the Greater Nomadic Council

The Psychology of Heaven

No doubt others have written on this topic with greater erudition and understanding than I, but I had a minor epiphany in the shower this morning that I thought I'd share. One of Freud's structures of the mind exactly mirrors Christian theology. Whether this is a datum of evidence in support of Freud, a purposeful revision on his part (seems unlikely since he was a staunch atheist), or a reflection of the fact that people's thought does not change nearly as much between eras as we often assume, I'm not sure. For those of you whose knowledge of Freud is a little rusty, I'll briefly review. He has other theories for the way in which the mind is structured, but the id/ego/superego one is the most famous. To begin, etymology: in Latin "id" is "it," "ego" is "I," and "superego" is "above-I." This is a point often neglected when Freud is taught that I think is quite useful. The ego is the conscious self, the id the site of repressed desires, and the superego the conscience/societal law/agent of repression. The subject absorbs society's laws (what Lacan later calls the Symbolic or the Name of the Father) into the superego which then monitors the desires of the ego. Any unacceptable desires are repressed to the id which is wholly unconscious and inaccessible, hence the name "it." Compare this to the relationship between hell, earth, and heaven and the similarities are startling. Heaven is where God, the ultimate Father or law-giver, lives. He looks down on the earth where we experience time and monitors our desires. Those who do not adhere to the Law are ultimately cast down into hell and thus repressed/suppressed. Is this something that is just completely obvious to everyone else? It wouldn't be the first time I was slow to make a connection.