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The aim of this paper is to outline the thesis that throughout the history of mankind, religion has served as a vehicle for personal intrapsychic conflicts, projected to form theological systems according to the social configuration that predominates. I am dividing religion into two primary components: the transcendental and the anthropocentric. I define anthropocentric religion as that aspect of any religious system that constitutes a projection of an individual family constellation onto a theological system, and transcendent religion that which implies a break beyond this family constellation…for example, the Hindu concept of the individual relating to the Atman, which is an individual extension of a cosmic Brahman.
In making a longitudinal study of religion, one of the basic elements is the struggle between male and female reflected within the various cosmogonies. The stories of Genesis change according to the particular society; in a matriarchal phase of a historical cycle a mother goddess must be the creatrix, while in a patriarchal phase, the father god is the creator. In this respect, religion follows a definite psychological pattern, with patriarchal and matriarchal shifts occurring periodically, every two to three thousand years, and the family constellation playing a definite role in these shifts, producing at the same time a revolution in the social structure.
One of the primary sources of information is myth which has gradually come to be regarded not as a senseless fantasy of primitive peoples but as an important cultural force, with specific meaning in