world is near." And the deer ran with them. And so one animal after another started to run, until the whole animal kingdom turned into a stampede, which would certainly have ended badly. When the Buddha, who at that time lived as a sage - one of his many forms of existence - saw that the animals had taken flight, he asked the last of them why everyone was running. "Because the end of the world is coming," they replied. "That's not true," said the Buddha, "the world has not yet come to an end. I'll find out why they think so." Then he began to ask all the animals, came to the deer and finally to the rabbits. When the rabbits said they were running because the end of the world was coming, he asked which rabbit had told them about it. They pointed to the one who ran first - the Buddha asked this rabbit: "Where were you and what were you doing when you thought it was the end of the world?" The rabbit replied: "I was sleeping under a mango tree" - "Probably you heard the sound of a falling fruit," said the Buddha, "the noise woke you up, you got scared and thought that the end of the world was coming. Let's go to the tree and see if this is true." They went to the tree and found that this is exactly what happened. Thus the Buddha saved the animal kingdom from destruction.

I cited this story not only as one of the first examples of an analytical study of the causes of fear and rumors; she, moreover, well conveys the spirit of Buddhism, love and care for the creatures of the animal world and at the same time a deep, rational understanding of the world and confidence in human strength.

Zen Buddhism, a later Buddhist sect, is even more anti-authoritarian. According to Zen, knowledge has no value unless it grows out of ourselves; no authority, no teacher will teach us anything but doubt; words and systems of thought are dangerous because they easily turn into objects of worship. Life itself must be comprehended and experienced in its course; this is what virtue is. Zen is characterized, for example, by the following story:

“When Tanke from the Tang Dynasty entered the capital’s temple, it was very cold, so, taking one of the Buddha images displayed there, he lit a fire from it. The caretaker, seeing this, became very angry and exclaimed: “How dare you burn the wooden Buddha image? "

Tanke began to dig in the ashes, as if looking for something, and said: "I will collect the holy sariri (something like a mineral residue found after the cremation of the human body and considered a symbol of the sanctity of life. - E.F.) in the ashes."

"In what way," said the caretaker, "can you assemble the sariri of the wooden Buddha?"

Tanke replied: "If there is no sariri, can I put the remaining two Buddhas in the fire?"

The caretaker of the images subsequently lost both eyebrows for protesting against Tanke's apparent impiousness, and the wrath of the Buddha never fell on the latter."

An illustration of the humanistic religious system is the religious thought of Spinoza. Although his language is that of medieval theology, there is not a trace of authoritarianism in Spinoza's concept of God. God could not have created the world otherwise; he can't change anything; in fact, God is identical to the entire universe as a whole. A person must see his limitations and be aware of dependence on forces outside himself, over which he has no control. And yet he has the faculties of love and reason. He can develop them and achieve freedom and inner strength.

Elements of an authoritarian and a humanistic religion can also be found within the same religion; an example is our own religious tradition. Since this distinction is fundamental, I will illustrate it from a source with which everyone is more or less familiar.

The beginning of the Old Testament is written in the spirit of an authoritarian religion. God is portrayed as the absolute head of the patriarchal clan, he created man at will and can destroy him at his will. He forbade him to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, threatening him with death for violating the ban. But the serpent, "more cunning than all the beasts of the field," says to Eve: "No, you will not die, but God knows that on the day you eat them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil" ( Gen. 3:4-5). By his actions, God proves the rightness of the serpent. When Adam and Eve commit a sin, he punishes them by proclaiming enmity between man and nature, between man and the earth with animals, between man and woman. But the person does not die. However, he "became like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Gen. 3:22), therefore, God drives Adam and Eve out of Eden and places an angel with a flaming sword in the east near the garden "to guard the way to the tree of life."

From the text it is quite clear what the sin of man is: it is a rebellion against the command of God, it is disobedience, and not some kind of sinfulness contained in eating from the tree of knowledge. On the contrary, in the further development of religion, the knowledge of good and evil became the main virtue to which a person can aspire. From the text, the motive of God is also clear: it is a concern for one's own superiority, a jealous fear of the human claim to equality.

The turning point in the relationship between God and man is the story of the flood. When God saw "that the corruption of men on earth is great ... the Lord repented that he had created man on earth, and grieved in his heart. And the Lord said: I will destroy from the face of the earth the people whom I created, from man to cattle, and creeping things and birds of the air I will destroy, for I repented that I created them" (Genesis 6:5-7).

Here the question does not even arise whether God has the right to destroy his creatures; he created them and they are his property. The text defines their depravity as a "crime", but the decision to destroy not only man, but also animals and plants proves that we are not dealing here with a sentence for some particular crime, but with the wrathful remorse of god for an act that did not turn out good. "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord [God]," and he, along with his family and every creature in pairs, is saved. Until now, the destruction of man and the salvation of Noah are arbitrary actions of God. He can do whatever he wants, like any strong tribal leader. But after the flood, the relationship between God and man changed radically. An agreement is concluded between them, according to which God promises, "that all flesh will no longer be destroyed by the waters of the flood, and there will be no more flood to desolate the earth" (Genesis 9:11). God undertakes not to destroy life on earth anymore, and man must fulfill the first and most important biblical commandment - not to kill: "... I will also seek the soul of a man from the hand of a man, from the hand of his brother" (Genesis 9:5). From this moment on, the relationship between God and man undergoes a profound change. God is no longer an absolute ruler acting at his own discretion, he is bound by a "constitution" to which both he and man must adhere; he is bound by a principle which he cannot violate, the principle of respect for life. God can punish a person if he violates this principle, but a person can also condemn God if he is found guilty of violating it.

The new relationship between God and man is clear from Abraham's address about Sodom and Gomorrah. When God set out to destroy these cities for their sinfulness, Abraham accuses God of violating his own principles. "It is not possible for you to act in such a way that you would destroy the righteous with the wicked, so that it would be the same with the righteous as with the wicked; it cannot be from you! Will the judge of all the earth act unjustly?" (Gen. 18:25).

There is a huge difference between the history of the fall and this argument. In the first case, a person is forbidden to know good and evil, his attitude towards God is either obedience or sinful disobedience. In the second case, a person uses the knowledge of good and evil, appeals to God in the name of justice, and God is forced to yield.

Even this brief analysis of authoritarian elements in biblical history shows that at the heart of the Judeo-Christian religion there are both principles - both authoritarian and humanistic. In the further development of Judaism and Christianity, both principles were preserved, and the predominance of one or the other is characteristic of various currents in these two religions.

Several eminent rabbinic scholars disagreed with Rabbi Eliazar's views on ritual law. "Rabbi Eliazar said to them, 'If the law is as I believe it is, let this tree let us know.' After which the tree moved a hundred meters (some say four hundred). Colleagues told him, 'The tree proves nothing.' He said, "If I'm right, let this stream let you know." Whereupon the stream flowed back. Colleagues said, "The stream is not proof." He insisted: "If the law is as I believe, then the walls of this house are evidence." Whereupon the walls began to fall, but Rabbi Josiah shouted at the walls: “What is it to you to fall when the scholars are debating the question of the law?” Then the walls stopped out of respect for Rabbi Josiah, but out of respect for Rabbi Eliazar they did not straighten up. And so they stand until now. Rabbi Eliazar continued the proof: "If the law is as I believe, heaven will bear witness." After which a heavenly voice was heard: "What do you have against Rabbi Eliazar, because the law is such as he says." Then the Rabbi stood up Josiah and said: "It is written in the Bible: the law is not in heaven. What does it mean? According to Rabbi Jeremiah, this means that since the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, we no longer heed the heavenly voices, for it is written: make a decision according to the opinion of the majority. "It so happened that after this, Rabbi Nathan (who also participated in the dispute) met the Prophet Elijah (who descended to earth) and asked him: "What did God say when we had an argument?" The Prophet replied: "God smiled and said: my children have prevailed, my children have won" (Talmud, Baba Meziah, 59, L. (my translation. - E. F.). 174).

This story hardly needs commentary. It emphasizes the autonomy of the human mind, in whose affairs even supernatural heavenly voices have no right to interfere. God is pleased: a man has done what God wanted from him, he is now his own master, able and ready to make decisions, guided by rational, democratic methods.

The same humanistic spirit can be found in many of the stories of Hasidic folklore created a millennium later. The Hasidic movement was an uprising of the poor against those who had a monopoly on knowledge or money. Their motto was a verse from the Psalms: "Serve the Lord with gladness" (Ps. 99:2). They emphasized the importance of feelings in front of intellectual virtues, joy - in front of sincere repentance; for them (as for Spinoza), joy was equal to virtue, and sadness was equal to sin. The following story characterizes the humanistic and anti-authoritarian spirit of this religious sect.

The poor tailor came to the Hasidic rabbi the day after the Day of Atonement and said: “Yesterday I had an argument with God. I said to him: God, you committed sins and I committed sins. But you committed serious sins, and I committed minor sins. "What did you do? You separated mothers from children and let people starve. What did I do? Sometimes I didn't return the leftover fabric to the customer, sometimes I didn't quite keep the law. But I'll tell you this, God. I'll forgive you your sins, and you will forgive me mine. And we will be quits." To which the rabbi replied: "You fool, you fool! How did you let him go? After all, you could force him to send the messiah."

Here, even more clearly than in the story of Abraham, the idea is that God is obliged to keep his word, just as man is his. If God does not fulfill his promise to put an end to human suffering, man has the right to accuse him, in fact, to force him to fulfill the promise. While both of the above stories are within the bounds of a monotheistic religion, the underlying human attitude is profoundly different from Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac or Calvin's glorification of God's dictatorial tendencies.

Early Christianity was humanistic, not authoritarian, as is evident from the spirit and letter of all the sayings of Jesus. Jesus' instruction "...the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21) is a simple and clear expression of non-authoritarian thinking. However, just a few hundred years after Christianity had evolved from the religion of the poor and humble farmers, artisans and slaves (Am haarez) to the religion of the rulers of the Roman Empire, an authoritarian tendency had come to dominate. But even then the conflict between authoritarian and humanistic principles in Christianity did not stop. It was a conflict between Augustine and Pelagius, the Catholic Church and many heretical groups, a conflict between different sects within Protestantism. The humanistic, democratic element has never disappeared in the history of Christianity and Judaism, and even received one of its powerful manifestations in the mystical thought that arose within these religions. The mystics were deeply inspired by the power of man, his likeness to God, by the idea that God needs man as man needs God; they understood that man was created in the image of God, in the sense of the fundamental identity of God and man. Not fear and obedience, but love and assertion of one's own strengths lie at the basis of mystical experience. God is a symbol not of power over man, but of human autocracy.

So far, we have discussed the distinctive features of authoritarian and humanistic religions mostly in descriptive terms. However, the psychoanalyst must move from the description of approaches to the analysis of their dynamics, and it is here that he can obtain knowledge that is not available to other researchers. A complete understanding of this or that approach requires attention to those conscious and especially unconscious processes occurring in the individual, which dictate the necessity and conditions for the development of this approach.

In humanistic religion, God is the image of the highest human self, a symbol of what a person potentially is or what he should become; in an authoritarian religion, God is the only owner of what originally belonged to man: he owns his mind and his love. The more perfect God, the more imperfect man. A person projects the best that he has onto God and thereby impoverishes himself. Now all love, wisdom and justice belong to God, but a person is deprived of these qualities, he is devastated and destitute. Having begun with a sense of his own smallness, he has now become completely powerless and devoid of strength; all his powers are projected onto god. The same projection can sometimes be observed in interpersonal relationships of the masochistic type, when one person inspires awe in another, and he ascribes to him his own strengths and aspirations. The same mechanism makes it necessary to endow the leaders of the most inhuman societies with the qualities of supreme wisdom and kindness.

When a person projects his best abilities onto God, what becomes his attitude towards his own strengths? They are separated from him, man is alienated from himself. Everything he possessed now belongs to God, and there is nothing left in him. It is only through God that he has access to himself. Worshiping God, he tries to get in touch with that part of the self that he has lost. Having given everything that he had to God, a person implores God to return something from what previously belonged to him. But, having given his own, he is now in the full power of God. He feels like a "sinner" because he has deprived himself of everything good, and only by God's mercy or grace can he return that which alone makes him a man. And in order to convince God to give him some love, he must prove to him how deprived of it; to convince a god that he needs the guidance of a higher wisdom, he must prove how devoid of wisdom when left to himself.

But alienation from one's own forces not only puts a person in slavish dependence on God, but also makes him evil. He loses faith in others and in himself, loses the experience of his own love, his own mind. As a result, the "sacred" is separated from the "worldly". In the world man acts without love; in that part of his life that is devoted to religion, he feels like a sinner (he is a sinner, because life without love is a sin) and tries to regain his lost humanity by contacting God. At the same time, he tries to earn forgiveness by exposing his own helplessness and insignificance. Thus, it turns out that it is from the attempt to beg for forgiveness that his sins grow. He faces a difficult dilemma. The more he praises God, the more devastated he is. The more empty he is, the more sinful he feels. The more sinful he feels, the more he praises God and the less able he is to restore himself.

The analysis of religion should not be limited to those psychological processes on which religious experience is based; it is also necessary to find the conditions under which authoritarian and humanistic structures develop that give rise to the corresponding types of religious experience. However, such a sociopsychological analysis would go far beyond our tasks. One can, of course, briefly say about the main thing - the thoughts and feelings of a person are rooted in his character, and the character is formed by the whole way of life practice, more precisely, by the socio-economic and political structure of society. In societies which are ruled by a powerful minority who keep the masses in subjection, the individual is so fearful, so incapable of strong or independent feeling, that his religious experience will necessarily prove authoritarian. It doesn't matter who he worships - a punishing, fearsome god or a leader like him. On the other hand, where the individual feels free and responsible for his own destiny, or where he belongs to minorities fighting for freedom and independence, a humanistic religious experience develops. The history of religion fully confirms the existence of this correlation between social structure and types of religious experience. Early Christianity was the religion of the poor and oppressed; the history of religious sects struggling with authoritarian political pressure shows this principle in action again and again. In Judaism, where a strong anti-authoritarian tendency could grow because the secular authorities failed to dominate and spread the legend of their own wisdom, the humanistic aspect of religion developed to the highest degree. Where religion entered into an alliance with secular power, it was bound to become authoritarian. The real fall of man is in self-alienation, in submission to authority, in turning against himself, even if this is disguised as worship of God.

Two arguments are consistently put forward in favor of a theistic religion. One is as follows: is it possible to criticize dependence on a power that surpasses man; Isn't a person dependent on external forces that he cannot understand, much less control them?

Of course, man is addicted; he is death, subject to the influence of age, disease, and even if he could control nature and completely put it at his service, he himself and his earth are still only insignificant dust particles in the universe. But it is one thing to recognize dependence and limitation, and quite another to be content with this dependence, to worship the forces on which we depend. To understand realistically and soberly how limited our power is is to show wisdom and maturity; to bow is to fall into masochism and self-destruction. The first is humility, the second is self-abasement.

The difference between a realistic recognition of boundaries and the indulgence of obedience and powerlessness is clearly seen in the clinical study of masochistic character traits. Some people tend to bring on themselves illness, accidents, humiliating situations, deliberately belittle and weaken themselves. These people think that they find themselves in such situations against their will and desire, but the study of their unconscious motives shows that in reality they are driven by one of the most irrational urges in man, namely the unconscious desire to be weak and weak-willed; they seek to shift the center of their lives into forces over which they have no control, and thereby avoid freedom and personal responsibility. This masochistic tendency is usually accompanied by its opposite, the desire to rule and dominate others; the masochistic tendency and the tendency to dominate form the two sides of the authoritarian character. Such masochistic tendencies are not always unconscious, we find them on the surface in sexual masochistic perversion, where insult or humiliation is a condition of sexual arousal and satisfaction. We find them also in relation to the leader and the state in all authoritarian secular religions. Here, the explicit goal is the denial of one's own will and the most willing obedience to the leader or the state.

The second erroneous argument is closely related to "addiction": a force or being outside the person must exist because the person has an ineradicable desire to bind himself-to something beyond him. Of course, any healthy human being needs connection with others; one who loses this ability becomes insane. It is not surprising that a person has created images with which he is associated, which he loves and cherishes - they are not subject to the fluctuations and contradictions inherent in man himself. It is quite easy to understand that God is a symbol of the human need for love. But does it follow from the existence and strength of this human need that somewhere in the outer world there is a corresponding being? Obviously it doesn't, just as our strongest need to love doesn't prove that the person we love exists somewhere. All we have is a need and perhaps the ability to love.

In this chapter, I have tried to examine various aspects of religion from the point of view of psychoanalysis. I could begin by discussing the more general problem of the psychoanalytic approach to systems of thought: religious, philosophical, and political. But I think that it will be more useful for the reader to consider this general problem now, after the discussion of special questions has given a more visible picture of the subject.

Among the most important discoveries of psychoanalysis are those concerning the correctness of thoughts and ideas. Traditionally, a person's ideas about himself were taken as basic data in the study of human consciousness. It was believed that people start wars, driven by a sense of honor, out of patriotism, the desire for freedom - because the people themselves thought they were acting according to these motives. It was believed that parents punish their children, driven by a sense of duty and responsibility, because the parents themselves thought so. It was believed that the infidels were killed out of a desire to please God, since such was the opinion of the faithful. A new approach to human thinking was formed slowly, its first expression was, perhaps, Spinoza's statement: "Paul's words about Peter tell us more about Paul than about Peter." Our interest in Paul's words is different from the interest we would have if we were to consider Paul's opinion, namely, Peter's; we consider Paul's words as a statement about Paul. We say we know Paul better than he knows himself; we can decipher his thoughts because we are not deceived by the fact that his intention is only to convey the statement about Peter; we listen, as Theodore Reik put it, "with the third ear." Spinoza's thesis contains the essential point of Freud's theory of man: much of what is significant does not come to the fore, and conscious ideas are only one of many [types of] behavioral data; in fact, their value is not too great.

Does this dynamic theory of man mean that mind, thinking and consciousness are irrelevant and should be ignored? The reaction to the traditional overestimation of conscious thought has been that some psychoanalysts have become skeptical of any systems of thought, interpreting them solely as rationalizations of impulses and desires, and not in terms of their own internal logic. Particular skepticism was manifested in relation to all kinds of religious or philosophical statements; tended to view them as obsessive thinking, which in itself should not be taken seriously. This approach is erroneous - not only from a philosophical point of view, but also from the point of view of psychoanalysis itself - because psychoanalysis, revealing rationalizations, does this precisely with the help of reason.

Psychoanalysis has demonstrated the ambiguous nature of our thought processes. Indeed, rationalization, this imitation of reason, is one of the most mysterious human phenomena. If it were not so commonplace, it would clearly present itself to us as something like a paranoid system. A paranoid person can be a very intelligent person, excellent at applying reason in all areas of life, except for the area where his paranoid system operates. The rationalizing person does the same. The degree to which thinking is used to rationalize irrational passions and justify the actions of one's group shows how far a person still has to travel to become Homo sapiens. But understanding alone is not enough; we must discover the causes of the phenomenon so as not to make the mistake of believing that man's willingness to rationalize is a part of "human nature" that nothing can change.

Man is by origin a herd animal. His actions are determined by the instinctive impulse to follow the leader and keep to the animals that surround him. To the extent that we are a herd, there is no greater danger to our existence than to lose this contact with the herd and be alone. Right and wrong, truth and falsehood are determined by the herd. But we are not only a herd, we are also people; we have self-consciousness, we are endowed with a mind that is by nature independent of the herd. Our actions can be determined by the results of our thinking, regardless of whether other people share our ideas about the truth.

The difference between our herd nature and our human nature underlies two kinds of orientation: orientation towards closeness to the herd and towards intelligence. Rationalization is a compromise between our herd nature and our human ability to think. The latter makes us believe that all our deeds can be verified by reason, and we are inclined, because of this, to consider irrational opinions and decisions reasonable. But to the extent that we are a herd, we are not really guided by reason, but by a completely different principle, namely loyalty to the herd.

The ambiguity of thinking, the dichotomy of reason and rationalizing intellect is an expression of an equally strong need for both connectedness and freedom. Until complete freedom and independence is achieved, man will accept as truth what the majority considers true; his judgments are determined by the need for contact with the herd and the fear of being isolated. Few can stand being alone and speak the truth without fear of losing touch with other people. These are the true heroes of mankind. If not for them, we would still be living in caves. But for the vast majority of people who are not heroes, the mind develops only under a certain social order - when each individual is respected and is not made into an instrument of the state or some group; when a person is not afraid to criticize, and the search for truth does not separate him from his brothers, but makes him feel his unity with them. It follows from this that a person will only achieve the highest degree of objectivity and reason when a society is created that overcomes all private differences, when the first concern of a person is devotion to the human race and its ideals.

A detailed study of the process of rationalization is perhaps the most significant contribution of psychoanalysis to human progress. Psychoanalysis opened up a new dimension of truth; he showed that sincere belief in a statement is not enough to establish its truth; only through understanding one's own unconscious processes can one know whether it is rationalization or truth*.

* Misunderstandings can easily arise here. We are now discussing whether the motive that a person believes to be the cause of his action is the true motive. We are not talking about the truth of the rationalizing statement as such. Let us give a simple example: if a person does not leave the house, being afraid to meet someone, but points to heavy rain as a reason, then he rationalizes. The real cause is fear, not rain. At the same time, the rationalizing statement itself, namely, that it is raining, may be true.

Not only those rationalizations that distort or hide true motivation are subject to psychoanalysis, but also those that are untrue in another sense - in the sense that they do not have the weight and significance that are attached to them. A thought can be an empty shell, just an opinion that is expressed, because it is a thought stamp, easily accepted and easily discarded depending on the opinion of the community. On the other hand, a thought can be an expression of human feelings and true beliefs, in this case it is based on the whole personality as a whole, the thought has an emotional matrix. Human action is truly determined only by such thoughts.

A recently published survey provides a good example. Whites in the US North and South were asked the following two questions: 1) Were all men created equal? 2) Are blacks and whites equal? Even in the South, 61% of those surveyed answered yes to the first question, but only 4% answered yes to the second question. (In the North, the figures were 79 and 21%, respectively.) The person who answered yes to the first question no doubt remembers that he was taught this in school, that it is still part of a generally accepted, respected ideology. But in reality, a person's feelings are different; thoughts - as if in the head, they are in no way connected with the heart and are powerless to influence the action. The same happens with other respected ideas. A poll taken today in the United States would show almost complete unanimity that democracy is the best form of government. But this result does not prove that all those who express such an opinion would fight for democracy if it were in danger; most of those who are authoritarian at heart express democratic convictions by following the majority.

Any idea is strong only if it is rooted in the structure of personality. And no idea can be stronger than its emotional matrix. The psychoanalytic approach to religion therefore aims to understand the human reality behind thought systems. Psychoanalysis asks whether the system of thought really expresses the feeling it seeks to represent, or whether it is a rationalization that hides the opposite attitude. He further asks whether the thought system grows out of a strong emotional matrix or whether it is empty opinion.

However, although it is relatively simple to describe the principle of the analytic approach, the very analysis of this or that system of thought is extremely difficult. The analyst, in trying to discover the human reality behind a system of thought, must first consider the system as a whole. The meaning of any part of a philosophical or religious system can only be determined within the entire context of that system. If a part is taken out of context, any arbitrary and false interpretation is possible. In the process of carefully considering the system as a whole, it is especially important to study any mismatches or contradictions that arise within it; they usually indicate gaps between consciously accepted opinions and the feeling hidden behind them. Calvin's views on predestination, for example, according to which the decision to save a person or about his eternal damnation is made even before his birth, and nothing depends on him, are in blatant contradiction with the idea of ​​God's love. The psychoanalyst must study the personality and character structure of those who preach certain systems of thought, not only individuals but also groups. He is interested in the consistency of the character structure with the opinion being expressed, and will interpret the system of thought in terms of the unconscious forces he infers from the smallest details of outward behavior. The analyst sees, for example, that the way a person looks at his neighbor or talks to a child, how he eats, walks down the street or shakes hands with people, or how a group behaves towards its minorities - that all this reveals faith and love more than any explicitly expressed beliefs. Based on the study of systems of thought in their connection with the structure of character, the analyst tries to find an answer to the question whether, and to what extent, the system of thought is a rationalization and how significant this system is.

The psychoanalyst discovers that the same human reality can be hidden behind different religions, and also that opposing human attitudes can underlie the same religion. For example, the human reality behind the teachings of Buddha, Isaiah, Christ, Socrates or Spinoza is essentially the same. It is determined by the desire for love, truth and justice. The human realities behind Calvin's theological system and those behind authoritarian political systems are also very similar. In spirit, this is obedience to authority and lack of love and respect for the individual.

Just as parental care for a child can be an expression of love, but it can also express a desire to exercise control and domination, so a religious statement can express completely opposite human attitudes. We do not discard statements, but look at them from a certain perspective, and the human reality behind them gives us a third dimension. This is especially true of the sincerity of the postulate of love: "By their fruits you will know them..." (Matt. 7:20). If religious teachings promote the growth, strength, freedom, and happiness of those who believe in them, we see the fruits of love. If they lead to the infringement of human abilities, to misfortune and the absence of any fruits, then they are not born of love - and it does not matter how dogma would like to present this question.

Psychoanalysis and religion

Thank you for downloading the book from the free e-library http://filosoff.org/ Happy reading! Erich Fromm Psychoanalysis and Religion. Preface. This book can be considered a continuation of "Man for himself" - a study in the psychology of morality. Ethics and religion are closely related, there are certain intersections between them. But in this book I have focused not on ethics, but on religion. The views expressed in the following chapters are by no means generally accepted for "psychoanalysis". There are psychoanalysts who practice religion, and there are others who see interest in religion as a symptom of unresolved emotional conflicts. My position is rather characteristic of the third group of psychoanalysts. I want to express my gratitude to my wife not only for the many comments that were directly taken into account in the text, but also, most importantly, for what I owe to her searching and sharp mind, which significantly influenced my development and, consequently, my views regarding religion. EF The Problem Never before has man come as close as he does today to realizing his most cherished hopes. Our scientific discoveries and technological advances bring closer the time when the table will be set for all the hungry, when humanity will overcome disunity and become united. It took thousands of years for the intellectual abilities of man to be revealed, for him to learn the rational organization of society and the concentration of forces. Man has created a new world, with its own laws and its own destiny. Looking at his creation, he can say: verily, this is good. But what will he say about himself? Has he come close to realizing another dream of the human race - the perfection of man himself? - A person who loves his neighbor, is just, truthful and realizes what he is potentially, as an image of God? It's embarrassing to even ask this question - the answer is too clear. We have created marvelous things, but we have not been able to make ourselves into beings worthy of the tremendous effort put into these things. There is no brotherhood, happiness, contentment in our life; it is a spiritual chaos and a hodgepodge close to insanity - and not to medieval hysteria, but rather to schizophrenia - when contact with inner reality is lost, and thought is separated from affect. Let us pay attention only to some of the events reported in the morning and evening newspapers. In connection with the drought, prayers for rain are read in the churches; At the same time, they try to cause rain by chemical means. For more than a year now, flying saucers have been reported: some claim that flying saucers do not exist, others that they are real and represent the latest weapons - our own or foreign; still others seriously interpret that these are machines sent by aliens. We are told that never before has such a brilliant future opened up before America as today, in the middle of the twentieth century; but on the same page the possibility of war is discussed, and scientists are arguing whether atomic weapons will destroy our planet or not. People go to church and listen to the sermons of love and mercy; and those same people will consider themselves fools or worse if they doubt for a moment whether it is worth selling goods at a price that the buyer cannot afford. Children are taught in Sunday school that honesty, directness, concern for the soul should be the main guidelines in life, while "life teaches" that following these principles makes us, at best, groundless dreamers. We have incredible communications capabilities - print, radio, television; but we are daily regaled with nonsense that would seem insulting even to a child's mind, if children were not fed on it. It is proclaimed that our way of life makes us happy. But how many people are happy today? Recall a recent snapshot in Life magazine (*1*): on a street corner, several people are waiting for the green light. It is amazing and scary - but these stunned and frightened people are not witnesses of the catastrophe, but ordinary citizens hurrying about their business. We cling to the thought that we are happy; we teach children that our generation is more progressive than any other that lived before us, that sooner or later none of our desires will remain unfulfilled and nothing will be unattainable. What is happening seems to confirm this belief, which is endlessly hammered into us. But will our children hear the voice that tells them where to go and why to live? Somehow they feel, like all human beings, that life must have meaning - but what is it? After all, he is not in contradictions, not in duplicity and cynical humility, encountered at every step? They are drawn to happiness, truth, justice, love, devotion; but can we answer their questions? We are as helpless as children. We do not know the answer, because we have even forgotten that such a question exists. We pretend that our life has a solid foundation, and do not pay attention to the anxiety, anxiety, confusion that haunts us. For some, the way out is to return to religion: not in order to believe, but in order to save themselves from unbearable doubt; they do it not out of piety, but for the sake of security. The student of the present situation, the student of the human soul - and not the church - sees this step as a symptom of a nervous breakdown. Those who are trying to find a way out in a return to traditional religion are influenced by the views of churchmen, according to which we are forced to choose one of two things: either religion, or a way of life where we only care about satisfying instinctive needs and material comfort; if we do not believe in a god, we have no reason - and no right - to believe in the soul and its demands. It turns out that professionally only priests deal with the soul, only they speak on behalf of the ideals of love, truth, and justice. But it was not always so. While in some cultures, such as Egypt, priests were indeed "healers of the soul," in others, such as Greece, this function was at least partially performed by philosophers. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (*2*) in caring for human happiness and the soul relied not on revelation, but on the authority of reason. They considered man an end in itself and the most important subject of study. In their treatises on philosophy and ethics, psychological questions were also dealt with at the same time. The ancient tradition was continued during the Renaissance, and it is characteristic that the first book, in the title of which the word psychologia is used, was subtitled "Hoc est de Perfectione Hominis" ("This is about the perfection of man") (*). In the Age of Enlightenment (*3*) this tradition reached its peak. Believing in reason, the philosophers of the Enlightenment argued that a person should be free both from the shackles of politics and from the shackles of prejudice and ignorance. They called for the destruction of the conditions of existence that gave rise to illusions, and their psychological research was aimed at identifying the prerequisites for human happiness. The condition of happiness, they said, is the inner freedom of man; only in this case can he be healthy in soul. However, subsequently the character of rationalism (*4*) of the Enlightenment changed dramatically. Intoxicated with material prosperity and success in conquering nature, man ceased to regard himself as the first concern - both in life and in theoretical research. The mind, as a means of discovering the truth and penetrating the surface of phenomena to their essence, has given way to intellect - a simple tool for manipulating things and people. Man lost faith in the ability of the mind to establish the correctness of the norms and ideals of human behavior. (* Rudolf Goeckel, 1590. *) This change in the intellectual and emotional atmosphere had a profound effect on the development of psychology as a science. Except for exceptional figures such as Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, psychology, as the study of the soul, aimed at achieving virtue and happiness, has disappeared. Academic psychology, trying to imitate natural science with its laboratory methods of weighing and measuring, was concerned with anything but the soul. Studying man in the laboratory, she argued that conscience, value judgments, knowledge of good and evil are metaphysical concepts that go beyond the limits of psychological problems, and most often solved minor problems that corresponded to the accepted "scientific method"; and it has not put forward any new methods for investigating the most important human problems. Thus, psychology as a science has lost its main subject - the soul; she began to deal with "mechanisms", the formation of reactions, instincts, but bypassed the most specific phenomena for a person: love, reason, conscience, values. I use the word "soul" and not "psyche" or "consciousness" because that is what is associated with these higher human forces. Then came Freud, the last great exponent of Enlightenment rationalism and the first to show its limitations. He dared to interrupt the songs of triumph that pure intellect was singing. Freud showed that reason, the most valuable and most humane of human qualities, is itself subject to the distorting influence of passions, and only understanding of these passions can free the mind and ensure its normal operation. He showed both the strength and the weakness of the human mind and elevated the guiding principle of the new therapy to the words "The truth will set you free" (*5*). At first, Freud thought he was dealing with certain forms of disease and their treatment, but gradually he realized that he had gone far beyond medicine, resuming the tradition that psychology, as the study of the human soul, is the theoretical basis for the art of living and achieving happiness. Freud's method - psychoanalysis made possible the most subtle and intimate study of the soul. The analyst's "laboratory" is uninstrumented, he cannot weigh or calculate his discoveries, but he has the ability to penetrate - through dreams, fantasies and associations - into the patients' hidden desires and anxieties. In his "laboratory", relying only on observation, reason and his own experiences, he discovers that mental illness cannot be understood without addressing moral problems; that the patient is ill because he neglected the needs of the soul. The analyst is not a theologian or philosopher, and does not claim to be competent in these fields; but as a healer of the soul, the analyst deals with the same problems as philosophy and theology - the human soul and its healing. Having defined the tasks of the psychoanalyst, we find that at present two groups are professionally engaged in the study of the soul: priests and psychoanalysts. What is their relationship? Does the psychoanalyst claim to take the place of the priest, and is enmity between them inevitable? Or are they allies who should complement each other and provide each other with theoretical and practical assistance? The first view is expressed both by psychoanalysts and representatives of the church. Freud's "The Future of an Illusion" (*) and Sheen's "Peace of the Soul" (**) emphasize the moment of opposition, the works of C. Jung (***) and Rabbi Libman (****) are characterized by attempts to reconcile psychoanalysis and religion . The fact that a significant proportion of priests study psychoanalysis shows how deeply the idea of ​​the union of psychoanalysis and religion has penetrated into the sphere of their practical activity. (* Freud S. The Future of

Psychoanalysis and religion Erich Fromm

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Title: Psychoanalysis and Religion

About the book "Psychoanalysis and Religion" by Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm is a famous German psychologist and philosopher, one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. His well-known humanistic ideas remain relevant in our time. The fundamental theme of his research has always been the study of human nature as a realization of his own inexhaustible potential. His acclaimed book, Psychoanalysis and Religion, is an entertaining treatise that raises many pressing issues: the meaning of religion, its political aspects, family relationships, the relationship between idolatry and psychoanalysis.

Reading this work will certainly be interesting and informative for everyone who is looking for ways out of the spiritual crisis that has gripped our world. The author encourages us to find this path in ourselves, within our own unique personality, in believing in ourselves and in finding the meaning of life in the most lofty ideals.

In his book, Erich Fromm approaches with great sensitivity the difficult issue of confrontation between traditional religious dogmas and an atheistic worldview. Being a true humanist, he by no means denies religion and its significance, but simply compares its various branches with each other, discussing their advantages and disadvantages.

In addition, much attention is paid to the question of the relationship between religion and psychoanalysis. The scientist takes the trouble to penetrate into the innermost meaning and purpose of authoritarian and humanistic religions, speaks a lot about idolatry and what it is fraught with. The research presented here is replete with references to the Bible, to the works of the great thinkers of the past, as well as to the previous works of the author himself.

Erich Fromm in his book "Psychoanalysis and Religion" presents to our attention a fascinating study designed to shed light on many exciting questions. For example, we have to learn about what types of religious experience there are, as well as understand what components the concept of religion can be broken down into. Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism - these and other world famous religions are considered by the author in this work.

Moreover, he tries to show us the close relationship between religious experience and psychoanalysis. So, the psychoanalyst in this context appears before us, on the one hand, as a healer of human souls, and on the other hand, as an opponent of the ministers of a religious cult and a rival in the struggle for the possession of the mind of the parishioners. Thus, we have before us a very informative and outstanding work in its content, which will be useful for everyone to read, regardless of religious beliefs.

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Never before has a man approached the realization of his most cherished desires as close as today. Our scientific discoveries and technological advances allow us to imagine the day when the table is laid for all the hungry, the day when the human race unites in one community and ceases to live in isolation. Thousands of years have been needed to reveal the mental abilities of a person and the increasingly complex skills of organizing society, to concentrate forces pursuing one goal or another. Man has created a new world with its own laws and destiny. And looking at his creation, he can say that it is truly good.

But can he say the same thing looking at himself? Has he come close to realizing another dream of the human race - the dream of the perfection of the human? Dreams of a man who has loved his neighbor, a just, truthful man who realizes by himself what he potentially is, that is, the image of God?

The question itself is confusing because the answer is painfully obvious. Although we have created many wonderful things, we have not been able to make of ourselves those for whom it would be worth making all these monstrous efforts. Our life is not a life of brotherhood, happiness, contentment, but a life of spiritual chaos and bitterness, dangerously approaching a state of madness, but not the hysterical madness that occurred during the Middle Ages, but that which is akin to schizophrenia, in which contact with inner world, and thinking split off from feeling.

Erich Fromm - Psychoanalysis and Religion

AST, AST Moscow, 2010 - 160 p.
ISBN: 978-5-17-056717-1, 978-5-403-03207-0
Series: Philosophy. Psychology

Erich Fromm - Psychoanalysis and Religion - Contents

• Foreword
• 1. Problem
• 2. Freud and Jung
• 3. Analysis of some types of religious experience
• 4. Psychoanalyst as "Healer of the Soul"
• 5. Is psychoanalysis a threat to religion?

Erich Fromm - Psychoanalysis and Religion - Foreword

This book can be considered a continuation of "Man for himself" - a study in the psychology of morality. Ethics and religion are closely related, there are certain intersections between them. But in this book I have focused not on ethics, but on religion.

The views expressed in the following chapters are by no means generally accepted for "psychoanalysis". There are psychoanalysts who practice religion, and there are others who see interest in religion as a symptom of unresolved emotional conflicts. My position is rather characteristic of the third group of psychoanalysts.

Problem

Never before has man come as close as today to realizing his most cherished hopes. Our scientific discoveries and technological advances bring closer the time when the table will be set for all the hungry, when humanity will overcome disunity and become united. It took thousands of years for the intellectual abilities of man to be revealed, for him to learn the rational organization of society and the concentration of forces. Man has created a new world, with its own laws and its own destiny. Looking at his creation, he can say: verily, this is good. But what will he say about himself? Has he come close to realizing another dream of the human race - the perfection of man himself? - A person who loves his neighbor, is just, truthful and realizes what he is potentially, as an image of God? It's embarrassing to even ask this question - the answer is too clear.

We have created marvelous things, but we have not been able to make ourselves into beings worthy of the tremendous effort put into these things. There is no brotherhood, happiness, contentment in our life; it is a spiritual chaos and a hodgepodge close to insanity - and not to medieval hysteria, but rather to schizophrenia - when contact with inner reality is lost, and thought is separated from affect. Let us pay attention only to some of the events reported in the morning and evening newspapers.

In connection with the drought, prayers for rain are read in the churches; At the same time, they try to cause rain by chemical means. For more than a year now, flying saucers have been reported: some claim that flying saucers do not exist, others that they are real and represent the latest weapons - our own or foreign; still others seriously interpret that these are machines sent by aliens.

We are told that never before has such a brilliant future opened up before America as today, in the middle of the twentieth century; but on the same page the possibility of war is discussed, and scientists are arguing whether atomic weapons will destroy our planet or not. People go to church and listen to the sermons of love and mercy; and those same people will consider themselves fools or worse if they doubt for a moment whether it is worth selling goods at a price that the buyer cannot afford.

Children are taught in Sunday school that honesty, directness, concern for the soul should be the main guidelines in life, while "life teaches" that following these principles makes us, at best, groundless dreamers. We have incredible communications capabilities - print, radio, television; but we are daily regaled with nonsense that would seem insulting even to a child's mind, if children were not fed on it. It is proclaimed that our way of life makes us happy. But how many people are happy today?

about the author

Erich Fromm is the greatest thinker of the 20th century, one of the great cohort of "philosophers of psychology" and the spiritual leader of the Frankfurt School of Sociology. The works of Erich Fromm are always relevant, because the main theme of his research was the disclosure of human essence as the realization of a productive, life-creating principle.

Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900 in Frankfurt am Main. Received a philosophical education in Heidelberg and Munich

universities, specializing in social psychology. He also underwent psychoanalytic training at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute.

Since 1925, Fromm has been working as a practicing psychoanalyst, but his main attention is drawn to theoretical problems, primarily the question of the relationship between the social and the biological in man. Fromm began as an orthodox Freudian, but already in the late 1920s. some provisions of Freud's doctrine of man are called into question by him. A significant role in the formation of Fromm's views was played by the fact that in 1929-1932. he was a member of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, where the so-called Frankfurt School was taking shape in those years (M. Horkheimer, T. Adorno, G. Marcuse).

Fromm accepts the interpretation of Marxism that has developed in this school, seeking to synthesize the ideas of the "young Marx" with psychoanalysis and other modern philosophical teachings (existentialism, philosophical anthropology, etc.). Already the first works of Fromm testify to his interest in religious issues: in 1930 he published a large article "Christian dogma", in which the first attempt was made to combine Marxist sociology and psychoanalysis when considering the evolution of Christianity. The reduction of religion to children's complexes and obsessive-compulsive disorder (3. Freud, T. Reik) are criticized, early Christianity is opposed to Christianity as a state religion.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Fromm emigrated to the United States, where he mainly worked as a leading theorist of neo-Freudianism. Along with other representatives of this trend in psychoanalysis (C. Horney, G. S. Sullivan), Fromm criticizes the desire of orthodox Freudians to reduce the social in man to instincts. Both healthy and sick psyches are considered by Fromm in connection with various cultural factors, social relations that prevail in a given society. At the same time, Fromm acts as a critic of capitalist society, which contributes to the emergence of mental illness.

Throughout his career, Fromm contrasted capitalism with a "healthy society" in which there is no exploitation, no relations of domination and subordination. In 1941, Fromm's first book, Escape from Freedom, was published. In it, he outlines the main provisions of his social philosophy. Then the same concept was developed and modified in such works as Man for Himself (1947), Healthy Society (1955), Man's Heart (1964), Revolution of Hope (1968) and others. works - "Anatomy of human destructiveness" (1973) and "To have or to be?" (1976) Fromm's social philosophy takes on its final form. In the 50s. The theme of "humanistic religion" comes to the fore in Fromm's numerous books and articles.

In Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis (1960) and You Will Be Like Gods. A Radical Interpretation of the Old Testament and Its Tradition (1966), Fromm develops those ideas that are condensed in the published book Psychoanalysis and Religion. In the work translated into Russian "To have or to be?" (M., 1986) The chapter "Religion, character and society" is devoted to humanistic religion. Fromm's views were widely known, especially at the time of the "new left" speeches, in the middle and late 60s. Fromm died on March 18, 1980 in Muralto, Switzerland.