A modern look to the story of Oedipus

The story of Oedipus can obviously also be seen differently, especially assuming that Freud simply shifted his religious conflicts to the sexual level. With Freud, the word hell hardly appears, because he was afraid of it. It never occurred to himself or probably to any psychiatrist that and why Freud feared God. Tensions resulting from sexual issues…. were much easier for him to bear than those caused by the mire of religion. The strongest human drive is related neither to sex nor death or aggression but to the avoidance of suffering. If we can avoid torment, we even immediately renounce sexual acts. A human being is essentially a uniquely timid creature. No other being but he understands that he can suffer permanent torture during his lifetime or even an – as the Church will claim up to this day – everlasting agony of punishment by torture. That is the only reason why the human being appears to be so evil – more evil than any animal. It is fear which makes him so cruel.

Here is my interpretation of the legend of Oedipus: Oedipus killed his father (without recognizing him as such) in a dispute after a traffic accident – perhaps even in self-defence. That is all not so terribly bad. Far more profound was the act of incest he committed with Iokaste. As it turned out later, she was his mother. In “King Oedipus”, Sophokles tries yet to comfort him: “Do not worry about your marriage to your mother”! However, incest is basically – as is patricide – not a problem related to sexology but it is a religious taboo, and one of the most major ones at that! That was worrying, that created feelings of guilt, that is what drove Oedipus to religious masochism: He burnt out both of his eyes. In order to not have to go to God’s eternal torture chambers, he wanted to suffer here on earth. One offers one’s God self-punishment to substitute agony in hell hoping that God will be satisfied with this sacrifice.

Today one lets the burning alone, today one becomes endogenously depressed and doesn’t know why. The endogenously depressed person sacrifices his mental health to God. He wants to suffer, is however oblivious of this correlation. This means that Oedipus suffered from religious neurosis, the Sacco-Syndrome. He did not suffer from a parental problem but from a problem with God, with Hell. As a child, they had talked him and his wife into believing that religious incest was a religious taboo. Iokaste even hanged herself, a suicide induced by religion. The number of such suicides, for which our Churches are responsible, remains unchanged until this day. “A taboo takes revenge on itself”, said Freud, and he erred. The breaker of a taboo only automatically and without being aware of it becomes a masochist unto his body or his soul, and that only if he knows of his breaking of the taboo. Before they had become aware of it, Oedipus and Iokaste had been happy. In the legend of Oedipus, the word hell does not occur.

The poet repressed it, just as adults do in our society. And yet, it is taught us for 15 years of our adolescence, and in this way it becomes a religious certainy. That is the professed goal of our Churches, and of course they reach this goal. 15 years of brainwashing naturally have an effect, and first of all, we cannot understand why modern psychiatry does not wish to see such a repercussion. It does is oblivious of fear of hell and does not permit it as diagnosis. Specialised training apparently on the subject does not exist and doctors who deal with the question are declared “paranoid psychotic”. So what is wrong with this psychiatry? More about that later.

My God, by the way, who is Love, views incest in a more relaxed manner. After all, no great harm is done. Quite the opposite: Four healthy and, to start with, happy children of Oedipus materialize: Polyneikis, Eteokles, Ismene and even Antigone. It is only a crazy belief which makes them three-quarters orphans with a dead mother and a blind father. God is more likely to frown upon the priestly paedophile abuse which now shocks the world. He does not like that at all. Neither do any of us. Incest still counts as a deadly sin with the Catholics and is still severely punished according to § 173 of the Criminal Code– even if of the anti-baby-pill is used. Yet no lawyer understands why. It is said that the reason why incest is penalized is controversial.

It seems, however, that, according to our lawyers, incest represents a deeply rooted social taboo. Here, our religion is cheating its way into what should be a sensible science. I herewith wish to submit the notion to our judicial system to permit spontaneous, voluntary love affairs between adults, on condition that they initially use contraception or take counselling on the issue of human genetics. In his story “Sibling Love”, the keen observer Goethe describes the damages caused by the Church in this field as a result of its prohibitions and their violation: suicide, depression, infant death and of course insanity.

A modern look to the story of Prometheus >