|
Incidentally, why was it that none of all the pious ever discovered psychoanalysis? Why did it have to wait for a completely godless Jew?23 Pfister’s reply was dated October 29, 1918: Finally you ask why psychoanalysis was not discovered by any of the pious, but by an atheist Jew. The answer obviously is that piety is not the same as genius for discovery…. Moreover, in the first place you are no Jew, which to me, in view of my unbounded admiration for Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the author of Job, and Ecclesiastes, is a matter of profound regret, and in the second place you are not godless, for he who lives in the truth lives in God, and he who strives for the freeing of love “dwelleth in God” (First Epistle of John, iv, 16). If you raised your consciousness and fully felt your place in the great design, which to me is as necessary as the synthesis of the notes is to a Beethoven symphony, I should say of you: A better Christian there never was….11 Freud did not respond directly to Pfister’s boldness here, although very possibly his letter of February 16, 1929, responded to a similar remark: That was an excessively friendly thought on your part, and it always reminds me of the monk who insisted on regarding Nathan as a thoroughly good Christian. I am a long way from being Nathan, but of course I cannot help remaining “good” towards you.25 Perhaps the most poignant series of communications came in connection with Freud’s publication of The Future of an Illusion. On October 16, 1927, Freud wrote to Pfister: In the next few weeks a pamphlet of mine will be appearing which has a great deal to do with you. I had been wanting to write it for a long time, and postponed it out of regard for you, but the impulse became too strong. The subject matter. is my completely negative attitude to religion…. I feared, and still fear, that such a public profession of my attitude will be painful to you. When you have read it let me know what measure of toleration and understanding you are able to preserve for the hopeless pagan.26 Pfister replied on October 21, 1927: “You have always been tolerant towards me, and I am to be intolerant of your atheism? If I frankly air my differences from you, you will certainly not take it amiss. Meanwhile my attitude is one of eager curiosity.”27 As the discussion developed, Pfister was to publish a reply to The Future of an Illusion in the psychoanalytic journal Imago. In reference to that forthcoming reply, Freud wrote on October 22, 1927: “Such is your magnanimity that I expected no other answer to my ‘declaration of war.’ The prospect of your making a public stand against my pamphlet gives me positive pleasure….”28 And on November 26, 1927: |