These ideas might be 'mad' if expressed by an individual, but are allowed expression in religion. Religion is the return of the repressed . This is similar to the theory above but in this case religion is repeating or working through traumatic events from the distant evolutionary past. Repressed traumas return like the symptoms or character traits of individuals as described in Moses and Monotheism . The important events for Freud are associated with his theory of the primal horde.
Religion is a reaction to infantile helplessness .
In this theory we try to recreate in religion a feeling of being protected by unbounded 'love' which we yearned for in our state of infantile helplessness. Religion keeps us in the illusion of being at the centre of the universe once more. Religion echoes infantile states of 'bliss' . This theory is similar to the one above. Instead of a reaction to infantile helplessness, religion tunes into the sense of 'oneness' which the baby is thought to experience with the mother.