Martin Luther and his historical significance

Martin Luther & Psychoanalysis

Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History - Erik H. Erickson

Introduction to Erik Erikson

Before reviewing his book, it would seem appropriate to go into the life of author Eric H. Erikson, in order to get a glimpse into the author's motivations for writing the book. This book, after all, has two very powerful themes presented; the first is of course on the very famous historical figure and religious reformer, Martin Luther, whose name will be a big part of the history of the civilized world for centuries to come. And the other major theme in this book is psychoanalysis, for which the late Eric Erickson was a well-known practitioner and innovator.

Erikson was born June 15, 1902 near Frankfort Germany, and died on May 12, 1994, in the United States. According to information from the Psychology Department at Muskingum College in Ohio, Columbia University Press, and Wikipedia Encyclopedia, Erickson was born into a Jewish family as Erik Salomonsen, the son of Karla Abrahamsen and stockbroker Waldemar Isidor Salomonsen. However, there is evidence that Erikson was actually born as a result of his mother's extramarital affair, and reportedly that fact was not revealed to him until after his childhood. In fact, he stood out in the Jewish community because he was a tall, blond, blue-eyed young man, and was teased at school for looking more Nordic than Jewish.

These dynamics of his origins may well have stirred his lifelong interest in the social and psychological aspects of personality and identity. It may well have also stimulated an interest in Martin Luther, whose youth was rocked with controversy as well. In any event, Erikson attended art school in Germany and for several years taught art - and other subjects - in Vienna, to children of Americans who had traveled to Vienna to study Freudian psychology. He also trained in Vienna as a psychoanalyst under Anna Freud.

Erikson moved to the United States in 1933, changed his name, and taught at Harvard University, Yale, Berkeley and the Menninger Foundation. He wrote books and became known in the world of psychology for his theory of personality. He understood and accepted the basic tenets of Freudian theory, but he believed that Freud had perhaps misjudged certain dynamics in the development of personalities. His eight stages of development explain human beings through their lifetimes, while Freud's stages of development carried through adolescence.

Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History:

In his Preface (p. 8), Erikson acknowledges that "Sigmund Freud's monumental work is the rock on which..." Erikson's advanced theories are based. He does not openly challenge Freud, but writes that his theories on ego are rooted in - and go beyond - the work of Sigmund and Anna Freud, among others. In writing this book, Erikson wants the reader to understand that "whatever references are made..." To similarities in the life of Freud and the life of Martin Luther "...are not derived from any impression of a personal likeness" between the two individuals (p. 9). Both men displayed genius in their own field, and both had, Erikson writes, "a grim willingness to do the dirty work of their respective ages." What Erikson was struck by as he wrote the book and researched Luther and Freud, was that both of them "...kept human conscience in focus in an era of material and scientific expansion."

In reading his book, it is clear that Erikson set out to build a case for his own theories of the psychosocial development of youth (and older persons as well), and Erikson takes many pages up explaining his reasons for being intrigued with studying, in particular, the various crises that youths face in their path to maturity. This fact is constantly reinforced through his analysis of Luther's life and times, which is not a bad thing, but it is pertinent in this paper to mention that Erikson, in effect, seeks validation for his own developmental work through his interpretation and deep analysis of Luther's troubles, conflicts, and strengths, as well.

Erikson points out on page 21 that he recognizes the "dichotomy" of psychoanalysis and religion; it is almost as though Erikson is soft-selling his indifference to religious dogma, in the sense of not wanting readers to get caught up in his own views on religion. But in fact he places psychology well above religion, since psychology "endeavors to establish what is demonstrably true in human behavior," and religion "...elaborates on what feels profoundly true even though it is not demonstrable."

Meanwhile, as to the book's emphasis on Luther: in his youth Martin Luther was "a rather endangered young man," Erikson writes; Luther was "beset with a syndrome of conflicts" (p. 15) and yet the young Luther was able to find a solution for those conflicts in the spiritual side of life thanks in part to a person superior to him in the Augustinian order. Part of that "solution" for Luther, Erikson explains, was his ability to "bridge a political and psychological vacuum" which had been created through "Western Christendom."

In Chapter II, "The Fit in the Choir," Erikson writes that a very pivotal moment in the early life of Luther was when, in his mid-twenties, he was in choir practice in the monastery and fell suddenly to the ground. His behavior was "like one possessed," and, according to three of Luther's young contemporaries, Luther "roared with the voice of a bull...'it isn't me!'" (p. 23). The Latin translation of what Luther is said to have bellowed is "I am not!"

The Scripture that was being discussed at that moment was apparently Mark 9:17; "And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit." The men who were colleagues of Luther and reported on this wild scene say that Luther was "possessed by demons - the religious and psychiatric borderline case of the middle ages - and that he showed himself possessed" even though he did his best to deny he was possessed. Luther had entered the Black Monastery of the Augustinians in Erfurt at the age of 21.

He entered the monastery against his father's will; his father had wanted him to be a lawyer, and indeed Luther had already received a master of arts degree with "high honors" at the University of Erfurt at the age of twenty-one in 1505. Why did he leave the university? He had an "attack of acute panic" during a loud and violent thunderstorm, and during that attack, he made a vow of some kind (p. 24).

At this point in the book, Erikson digs up research on Luther's "fit" in the choir, offering various views from others' writings - those "experts" who later speculated about it - including Otto Scheel, a German professor of theology, who "flatly disavows" the story but in the process of denial equates Luther's possible "fit" with Paul's "miraculous [and yet pathological] conversion." A Dominican named Heinrich Denifle, another historian / archivist quoted by Erikson, suggests that Luther's "fit" was the result of "an abysmal depravity of character"; after all, Denifle believed Luther to be "too much of a psychopath to be credited with honest mental or spiritual suffering" (p. 26).

Still another "expert" on the subject of the "fit" is Dr. Paul J. Reiter, a Danish psychiatrist, believes that Luther suffered "erratic upsets in his nervous system" which occurred during his "neurotic" period of his twenties. There are more experts and further opinions on that "fit" in the monastery that day, and on pages 29-45 (or so) Erikson goes deep into every expert's view of the "fit" to justify and explain why he, Erikson, paid such close attention to one episode in the life of Luther. On page 36 Erikson suspects that the reader suspects the "fit in the choir attracted me originally because I suspected the words 'I am not!'" indicated Luther was asserting loudly that he was not possessed, or sinful, or sick. On page 37, Erikson states that in light of the emotional volatility Luther went through in his later life - "weeping, sweating, and fainting" - it is reasonable to assume the fit could represent the "symptomatic...pathological and defensive aspects of a total revelation... [likely based on] suppressed rage" that had nowhere to go but out through his mouth. To back up his supposition, Erikson points out that both Freud and Darwin had some "neurotic involvement" in their lives and it led to a "change of direction." Darwin had failed in medicine, and Freud had "neurotic suffering" and came upon his "supreme task almost accidentally."

It is clear that one of Erikson's main points is that all three of these men, Freud, Darwin, and Luther, had big problems with their fathers during their maturation. Erikson doesn't mention it, but underlying all his narrative - sometimes very enlightening and entertaining, and other times plodding and didactic - is his own difficulties with his own father issues.

Much of Chapter III ("Obedience - to Whom?") is in-dept discussion of Luther's family, Luther's childhood, community, and his early career, in which his teaching style was that of a "moral philosopher" in the context of Aristotle. The church had taught Luther that the Earth was the center of the universe and he pretty much had bought into everything that was laid before him in schools and church. Then, after receiving his master or arts (in 1505), and while still willing to pursue his father's dream for him (to go into law), he began to become melancholy (a best friend died; two of his brothers died of the plague) and very sad.

On July 2, 1505, while on his way back to college at Erfurt, he encountered a thunderstorm (as mentioned earlier in the paper) and when lightning struck the ground near him he was "seized by a severe, some say convulsive, state of terror" (p. 91). Luther claims to have called out at that moment, "Help me, St. Anne...I want to become a monk." Nobody of course heard him cry out, but his family and colleagues were stunned when he announced he was going into the monastery. Interestingly, St. Anne is his father's patron saint, and some now believe that he was calling on his father's patron said because he intended to disobey his father and become a monk rather than a lawyer.

Erikson then spends several pages discussing what other religious leaders, historians, and psychologists have had to say about this lightning storm and its implications for Luther's life and career. There is no need to review that material, because it is mostly comprised of questions, and of other cultures that also (allegedly) had dramatic experiences based on nature's fury. But at the end of the chapter, readers learn that Erikson is about to delve into the most famous and pivotal portion of Luther's legacy - the "evil" of the Roman papacy (97).

In Chapter IV Erikson generalizes about the sociology and psychology of being a bright young person who is beholden to - and on occasion tormented by - a father figure; Erikson, as is his writing style, invokes the names of other famous individuals with the intention (apparently) of creative a perspective for the reader. In this chapter, he discusses Adolph Hitler, whose father was petty, given to heavy drinking, an adulterer and was determined "...to make a civil servant out of his son" (p. 105). A friend of Hitler's, August Kubizek, in writing about Hitler, asserted that Hitler was always seeing buildings that needed to be rebuilt or empty plots that needed to be built up. "Once he had conceived an idea he was like one possessed," Erikson quotes Kubizek as saying (p. 105-106). "[Hitler] could never walk through the streets without being provoked by what he saw... [and] his anger was beyond measure when the Society smashed all his hopes by giving up the idea of a new building, and instead, had the old one renovated."

The point of Erikson bringing Hitler into the Luther text is that Luther and Hitler apparently had similar father conflicts, and were also both given to melancholy and outbursts, and this fascinated Erickson, a student of behavioral abnormalities.

And of course, whenever an author brings biographical narrative on a man so despised yet fascinating as Hitler, readers' brains perk up dramatically. Adolph Hitler "would wander around aimlessly and alone for days and nights in the fields and forests," Kubizek recounts. And when Kubizek and Hitler would be reunited (after several days of Hitler's disappearance), and Kubizek asked what was wrong with Hitler, the answer would be, "Leave me along," or a "brusque, 'I don't know myself'." Much of the remainder of the chapter dips into Erikson's views of how children are shaped by the psychological settings in which they are raised.

Luther's transition from a full believer in what the Catholic Church taught to a man who began questioning the dogma of the Church began about the time Luther was thirty years old, according to Erikson on page 201; thirty is, after all, "an important age for gifted people with a delayed identity crisis," Erikson asserts. And the "wholeness of Luther's theology" is beginning to be seen during this period "...from the fragments of his totalistic reevaluations." Some of Luther's most poignant personal revelations about what the Scriptures really meant - and in a time when Luther was coming out of depression and writing lectures that questioned previously held dogma - took place (p. 204), while Luther apparently sat on the toilet. This above-mentioned toilet fact - though challenged by some scholars and the cause of "squirming" among historians - gave Erikson, the psychiatry guru, some grist for analysis.

The place at which Luther apparently had some of his inspiration, while discounted by psychiatrists, "deserves special mention exactly because it does point up certain psychiatric relevancies," Erikson writes on 204. Being on a toilet seat "serves a particular physical need which hides its emotional relevance only as long as it happens to function smoothly," Erikson conjectures. The truth of Luther's physical condition (that historians and psychological scholar do not dispute) was that he suffered from "lifelong constipation and urine retention," according to Erikson. So, to paraphrase Erikson, since part of Luther's problem was physical, when he did get relief (and his bowels began functioning more freely), it stands to logic that he also began to be freed from the constipation of being chained to the tired Church dogma, rituals, and he also was clearly becoming impatient with the authoritarian clout of the church and the Pope.

A key thought in Luther's transition from dogma and blind obedience to the Church is on page 213: "God, instead of lurking on the periphery of space and time, became for Luther 'what works in us.'" and, on page 214, Erikson strikes a keynote in the Luther transformation: "God, no less of a person, becomes more personal for the individual; and instead of constituting a threat to be faced at the end of all things, He becomes that which always begins - in us."

On page 221, Erikson makes a statement that perhaps could serve as his reason for writing the book: "Luther's theology contains an unsolved personal problem which is more accessible to psychoanalysis than is the theology itself." In other words, theology, step aside, and let a psychological expert handle - and hopefully clear up - all these controversial matters. And in Chapter VII ("Faith and Wrath"), readers learn that Luther recovered his ego (p. 223) at the same time he was lecturing on his new theological views. In looking at the historical essays about the meaning of and impact of Luther during the Reformation, Erikson sees that Luther is either "revered as a voice of genuine inspiration" or, on the other hand, he is "made out to be the tool of a conspiracy of crude economic forces which were in need of a bit of evangelical polish."

But all those conflicting views notwithstanding, in reality, Erikson writes (p. 224) the reason for Luther's nailing of ninety-five theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1517 was that there had been a "time bomb" that had been "ticking" in Luther's heart. Luther had become increasingly impatient with the Church's hard line on its dogma, and on the piety of the Pope when it came to dissent among the clergy. And little things began to pile up, and bothered Luther as well, such as "the most pitiful display" of the increasing commercialization of the Church which was the very poor who felt obliged to drop coins in boxes, assuming that by giving some of what little they had, their act "had a direct magic influence through the Church's vertical line on the accounting above" (p. 226); e.g., give money to the church and you'll buy your way into heaven. To ask a terribly poverty-stricken Catholic believer to give "indulgences" (coins) to an already embarrassingly garish, rich Church facility, to supposedly save the souls of their loved ones "from centuries in purgatory," seemed outrageous to Luther. And Luther began preaching themes that reflected his anger at the church, and even called the Pope "Anti-Christ" (and to the Pope, Luther was "the child of Satan") (p. 228).