It is well known that in formulating his general theoretical framework and views on religion Freud drew on multiple disciplines within the natural and social sciences, as well as from the humanities. This edited collection adds to the continued multidisciplinary interest in Freud by focusing on his understanding and interpretation of_as well as his relationship to_religion. It 'disciplines' Freud by situating his work on religion from the methodological interests and theoretical advances found in diverse disciplinary contexts. Scholars within the field of religious studies, Jewish Studies, philosophy, and the natural sciences bring together their diverse voices to heighten the academic understanding of Freud on religion. The contributors aim to establish closer and more direct interdisciplinary communication and collaboration with regard to Freudian Studies. This volume should appeal to a wide range of scholars, for upper level undergraduate and graduate classes and those training in psychoanalysis.

Choice Essential Read Did God create man or did man create God? In this book, Dianna Kenny examines religious belief through a variety of perspectives – psychoanalytic, cognitive, neuropsychological, sociological, historical and psychiatric – to provide a coherent account of why people might believe in God. She argues that psychoanalytic theory provides a fertile and creative approach to the study of religion that attempts to integrate religious belief with our innate human nature and developmental histories that have unfolded in the context of our socialization and cultural experiences. Freud argued that religion is so compelling because it solves the problems of our existence. It explains the origin of the universe, offers solace and protection from evil, and provides a blueprint about how we should live our lives, with just rewards for the righteous and due punishments for sinners and transgressors. Science, on the other hand, offers no such explanations about the universe or the meaning of our lives and no comfort for the unanswered longings of the human race. Is religion a form of wish-fulfilment, a collective delusion to which we cling as we try to fathom our place and purpose in the drama of cosmology? Can there be morality without faith? Are science and religion radically incompatible? What are the roots of fundamentalism and terror theology? These are some of the questions addressed in God, Freud and Religion, a book that will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychologists and psychotherapists, students of psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy and theology and all those with an interest in religion and human behaviour. Dianna Kenny is Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is the author of over 200 publications, including six books.

Freud argued that religions originate in the unconscious needs, longings and fantasies of human minds. His work has served to highlight how any analysis of religion must explore mental life, both the cognitive and the unconscious. 'Freud on Religion' examines Freud's complex understanding of religious belief and practice. The book brings together contemporary psychoanalytic theory and case material from Freud's clinical practice to illustrate how the operations of the unconscious mind support various forms of religious belief, from mainstream to occult. 'Freud on Religion' offers a new way of understanding Freud's thinking and demonstrates how valuable psychoanalysis is for the study of religion.

Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister on Religion examines the dialogue between psychoanalysis and religion through the encounters of two men: the "unfaithful Jew" who founded psychoanalysis, and a pastor of profound religious faith and proven psychoanalytic conviction. Carlos Domínguez-Morano analyses the original encounters between Freud and Pfister and their respective positions, noting the incidences, impasses and progress of their discussions. The complex interactions between psychoanalysis and religion over time are considered, and Domínguez-Morano assesses the fundamental parameters of each perspective, with reference to Catholicism. The book explores the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion as a rich, ongoing, and unending dialogue and sheds new light on the origins of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister on Religion will be of great interest to academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, religion, the history of psychology, and the history of ideas.

The sharp contrast between cultures with a monotheistic paternal deity and those with pluralistic maternal deities is a theme of abiding interest in religious studies. Attempts to understand the implications of these two vast organizing principles for religious life lead to an overwhelmingly diverse set of facts and their meanings. In Freud's India, the companion volume to Freud's Mahs-- Sigmund Freud and Girindrasekhar Bose. Hiltebeitel examines the attempts of these two men to communicate with and understand each other and these issues in the heated context of emotionally divisive allegiances. The book is elegant in its nuanced attention to these two thinkers and its tightly controlled exploration of what their interactions reveal about their contributions and limitations as representatives of the psychology and religion of their respective cultures. Anxieties about mothers, says Hiltebeitel, separate Eastern from Western imaginations. They separate Freud from Bose, and they separate Hindu foundational texts from the foundational texts of Judaism.

The Discipline of Religion is a lively critical journey through religious studies today, looking at its recent growth as an academic discipline, and its contemporary political and social meanings. Focusing on the differences between religious belief and academic religious discourse, Russell T. McCutcheon argues that the invention of religion as a discipline blurs the distinction between criticism and doctrine in its assertion of the relevance of faith as a credible object of study. In the leap from disciplinary criticism to avowal of actual cosmic and moral meaning, schools of religious studies extend their powers far beyond universities and into the everyday lives of those outside, managing and curtailing specific types of speech and dissent.

Introduction: Religion as an object of empirical research - Psychohistory as exemplary interdisciplinary approach / Jacob A. Belzen 7 Changing figures and the importance of demonic possession / Antoon Vergote 21 Sunden's role-taking theory - The case of John Henry Newman and his mentors / Donald Capps 41 Belief in non-belief - The case of Vincent van Gogh / William W. Meissner 65 Freud's disrupted idealizations, religious unbelief, and his collection of antiquities / Ana-Maria Rizzuto 91 Beyond the reach of a miracle - Hitler, Stalin, and the "great man" / Richard A. Hutch 113 To be or not to be ... human - On the psychological history of religious and existential attitudes towards suicide / Arne Jarrick 137 The Penitentes of New Mexico and the meaning of discipline / Michael P. Carroll 173 Religion and the social order - Psychological factors in Dutch pillarization, especially among the Calvinists / Jacob A. Belzen 205 Folk religiosity or psychopathology? The case of the apparitions of the Virgin in Beauraing, Belgium, 1932-1933 / Jozef Corveleyn 239 Notes on contributors 261 Author index.

Since the early-modern encounter between African and European merchants on the Guinea Coast, European social critics have invoked African gods as metaphors for misplaced value and agency, using the term “fetishism” chiefly to assert the irrationality of their fellow Europeans. Yet, as J. Lorand Matory demonstrates in The Fetish Revisited, Afro-Atlantic gods have a materially embodied social logic of their own, which is no less rational than the social theories of Marx and Freud. Drawing on thirty-six years of fieldwork in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, Matory casts an Afro-Atlantic eye on European theory to show how Marx’s and Freud’s conceptions of the fetish both illuminate and misrepresent Africa’s human-made gods. Through this analysis, the priests, practices, and spirited things of four major Afro-Atlantic religions simultaneously call attention to the culture-specific, materially conditioned, physically embodied, and indeed fetishistic nature of Marx’s and Freud’s theories themselves. Challenging long-held assumptions about the nature of gods and theories, Matory offers a novel perspective on the social roots of these tandem African and European understandings of collective action, while illuminating the relationship of European social theory to the racism suffered by Africans and assimilated Jews alike.

(Dover thrift editions).