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Volney Gay is Professor of Religion at Vanderbilt University. He justifies studying Freud on the grounds that it affords the serious student “sheer intellectual joy.” His book is intended as a guide for students who wish to understand the development of Freud's opinions about religion. The author states that he chose the interrogative mode because it enabled him to “illuminate how Freud thinks, not simply document what he thinks.” Gay suggests the chapters of his handbook “might be seen as scaffolds erected alongside Freud's texts.” Goals of the author include elucidating the way Freud understood religion which Gay describes as “an almost-good-enough attempt to promote human happiness. Freud's understanding of religion is essentially tragic. Like the hero of classic tragedy, religion is an entity that is noble but inherently flawed, tainted by birth, and incapable of adjusting to the real world of ordinary mortals.”
Gay's book is very well organized. Preceding the study questions for each of the works to be examined he lists the technical terms which the student will encounter in much the same manner that a foreign language text lists the new vocabulary words in each lesson. His references are divided into four sections: (1) “The Work of Sigmund Freud” includes three subheadings, Freud Texts, References Aids, and Indexes and Reviews; (2) “On Freud the Man” includes Autobiographical and Family Accounts, Freud's Letters, Accounts by Friends and Patients, and Major Biographical Accounts; (3) “Psychoanalysis: History and Theory” includes History of Psychoanalysis, and Surveys, Critiques, Summaries; (4) “Journals and Periodicals” include both English and foreign language journals.
In order to acquaint his students with Freud's theory as a basis for understanding, for example, the comparison of religion with obsessional neurosis, Gay first guides his students through the 1909 “Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis,” and the 1915-1917, “Introductory Lectures.” He asks some leading