THE FREUD FRAUD
I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly: and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn: Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck. (Psalm 75:4&5)
Militant Atheist and Destroyer of Religion 1856-1939
Many figures have impacted on Christianity for evil. Freud is one of them. Freud is a man whose works both influence and control the thinking and actions of many professionals today. Like many a godless fool before him he lived his life with one great aim and that was to destroy religion, in particular, Christianity. He viewed all religious belief as a type of mental illness – a universal neurosis that should be eradicated from the mind of man.
Freud is known today for his “science’ of psychoanalysis. Let me state at the outset that, unlike many Christian books that not only seek to defend Freud but advocate a ‘Christian Psychology’ this writer will make no such apologetic. Psychology is nothing more than the twisted reasoning of a sinfully sick heart, it is pseudo-science and it is dangerous. Today for example our society is experiencing some of the consequences and out-workings of Freud’s psychoanalysis. These are views like the following: – Man is not to blame, evil is a meaningless word, man is a victim, the cause of his problem is someone/something else, no personal responsibility, he shouldn’t feel guilt, man is sick.
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 and died aged 83 by assisted suicide in 1939. He was born a Jew but he loathed belief in God with a vengeance. He made it clear that he was not afraid of the Almighty. He was the equal of Voltaire in atheistic views and ever took any opportunity to mock and attack God or those who served Him. Before we look further at his early life we need, I feel, to grasp certain truths about Freud. We have here a man whose life’s agenda is to destroy faith. He had shaken his fist in the face of the Almighty and declared war. He was a godless Jew of the first magnitude, a Judas to his people. When Freud viewed the universe he saw no God, the Bible was nothing more than waste paper and human reason was all-in-all. If ever a man lived with an obsessive fanatical commitment to unseat God this was the man. He was an instrument of darkness to both this nation and wherever his damnable teachings have travelled. Freud married in 1886 one Manna Bernays who had been brought up an orthodox Jew. Immediately this man views his wire is one who should be torn away from her superstitious religious convictions. The position of his household would be well summed up by one author who said it was the following, ‘As for me and my house, we will serve no God.’ When you read that statement don’t you thank God for His Grace that enables you and I to say with joy. ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’
He was born in Moravia in a town of about 5-6,000 people who were mainly practising Catholics. His father seems to have doted on the lad to the point of getting rid of his sister’s piano when the lad complained it disturbed his studies. He obviously had intellectual ability, he knew English, French, Italian and Spanish, he also had a gift with German prose, he was taught Hebrew and was conversant in Latin and Greek. The young Freud was clearly familiar with Catholicism as he was often taken to Mass by his Roman Catholic nanny of whom he was extremely fond. It is interesting how many famous men in history, who have become anti-Christian had early attachment to Catholicism. Again, the writer especially considers the Grace of God in his own life here, for while not achieving fame nor expecting too, his own early inclinations were to the religion of Rome. As the young Freud grew a choice of profession had to be considered. In Vienna at the time, this choice for a Jew could include medicine, law or industry. Freud wasn’t mad on the idea of medicine because there was another thought constantly whizzing round his mind which centred on the ‘problem’ of guilt. How ever, at 17 the young Freud who later in life stated he didn’t have ‘any craving to help suffering humanity’ set off for the university of Vienna to read medicine. In looking at his choice of career we note particular desires motivate him, though admittedly not unusual in a young man, they were a longing for money and fame. While studying medicine a Dr Ernest Brucke greatly influenced the young lad: Brucke was an evolutionary physiologist who had little belief in either God or His Word. He didn’t see any purpose in the universe or designing hand and it was the outlook of this man that the young Freud liked. Freud wasn’t really happy in medicine, but he did enjoy the Psychiatry part. In this field he was influenced by Prof Theordor Meynert a brain anatomist who believed the brain held hidden secrets that needed to be unlocked. Needless to say such an idea was right up the young Freud’s street.
Meynert’s basic view was that the thoughts of man were determined, thus Freud in considering this and deciding it true, believed that human behaviour was determined and had no moral quality. Thoughts determine action. Later in life he stated that Professor Meynert was a, ‘brilliant genius’, in fact between 1882-1885 he worked in the General Hospital in Vienna under the guidance of Professor Meynert.
Freud puzzled over the question of the mind of man. then he suddenly thought he had found a very special drug, namely, cocaine. It is interesting to note how many-public figures of fame and reputation in the nineteenth century used this ‘wonder drug’. Freud now began to promote the use of cocaine as he believed it would bring him financial gain and establish his reputation. There wasn’t much known about the drug in Europe and while it was true that South American Indians rubbed it on their skin Dr Freud didn’t seem to click that injecting it would have a different effect. Cocaine became used for all kinds of things in the nineteenth century, for example, it was used as a tranquillizer for people trying to get off morphine addiction, it was used for pain, depression, heart problems and exhaustion. Freud also took the drug to combat depression, in fact he prescribed this ‘cure all’ left right and centre, with patients including his sisters and then fiancee, in fact one of his medical colleagues and admirers who later wrote a biography of Freud said of his actions in cocaine prescription, ‘he was rapidly becoming a public menace.’ By now some doctors were getting \ery worried about his actions and by 1886 with a worldwide rise in cocaine addiction he had become infamous for the promotion of a chemical evil. His idiotic meddling with the substance finally led to the death of a patient, however, he continued to use it for personal relief which included a long list of lame excuses. Why did he still use it? Because what we see is not a genius but one more guilt-ridden soul who believes he can spit in the face of God and remain immune. The man who brought such ‘peace’ to the minds of men had a sin problem.
Before we continue with his life you may wonder why I am painting such a dark picture of this man. Well, first because truth requires it. Secondly, because unless one understands that atheism was at the centre of his being one will not properly see the danger of his views. These views play a part even today in treatment methods used by mental health professionals and psychiatrists, they also influence psychologists and social workers.
From 1882-1905 Freud worked out his principles of psychoanalysis. Three books rank high in it’s formation, they are. Studies on Hysteria (1895), The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). When Freud looked at mental / neurotic illness he was obsessed with the view that their real source lay deep in sexual conflict. To the various treatment practises he carried out including electro-therapy on women, he added hypnotism. He studied this ‘science’ between 1885-1886 in Paris with one who had been able to bring forth certain hysterical problems in patients via post-hypnotic suggestion. However, after using hypnotism for eighteen months on his own long-suffering patients he got fed up with it because basically it didn’t work. With cocaine, electro-therapy and now hypnotism proving a failure Freud was looking for something new. We therefore move now to his early foundations of psychoanalysis. A lady called Bertha Pappenheim; whose father had recently died, began to experience partial paralysis, headaches, vision problems and two separate personalities. She was treated by Dr Breuer who noted that when she was under hypnosis she talked about important memories that she couldn’t recall when not hypnotized. After two years her problems seemed cured. Having been sent to a Swiss sanatorium, she began to suffer stomach cramps and then declared ‘Now come Dr Breuer’s child.’ Freud saw this as an hysterical pregnancy and an evidence to his mind that sexual conflicts cause neurotic problems.
Soon Freud developed his ‘free association’ method which was originally called ‘psychical analysis’. The patient lies down, eyes closed, and recalls memories. Psychoanalysis is not science it is just the chance wandering through a patients mind. By 1893 we see Freud view the idea that talking about a problem, excavating the minds fears could cure hysteria etc. Of course we all know that to talk about a problem can sometimes help us, ‘a problem shared is a problem halved.’ However, Freud was really seeking to move beyond that to probe the deeper recesses of the psyche. Often when matters were revealed by a patient they were attributed to immoral desires, everything had a sexual angle. Out of all this Freud built his seduction theory and opened the door to the possibility of false memory syndrome. I do not feel that I can expand on the seduction theory as it is not really suitable material for a spiritual paper. If I say Sex looms large I think that will say enough.
In 1896 he presented a paper before the Viennese Society for Psychiatry and Neurology, much of which was repulsive garbage, with the idea again of sex being behind all hysteria etc. Many of his listeners were not amused, and Freud suffered professional rejection which caused him within about a year to back down on his views. However, his sick perverted mind just recast his ideas in a new way which again I will not elaborate on.
Again, let us stop a moment to ask the question, what kind of a man do we have here? Well, he hates all religion but his desk is covered with heathen idols from Egypt, Rome and Greece. Having decided to self-analyse his own dreams and walk the long dark corridors of his own mind he found wicked thoughts. They appear in some of his teaching like the Oedipus Complex. I am not going to explain them because whatever veneer psychologists try to cover them with the simple truth is that they are the sick product of a sick mind. Freud was big on dream interpretation, in fact so much so perhaps he should have lived in ancient Babylon and got a job as an ‘oracle”. He published his dream book in 1900. For Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams that was the name of the book, was a royal road to knowledge of the unconscious, it is likewise a very ordinary road to complete confusion. Whilst it is easy to smile about dreams, let me assure you Freud was in earnest about this ‘science’. I do not have the space to relate the whole ‘science’ of Freudian dream interpretation but I can say that following the Freudian system, no matter what your dream may be, his theory is always right. It has been pointed out by one scholar that Freud, ‘chose the dream, the least verifiable of all empirical mental activity, as the most compelling evidence of how the mind works. In addition to his own dreams, Freud drew from the dream content of his hysterical and psychoneurotic patients – hardly a random sample.’ Interestingly, in the closing years of the Nineteenth Century when he put together his system of psychoanalysis he himself was a wreck. Here is a man who while laving the foundations of a system to ‘heal’ others is suffering fear of death, mood swings, headaches, nasal infection, fear of travel by train and extreme anxiety. A further fascinating point as we wander through the mind of this man and his dreams is what one scholar calls the ‘theme of Rome, glittering in the distance a supreme prize and incomprehensible menace.’ That scholar further adds, To Freud, Rome symbolized the Catholic Church.’ Amazing isn’t it. how Rome so often pops up.
Freud wrote four major works with reference to the Psychoanalysis of Religion. In 1913 he wrote, Totem and Taboo an attempt to discover the source of guilt and discredit God. In 1927 The Future of an Illusion, this work dismisses belief in a loving God, there is no God, no eternal life, no moral order. In 1930 Civilization and its Discontents, an attack on religion via Sociology. Then between 1934-38 in separate parts Moses and Monotheism, his idea was to destroy Moses, needless to say it outraged the Jews.
All the time while he worked, however, his great problem was, what is the source and cure for guilt. He idolized Darwin, to Freud man was an Ape, but again the problem was that apes don’t suffer from guilt complexes. For Freud man’s freedom required getting rid of religious law, any standard that would impose external responsibility and. thereby, guilt. In 1938 with the rise of the Nazis, Freud didn’t want to leave Vienna. Eventually he paid 12,000 Dutch gulden for an exit visa and signed a paper praising the Nazis for their respect to him. ft was with the aid of both Roosevelt and Mussolini that he got out of Vienna. After living there 79 years he, his wife and daughter boarded the Orient Express and headed to London. He abandoned his four frail sisters to the Nazis – they died in concentration camps.
Before we begin to close our limited study of Freud we should note that his work was very useful to Liberal Theology. Freud had the knack of being able to spin fairy-tales into believable dogma and liberal Protestantism swallowed them up hook, line and sinker. He raised doubts, despite evidence to the contrary to Jesus having ever having lived, which some liberals embraced. One of the leading theologians of the day Paul Tillich (1886-1965). used Freud’s arguments against Calvinism and presented psychoanalysis as man’s new salvation. Man was no longer a sinner who needed salvation, he needed healing via counselling. The Church today is full of this counselling mentality. Of course there are times when a minister needs to counsel but Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones hit the nail on the head with regard to all the endless counselling today, basically it reflects rotten preaching. Much of modern theology then gets its ‘truths’ from an atheist. Modern day evangelism is full of Freud. Here the irony is that while countless evangelists use Freudian techniques, some who are not Christians but are trained in Psychology present a different picture. In a book entitled. The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion, the author states, `psychoanalysis is not messianic but demonic, not salvation but slavery and bondage of the worst kind.’
How then does one sum up Freudian ‘science’? When Freudian ‘science’ is confronted by real science and lots of common-sense it is seen for what it is. a pile of dung. Like evolutionary ‘science’ it works by circular reasoning.
Let us close with a final look at Freud and his end. His dismissal of belief in God has been seen as the necessary outcome of a man devoted to reason, objectivity, and science. Unfortunately that will not wash. I personally know many brilliant scholars who have used reason, objectivity and science every day but love and serve the Lord with a full heart. Freud was at no time an objective scientist, his ‘science’ endorsed sin. In the end the man who taught that religion was delusion, was himself to produce a delusion. At 67 Freud contracted cancer of the jaw and fought it for sixteen years. Portions of his jaw were eventually removed and towards the end he had little of his blaspheming mouth left. On the 23rd September 1939 he died with the aid of a lethal injection of morphine, stepping out into the darkness of eternity to answer before a God he hated. He lived and died a fool and left behind a body that awaits the resurrection to everlasting shame and contempt.
Dr. David Badger
(From the Monarch Standard 1999)