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IN THIS RICH AND ERUDITE PAPER Dr. Richardson has given us an excellent summary of the orthodox Freudian critique of religion and of some post-Freudian developments in the psychoanalytic study of religious phenomena. More than this, he has also begun to elaborate a psychoanalytic view of religion that he believes will "leave room for the transcendence of God." This view he develops from his thoughtful reading of Kristeva (1985) ; (1987a) ; (1987b) employing her category of the Real. Dr. Richardson believes that she has underemphasized the importance of this category, and I agree that Kristeva makes more of it in theory than in practice and that it is all too easily subsumed under the category of the Imaginary. An attempt is made by Dr. Richardson to remedy this deficiency in Kristeva's account and to give the Real a more substantial role, offering this category as a way of talking about the human experience of a transcendent God. His formulation is an appealing one, owing something I think both to Otto's (1987) concept