Equus by Peter Shaffer

Dr. Martin Dysart of Peter Shaffer's play Equus is a man faced with the modern dilemma of Sigmund Freud's "problem of religion." It is a problem which must be asked of religious scholars such as Ninian Smart and states briefly this: religion was once a powerful and driving force in the lives of human beings but now we have evolved to such a point where we realize it to be an object of useless expense which we no longer need. Freud believes he has solved the problem while Dysart is confused and unsure. I do not believe, as did Freud, that the problem of religion is so easily solved.

Freud established his view of religion in his books Totem and Taboo and The Future of an Illusion. He was fond of allegories and compared man's need for God with a child's need for a father. He says, "And thus a store of ideas is created, born from man's need to make his helplessness tolerable and built up from the material of memories of helplessness of his own childhood and the childhood of the human race" (Future of an Illusion-18).

He adds that like a child, we felt a need for protection, thus we created a divine father, and established a moral world-order to ensure the fulfillment of the demands of justice (30). Religious belief is an illusion, says Freud, because it is motivated by a wish fulfillment without basis in what we know about reality. They cannot be proven nor can they be refuted and thus they must be rejected.

But Freud does not say that currently we can live without religion, for without it the world might very well fall into chaos. Religion has done a great service in taming asocial instincts, but man can do better. Freud saw humanity as an adolescent, a child who is still bound to the father. He also brings up the Oedipus complex which means that the child harbors feelings of resentment for the father and when it grows older, it will turn away from Him as a process of growth (43). Freud thought that man will someday use scientific reasoning to outgrow the need for spiritual beliefs.

Where Freud could live without a god, Martin Dysart cannot. He too is a psychiatrist, and a very successful one. He has a flourishing practice at an overcrowded mental hospital and is highly respected. He has never had to question his beliefs or standards until he begins to counsel a young man named Alan Strang. Alan was referred to Dr. Dysart because he cut out the eyes of six horses, blinding them. Dysart discovers that Alan worships a horse-god which he calls Equus. He lived for being able to ride Equus once every three weeks. Dysart soon realizes that he has never known the kind of worship Alan knows and he becomes jealous because he realizes, as Freud did, how fulfilling worship and religion can be in life. Dysart says, "Without worship you shrink, it's as brutal as that...I shrank my own life" (82). Thus he does not reject worship and religion as Freud did but he personally realizes it's formidability even in the modern world.

I believe that Ninian Smart does well to discus this issue at the end of his book on worldviews. Smart states that man cannot live without religion as long as the necessity of facing death, suffering, and the spiritual experience exist. Science, for all it can do for mankind, cannot open one up to the numinous or mystical, he says. Science is a self correcting process. A theory that may have been held for generations may be totally disintegrated by a single profound discovery. Thus, people need something that they can hold onto and the knowledge that what exists today will be there tomorrow and that is where religion comes into play.

I feel that Freud, Dysart, and Smart all have valid points. Freud had great influence on secular ideology and the psychology of religion. Yet Freud's logic concerning God as a father figure has a problem when it is applied to a religion such as Theravada Buddhism which has no godhead. And Smart does not believe as Freud did that man will out grow religion because there will always be the questions that science cannot answer. I agree with Smart that man will always have religion but I believe that it's impact will be lessened as science improves because, as we have seen, it is constantly providing answers to questions we thought we could never answer.

Smart argues that we will never be able to experience the numinous with science, but when I go outside with my Newtonian telescope and look at the stars, planets, and galaxies I think that I may have what could be called a numinous experience. I am in awe of how vast the universe is and how great is the power of nature. But perhaps it is a religious experience after all since I try to rationalize how it all came to be and how it is all going to end and in the end I come to the conclusion of God. One reason why I enjoy futuristic science fiction is because it deals with such questions as the future of religion and the man's place in the cosmos. Perhaps the most successful modern futurist is Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry. It was his belief, in key with Freud's, that religion would not last until the 24th century. He believed that science would be all the religion future man would need. I tend to take a middle standpoint. I believe as Smart does, that scientific culture and religious culture will become integrated as one and the same.

Freud never states if science will become authoritarian like religion, or if it will fulfill Smart's and Dysart's need for the numinous and the mystical, so we don't know what he would give in response to Smart's discussion at the end of Worldviews. I believe Dr. Dysart would disagree with Freud after his experience with Alan and instead lean toward Smart's conclusions. Science, currently, is unfulfilling in the face of real worship. As Dysart says, without worship, you shrink. Science cannot yet answer our questions or our yearning for, as the Ojibway call it, the Gichi Manidoo-the Great Unknown or Mystery. Will it one day? Perhaps that can appropriately be called, "the problem of science