Editor's note:

This is the first paper Freud ever wrote dealing with religion. It is said to foreshadow the lines of thought which are developed more fully in Totem and Taboo. (It also approaches lines of thought found in Civilization and Future. The editor also notes that this article is the first instance of Freud discussing Obsessive neurosis since Studies in Hysteria. Not only does this article provide a sketch of what Freud meant by obsessive neurosis, it also relates to his case study of the Rat Man (Volume X, second part).

Freud begins this article by remarking that there is more than a superficial resemblance in the relationship between the obsessive acts of neurotics and religious observances. In other words, he considers obsessive ceremonials to be of the same class as obsessive thinking, ideas, impulses, etc. For the obsessive neurotic ceremonials appear as small adjustments to particular everyday activities which are carried out in a precise or methodologically varied, manners. Such actions are very formal even though they may seem to us, and indeed to the patient, to be meaningless. Still the person who participates in such actions is incapable of giving them up. And, in fact, any deviation from these activities is responded to by feelings of intolerable anxiety which requires immediate reparation.(117)

Freud says this of obsessive ceremonials: "The performance of a ceremonial can be described by replacing it, as it were, by a series of unwritten laws." That is, the special contentiousness with which an obsessive act is carried out and the anxiety which follows upon its neglect stamp the ceremonial as a 'sacred act.'

In fact Freud notes that any actions may be subject to the possibility of becoming obsessive if it is elaborated by small additions or is given a rhythmic character by means of pauses or repetitions. (118) Freud notes that both compulsions and prohibitions at first apply only to solitary activities and for a long time do not affect one's social behaviour. It is when the obsessive acts start to affect the individual that it become particularly dysfunctional.

Let's look at some of the resemblances and differences between religious acts and obsessive ceremonials. Similarities: 1] there are in both cases qualms of conscience caused by neglect of the actions; 2] such actions tend to be completely isolated from all other actions (prohibitions against interruptions); 3] there is a high degree of contentiousness in which both religious actions and obsessive acts are carried out in minute detail.

Differences:

There is a greater degree of variability in neurotic rituals as compared to the relative stereotyping of religious actions; obsessive rituals are private whereas religious rituals are public; obsessive rituals appear to be foolish and senseless compared to the high degree of significance and symbolic meanings in religious rituals. Nonetheless, even if obsessive actions appear to be meaningless to us, Freud notes that they actually have a logic and meaning of their own, which psychoanalysis can interpret. Freud notes that obsessive actions are 1] perfectly significant in every detail, 2] serve important interests of the person involved, and 3] give expression to experiences which are still operative and to thoughts which are attached to the effect. (119-120)

As we can see, although it may appear that he is making a direct comparison of obsessive actions and religious rituals, Freud merely wishes to juxtapose the two to point out that there are indeed similarities between the two. In other words, he never says that the two are the same. In fact he writes: "In this respect an obsessive neurosis presents a travesty, half-comic and half tragic, of a private religion." (119)

Freud goes on to note that there are two ways for obsessive actions to find expression. These are as follows: by 1] direct representation, or 2] symbolic representation. To Freud, as we might have expected, what is represented is derived out of the individual's most intimate experiences and his or her early sexual experiences. (120)

On p. p. 120ff Freud outlines several examples of obsessive actions and their significance through which we can distinguish between direct and symbolic representation.

Returning to the theme of the similarities between religious rituals and obsessive actions, Freud points out that one of the conditions of the illness is that the patient obeys compulsions and carries them out without understanding their chief meaning. In other words, such actions are said to serve unconscious motives and ideas. Whereas in religious practices, the ordinary, pious individual does not concern themself with the significance of the ceremonial even if the officials are familiar with this meaning. That is, the motives which impel the religious person to their religious actions are unknown to them or are represented in consciousness by other reasons (symbolically) which are advanced in the place of the original motives.(122)

Freud then takes up the theme of motives. First, there are three motives outlined for both the religious individual and the obsessive neurotic. 1] the obsessive neurotic is said to be compelled by some unconscious guilt which has as its source the early mental events of the obsessive person. Such unconscious guilt is constantly revived by renewed temptations which arise out of any contemporary provocation from either the internal or external worlds. 2] The obsessive actions occasion a "lurking sense of anxiety." That is, there are expectations of misfortune, linked to the idea of punishment following the internal perception of the temptation. 3] The connection between that which causes the arousal of anxiety and the danger that it imposes is always hidden. Hence there is the need for the setting up of defensive mechanisms -- to avoid the danger of anxiety.

In terms of the religious, the following is the case: 1] there is a sense of guilt found in the protestations of the pious that they know in their hearts that they are miserable sinners 2] and thus they compulsively employ pious observances to preface every daily act, and 3] every unusual undertaking seems to be imputed with the value of defensive or protective measures (e. g., prayers for protection). (122- 124)

Freud goes on to note that in obsessive neurosis the emphasis is on the repression of impulses of the sexual instinct. It is during the repression of these instincts that a special contentiousness is created which is directed against the instinct's aims. But this defense (reaction formation?) seems insecure to the obsessive and thus is constantly threatened by the desires of the unconscious instincts. Therefore the influences of the repressed instincts are felt as a temptation and this causes the arousal of anxiety. Hence we can see that the repression that occurs in obsessive neurosis is only partially successful and increasingly fails, thus leaving the obsessive in a state of never ending conflict. Therefore, fresh psychical efforts are constantly required to keep the repressed under control in attempts to protect the self against the expected illness or punishments. But as soon as the protective measures are deemed to be ineffective, prohibitions begin to take place of the obsessive actions. (124)

As we can see the symptoms of the obsessive neurotic fulfill the conditions of being a compromise, a compromise between the warring forces of the mind -- the instinctual desires and the desire to avoid the consequences of those desires. In the religious sphere, on the other hand, Freud suggests that 1] the formation of religions are based upon the suppression or renunciation of certain instinctual impulses. It is important to note, however, that these impulses are not those that are found in the neurosis -- i. e., which is of an exclusive sexual nature-- but are self-serving, socially harmful instinctual desires (ego instincts). 2] The sense of guilt, resulting from continual temptations, and the produced anxiety appears in the form of fear of divine punishment. This suggests that because of the admixture of sexual components and some general characteristics of instincts, the suppression of instincts proves an inadequate and interminable process in religious life as well. (125) In other words, just as the obsessive actions of the obsessive neurotic were unsuccessful in ridding the individual of the sense of guilt and anxiety, so is it the case in the religious attempt to rid the self of the notions of sin, guilt and anxiety.

Freud points out that the mechanism of displacement (when an idea and its affect are separated from one another but both remain accessible to the conscious mind -- if they were not split from one another they would be too objectionable and some other form of defense would have to take place -- repression, distortion, secondary revisioning, etc.) also functions as a defense in that it helps to diminish the mental processes of obsessive neurosis. He writes:

It cannot be denied that in the religious field as well there is a similar tendency to displacement of psychical values, and in the same direction, so that the petty ceremonials of religious practice gradually become the essential thing and push aside the underlying thoughts. That is, in both cases -- the obsessive and the religious -- there is a tendency of the splitting of the idea from its emotional content and the subsequent displacement of one or the other onto an alternate idea (form emotional content) and affect (for the idea). This is indicative of the view which sees obsessive neurosis as a pathological counterpart of the formation of religion, and to describe that neurosis as an individual religiosity and religion as a universal obsessive neurosis. (126) In conclusion, Freud found that the most essential similarity is between religious practices and obsessive actions is in 1] the underlying renunciation of the activation of the instincts that are constitutionally present; and 2] the chief difference is in the nature of the instincts, which in the neurosis is exclusively sexual in origin, while in religion they spring from egoistic sources. That is, in the neurosis the instinctual desires that imputing themselves and cause the erection of the defenses is purely sexual in origin -- relating to the Oedipus complex; while religious prohibitions are aimed at an admixture of instinctual desires which are out of both the sexual drives and the drives for self-preservation in general.

Thus it is the progressive renunciation of constitutional instincts, whose activation might afford the ego primary pleasure, appears to be one of the foundations of the development of human civilization. (127) That is, civilization, from this point of view, requires each individual to sacrifice individual pleasure for the satisfaction of the deity. From this point of view we may conclude, as did Freud in Future and Civilization, that religions function as an oppressive mechanism which seeks to control humanity's instinctual or animal natures.