  In ‘Can Religion Be Discussed?’ Prior made Psychoanalyst say ‘it’s the religious illusion that’s irresistible’, and in the 1942 manuscript he stated bluntly that ‘Theology is an illusion’, adding ‘but it is an illusion that is somehow “close to life”’. In this manuscript he mentioned Freud by name several times; and in a typescript concerning the application of Freudian theory to religion, possibly also written in 1941 or 1942 (Prior n.d.c., Hasle 1999, 2012), Prior explored ‘the hidden non-religious basis and source of all religious worship’. He spoke of ‘breaking the religious spell’ and of ‘the subconscious roots of religion’ being ‘laid bare’. The ‘Being’ that the religious ‘refer to as the real object of worship’ is, Prior suggested, ‘all the time a fiction’.