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In a 1927 letter toSigmund Freud,Romain Rolland coined the phrase "oceanic feeling" to refer to "a sensation of 'eternity'", a feeling of "being one with the external world as a whole", inspired by the example ofRamakrishna, among other mystics.[1][2]
According to Rolland, this feeling is the source of all the religious energy that permeates in various religious systems, and one may justifiably call oneself religious on the basis of this oceanic feeling alone, even if one renounces every belief and every illusion.[3] Freud discusses the feeling in hisCivilization and Its Discontents (1929). There he deems it a fragmentary vestige of a kind of consciousness possessed by an infant who has not yet differentiated itself from other people and things.[4]
In November 1927, Freud's new bookThe Future of an Illusion was printed, and one of the copies was sent by him toRolland.[5][6] Rolland responded with aletter to Freud, writing that he should also consider spiritual experiences, or "the oceanic feeling", in his future psychological works:[7][8][9]
Mais j'aurais aimé à vous voir faire l'analyse du sentiment religieux spontané ou, plus exactement, de la sensation religieuse qui est [...] le fait simple et direct de la sensation de l'éternel (qui peut très bien n'être pas éternel, mais simplement sans bornes perceptibles, et comme océanique).[10]
But I would have liked to see you doing an analysis of spontaneous religious sentiment or, more exactly, of religious feeling which is [...] the simple and direct fact of the feeling of the eternal (which can very well not be eternal, but simply without perceptible limits, and like oceanic).[11]
— Letter from Rolland to Freud, December 5, 1927
Rolland based his description on the example of Ramakrishna who had his first spiritual ecstasy at the age of six.[12][13] From his 10th or 11th year of school on, thetrances became common, and by the final years of his life,Ramakrishna'ssamādhi periods occurred almost daily.[13]
Rolland described the trances andmystical states experienced byRamakrishna and other mystics as an"'oceanic' sentiment", one which Rolland had also experienced.[14] As described by Rolland, it is "a sensation of 'eternity', a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded", a "feeling of an indissoluble bond, of being one with the external world as a whole".[1] Rolland believed that the universal human religious emotion resembled this "oceanic sense".[15] In his 1929 bookThe Life of Ramakrishna, Rolland distinguished between the feelings of unity and eternity which Ramakrishna experienced in his mystical states, and Ramakrishna's interpretation of those feelings as visions of the goddessKali figure.[16]
In July 1929, Freud asked for permission to publish in his next book an answer to Rolland's previous request about oceanic feelings.
Your letter of Dec. 5, 1927, containing your remarks about a feeling you describe as "oceanic" has left me no peace. It happens that in a new work which lies before me still uncompleted I am making a starting point of this remark; I mention this "oceanic" feeling and am trying to interpret it from the point of view of our psychology.
— Letter from Freud to Rolland, July 14, 1929[17]
In the beginning his new bookCivilization and Its Discontents (1929) Freud attributed the concept to an anonymous friend, but in a later edition a footnote was added revealing Rolland's name.[18][19]
Freud argues that the "oceanic feeling", if it exists, is the preserved "primitive ego-feeling" from infancy. The primitive ego-feeling precedes the creation ofthe ego and exists up until the mother ceases breastfeeding. Prior to this, the infant is regularly breastfed in response to its crying and has no concept that the breast does not belong to it. Therefore, the infant has no concept of a "self" or, rather, considers the breast to be part of itself. Freud argues that those experiencing an oceanic feeling as an adult are actually experiencing a preserved primitive ego-feeling. The ego, in contrast, comes into existence when the breast is taken away, and involves the infant's recognition that it is separate from the mother's breast, and therefore, that other people exist. Freud argues that it would not necessarily contradict psychoanalytical theory for this primary ego-feeling to coexist along with the ego in some people. The main argument for this is that psychoanalytical theory holds that all thoughts are preserved in a conservation of psychic energy. Therefore, the "oceanic feeling" described as a oneness with the world or a limitlessness is simply a description of the feeling the infant has before it learns there are other persons in the world.[4][20]
The relevance of Romain's stance on the oceanic feeling has been recognized by scholars, who argue for a more encompassing understanding of religion and spirituality, offering a transformational model of psychology which validates the claims of mystics.[21][20] Neurotheology, on the other hand, investigates the neurological basis ofreligious experiences, such asoneness with the universe and ecstatic trance.[22]
Early on, Ramakrishna's spontaneous experiences have been interpreted asepileptic seizures,[23][24][25][26] an interpretation which was rejected by Ramakrishna himself.[25] According to Anil D. Desai, Ramakrishna suffered from psychomotor epilepsy,[26] also calledtemporal lobe epilepsy.[27][note 1]
These experiences can also be intentionally induced.Andrew B. Newberg,Eugene G. d'Aquili, and Vince Rause found that "intensely focusedspiritual contemplation triggers an alteration in the activity of the brain that leads one to perceive transcendent religious experiences as solid, tangible reality. In other words, the sensation thatBuddhists calloneness with the universe".[28]
Bulgarian-French philosopherJulia Kristeva writes about oceanic feeling inBlack Sun: Depression and Melancholia. Her conception is similar to Freud's, relating the feeling to infantile regression.[29] More recently black studies scholar and poetJackie Wang wrote about the notion of oceanic feeling in the article "Oceanic Feeling and Communist Affect," outlining its historic development through the work ofRolland and his relation toSpinoza,Freud,Kristeva, finally relating it to blackness and the trauma of theMiddle Passage as discussed byFred Moten.[29]