Zur Frage der psychologischen Grundlagen und des Ursprungs der Religion — Index

Overview

Lecture delivered 25 March 1921 at the Psychological Society of Sofia (translated from Bulgarian). Kinkel applies Freudian psychoanalysis to the origin and development of religion, arguing for a psychoanalytic sociology in which religious ideas and moods derive from universal infantile complexes.

Main Arguments

1. Biogenetic Law Applied to Psychology

• Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny (Haeckel): Individual development repeats species development.
• Sociological parallel: The “primitive” mentality of Naturvölker (indigenous/natural peoples) corresponds to the psychology of the modern child.
• Child psychology and primitive religious symbolism share the same structural patterns.

2. Father and Mother Complexes as Foundation of Religion

• Mother complex: Good fairy, mother earth, nurturing figures = symbol of the mother.
• Father complex: Giant, terrifying or powerful figures, sky gods = symbol of the father.
• Infantile sexuality: First object of (unconscious) sexual sympathy for girls = father; Oedipal structure in both sexes.
• Religion sublimates these complexes; ritual and doctrine express repressed infantile wishes.

3. Monotheism as Father-Projection

• God the Father = projection of the paternal ideal; authority, law, moral demand.
• Jehovah (Jewish), Christian God = same structure: paternal authority internalised as conscience (Kant’s categorical imperative).
• Cultural parallels: feudal lord, pater familias in medieval Europe; South Slav and Turkish patriarchalism.

4. Symbolism

• Fairy tales: Fairy = mother, giant = father; child’s fantasies encoded.
• Language: Primitive word-formation (e.g. Bik/Byk for ox from the sound “bu”) as symbolic.
• Number symbols in children: 1 = pillar, 6 = woman with child, etc.
• Same symbolism appears in primitive religion.

5. Regression: Russian Khlysty Sect

• Khlysty (Chlysty): Secret prayer meetings → religious ecstasy → dancing, jumping → candles “extinguish” → sexual orgies (hetero- and homosexual) in darkness.
• Kinkel interprets this as regression to ancient sexual-religious forms (spring festivals, fertility rites, Mother Earth / Father Heaven; Astarte-Aphrodite mysteries on Cyprus).
• Sublimated libido returns to raw sexual form under ecstatic conditions.

6. Infantilism as Core of Religion

• “Feeling of absolute dependence” on nature (birth, death, rain, thunder) = religious root.
• Primitive and modern alike: helplessness before nature → flight into infantile submission to a parental figure (God).
• Harnack (1892): Religion = dissolving oneself in a higher personality; soul finds God as Father “like the child in the father’s house.”
• Matthew 18:1–5 (Christ: “Become as little children”) cited as scriptural support for religious infantilism.

7. Persistence and Regression

• Religion infantilism persists in moderns; trauma can trigger regression.
• Post-WWI Germany: “Search for a new religion” in some socialist circles = regression under disappointment.
• Conclusion: “We are powerless against the great laws of psychology that lie hidden in the depths of our soul.”

Structure (Approximate)

Key References

• Ernst Haeckel — Biogenetic law
• Freud — Psychoanalysis, Oedipus, sublimation
• Adolf Harnack — Dogmengeschichte III, p. 529 (religion as childlike relation to Father)
• Dostoevsky — Brothers Karamazov, Iljuschetschka (Ilusha); Dr. Krstnikoff’s observation on sadism, pity, wounded childish feelings after father’s public humiliation
• Biblical — Matthew 18:1–5
• Ethnology — Astarte-Aphrodite mysteries, Cyprus; universal Father-Heaven / Mother-Earth cults

Dedication

To Dr. Nicolaus Krstnikoff (founder of the Psychological Society of Sofia) and its first members: N. Popoff, Sp. Kasandjieff, Mladen Nikoloff, Michael Dimitroff, Dimitër Botscharoff, Nicolo Dolaptchieff.

Cross-References

• Nenovsky 2015 — Kinkel’s economic theory; biography; Schmoller, psychoanalysis in Bulgaria
• Sources index — All Ivan Kinkel materials
• Gottfried Kinkel — Possible family link (unresolved)

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