Freud, the Serpent and the Sexual Enlightenment of Children ¹
DANIEL BURSTON

Despite these heterodox rejoinders to tradition, I am not suggesting that this is the only possible interpretation of Genesis. Many others are also possible. What I am suggesting, however, is that Genesis 2:4 through Genesis 3 represents the implicit or unconscious model for Freud's early version of infantile sexual researches, where the child's disposition to truth, its aversion to deception and its willingness to rebel were still integral features of Freud's clinical formulations . The homologies that run right through these seemingly disparate discourses are implicit equations between

1) the processes of cognitive development and sexual maturation and moral judgement

2) the quest for knowledge, sexual expression, and a mood of rebellion against authority, and

3) an account of the more powerful party in the transaction, the 'creator', as self-interested, duplicitous and punitive.

Assuming these parallelisms are valid, the question arises: why didn't Freud interpret Genesis in this light when he had the opportunity? And what, if anything, did he say about it? Though he never published a single word about it, we know that Genesis was on Freud’s mind, because on Wed. Nov. 29, 1911, Freud delivered an impassioned response to Sabina Spielrein's presentation to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Otto Rank chronicled the proceedings (Nunberg & Federn, 1967, vol. 3, p. 335). In Rank's account, after a lengthy peroration: 'Freud takes the Book of Genesis as an example of an extremely strong distortion, and demonstrates this in detail'. Though Rank did not summarize Freud's remarks, in a letter to Jung, dated Dec. 17, 1911, Freud did, as follows:

'You have asked me for an example of my objections to the most obvious method of exploiting mythology. I shall give you an example I used in the debate. Fraulein Spielrein had cited the Genesis story of the apple as an instance of woman seducing man. But in all likelihood the myth of Genesis is a wretched, tendentious distortion devised by an apprentice priest, who as we now know stupidly wove two independent sources into a single narrative (as in a dream). It is not impossible that there are two sacred trees because he found one tree in each of the two sources. There is something very strange and singular about the creation of Eve. - Rank recently called my attention to the fact that the Bible story may quite have reversed the original myth. Then everything would be clear; Eve would be Adam's mother, and we should be dealing with the well known motif of mother incest, the punishment for which, etc. Equally strange is the motif of the woman giving the man an agent of fruitfulness (pomegranate) to eat. The man giving the woman a fruit to eat is an old marriage rite (cf. the story of Prosperina condemned to remain in Hades as Pluto's wife). Consequently, I hold that the surface versions of myths cannot be used uncritically for comparison with our psychoanalytic findings. We must find our way back to their latent, original forms by a comparative method that eliminates the distortions they have undergone in the course of their history (McGuire, 1974, p. 288)'.

In fairness to Freud, identifying the received version of any myth as the original, as Jung was charged with doing, is a naive and questionable procedure. But by the same token, the belief that the various sources woven into the Genesis narrative are the distorted derivations of a single, original myth that expresses a universal complex is also an arbitrary presupposition, for which no actual proof is offered , and which runs counter to the methods of Biblical scholarship, which characteristically assumes a plurality of sources, each authentic in its own right.

But there is much, much more to this letter. Unless he did so inadvertently, Freud’s remarks about Spielrein seem calibrated to make two points to Jung, but to do so indirectly , if possible. Freud’s forthright refusal to believe that Eve could have taken the sexual initiative was an oblique way of communicating his growing distaste for Jung's affair with Speilrein, and his increasing inability to credit Jung's account of events, in which Speilrein supposedly seduced him. Moreover, and more importantly, for our purposes, the remark about the two trees as a 'wretched, tendentious distortion' by an 'apprentice priest' was Freud's way of asserting the priority of his own methods and discoveries -- the Vienna tree -- over that of the Zurich School that was now beginning to take root. This outburst of ritual chest-thumping came just 3 years before Freud's paper "On The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement", where he denounced Jung publicly.

In short, we've established that while Freud omitted discussion of the Fall with reference to infantile sexual researches, where it clearly belongs, it did occur to him in connection with Jung (via Spielrein). Freud's argument gets rolling with reference to the two trees , and by implication, with the issue of immortality or posthumous fame. More than theory was at stake, however. Apart from Freud's investment in protecting his hold on posterity, and the specific vicissitudes of his relationship with Jung, the deliberate (if unconscious) attenuation of infantile sexual researches after 1910 heralded a more global transformation in the psychoanalytic movement that has to be seen in wider historical perspective.

At its inception, psychoanalysis was an 'outgroup' unrecognized by the academic establishment, committed to relaxing sexual repression, and undoing the silence and hypocrisy that affected the sexual life of European society. By virtue to their (alleged) special competence to discern the origin and meaning of psychogenic ailments, psychoanalysts considered themselves a kind of epistemic elite, who were elucidating elemental laws and secrets of nature that the unenlightened preferred not to understand (Decker, 1977). This dual sense of identity -- as outsiders committed to social change, but as insiders with respect to special knowledge or wisdom -- was never discussed overtly, because it was a given or implicit feature of their collective undertakings, and their vocal support for things like sex-education and the more widespread availability of contraception, which were supported by others whose political orientation was liberal, social democratic or frankly socialist.

Despite Freud's reluctance to affiliate psychoanalysis with any particular political party, evidence for the political character of the psychoanalytic movement abounds. In a letter to Jung, for example, Freud once remarked that he had abandoned the idea of affiliating psychoanalysis with the recently founded "International Society for Ethics and Culture", despite the fact that

I was attracted by the practical, aggressive and protective aspect of the (Society's) program , the undertaking to combat the authority of State and Church directly where they commit palpable injustice, and so to arm ourselves against the great future adversaries of psychoanalysis with the help of larger numbers and methods other than those of scientific work (McGuire, 1974, p. 179).

Judging from these words, Freud situated psychoanalysis squarely in opposition to the conservative and reactionary forces in the Hapsburg Empire, and saw its survival as being contingent on the success of progressive and reform minded politics. Being a devout secularist of Jewish, middle class background, and having restricted opportunities for advancement because of Church and monarchy, Freud opposed theocratic privilege and pretensions. Like Enlightenment ideologues, he was intent on dissipating fear, superstition and unnecessary suffering, and furthering the capacity for critical thought and general human emancipation. This overall orientation was mirrored in his notion of infantile sexual researches, where the duplicitous role of authority in stifling intellectual independence and free self-expression figured prominently.

Up until 1911 , the paradoxical identity of the Vienna group as social exiles and epistemic elite fostered a certain tolerance that allowed for a wide range of opinions, expressed in lively, sometimes acrimonious debates, which allowed participants to state their own views and establish their originality, and/or to woo Freud's favor and approval. But there was no central platform or 'party line'; no uniformity of opinion requisite to group membership (orthodoxy). The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, and its fledgling offshoots, were united by the associated participants shared feelings of being persecuted, ignored, excluded by society at large, but endowed with a historic mission, and a shared admiration for 'the Professor' (Decker, 1977).

However, as Freud's following continued to grow, so did pressures to intellectual uniformity. Some of these pressures emanated from the group's need to define its boundaries, beliefs and function more clearly. For these reasons alone , Freud felt an increasing need to introduce certain articles of faith, or a kind of analytic creed that would rally his followers and eliminate competitors.

But beneath the theoretical disputes between Freud and his erstwhile disciples, there were changes of a covertly political character going on (Fromm, 1963). This is most apparent in the changing characterization of rebellion against paternal authority. In the 'case histories' of 'Little Hans' (1909) and Leonardo (1910), for example, Freud characterized rebellion against paternal authority as an inevitable result of the child's recoil from adult deception and its thirst for knowledge; in short, as a step towards objectivity and emancipation. Freud's Leonardo epitomized the passionate inquisitiveness and resolute independence of mind requisite to the development of the scientist, whose intellectual freedom is supposedly contingent on the absence of repression or fear.

Page 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.

"Freud, The Serpent, and the Sexual Enlightenment of Children"
International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 1994 vol. 3, pp. 205-219.


How to cite a webpage