In English speaking countries, Christian Science has gained tremendous popularity. To my mind, it constitutes a dialectic abnegation of such evils as life presents, by resorting to the teaching of Christian religion. I do not hesitate to state that such measures strike me as a regrettable fallacy of the human mind. But who in the United States or England would ever think of prohibiting Christian Science or seek to punish its followers? Generally speaking, is governmental authority always so certain to be on the right side? Assumed even that many, left to their own devices, would encounter danger and experience harm, would it not just the same be much better if governmental authority would merely indicate dangerous ground, but on the whole leave it to the individual to be taught by experience and mutual influence? Psychoanalysis is so new, the broad masses so insufficiently informed about it, the official view of science still so vacillating, that it appears to me as premature to impede its progress by legislative measures. Why not leave it to the patients themselves to learn that it is dangerous for them to apply for psychological assistance to persons who are not sufficiently informed? If people are sufficiently enlightened and warned, prohibition will surely prove superfluous. On Italian highways, poles, carrying high tension electric power, display this warning: “_Chi tocca, muore!_” Which has proven perfectly sufficient. In contrast to this, in other countries, for example Austria and Germany, this warning is of an insulting verbosity:— “Inasmuch as touching these high tension wires is dangerous to life, it is herewith strictly prohibited to meddle with them!” Why this prohibition? Whoever cherishes his life will not touch them, and whoever wants to commit suicide will surely not be detained by the warning. “But there are cases which may be quoted as precedent for the prohibition of lay-analyses. For example, the law against the practice of hypnosis by laymen, and another enacted against occult séances and the organization of spiritualistic societies.”[1] I must admit that it is beyond me to admire these measures. As far as the last mentioned prohibition is concerned, it surely constitutes a case of grave over-officiousness, encroaching upon intellectual freedom. As far as I am personally concerned, I do not think that anybody would suspect me of having faith in occult phenomena, or of being interested in its general acceptance. However, such prohibitive measures will never serve to stifle the interest that some people manifest for the alleged secrets of an occult world. Such officious interference may do a lot of damage by preventing impartial seekers for truth to arrive at a finding which would do away with occult misconceptions. Here also, we observe the fact that other countries do not interfere with so-called “parapsychic” research, but only Austria.