Moses and Monotheism - Softcover

Freud, Sigmund

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1909735183 ISBN 13: 9781909735187

Publisher: Aziloth Books, 2013

Synopsis

In 1938 the 'father of Psychoanalysis' Sigmund Freud found himself an exile in London, a victim of Nazi persecution. But Britain's religious freedom at last gave Freud the opportunity to complete a work he had withheld from the public during his time in Catholic Vienna - a study on the biblical Moses and the origins of Judaism. 'Moses and Monotheism' was published in August 1938 to a storm of criticism. Freud announced that Moses, the man who led the Israelites out of Egypt, was not a Hebrew, but instead an Egyptian Prince and a follower of Akhenaten - the 'Heretic Pharaoh' who had tried and failed to force upon the Egyptians his own form of Monotheism. Freud claimed that, angered by the strict laws Moses tried to impose, the Hebrews had eventually murdered their Egyptian saviour. But 'Moses and Monotheism' is much more than an early example of 'alternative history'. Freud saw Moses' insistence on an invisible God as a defining moment in history, freeing mankind from the world of matter. It meant that "sensory perception was given second place to what may be called an abstract idea - a triumph of intellectuality over sensuality", an intellectual emancipation that allowed for a flowering of human potential in both the arts and science.

About this title

About the Author:

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in Moravia; between the ages of four and eighty-two his home was in Vienna: in 1938 Hitler's invasion of Austria forced him to seek asylum in London, where he died in the following year.

His career began with several years of brilliant work on the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. He was almost thirty when, after a period of study under Charcot in Paris, his interests first turned to psychology, and another ten years of clinical work in Vienna(at first in collaboration with Breuer, an older colleague) saw the birth of his creation, psychoanalysis. This began simply as a method of treating neurotic patients by investigating their minds, but it quickly grew into an accumulation of knowledge about the workings of the mind in general, whether sick or healthy. Freud was thus able to demonstrate the normal development of the sexual instinct in childhood and, largely on the basis of an examination of dreams, arrived at his fundamental discovery of the unconscious forces that influence our everyday thoughts and actions. Freud's life was uneventful, but his ideas have shaped not only many specialist disciplines, but the whole intellectual climate of the last half-century

From the Back Cover:

This volume contains Freud's speculations on various aspects of religion, on the basis of which he explains certain characteristics of the Jewish people in their relations with the Christians. From an intensive study of Moses legend, Freud comes to the startling conclusion that Moses himself was an Egyptian who brought from his native country the religion he gave to the Jews.

About this edition

• Publisher: Aziloth Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1909735183
• ISBN 13: 9781909735187
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 126