In these brief clips, psychoanalysis founder Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is first seen in Vienna in 1932 speaking with archeologist Emanuel Loewy, then in 1938 signing the Royal Society's charter book and lastly celebrating his 81st birthday... the latter clips were taken in London where Freud and his family were forced to move from Vienna following the 1938 Nazi Anschluss (he died in London a year later)... at this time, Freud completed his last major work, "Moses and Monotheism," which offered a controversial account of Judaism's genealogy... Freud argued that Moses was actually Egyptian and that he had attempted to force monotheism upon his followers; as a result he was murdered but the guilt of the deed later forced the Jews to atone by actually creating the religion as its presently known... another theme of the work was the historical phenomenon of anti-Semitism (obviously, culminating in the Nazi regime)... Freud, who was a Jew (though atheistic), wrote:
"The deeper motives of anti-Semitism have their roots in times long past; they come from the unconscious, and I am quite prepared to hear that what I am going to say will at first appear incredible. I venture to assert that the jealousy which the Jews evoked in other peoples by maintaining that they were the first-born, favorite child of God the Father
has not yet been overcome by those others, just as if the latter had given credence to the assumption. Furthermore, among the customs through which the Jews marked off their aloof position, that of circumcision made a disagreeable, uncanny impression on others. The explanation probably is that it reminds them of the dreaded castration idea and of things in their primeval past which they would fain forget. Then there is lastly the most recent motive of the series. We must not forget that all the peoples who now excel in the practice of anti-Semitism became Christians only in relatively recent times, sometimes forced to it by bloody compulsion. One might say they all are "badly christened"; under the thin veneer of Christianity they have remained what their ancestors were, barbarically polytheistic. They have not yet overcome their grudge against the new religion which was forced on them, and they have projected it on to the source from which Christianity came to them. The facts that the Gospels tell a story which is enacted among Jews, and in truth treats only of Jews, has facilitated such a projection. The hatred for Judaism is at bottom hatred for Christianity, and it is not surprising that in the German National Socialist revolution this close connection of the two monotheistic religions finds such clear expression in the hostile treatment of both."
Tags: Freud Psychoanalysis Moses Monotheism Anti Semitism Nazis 1938 London Vienna
