I’m really just recapitulating Freud’s writing here, this isn’t my own commentary or beliefs about what he says. But reading this book, I wanted to make sure I’m following his arguments. The most effective way I have for that is to take notes and rewrite what is being said. So here goes.

Freud’s friend, sent a copy of Freud’s manuscript The Future of Illusion, says he agreed with Freud’s judgment on religion, but says Freud himself missed the source of religious sentiments, a sense of eternity- something boundless and limitless, he describes as “oceanic”. His friend mentions that this feeling is a subjective fact that brings no assurance of immortality. It is however the source of the religious energy which has been seized upon by churches and channeled into organized religions.

Freud confesses he has no such feeling, but could not deny that others do. Freud’s main concern then was to hypothesize where such a feeling might come from and whether it could be the source of religious feeling.

Freud hypothesized that the ego, our feeling of our self, was the most certain thing we that could feel. As we move inward, the ego serves as a façade for the id, but in our more outward facing state, it is clearly separate. Only in the non-pathological state of being in love does the boundary between ego and object sort of melt away- so that the lover can speak of being at one with his love. But the adult ego went through a process of development. An infant at his mother’s breast doesn’t distinguish between himself and the external world- mom’s breast. He learns to do so through time, when he needs to pitch a fit to get the breast.  

The ego then recognizes the external world and detaches from the external world. Our current ego is a shrunken residue of a much more inclusive feeling that felt at one with the external. Some people have this in greater or lesser degrees, and perhaps this is the explanation of the oceanic feeling.

Freud doesn’t find this alone as compelling since a feeling can only be a source of energy if it is itself the expression of a strong need. He then adds the infant’s helplessness and longing for the protection of a father. Such a feeling is permanently sustained by fear of the superior power of fate. Freud sees the religious attitude traced back to infantile helplessness.