by word, and very slowly at times. All seemed connected with the preconscious material in which libido had to express itself, all were held together by the uncanny occult bond of interest.

Free associations: “Black cats1 .... sinuous, a wall, R. H. Benson, supernatural phenomena, cats and dogs recognise presence of ghostly entities-blood rites for calling up the dead-long tunnel through which elemental fire followed to mummy and scarab replaced on her .... elemental fire leaves a track behind, burns its way through woods, outhouses, etc. .... Set, visual image of evil incarnate pointing a long finger at girl who is being held back forcibly from following him. He was called up in Egypt by the breaking of an amulet and girl under his influence has one foot outside the magic circle, from E. F. Benson's Image in the Sand-Elementary force, of evil incarnate-finally defeated by devotion of girl's Arab servant and confidant in spiritualistic affairs, who gives his life deliberately in grappling with someone who has controlled Set and desires to get the girl into his power, and forces him over a parapet into the river, never relaxing his grip and both drown together-Arab's name Abdul ...... love, again stronger than evildevotion of nurse who exiled herself from her tribe to help her patient -she is queen of tribe described by R. H. Benson2, which travel anywhere at night as cats and even in the day time move with sinuous feline grace -they have many supernatural powers-a man enters her village and is puzzled by the stealthy movements-the impression of feline yet powerful forces around, the way in which he feels everyone is watching him, yet can never catch them at it, they seem to observe him out of the corner of their eyes-he feels they are reading through him, there is a wall under his window and at night he sees a cat who reminds him of the girl at the little hotel he is in-he is puzzled-strong feeling of the proximity of the mysterious and uncanny, of latent powers before which he is powerless, which may turn and rend him, or may help him ..... The spirits of the trees, Seven Sisters (Blackwood or Maurice Hewlett's Lore of Proserpine) one man carries off one of these spirits and marries her, in that neighbourhood many other fairy wives-fairy offspring with qualities of both parents are the black cat tribe similarly sprung from wizard or supernatural cat and woman, thus having, like Proserpine, to divide their time between cat form and human form, as Proserpine did between earth and the underworld-wizards and witches used models of St Anthony in wax in order to cast a spell over people, any injury done to the effigy took effect on the person thought of at the time-Image of shadow cast on wall by a bucket, the handle of which with foreshortened shadow gave a rough likeness to St Anthony with his staff-this was seen a few days after recovery from delirium and recognised as the St Anthony originator ... ... idea of burning out nerves to stop pain due to old time remedy for toothache by cauterising the tooth with red hot knitting

1 See p. 187.

2 Should be Algernon Blackwood. Vera made a mistake in authorship here.

needle (omission)... nurses mystic invocation of her fellow tribesmen -ritualistic superstitions of peasantry, belief in witchcraft, evil eyes, etc. The Passionate Crime by Temple Thurston-(omission) atmosphere of intense credulity, and belief in fairies, hobgoblins, all uncanny mysterious fancies in wilds of Ireland.

Explanatory Note

These associations are given in full as illustrating how one affective tone can thus hold together a series of memories from very different times. Vera had read the books from which all or most details were taken at different periods. The above series of free associations took about three hours to obtain, the memories of the books having been previously forgotten and only coming through slowly, yet without any marked change of direction such as usually accompanies free associations which jump about in an apparently irrelevant manner. Two similar series were obtained within the same week. In one the bond was chemical interest, the starting point being a terrifically high explosive' from episode IV. The other was held together by love of the East, all eastern memories appearing in connection with episode V. There certainly seemed in these three cases to be a much closer segregation of memories held together by means of a common affective tone, independently of the date or manner of acquirement, than any other free associations gave. They came up directly, not disguised, though with much difficulty. The particular selections thus made from the memories in question, is another matter; they have another meaning as well as the surface one. Later analysis indicated that they were selected to fulfil the combined sexual and maternal libido of C. It was this clear distinction between the three series obtained from IV, V and VI, with no mixing of the three different kinds of memories brought up (two obtained on the same day) that led to the conclusion that the pseudo-personalities were the result of consciousness being in touch directly with only one such memoryaggregate at a time. All experience had then to be accounted for in terms of that memory-aggregate alone. The clear cut dissociation was, in part at least, toxic in origin.

Later after finding Freud's concept of preconscious and unconscious a useful one, the dissociated memory-aggregates were termed the preconscious of each secondary personality based upon them, all the rest of the mind being the unconscious and unable to enter consciousness. directly. The change of terminology illustrated another feature in the work. Often finding no concept or ready-made word in which to express my results, owing to inadequate knowledge of the subject, I used my own, and later when I found I was expressing a concept which someone

else had previously formulated, and which I had only rediscovered, the original formula, was substituted. Thus though many technical psychoanalytical terms are employed, there are none taken over unquestioningly. Only those were adopted which fitted concepts independently confirmed as useful approximations to the facts. This also explains the use of terms from other than the Freudian school where that seemed necessary. In the main, however, if the Freudian terminology proved inadequate, I have tried to express it in an extension of this, rather than in a different way, in order to attain a more consistent terminology. The terminology finally employed is very different from that in which the same things were expressed originally, terminology and theory being obviously mutually implicated.

Three months later, on August 30th, 1921, Vera's free associations commenced as follows:

The predominant affect in consciousness was produced by acute physical pain—and this delirious episode seems to be an hallucination to account for a specially severe attack motivated by a wish to represent it as a final accentuation of pain that should produce relief. Interpretation in such fantastic terms was due to awareness only being in touch with the level of the foreconscious that contained memories connected with witchcraft and uncanny psychic phenomena, as shown by previous free associations. This accounts for it but does not explain the exact meaning of the symbolism since, however physically stimulated, the mental content must be considered apart. Why two black cats?

Vera's free associations continuing from this point were very different from the series quoted previously as starting from the same point three months before. Many resistances having been broken down in the meantime, the latent content was obtained from the manifest one. The symbolism was strongly over-determined. According to these associations the two black cats formed the junction of several different levels. The cats seemed to stand for several different pairs of people simultaneously. These were traced by free associations which showed their composite nature. The rest of the symbolism then fell into line. The evidence for this cannot be given as it would lead to the identification of the 'cats.' The hallucinations were the expression of mature hetero-sexual libido, infantile oedipus libido, and combined mature heterosexual and maternal libido; that is, wish fulfilments of infantile and mature sexual desire and the wish for a child were expressed in phantasy.

So far as I know while Vera was actually pleading with nurse to help her and ease the pain, she saw the two black cats disappearing over the bed rail. The rest was a rationalisation to account for them and for the severe pain which was getting worse. The black cats appear therefore

to have been projected as hallucinations because the preconscious contained no memories relating to the various people and things for which they stood, and the impulses and desires connected with them used such material as they could find in the preconscious in which to express themselves. The waking consciousness (delirious) took the cats to be real and wove an ingenious phantasy to include cats, nurse and pain in a rational whole. Accordingly the rationalisation was considered to be the resultant of the libido levels from which the cats had been projected, and the waking consciousness. The latter adapted itself through feeling. The ego consciousness reacted to the hallucinations accepted as literal, producing rationalisations to account for them. These rationalisations were in part projected as fresh hallucinations, and in part became delusions which modified the reaction of the ego towards further experiences. It was not through reasoning that the Breton peasant girl knew that she must keep her eyes closed1 if she wanted the cats to help her because they disappeared if she looked, she just felt she must keep them shut. Similarly she felt she must not say anything to nurse or nurse would be unable to help her again2. This was a typical extravert reaction. There was no question about it. The feeling carried the conviction that there was only one thing to be done, and she did it.

Free associations from St Anthony3 and those in search of the delusion of being a Breton peasant showed very great resistances. St Anthony was interpreted as a wish fulfilment from the social self 4, a projected identification with the self, the only effect that muchrepressed self could produce in this episode. The delusion of being a Breton peasant girl was considerably over-determined, the resistance presumably being due to infantile oedipus libido being involved.

Later associations showed that the mysterious attraction of occult phenomena, and strange psychic phenomena, were further cloaks for libido, just as were the love of the East and feeling of its glamour. These were a contrast to the third preconscious series of associations which was held together by a bond of interest. The difference is clearly shown by the fact that in V and VI where the bond was predominantly libidinous, the resultant personality was a feminine extravert, whereas in IV where the bond was chemical interest, the ego was a male introvert. Analysis. indicates that libido and interest were combined in all, but in V sexual libido seems to have predominated, with some maternal libido; in VI sexual and maternal were combined, and in IV desexualised narcissistic clitoris libido was the libidinous mainspring of the ego-consciousness. 3 See p. 187.

1 See p. 187.

2 See p. 188.

Thus the Breton peasant girl and her life history are taken as being the resultant of a dissociation of a portion of the preconscious held together by mature maternal and heterosexual libido which had found its satisfaction in the occult and mysterious psychic forces to which it is akin or with which it is identical. This relationship is indicated again in connection with the Atila episode. (It should be noted that Vera at one time possessed certain mediumistic powers, and that it seems to have been a similar psychic energy that enabled her to carry out this analysis. She could not use it for both purposes, and has lost all mediumistic powers now.) Further, the facts indicate that there was ego-regression to the stage wherein belief in these possibilities is fixed, forming an egoconsciousness, which reacted through its emotions to the experience presented to it through its senses; moreover, that this included hallucinations from infantile oedipus, heterosexual, and combined heterosexual and maternal libido levels. Rationalisations were produced to render the whole consistent and intelligible. The personality was thus considered to be the system of relations between the isolated ego and its environment. Both were essential to its existence. Its memories, however, retained their personal identity when the isolated ego and its environment ceased their independent existence.

VII. GERALD

Recorded on pp. 190-194.

The analytical account of the nature of Gerald which follows is based in part on free associations which are not included here except in the case of the 'Atila' episode1. The nature of the facts revealed by analysis is indicated, together with the inferences drawn from them, giving my interpretation of these facts, an interpretation which is supported by the whole of the rest of the analysis.

In this episode identification with Gerald, a boy sweetheart (aged 10), and Gerald O'Connor, a character in "Lost in Egypt" whose father was a Colonel coming home from India, is represented. The ego-consciousness was seemingly due to the male intellectual side; the continuation of the wish to be a man which had evolved into a complicated introvert nature. All memory of Vera's past life which would have conflicted with this was dissociated. As Gerald most of Vera's intellectual knowledge, however, was within reach. Gerald was capable of carrying on abstract discussions on philosophy, medicine, and spiritualism, with father, nurse, doctor and the vicar respectively. Thus there was no ego-regression,

1 See pp. 193–194.