Freud - Complete Works (661 page)
There are two paths by which the
contents of the id can penetrate into the ego. The one is direct,
the other leads by way of the ego ideal; which of these two paths
they take may, for some mental activities, be of decisive
importance. The ego develops from perceiving instincts to
controlling them, from obeying instincts to inhibiting them. In
this achievement a large share is taken by the ego ideal, which
indeed is partly a reaction-formation against the instinctual
processes of the id. Psycho-analysis is an instrument to enable the
ego to achieve a progressive conquest of the id.
The Ego And The Id
3990
From the other point of view,
however, we see this same ego as a poor creature owing service to
three masters and consequently menaced by three dangers: from the
external world, from the libido of the id, and from the severity of
the super-ego. Three kinds of anxiety correspond to these three
dangers, since anxiety is the expression of a retreat from danger.
As a frontier creature, the ego tries to mediate between the world
and the id, to make the id pliable to the world and, by means of
its muscular activity, to make the world fall in with the wishes of
the id. In point of fact it behaves like the physician during an
analytic treatment: it offers itself, with the attention it pays to
the real world, as a libidinal object to the id, and aims at
attaching the id’s libido to itself. It is not only a helper
to the id; it is also a submissive slave who courts his
master’s love. Whenever possible, it tries to remain on good
terms with the id; it clothes the id’s
Ucs
. commands
with its
Pcs
. rationalizations; it pretends that the id is
showing obedience to the admonitions of reality, even when in fact
it is remaining obstinate and unyielding; it disguises the
id’s conflicts with reality and, if possible, its conflicts
with the super-ego too. In its position midway between the id and
reality, it only too often yields to the temptation to become
sycophantic, opportunist and lying, like a politician who sees the
truth but wants to keep his place in popular favour.
Towards the two classes of
instincts the ego’s attitude is not impartial. Through its
work of identification and sublimation it gives the death instincts
in the id assistance in gaining control over the libido, but in so
doing it runs the risk of becoming the object of the death
instincts and of itself perishing. In order to be able to help in
this way it has had itself to become filled with libido; it thus
itself becomes the representative of Eros and henceforward desires
to live and to be loved.
But since the ego’s work of
sublimation results in a defusion of the instincts and a liberation
of the aggressive instincts in the super-ego, its struggle against
the libido exposes it to the danger of maltreatment and death. In
suffering under the attacks of the super-ego or perhaps even
succumbing to them, the ego is meeting with a fate like that of the
protista which are destroyed by the products of decomposition that
they themselves have created. From the economic point of view the
morality that functions in the super-ego seems to be a similar
product of decomposition.
The Ego And The Id
3991
Among the dependent relationships
in which the ego stands, that to the super-ego is perhaps the most
interesting.
The ego is the actual seat of
anxiety. Threatened by dangers from three directions, it develops
the flight-reflex by withdrawing its own cathexis from the menacing
perception or from the similarly regarded process in the id, and
emitting it as anxiety. This primitive reaction is later replaced
by the carrying-out of protective cathexes (the mechanism of the
phobias). What it is that the ego fears from the external and from
the libidinal danger cannot be specified; we know that the fear is
of being overwhelmed or annihilated, but it cannot be grasped
analytically. The ego is simply obeying the warning of the pleasure
principle. On the other hand, we can tell what is hidden behind the
ego’s dread of the super-ego, the fear of conscience. The
superior being, which turned into the ego ideal, once threatened
castration, and this dread of castration is probably the nucleus
round which the subsequent fear of conscience has gathered; it is
this dread that persists as the fear of conscience.
The high-sounding phrase,
‘every fear is ultimately the fear of death’, has
hardly any meaning, and at any rate cannot be justified. It seems
to me, on the contrary, perfectly correct to distinguish the fear
of death from dread of an object (realistic anxiety) and from
neurotic libidinal anxiety. It presents a difficult problem to
psycho-analysis, for death is an abstract concept with a negative
content for which no unconscious correlative can be found. It would
seem that the mechanism of the fear of death can only be that the
ego relinquishes its narcissistic libidinal cathexis in a very
large measure - that is, that it gives up itself, just as it gives
up some
external
object in other cases in which it feels
anxiety. I believe that the fear of death is something that occurs
between the ego and the super-ego.
The Ego And The Id
3992
We know that the fear of death
makes its appearance under two conditions (which, moreover, are
entirely analogous to situations in which other kinds of anxiety
develop), namely, as a reaction to an external danger and as an
internal process, as for instance in melancholia. Once again a
neurotic manifestation may help us to understand a normal one.
The fear of death in melancholia
only admits of one explanation: that the ego gives itself up
because it feels itself hated and persecuted by the super-ego,
instead of loved. To the ego, therefore, living means the same as
being loved - being loved by the super-ego, which here again
appears as the representative of the id. The super-ego fulfils the
same function of protecting and saving that was fulfilled in
earlier days by the father and later by Providence or Destiny. But,
when the ego finds itself in an excessive real danger which it
believes itself unable to overcome by its own strength, it is bound
to draw the same conclusion. It sees itself deserted by all
protecting forces and lets itself die. Here, moreover, is once
again the same situation as that which underlay the first great
anxiety-state of birth and the infantile anxiety of longing - the
anxiety due to separation from the protecting mother.
These considerations make it
possible to regard the fear of death, like the fear of conscience,
as a development of the fear of castration. The great significance
which the sense of guilt has in the neuroses makes it conceivable
that common neurotic anxiety is reinforced in severe cases by the
generating of anxiety between the ego and the super-ego (fear of
castration, of conscience, of death).
The id, to which we finally come
back, has no means of showing the ego either love or hate. It
cannot say what it wants; it has achieved no unified will. Eros and
the death instinct struggle within it; we have seen with what
weapons the one group of instincts defends itself against the
other. It would be possible to picture the id as under the
domination of the mute but powerful death instincts, which desire
to be at peace and (prompted by the pleasure principle) to put
Eros, the mischief maker, to rest; but perhaps that might be to
undervalue the part played by Eros.
3993
A
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DEMONOLOGICAL NEUROSIS
(1923)
3994
3995
Intentionally left blank
3996
A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DEMONOLOGICAL NEUROSIS
The neuroses of childhood have taught us that
a number of things can easily be seen in them with the naked eye
which at a later age are only to be discovered after a thorough
investigation. We may expect that the same will turn out to be true
of neurotic illnesses in earlier centuries, provided that we are
prepared to recognize them under names other than those of our
present-day neuroses. We need not be surprised to find that,
whereas the neuroses of our unpsychological modern days take on a
hypochondriacal aspect and appear disguised as organic illnesses,
the neuroses of those early times emerge in demonological
trappings. Several authors, foremost among them Charcot, have, as
we know, identified the manifestations of hysteria in the
portrayals of possession and ecstasy that have been preserved for
us in the productions of art. If more attention had been paid to
the histories of such cases at the time, it would not have been
difficult to retrace in them the subject-matter of a neurosis.
The demonological theory of those
dark times has won in the end against all the somatic views of the
period of ‘exact’ science. The states of possession
correspond to our neuroses, for the explanation of which we once
more have recourse to psychical powers. In our eyes, the demons are
bad and reprehensible wishes, derivatives of instinctual impulses
that have been repudiated and repressed. We merely eliminate the
projection of these mental entities into the external world which
the middle ages carried out; instead, we regard them as having
arisen in the patient’s internal life, where they have their
abode.
A Seventeenth-Century Demonological Neurosis
3997
I
THE
STORY OF CHRISTOPH HAIZMANN
THE
PAINTER
I am indebted to the friendly interest of
Hofrat Dr. Payer-Thurn, director of the former Imperial
Fideikommissbibliothek of Vienna, for the opportunity of studying a
seventeenth century demonological neurosis of this kind.
Payer-Thurn had discovered a manuscript in this library which
originated from the shrine of Mariazell and in which there was a
detailed account of a miraculous redemption from a pact with the
Devil through the grace of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His interest
was aroused by the resemblance of this story to the legend of
Faust, and has led him to undertake the exhaustive publication and
editing of the material. Finding, however, that the person whose
redemption was described had been subject to convulsive seizures
and visions he approached me for a medical opinion on the case. We
came to an agreement to publish our investigations independently
and separately. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking
him for his original suggestion and for the many ways in which he
has assisted me in the study of the manuscript.
This demonological case history
leads to really valuable findings which can be brought to light
without much interpretation - much as a vein of pure metal may
sometimes be struck which must elsewhere be laboriously smelted
from the ore.
The manuscript, an exact copy of
which lies before me, falls into two quite distinct sections. One
is a report, written in Latin, by a monastic scribe or compiler;
the other is a fragment from the patient’s diary, written in
German. The first succession contains a preface and a description
of the actual miraculous cure. The second can scarcely have been of
any significance for the reverend Fathers but so much the more is
it of value for us. It serves in large part to confirm our
judgement of the case, which might otherwise have been hesitant,
and we have good cause to be grateful to the clergy for having
preserved the document although it added nothing to support the
tenor of their views and, indeed, may rather have weakened it.
A Seventeenth-Century Demonological Neurosis
3998
But before going further into the
composition of this little manuscript brochure, which bears the
title
Trophaeum Mariano-Cellense
, I must relate a part of
its contents, which I take from the preface.
On September 5, 1677, the painter
Christoph Haizmann, a Bavarian, was brought to Mariazell, with a
letter of introduction from the village priest of Pottenbrunn (in
lower Austria) not far away.¹ The letter states that the man
had been staying in Pottenbrunn for some months, pursuing his
occupation of painting. On August 29, while in the church there, he
had been seized with frightful convulsions. As these convulsions
recurred during the following days, he had been examined by the
Praefectus Dominii Pottenbrunnensis
with a view to
discovering what it was that was oppressing him and whether perhaps
he had entered into illicit traffic with the Evil Spirit.²
Upon this, the man had admitted that nine years before, when he was
in a state of despondency about his art and doubtful whether he
could support himself, he had yielded to the Devil, who had tempted
him nine times, and that he had given him his bond in writing to
belong to him in body and soul after a period of nine years. This
period would expire on the twenty-fourth day of the current
month.³ The letter went on to say that the unfortunate man had
repented and was convinced that only the grace of the Mother of God
at Mariazell could save him, by compelling the Evil One to deliver
up the bond, which had been written in blood. For this reason the
village priest ventured to recommend
miserum hunc hominem omni
auxilio destitutum
to the benevolence of the Fathers of
Mariazell.
So far the narrative of Leopoldus
Braun, the village priest of Pottenbrunn, dated September 1,
1677.
¹
No mention is anywhere made of the
painter’s age. The context suggests that he was a man of
between thirty and forty, probably nearer the lower figure. He
died, as we shall see, in 1700.
²
We will merely note in passing the
possibility that this interrogation inspired in the sufferer -
‘suggested’ to him - the phantasy of his pact with the
Devil.
³
Quorum et finis 24 mensis hujus futurus
appropinquat
.
A Seventeenth-Century Demonological Neurosis
3999
We can now proceed with the
analysis of the manuscript. It consists of three parts:
(1) A coloured title-page
representing the scene of the signing of the pact and the scene of
the redemption in the chapel of Mariazell. On the next sheet are
eight pictures, also coloured, representing the subsequent
appearances of the Devil, with a short legend in German attached to
each. These pictures are not the originals; they are copies -
faithful copies, we are solemnly assured - of the original
paintings by Christoph Haizmann.
(2) The actual
Trophaeum
Mariano-Cellense
(in Latin), the work of a clerical compiler
who signs himself at the foot ‘P.A.E.’ and appends to
these initials four lines of verse containing his biography. The
Trophaeum
ends with a deposition by the Abbot Kilian of St.
Lambert, dated September 12, 1729, which is in a different
handwriting from that of the compiler. It testifies to the exact
correspondence of the manuscript and the pictures with the
originals preserved in the archives. There is no mention of the
year in which the
Trophaeum
was compiled. We are free to
assume that it was done in the same year in which the Abbot Kilian
made his deposition - that is, in 1729; or, since the last date
mentioned in the text is 1714 -, we may put the compiler’s
work somewhere between the years 1714 and 1729. The miracle which
was to be preserved from oblivion by this manuscript occurred in
1677 - that is to say, between thirty-seven and fifty-two years
earlier.
(3) The painter’s diary,
written in German and covering the period from his redemption in
the chapel till January 13 of the following year, 1678. It is
inserted in the text of the
Trophaeum
near the end.
A Seventeenth-Century Demonological Neurosis
4000
The core of the actual
Trophaeum
consists of two pieces of writing: the letter of
introduction, mentioned above, from the village priest, Leopold
Braun of Pottenbrunn, dated September 1, 1677, and the report by
the Abbot Franciscus of Mariazell and St. Lambert, describing the
miraculous cure. This is dated September 12, 1677, that is to say,
only a few days later. The activity of the editor or compiler,
P.A.E., has provided a preface which as it were fuses the contents
of these two documents; he has also added some connecting passages
of little importance, and, at the end, an account of the subsequent
vicissitudes of the painter, based on enquiries made in the year
1714.¹
The painter’s previous
history is thus told three times over in the
Trophaeum
: (1)
in the village priest of Pottenbrunn’s letter of
introduction, (2) in the formal report by the Abbot Franciscus and
(3) in the editor’s preface. A comparison of these three
sources discloses certain discrepancies which it will be not
unimportant for us to follow up.
I can now continue with the
painter’s story. After he had undergone a prolonged period of
penance and prayer at Mariazell, the Devil appeared to him in the
sacred Chapel at midnight, on September 8, the Nativity of the
Virgin, in the form of a winged dragon, and gave him back the pact,
which was written in blood. We shall learn later, to our surprise,
that
two
bonds with the Devil appear in Christoph
Haizmann’s story - an earlier one, written in black ink, and
a later one, written in blood. The one referred to in the
description of the scene of exorcism, as can also he seen from the
picture on the title-page, is the one written in blood - that is,
the later one.
¹
This would seem to suggest that the
Trophaeum
, too, dates from 1714.
A Seventeenth-Century Demonological Neurosis
4001
At this point a doubt as to the
credibility of the clerical reporters may well arise in our minds
and warn us not to waste our labours on a product of monastic
superstition. We are told that several clerics, mentioned by name,
assisted at the exorcism and were present in the Chapel when the
Devil appeared. If it had been asserted that they, too, saw the
Devil appear in the form of a dragon and offer the painter the
paper written in red (
Schedam sibi porrigentem
conspexisset
), we should be faced by several unpleasant
possibilities, among which that of a collective hallucination would
be the mildest. But the Abbot Franciscus’s testimony dispels
this doubt. Far from asserting that the assisting clerics saw the
Devil too, he only states in straightforward and sober words that
the painter suddenly tore himself away from the Fathers who were
holding him, rushed into the corner of the Chapel where he saw the
apparition, and then returned with the paper in his hand.¹
The miracle was great, and the
victory of the Holy Mother over Satan without question; but
unfortunately the cure was not a lasting one. It is once more to
the credit of the clergy that they have not concealed this. After a
short time the painter left Mariazell in the best of health and
went to Vienna, where he lived with a married sister. On October 11
fresh attacks began, some of them very severe, and these are
reported in the diary until January 13. They consisted in visions
and ‘
absences
’, in which he saw and experienced
every kind of thing, in convulsive seizures accompanied by the most
painful sensations, on one occasion in paralysis of the legs, and
so on. This time, however, it was not the Devil who tormented him;
it was by sacred figures that he was vexed - by Christ and by the
Blessed Virgin herself. It is remarkable that he suffered no less
through these heavenly manifestations and the punishments they
inflicted on him than he had formerly through his traffic with the
Devil. In his diary, indeed, he included these fresh experiences
too as manifestations of the Devil; and when, in May, 1678, he
returned to Mariazell, he complained of
maligini Spiritûs
manifestationes
.