This article contends that Freud's discourses on religion—particularly toward the end of his life—have the earmarks of projective identification. Evidence for projective identification is gleaned from these works and from Freud's letters to friends and colleagues. The author argues that the sources of Freud's projective identification lay in 2 distinct childhood traumas: the relative absence of emotional consolation from his mother and the failure of his father to protect him. Old age and approaching death threatened to evoke feelings of helplessness and anxiety, which Freud handled, in part, by attacking the foundations of religious experience. This enabled Freud to acknowledge disappointment and hostility toward religious believers, while disclaiming the loss of and need for emotional consolation and protection.