ABSTRACT
The study of religion and psychoanalysis might naturally begin with Freud's varied writings on the illusional and delusional character of religious beliefs in Western society. Freud was apparently intrigued by the manuscript and the psychosis that he believed to be at the heart of the painter's suffering. Twenty-five years earlier, Freud had written to his colleague Wilhelm Fliess on at least two occasions, suggesting that theologies of demonology originated out of psychoses that had found expression in the European witchcraze of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. That the Devil, as well as God, is an unconscious projection of the father is explained by Freud as the splitting off of the good parent from the feared and aggressive patriarch. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is divided into three sections, each of which covers the significant theorists who have influenced the field of psychoanalysis.
