ABSTRACT
The most creative approach to religion among the Viennese analysts is perhaps to be found in the early writings of Sabina Spielrein. Popularly best known as a psychiatric patient caught up in an erotic relationship with C. G. Jung, Spielrein has sadly been an object of sexual curiosity and speculation. Spielrein was able to achieve much of this academic and artistic success while beset with physical illnesses—many of them psychosomatic, or symptomatic of "hysteria." Spielrein's fantasies, mystical and idealistic since childhood, were no doubt amplified by Jung's own metaphysical and occult leanings. Spielrein went on to discuss sacrifice for sin in both Christian and Jewish sources, as well as ancient Persian and Greek mythology. Using the Christian imagery of Christ's resurrection, she argued for the close association among symbols of death, birth, and rebirth. As with fruit, Christ perishes and is placed in Mother Earth as a seed.
