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THE OCEANIC FEELING AND MYSTICISM
Freud wrote to Romain Rolland in March 1923: ". . . your name has been associated with the most precious of beautiful illusions, that of love extended to all mankind. But a great part of my life has been spent [trying to] destroy illusions of my own and those of mankind" (E. Freud, 1970, p. 346). In his correspondence with Rolland, Freud was impressed with Rolland's ability to transcend the scientific and be able to emotionally relate to others in brotherly love. This major difference between Freud and Rolland came to the fore after Freud sent Rolland a copy of The Future of an Illusion (Freud, 1927). Rolland expressed disappointment that Freud had neglected to include subjective feelings, which Rolland called: "a sensation of 'eternity,' a feeling as of something limidess, unbounded-as it were, 'oceanic'" (Freud, 1930, p. 64). (see Jones, 1974, p. 594.)
Freud, the scientist, noted: "I cannot discover this 'oceanic' feeling in myself. It is not easy to deal scientifically with feelings (1930, p. 65) . . . it is very difficult for me to work with these almost intangible qualities" (1930, p. 72). Since these amorphous feelings could not be defined objectively, Freud did not investigate the intangible. He never stated that these feelings did not exist, they just were not part of his Weltanschauung. He admired Rolland for being able to feel and express these emotions. In a 1929 letter, Freud writes to Rolland: "How remote from me are the worlds in which you move! To me mysticism is just as closed a book as music" (E. Freud, 1970, p. 389). And in January 1930, Freud states that the mystical experience is "highly valuable for an embryology of the soul when correctly interpreted, but worthless for orientation in the alien, external world" (E. Freud, 1970, p. 393). It sounds as if Freud might be fearful of entering the mystical "orchard" because of its association with organized religion, which Freud had rejected. However, Freud's relationship to Judaism was quite ambivalent. We may speculate, as did Yerushalmi (1991, p. 134, n.47), that there was a public Freud, who did not overemphasize his Jewishness or knowledge of Hebrew or Yiddish, and a private, more personal, Freud who...