Association of ideas; Memory; Paragrammatism; Psychoanalysis; Psychology, Pathological; Repression (Psychology)
If we concede that we have by no means exhausted the psychology of
superstition in these remarks, we must, on the other hand, at least
touch upon the question whether real roots of superstition should
be altogether denied, whether there are really no omens, prophetic
dreams, telepathic experiences, manifestations of supernatural forces,
and the like. I am now far from willing to repudiate without anything
further all these phenomena, concerning which we possess so many minute
observations even from men of intellectual prominence, and which
should certainly form a basis for further investigation. We may even
hope that some of these observations will be explained by our present
knowledge of the unconscious psychic processes without necessitating
radical changes in our present aspect. If still other phenomena, as,
for example, those maintained by the spiritualists, should be proven,
we should then consider the modification of our “laws” as demanded by
the new experience, without becoming confused in regard to the relation
of things of this world.
In the sphere of these analyses I can only answer the questions
here proposed subjectively--that is, in accordance with my personal
experience. I am sorry to confess that I belong to that class of
unworthy individuals before whom the spirits cease their activities
and the supernatural disappears, so that I have never been in
position to experience anything personally that would stimulate
belief in the miraculous. Like everybody else, I have had forebodings
and experienced misfortunes; but the two evaded each other, so
that nothing followed the foreboding, and the misfortune struck me
unannounced. When as a young man I lived alone in a strange city I
frequently heard my name suddenly pronounced by an unmistakable, dear
voice, and I then made a note of the exact moment of the hallucination
in order to inquire carefully of those at home what had occurred at
that time. There was nothing to it. On the other hand, I later worked
among my patients calmly and without foreboding while my child almost
bled to death. Nor have I ever been able to recognize as unreal
phenomena any of the forebodings reported to me by my patients.
The belief in prophetic dreams numbers many adherents, because it can
be supported by the fact that some things really so happen in the
future as they were previously foretold by the wish of the dream.
But in this there is little to be wondered at, as many far-reaching
deviations may be regularly demonstrated between a dream and the
fulfilment which the credulity of the dreamer prefers to neglect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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