The Problem of Demarcation: Psychoanalysis and the Occult

Abstract

The aim of this article is to outline some aspects of the problem of demarcation in the early history of psychoanalysis, as it pertains to the growing interest in occult phenomena. The nineteenth-century scientific interest in occult phenomena played a fundamental role in the history of psychoanalysis since the examination of the occult called attention to the possible dissociation of the psyche. The theories of subconscious or subliminal tendencies were strongly connected with such dissociation. Psychoanalysis had a special significance in this context since it offered a medicalized, rational-logical explanation of the unconscious. Therefore, the Freudian concept of the unconscious could split off the spiritualist or transcendent meaning of the subconscious tendencies and meet the demands of medical materialism with the theory of sexuality.

Why ‘spiritism’?

“…It is well known that Freud's attitude toward the so‐called occult was rather ambivalent. As a man of science who was well aware of the uncertain scientific status of psychoanalysis, he tried to distance himself from the question of occultism (Keeley, ; Gyimesi, ). However, he was very much interested in the functioning of certain occult phenomena like precognition or thought‐transference.…”

“…Publishing such an article in such an otherwise very valuable parapsychological journal in 1913 must have been unforgivable for Freud. This was the year when the conflict between Freud and Jung reached its peak; a conflict and a rupture that – at least partially – originated in their different attitudes toward the occult (Gyimesi, , ). It is known that Jung was very much involved in spiritualism; several of his family members and especially his mother, Emilie Preiswerk, were practising spiritualists, thus mediumistic performances were quite common in the Jung family (Zumstein‐Preiswerk, ).…”

“…On the other hand, primarily thanks to Ernest Jones, we know a lot about the superstitious, magical thoughts of Freud (Jones, ). Although he tried to distance himself from the realm of the occult principally for tactical reasons, namely not to risk the confusion of psychoanalysis and occultism in the eyes of the representatives of contemporary natural science (see Gyimesi, ), the public, and even psychoanalysis (Chertok and Stengers, ), in this way he had to oppress his own interest in telepathy, which he characterized as a ‘private affair’ like his passion for smoking or his Judaism . Facing the enthusiasm of his closest disciples, Freud had to confront the uneasy challenge of occultism, and thought‐transference in particular, over and over again.…”

Rivalry or Difference? Contemporary Psychospirituality and the Psychoanalytic Study of Religion

“…Freud's discussion of the different dimensions of the unconscious is substantially different from the “subconscious” or “subliminal self” advanced by Myers and his SPR colleagues. In opposition to Myers and James, Freud “outlined a concept of the unconscious which lacked any possibility of spiritual meaning” (Gyimesi , 468). For example, his argument that there are areas in the unconscious mind that will never become conscious indicates that Myers's “subconscious” is closer to Freud's concept of the “preconscious” than the unconscious.…”

Automatism, Surrealism and the making of French psychopathology: the case of Pierre Janet

“…Like other members of the nascent psychoanalytic movement such as Sandor Ferenczi, Jung soon became extremely sceptical of scientific materialism (e.g. Jung, 1977; see also Grivet-Shillito, 1999; Gyimesi, 2009; Shamdasani, 2003). Here again, the views of the self were not limited to the psychopathological model put forward by Janet.…”