No offense, but whether it is Freud's notion of religion as an illusion or a collective neurosis or its Reichian and other re-workings, understanding religion in terms of sexuality or any other singular variable (or a few variables) seems to be quite reductionist. As some one who spent most of his philosophical life as an atheist, I am more and more convinced that a Rationalist narrative, whether the historical materialist variety (whether Marx really wanted to develop materialism as an all-encompassing discourse that would explain reality in its total essence is another debate), Freudian psychoanalysis, Sartre's existential atheism or whatever else, in itself, is inadequate to explain the multi-faceted, complex character of reality in a totalizing way. Still thoroughly non-religious in personal life, I think religion, as a specific discourse, like science or secular philosophy, has its own internal logic, truth and validity claims which ca't be explained or explained away by
other incommensurate discourses.
The claim that there is a negative correlation between sexual satisfaction and religiosity also seems to be a dubious one. I don't know the methodological details of the study, but It seems safe to hypothesize that it reflects a very narrow range of population. All of us know sexually secure and happy people who are also religious as sexually anxious ridden, insecure folks who have no interest in religion. I also think it shows a classical Freudian bias where after you deal with and resolve all the problems (in this case, religion) you are in touch with your real, stable self (in this case a rationalist worldview). After Lacan, I don't think the issue is so simple. I also wonder whether it reflects a post-Hellenistic Western experience where sex is considered separate from other spheres of life. Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Chinese and varieties of other civilizations considered sex and religion as parts of a larger fabric, actually sex and religion interpenetrate
each other in all sorts of interesting ways, thus either sex or religion seems to an absurd proposition from their civilizational vantage points.
Manjur Karim
Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote: [Jim Farmelant posted this to Marxism-Thaxis. The religion-sex link seems really important for contemporary American politics - a link that would make it not "merely cultural," but profoundly materialistic in its origin. Time for a Reich revival!]
I would agree with the author that the Frankfurters' well-known writings on the psychology of fascism (i.e. Adorno's work on *The Authoritarian Personality* for instance, or Erich Fromm's writings on this subject, owe a very great deal to Wilhelm Reich).
BTW one of the few respectable academics who maintained a friendship with Reich during his later years, was the philosopher, Paul Edwards, who just recently passed away. Edwards wrote and lecture a fair amount on the work of Reich, attempting to sort out what was rational and useful in Reich's work from the stuff that Edwards considered to be bonkers like the stuff on "orgone." Readers here may want to take a look at Edwards' article on Wilhelm Reich that appears in *The Encyclopedia of Philosophy * (NY: Macmillan, 1967), which was edited by Edwards.
In his article on Reich, Edwards writes among other things: ------------------------------- 'How are we to account for the fact that "religious ideas are invested with such intense feelings"? What explains the "enormous emotional power of mysticism" ([The Mass Psychology of Fascism (edition?)] ibid., p. 122)? Or, using Reich's favorite terminology, what is the "energy" which enables religions to gain such a firm hold on people? What is it that compels human beings not only to accept the idea of a pleasure-prohibiting, all-seeing God and the ideologies of sin and punishment, and "not to feel them as a burden but, on the contrary, to uphold and fervently defend them, at the sacrifice of their most primitive life interests?" (ibid., p. 124).
Reich is strongly opposed to the tendency of "emancipated" unbelievers to dismiss religions as nothing more than the fancies of silly and ignorant people. He insists that a study of religious people—of the content of their emotions and beliefs, of the ways in which these are implanted, and of the function which they fulfill in their psychological economy—is highly rewarding. It sheds light on many other phenomena, including, for example, the psychological basis of fascism and of reactionary political movements. Such a study also explains why, by and large, free-thought propaganda is so unsuccessful in spite of the fact that from a purely rational point of view the positions defended by freethinkers are vastly superior to the religious claims—something that is not altogether unknown among believers. Above all, a happy life for the majority of mankind is impossible unless the power of religion is broken, unless one can prevent "the mystical infestation of the masses" (ibid., p. 161). However, in order to be effective in "the relentless fight against mysticism," one must have a full comprehension of its origin and its psychological sources of strength so that one can meet its "artful apparatus . . . with adequate counter-measures" (ibid., p. 152). To suppose that mystical attitudes become anchored in human beings simply as a result of intellectual indoctrination is a naive and dangerous mistake.' [111].
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'It would lead too far afield to discuss here the various ways in which, according to Reich, the "mystical idea of God" becomes anchored in people. These mechanisms may vary in detail, but they all involve the implanting of sexual anxieties; and Reich concludes that from the point of view of energy, mystical feelings are "sexual excitations which have changed their content and goal." The energy of these emotions is the energy of natural sexuality which has become transformed and attached to mystical, psychic contents. Religious patients, upon establishing a fully satisfying sex life, invariably lose their God-fixation.
Once one comprehends the nature of "religious excitations," it becomes clear why the free-thought movement "cannot make itself as a counter-force" (ibid., p. 147). Aside from the fact that in many countries the churches enjoy the support of the state and that generally the mass information media are grossly biased in favor of religion and religious morality, the impact of free-thought propaganda is limited because it relies almost exclusively on intellectual arguments. These are not, indeed, a negligible factor, but they are no match for the "most powerful emotion" on which the mass-psychological influence of religious institutions is based: sexual anxiety and sexual repression. People with a religious upbringing who, as a result of the study of science and philosophy, have turned into unbelievers very frequently retain religious longings and emotions. Some of them even continue to pray compulsively. This does not prove, as some advocates of religion argue, that religious needs are "eternal and ineradicable." It does, however, show that "while the religious feeling is opposed by the power of the intellect, its sources have not been touched (ibid., p. 152)."' [112].
'it follows incontrovertibly that "full sexual consciousness and a natural regulation of sexual life mean the end of mystical feelings of any kind, that, in other words, natural sexuality is the deadly enemy of mystical religion" (ibid., p. 152). Any social efforts which are directed toward making people affirm their sexual rights will ipso facto weaken the forces of mysticism.' [112].
'As for those people who are too old to have their structure basically altered, it is still all to the good to bring "silent suffering to the surface." They might then be less likely to become instruments in the process of maiming their own children, and they will not continue to support sex-repressive laws.' [112].
'An individual "who is sexually happy does not need an inhibiting 'morality' or a supernatural 'religious experience.' Basically, life is as simple as that. It becomes complicated only by the human structure which is characterized by the fear of life" (The Sexual Revolution, p. 269).' [113].
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