THE THREE VERTICES: SCIENCE, ART AND RELIGION

Bion saw science, art and religion as vertices of knowledge or 'devotion to the truth' that were equally important to psychoanalysis and that needed to be brought into fruitful communication. This paper considers their complementary qualities, in the context of the later thinking of Bion and of some recent lectures by Meltzer on Bion's theory of thinking, which include his second thoughts about the Grid. In particular I want to pay some attention to the 'neglected' religious vertex (as Bion saw it), and to the function of cruelty in it, something which Meltzer has suggested arises inherently from the counter-transference situation in the context of symbol-formation.