Death and Delusion Quotes

“But perhaps this is what normality is: a complex of dread and terror which compels the psyche to deny and restructure reality. Those who cannot ensconce themselves within social delusions either distort reality and hallucinate their own mirages, or they go mad.”
― Jerry S. Piven, Death and Delusion: A Freudian Analysis of Moral Terror

“Only by massive denial, repression of affect, and severe numbing of our human faculties and sensitivities could a person not feel a sense of remorse, apprehension, and dread.”
― Jerry S. Piven, Death and Delusion: A Freudian Analysis of Moral Terror

“Human beings destroy nature, conquer other cultures, and conceive themselves kings of infinite space. And human beings also participate in religious illusions, which boost their self-esteem by providing them with a hallucinatory control over the universe, a sense of divine protectedness and importance. Death is evaded by narcissistic inflation and delusions of dominance.”
― Jerry Piven, Death and Delusion: A Freudian Analysis of Moral Terror

“Human beings invent myth, ideology, and religion as means of denying reality and replacing death with palliative fantasies. Helplessness and death are blows to human narcissism. Human beings create illusions about themselves, lie to themselves as a means to feel secure and less vulnerable.”
― Jerry Piven, Death and Delusion: A Freudian Analysis of Moral Terror