POSTCRITICAL RELIGION AND THE LATENT FREUD |
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Authors: | R. Melvin Reiser |
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Affiliation: | Professor of Religious Studies, Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina 27410. |
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Abstract: | Abstract. Although Freud launches a devastating critique of religion, he makes significant contributions to religious maturity. On the "manifest" level, he attacks religion as illusion; on the "latent" level, however, he is preoccupied with religion as mystery deep in the psyche. This difference is between religion as "critical" or as "postcritical" (Polanyi)—as dualistically split from, or emergent within, the psyche. Postcritical religion appears in Freud as mystery, unity, feeling, meaning, and creative agency. We see why, for Freud, the mother as matrix keeps disappearing and what religious maturity is for "honest smallholders on this earth" who live within matrix as mystery. |
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Keywords: | postcritical religion psychology Freud feminism mystery maturity |
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