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Religious Belief as a Product of the Human Mind

Freud's primal horde and the challenges to Freud

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 2

Overview

Freud's primal horde and genetic fallacy.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Numbers

Where does Freud tell the story of the primal horde, and how does it begin?

Numbers

In which work does Freud set out the primal horde?

Key term

Describe Freud's primal horde.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    In which work does Freud set out the primal horde?

    Model answer

    Freud sets out the account in Totem and Taboo, published in 1913. Moses and Monotheism returns to the theme at the end of his life.

  2. 2

    Describe Freud's primal horde.

    Model answer

    Freud imagines an early human group ruled by a dominant father who kept all the women. Sons were driven out and denied any share.

  3. 3

    What happens in Freud's primal crime?

    Model answer

    The brothers band together, kill the father and eat him. Rivalry gives way to remorse once the deed is done.

  4. 4

    What does Freud mean by deferred obedience?

    Model answer

    Guilt leads the sons to obey the dead father more strictly than they obeyed the living one. Freud calls that reaction deferred obedience.

  5. 5

    Which two taboos does Freud trace to the primal crime?

    Model answer

    Killing the totem animal becomes forbidden, and so do sexual relations inside the group. Freud derives the prohibition of murder and the incest taboo from the same guilt.

  6. 6

    How does the totem become God in Freud's account?

    Model answer

    The totem animal stands in for the murdered father and receives veneration. Later the substitute is exalted into a father god.

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