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Psychoanalysts must determine whether their patients' belief systems serve normative or neurotic goals. The author finds that hysterical patients seem drawn to religious systems that foster intense emotional experience and irrational belief. Obsessional and depressive individuals tend to seek perfectionism in their religious practice. The former search for logical, correct solutions to existential problems; their religious thought is characterized by dogmatism and doubt. Depressive individuals may express their incapacity to achieve perfection in beliefs of their inherent evil or sinfulness; they feel judged and condemned. Narcissistic patients share psychopathological traits with their depressive and obsessional peers. In addition, they often exhibit attitudes of religious superiority, sometimes veiled by a depressive constellation. Patients often translate masochistic attitudes into religious practices; these are prominent in Christians who identify with the suffering Christ in the belief that that is the path to divine love. Paranoid individuals tend to be authoritarian in their outlook, focusing on control and power. This attracts them to strong leaders and inspires hostility toward those who hold different beliefs. There are several lucid clinical illustrations.