In psychology, the discussion of religion and spirituality is fraught with derision and divides many of its modern theorists. Although they were intimate friends and close colleagues, Freud and Jung were diametrically divided on the subject of religion and spirituality. Freud believed that the belief in God was an “infantile neurosis” that had no basis in physical reality; and that an evolved psyche was one that had accepted God as a fictional human concept. Jung on the other hand, integrated religion, spirituality and mysticism into his method of psychoanalysis and wrote many books and essays on symbolism, the collective unconscious, archetypes and mysticism.
Freud and Jung would analyze Lame Deer’s vision quest in divergent ways. Jung would see an awakening to a higher part of himself, whereas Freud would see pure delusion. Firstly, vision quest is a rite of passage for young men in almost all native or indigenous tribes, where they emerge a man. It is meant to put the seeker in touch with their life’s purpose, their masculinity and that they find their “real name” by sacrificing or sublimating physical needs in order to awaken spiritual knowledge and understanding.
Freud, not believing in religion, God or a higher power, would naturally dismiss Lame Deer’s experience altogether, but use some it its elements to psychoanalyze the patient. For example, in The Future of an Illusion, Freud argues that the idea of higher powers and of God creates a protective buffer for man to deal with the uncertainties of life, the cruelties of Nature, and the dangers that other humans present (23). Freud postulates that the belief in a higher power can be traced to individual and collective human childhood where the psyche felt helpless, and this helplessness spawned the belief in a higher, protective, benevolent power. In summary, Freud believed that man created the concept of God and religion as an explanation for existence and to implant a reason for living and treating others well where “all good is rewarded and all evil is punished” (23).
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Further, Freud concludes that “life would not be tolerable if they did not attach these ideas” and that these religious ideas are the “most precious possession of civilization” which is why humans cling to religion (25). Moreover, Freud reduces man’s belief in God as a primitive instinct or urge: “something innate…to project his existence outwards into the world…as a manifestation of beings who are at bottom like himself” (27). Based on these explanations, Freud attributes this belief in God to the thinking and rationalizing of “primitive man.” Therefore, he would negate Lame Deer’s experience on these bases. Freud would most likely explain Lame Deer’s experience and “visions” on the basis of wish fulfillment, especially because so much of Lame Deer’s identity and future were tied up in that ceremony. Surely, Freud would interpret what Lame Deer claims to have seen as puerile delusion. Freud and Durkheim’s views are very similar because they are based in materialism and empiricism, as well as being heavily influenced by Karl Marx.
In contrast to Freud’s viewpoints, Jung would analyze Lame Deer’s experience in terms of some his central concepts such as symbols, anima/animus and quaternity. Jung clearly invested his analytical gifts toward seeking to understand his patients through the idea that wholeness is a part of health and incorporation of a higher self, which includes opposites, archetypes, the shadow and a collective unconscious, as a necessary element to mental illness. Jung embraced the world of symbols and the mystical, something Freud was diametrically opposed to.
From C. G. Jung’s work and point of view, Lame Deer’s vision quest experience would be seen as a real mystical experience of the soul, incorporating anima and animus. Jung writes “God is actually the strongest and most effective “position” the psyche can reach” (86). Therefore, according to Jung, Lame Deer’s experience of his culture’s “god” which is found in the spirit of Nature, is the highest he can attain in human form. Jung’s concepts are in accordance with Tillich’s philosophical arguments and belief that God is a central aspect of the consciousness, however, Jung embraced all religions and mystical traditions whereas Tillich’s views are solely Christian.
The phenomenological method, for Jung involves studying subjective experience or phenomena from a scientific standpoint although not entirely quantitative (Jung 5-6). Jung continues to emphasize the importance of religion to psychology due to the “existence of an authentic religious function in the unconsciouness” (6). Here Jung posits that religion, spirituality and God are integral parts of the psyche as they find their origin in the unconsciousness. By “numinosum”, Jung means to say that “experience of the subject independent of his will” and suggests that it is a free agent that supersedes human consciousness and precedes its existence (7). Jung defines the psyche, not as mere “by product of organic processes of the brain” but as the spirit that inhabits the brain (Jung 11). He alludes to the psyche as the spirit and source of existence.
In the treatise The Sacred and the Profane, Eliade constructs definitions of the sacred, profane, religion, human-God relations in an attempt to explain his assumption of “a world charged with religious values” (18). Both Jung and Eliade assume, as much as Freud negates and deposes, that god is a reality and that sacred symbols and values are inextricably woven into the fabric of human existence. Both Jung and Eliade would analyze Lame Deer’s experience by the values they place on religion and spirituality as natural human pursuits and necessary for psychological well being wholeness.
Lastly, all three writers, Jung, Freud and Eliade, discuss the human need to order the universe and the world and eschew chaos. However, Freud explains the creation of gods as human ignorance, which needs to believe in a greater power and an afterlife in order to accept the terms of the present life (25). In contrast, Jung and Eliade see this outcrop in consciousness as a reflection of divine knowledge of unseen forces and that religions are a natural vehicle to convey that understanding, as seen in the cosmogony of many cultures from across the globe and centuries of human existence. While both sides have valuable points and logical argumentation, my beliefs lie more with Jung and Eliade. I refute Freud’s purely materialistic interpretation of human existence. It seems unlikely that every culture in the world has a specific cosmogony, which are overwhelmingly similar despite geographic isolation that would eliminate cultural exchange as an explanation. This to me offers a historico-cultural basis for the objective within religion and spirituality.
- Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
- Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989. Print.
- Jung, Carl G. “Psychology and Religion: West and East” In Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Trans by R. F. C. Hull. New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1958. Print.
- Lame Deer, John (Fire) and Richard Erdoes. Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972. Print.
