Just Finished Reading: The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud

Like most other people I’ve obviously heard of Freud but have never actually read anything by him. This book – consisting of two of Freud’s essays The Future of an Illusion (originally publish in 1927) and Mourning and Melancholia (originally published in 1917) – is part of the Penguin Great ideas series I’m slowly working my way through. I’m feeling the need to read original works that have shaped our culture and this series is one part of that attempt.

The Future of an Illusion is Freud’s musings on religion – specifically Western Christianity. I was somewhat surprised, though I guess I shouldn’t have been, that not only did I agree with many of the larger themes of this essay but I actually agreed with nearly every word he wrote. Indeed I regretted not reading this sooner as it would have been a useful additional source for my recent dissertation. Freud analyses the origins of religion – from the psychoanalytical view point of God being a representation and projection of the child’s version of their father as well as a natural defence mechanism to the uncertainty, fear and unpredictability of life for early humans. I pretty much agreed with him totally here – even with the whole father thing, though I am far from a believer in psychoanalysis! Freud basically puts forward the idea that religion is essentially a childish response, on a cultural level, to life in a harsh, unforgiving and indifferent universe. The idea of God is comforting and basically helps to take the rough edges off reality. Freud believes that the whole of humanity is neurotic in its response to the harsh realities of life which is why religion is so pervasive. It is the result of the general difficulty in coming to terms with things as they really are and the subsequent flight into illusion. Where I disagreed with him was in his optimism that we could, on a cultural level, outgrow our attachment to religion by basically having a more adult relationship with reality. He thought that, in time, we would simply grow out of God. Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon! As an essay in cultural analysis this was a very interesting document and despite his reputation for being more that a little ‘out there’ was a very readable piece.

Mourning and Melancholia was a short essay – about 25 pages long – discussing the link between mourning for the loss of a loved one and normal depression. I only managed to get half way through this before I gave it up as unreadable psychoanalytical nonsense. I skim read the last ten or so pages to see if it got any better – it didn’t. Despite that I am looking forward to another piece of Freud’s cultural analysis in the series and hope that it’s every bit as interesting as The Future of an Illusion.