The Future of an Illusion

By Sigmund Freud

In The Future of an Illusion, Freud’s psychoanalysis of religion is the culmination of a lifelong thought pattern. Freud examines human nature and the role of religion in society, proclaiming that human instincts are destructive to civilization and must be restrained to maintain an orderly society. Religion, viewed as a set of false beliefs based on human desires, manifests as a God-like father figure to a helpless child, whose survival is dependent upon delusional beliefs for independence, security, and incentives for good behavior. Declaring religion and science as mortal enemies, Freud concludes that civilization can only be redeemed through new constructions of existence and ideas motivated by science.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9780486852157

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist and psychologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Although his theories remain controversial until this day, Freud made a lasting impact on Western culture.

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THE FUTURE OF

AN ILLUSION

THE FUTURE OF

AN ILLUSION

Sigmund Freud

Translated by

W. D. Robson-Scott

Dover Publications

Garden City, New York

DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

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Copyright

Copyright © 2023 by Dover Publications

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2023, is an unabridged republication of the original English edition of the work, originally published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, London, in 1928. The work was originally published in German under the title Die Zukunft einer Illusion by Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig, in 1927. A new introductory Note has been specially prepared for this edition.

International Standard Book Number

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-85107-5

ISBN-10: 0-486-85107-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

www.doverpublications.com

Translator’s Note

I wish to express my thanks to the Editor and to Mr. James Strachey for reading through this translation and making many helpful suggestions.

W. D. R.-S

Note

S

IGMUND

F

REUD

was born in the Austrian Empire, in the present-day Czech Republic, in 1856. He was the oldest of seven surviving children. His family moved to Leipzig in 1859 before settling in Vienna the following year.

Beginning in 1873, Freud studied medicine at the University of Vienna, where he worked alongside a leading physiologist and focused on brain anatomy and pathology. He received his medical degree in 1881. In 1882, he became a clinical assistant at a hospital in Vienna, training with a psychiatrist and a professor of internal medicine. In 1885, he continued his studies in neuropathology at a hospital in Paris, where he learned from a renowned neurologist. It was here that Freud became fascinated with the prospect that psychological disorders were rooted in the mind rather than the brain. By the time he returned to Vienna in 1886, his focus switched from anatomical research to psycho­pathology. He worked as a consultant in nervous and brain disorders, particularly hysteria, and became the director of neurology at the Institute for Children’s Diseases. Freud sought to avoid presenting a dichotomy between mind and body, and as his belief system evolved over the decades that followed, he came to see sexuality as the link between psychology and biology. In 1902, Freud was hired as a professor of neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a position he held until 1938.

Much of Freud’s philosophy and body of knowledge can be found in his books. He explored dreams, imagination, and fantasy—which had mostly fallen outside the purview of psychology—in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). He addressed slips of the tongue in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901) and jokes in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905). He began applying psychoanalysis to anthropology in Totem and Taboo (1913). A volume of his lectures, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1917), garnered a wide audience. He devised a new structural model of the mind—consisting of the id, ego, and superego—in The Ego and the Id (1923).

Although Freud identified with his Jewish background, he was an atheist. In The Future of an Illusion (1927), Freud associated belief in God with infantile helplessness. He suggested that people should outgrow their dependence on an idealized protector. The Future of an Illusion is Freud’s best-known and strongest argument against religion, built upon decades of thinking on the subject.

In his later years, Freud continued to focus on cultural, social, and religious issues. He questioned whether instincts were repressed by society and characterized civilization as being on the verge of catastrophe in Civilization and Its Discontents (1930). His last major work, Moses and Monotheism (1939), felt weightier than the historical novel label that Freud considered attaching to it. The book suggests that the original Moses, an Egyptian aristocrat who sought to sustain an earlier religion, was killed in a Jewish revolt and that another leader named Moses replaced him, with the details of the two conflated over time.

Shortly after the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Freud, his wife, and their daughter Anna emigrated from Vienna to London. Sixteen years and thirty-three operations after being diagnosed with cancer of the jaw, Freud, a passionate cigar smoker, died in 1939. At the time of his passing, he was writing An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1940), an overview of his work, which he did not complete.

In an obituary poem, W. H. Auden declared, Freud is no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion. Numerous Freudian schools developed psychoanalysis in various directions. His influence continues to permeate academic and cultural circles, including literary criticism, gender studies, and politics. Despite the many challenges to Freud’s ideas, he was one of the most significant intellectuals of the twentieth century.

THE FUTURE OF

AN ILLUSION

Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

CHAPTER I

W

HEN ONE

has lived for long within a particular culture ¹ and has often striven to discover its origins and the path of its development, one feels for once the temptation to turn one’s attention in the other direction and to ask what further fate awaits this culture and what transformations it is destined to undergo. But one soon finds that the value of such an enquiry is diminished from the outset by several considerations. Above all, by the fact that there are only a few people who can survey human activity in all its ramifications. Most people have been compelled to restrict themselves to a single, or to a few, spheres of interest; but the less a man knows of the

Reviews for The Future of an Illusion

[JMath Channel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very fascinating insight into the nature of religion, and the prospect of a more secular education. But the only downside that Freud failed to prophesy is that religion as it is today was still an ongoing affair that will last as long as human beings experience the brutality of life and the pain and suffering it induced he will seek something to gratify his existence that's greater than him. Overall, great work! I will read this one more time to make notes and maybe try to write an essay after discerning most of his arguments!

[jonfaith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

But surely infantilism is destined to be surmounted. Men cannot remain children for ever; they must in the end go out into 'hostile life'. We may call this 'education to reality. Need I confess to you that the whole purpose of my book is to point out the necessity for this forward step?

This isn't exactly theory, but more a prose poem or maybe agitprop. Freud deftly employs a dialogue method aiming for some persuasive measure, though accepting that his words aren't likely to influence the unwilling. He does paraphrase his opponents well. While remaining a plea, the text is an eloquent one. His style is adroit and drenched in wit (see Freud's thoughts on Prohibition). There is much to be said about a sociology of the murderous: denizens who would overthrow the yoke of civilization at the first opportunity. Here's to austerity measures and prayer in schools.

[tabascofromgudreads · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Perhaps relevant in his times, but utter BS today. Our life is, essentially, a dream. If you are pessimistic enough to call any religion a collective illusion or neurosis, then you should have the courage and intellectual honesty to call your entire life, religious or non religious, an illusion and a neurosis.
One more intellectual to load on the "Ooops, I missed the point" wagon. On to the next one! Oh, nice to meet you, prof. Dawkins...

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Freud, in most modern opinions, oscillates wildly between being beautifully right and spectacularly wrong. This book contains some of his most piercing insights and acerbic wit.

Freud analyzes the old dinosaur of religion as he saw it, finding it to serve as a type of cure for a childlike helplessness in the world. He delves briefly into his idea of a 'father complex', but this idea is well applied here - modern theorists have built off of his ideas here to an astonishing degree.

He also re-examines the role of religion in modern life, saying that it is very appealing to those who are most downtrodden in society - again, a statement that history has gratified. However, Freud also says that having a society totally reliant on atheism would also be a fault, too.

A profoundly interesting book, and one of the great ideas in history is here - one with which many still grapple.

[sgarnell_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Freud brings up a number of interesting arguments. Perhaps not everyone will agree, but I think this book has an interesting take on the mechanics of religious faith, and offers one possible explanation for its manifestation.

[shannonkearns · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

i find freud to be pretty insufferable and full of himself. even if he has good points i am so annoyed by his writing style that i can't get to them.

[atomheart_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

interesting perspective on the illusion of religion from the king and creator of psycho-analysis. this is an extremely short read, and one that i will have to re-read again to get a firmer understanding of his analysis.his scientific tactic of breaking down the creation and dissemination of religious ideas over centuries, using psycho-analysis, is quite fascinating and frankly, hard to rationally argue. it really only leaves ones' 'faith' to believe in the absurdities of religious doctrine, or as he puts it, '[the church] maintains that religious doctrines are outside the jurisdiction of reason - are above reason. Their truth must be felt inwardly, and they need not be comprehended.' which begs the next statement that i thoroughly enjoy because it creates a nasty, yet accurate slippery slope, 'Am I to be obliged to believe in every absurdity? And if not, why this one in particular?'moreover, he discusses the formation of religion from both the achievement and shortcomings of civilization. and answers how the world would handle the non-existence of it, as a civilization.its nice to read a purely scientific analysis of religion. not opinion, but analysis using the same method he used to make modern psychology what it is today.but i guess this is a moot point when we as humans are not capable of understanding divine power and wisdom.