Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

September 29, 1964. CIRCUMCISION AS DEFENSE: A STUDY IN PSYCHOANALYSIS AND RELIGION. Howard H. Schlossman, M.D.

Psychoanalytic case material available for comparison with religious ritual was used by the author to study some aspects of the ancient and widespread circumcision rite, particularly its role in serving defensive needs.

A patient of Orthodox Jewish background, who had sought analysis because of recurrent depressions, on one occasion overpaid his bill for treatment. On analysis the overpayment related initially to the repression and denial of feelings that the analyst got paid without doing any work. These feelings, when made conscious, were followed by similar feelings toward the patient's parents, who had made a living by receiving interest from lending money. Further associations to the overpayment indicated it was an act of circumcision regressively expressed in anal terms. This meaning was also expressed by various small sacrifices which the patient had made throughout life to gain advantages. The deepest unconscious meanings of these symbolic acts of circumcision, on the Oedipal level, warded off the danger of castration from the father. On preoedipal levels, the danger of castration arose from passive wishes to be impregnated by the father and oral fantasies of incorporating the breasts of the mother.

A study of the rite of circumcision suggests that defensive functions similar to those found in the patient are an important part of the fantasy content of the religious ritual. The history of its connection specifically with the Jewish religion is summarized. At the time the god, Jehovah, came into being, the ancient world appeared to be in ferment between two powerful religions. One involved the Mother Goddess with her son-consort, worshipped under many names—Ishtar, Atargatis, Cybele—and imbued with orgiastic mysteries. (The Virgin and Christ myth is probably the last and most highly idealized version involving the worship of an all-powerfu