ABSTRACT
After 1905, with his initial, theoretical foundation laid, Freud began to develop his interpretation of culture more fully, spurred on by the cultural interests that he shared with his followers. Freud and his disciples turned first to the study of art and artists, not only to explore the psychological wellsprings of creativity, but to analyze the functioning of art in the life of a culture. But Freud’s attention soon turned to the phenomenon of religion, both to pathologize it and to explore the psychic and social impact of its waning authority. It was this issue, more so than their conflicting views on sexuality, which was the real source of the split between Freud and Jung. Alarmed at Jung’s longing for a religious revival through an ecstatic and antinomian infusion of archaic, infantile drives, Freud embarked on a more sustained effort to analyze and, indeed, undermine such religious longings in his essays on Leonardo and Daniel Paul Schreber and culminating in Totem and Taboo.
