Occultism and the Origins of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Ferenczi and the Challenge of Thought Transference

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Occultism and the Origins of Psychoanalysis traces the origins of key psychoanalytic ideas back to their roots in hypnosis and the occult. Maria Pierri follows Freud’s early interest in "thought-transmission," now known as telepathy. Freud’s private investigations led to discussions with other leading figures like Carl Jung and Sándor Ferenczi, with whom he held a "dialogue of the unconsciouses." Freud’s and Ferenczi’s work assessed how fortune tellers could read the past from a client, inspiring their investigations into countertransference, the analytic relationship, unconscious communication, and mother-infant relationality. Both Freud and Ferenczi tried in different ways to come close to understanding the infant’s occult link with the mother and their secret primal language: their research on thought transference may be identified as a matrix of the developments of current psychoanalysis. Pierri clearly links modern psychoanalytic practice with Freud’s interests in the occult using primary sources, some of which have never previously been published in English. Occultism and the Origins of Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, as well as academics and scholars of Freudian ideas, psychoanalytic theory, the history of psychology, and the occult. It is complemented by Sigmund Freud and The Forsyth Case: Coincidences and Thought-Transmission in Psychoanalysis. Cover Endorsements Half Title Series Title Copyright Contents Introduction Prologue: a result of character: the cocaine, this magical substance 1 Vienna, Porta Orientis of the unconscious The force of suggestion: the “wonderful somnambulists” Hypnosis Vienna, laboratory of modernity 2 The young Freud A passionate young researcher into nature First love Martha and Bertha: the languages of passion 3 The lesson of Jean Martin Charcot At the Salpêtrière The apparatus of language The magic of words 4 The lesson of Josef Breuer and the “descent to the mothers” Studies on hysteria A difficult separation: not all debts can be paid A foundation myth: a false pregnancy and a cure with a defect 5 Sigmund Freud’s lesson The discovery of a false connection Irma’s throat and the feminine at the origin of psychoanalysis Dream as desire 6 Fliess and the invention of psychoanalysis A secret correspondence My friend in Berlin Freud’s heart trouble 7 The discovery of infantile sexuality Self-analysis and the writing cure Cherchez la femme: the case of Emma Eckstein 8 Original thought requires a rupture The “reader of thoughts” The accusation of plagiarism A future in the image of the past: predestination and superstition 9 Occultism made in the USA Spiritualism Medium, media, and “mental telegraphy” First hypotheses about the unconscious 10 Jung, spiritualism and countertransference: the world of the dead Jung, poltergeist phenomena, and séances The arrival at Burghölzli First visit to Vienna Easter 1909: Jung’s spiritual complex and Sabina The dangerous fascination of the “beautiful Jewess” 11 Ferenczi, the unclassifiable The sultan and his “clairvoyant” A psychoanalyst “of a restless mind” Ferenczi and the hidden treasure of Spiritualism The encounter with Freud: a postponed transferential appointment 12 A journey to America Three men and an eventful, mutually analytic crossing: the outward journey . . . . . . and back again 13 The Danaan gift The clairvoyant who reads Ferenczi’s mind The patient who reads Ferenczi’s mind The Palermo incident, or the interpretation of paranoia The psychic work of the clairvoyant: two unfulfilled prophecies 14 An epistolary novel Ferenczi and incestuous countertransferential storms: from mother to daughter What is still missing is the fatherly blessing. Fatefulness and Oedipal coincidences Elma Pàlos, fragment of the analysis of a seduction The open wound in Ferenczi’s heart, a source of creativity 15 The Saturday goy: getting to know Dr Jones The Welsh liar Difficult beginnings Freud’s first pupil from Britain Dr Jones’s stethoscope: rationalisation and censorship of excess countertransference A prescribed training analysis in Budapest 16 The intergenerational transmission of psychoanalysis Love and death: the three women of the three pupils “If you go to women, don’t forget the whip” At school with Freud: the transmission of psychoanalysis 17 The secret committee The transformations and the desertion of Jung A missed meeting: the “Kreuzlingen gesture” The committee: the Männerbund and the defence of the “Cause” (Die Sache) Totem and taboo: unconscious intelligence and intergenerational transmission of thought 18 1913 – the year before the war The last congress with Jung A black tide of occultism The question of telepathy The dialogues of the unconscious Epilogue: a fortune-teller visits Freud in Berggasse Correspondence Bibliography Index