The Roland Harris Trust

Library

E r i c

R h o d e

Foreword by Donald Meltzer

T h e

C l u n i e

P r e s s

London K A R N A C B O O K S

First published in 1994 by H. Karnac (Books) Ltd. 58 Gloucester Road London SW7 4QY Copyright 1994 by Eric Rhode All rights reserved The rights of Eric Rhode to be identified as author of this work have been asserted in accordance with 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted In any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Rhode, Eric Psychotic Metaphysics. (Roland Harris Trust Library) I. Title II. Series 616.89 ISBN: 1 85575 074 0

Acknowledgements My t h a n k s to Maria Rhode, Donald Meltzer, Meg Harris Williams, Cesare Sacerdotl, a n d Klara M. King for their help in m a n y ways, a n d to the librarians of the London Library, t h e Tavistock Clinic Library, a n d the M u s e u m of Mankind Library.

Printed in Great Britain by BPC Wheatons Ltd, Exeter

CONTENTS

FOREWORD by Donald Meltzer

Jdii

INTRODUCTION An hypothesis concerning the rationality of mind. Mind emerges out of a certain ground, among whose constituents are: (1) the relationship posited by Melanie Klein between the paranoid-schizoid and the depressive positions taken as a postulate to thought; (2) the good objects, described by Donald Meltzer, as instigating mind's buffeting between the two positions; (3) the buffetingin W. R. Bion's terms, the state of catastrophic changeas the grit in the psychic oyster, which originates bodily and architectural creation and the discovery of form.

vii

Viii

CONTENTS PART ONE The unborn

CONTENTS CHAPTER SIX Catastrophic change as determining phantasies of "being devoured" in birth. The nature of the "gap" between the separated twin couples: the myth of uninterrupted reverie and the myth of double annihilation. The dead twin foetus returns as a murderous avenger in narcissistic organizations, or as a "soma" inhibitor of the feeding couple, if its reality as a presence in the mind has been denied. CHAPTER SEVEN Creationist fears that an empty space or gap known as Chaos arises from some binary division in the sky. The mythic belief that a mother of twins is sacred because literally she is the sky. Anti-developmental "dramatic" conceptions of change in terms of disguises and dismemberments. Liberation from a sky/placenta, which is "read" as a constraining divine text. In its place a notion of evolving forms as a substrate to mythic thought. CHAPTER EIGHT Breakdown: natural concepts as liturgical symbols bridging the experience of symbolic death. Clinical material alluding to the mediating role played by the liturgical idea of water. CHAPTER NINE The infant's need to confuse the nature of space in its mouth with the space in the mother's breasts (representing two wombs, each containing a twin) as one of the first embodiments of the relationship of microcosm to macrocosm. Infants who think to triumph over their mothers by ascribing the creativity of the womb to their mouths. CHAPTER TEN "The membrane": an infant's surrogate for the umbilical cord, a form ofLewin's dream screen, sometimes

ix 77

CHAPTER ONE On representation. The turbulence by which the individual becomes an agent for the good objects. CHAPTER T W O Representation in the transference, with reference to a part-object picture of the n\other's spine as a support for both the foetus within her and for the feeding child (or patient) at the breast. Skeletal structures idealized in myth as stone constructs raised between earth and sky. Such rite centres separate those who are privileged from those who are not; in origin, this is a binary division between a mother-foetus couple that lives and a mother-foetus couple that dies, enacted at birth by the loss of the umbilical cord and the placenta. The central working model of the psychotic metaphysic: a binary split, implicit in the fetish-cults of umbilical cord and placenta among the pharaohs. CHAPTER THREE Clinical material concerning psychically unborn people who are intrusively identified with a dead motherfoetus assigned to the underworld. CHAPTER FOUR Clinical material concerning separated nwther-foetus couples who live in time schemes that move in opposing directions. CHAPTER FIVE Clinical material related to the fetish-cults of the pharaohs. A living twin triumphs over the victim in sacrifice, whose dispatch into the underworld transforms the profane into the sacred. The antisymbolic and condensed representation of the sacred, as it appears in a patient's train of thought.

15

24

99

110

42

49

119

63

130

CONTENTS represented by a look in a mother's eyes, which can communicate liturgical meanings as well as immediate thoughts andfeelings. A dream that pivots on the significance of a view through a window. The dream concerns the appropriation of the breast and the transmission of death and madness into a twin self dispatched into the underworld. A later dream describes a reversal: the banished twin self manages to take control once more of the dream narrative. CHAPTER ELEVEN "The membrane" 150 continued.

CONTENTS CHAPTER FIFTEEN Group dreams (sometimes in the form of ideologies) determine perception. Ingesting them may take interminable tracts of space and centuries of time. CHAPTER SIXTEEN Mania and terror: modern technology, and a switch of roles between the triumphant twin and the twin who is destroyed. The importance of recognition as an experience that can occur on the threshold of the depressive position. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Fears of difference: in relation to other cultures, to changes in initiation rites, and to the eruption of liminal iconography on the depressive threshold. Occasions on which otherness as an inner-world concept is confused with annihilation. 161 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN On being at the point of a perspectival contraction. Clinical material concerning the victim in sacrifice. In paranoid-schizoid understanding, the site of the victimthe altarmarks the spot where the crossing is made. In terms of the inner world, the site is the space between the feeding mother's breasts. 177 CHAPTER NINETEEN Galileo and Descartes, and the modification in meaning of liminal symbolism. The relationship of the loss of the aesthetic of primitivism to the machine-world view. Tokens of catastrophic change in the writings of Descartes. CHAPTER T W E N T Y An Asmat canoe exemplifies the kind of phantasies about space that underlie the modernist discovery of catastrophic change as a factor in the primitive aesthetic.

Xi 198

206

216

P A R TT W O D i s a p p e a r i n g i n t o light CHAPTER TWELVE The rite of passage in psychoanalysis. Liminal phenomena, and the persecutory emergence of symbol from sign language on the threshold of the depressive position. The need to hold on to a psychotic or primitive intuition concerning an underlying and impersonal geometric order to experience. "A substrate to the inner world anterior to the reach of nxetaphor." CHAPTER THIRTEEN Aspects of West-African culture identified with the lost mother-foetus couple. Its impact on Picasso. Cultural cross-fertilization described in terms of a rite of passage. The meanings of mask versus face; idol versus icon. CHAPTER FOURTEEN Cultural cross-fertilization. Paranoid-schizoid conversion as against depressive recognition. Stolen goods, and the revival of aesthetic intuition in the west.

225

235

187

240

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CONTENTS 247 FOREWORD

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The revulsion and fascination of certain European travellers in west Africa echo the feelings that the triumphant self has concerning the twin it has banished. The paranoid-schizoid fear of otherness as annihilation. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The rediscovery of the primitive aesthetic. Cezanne, Picasso.

Donald

Meltzer

252 Baudelaire,

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE The relationship of Victor Turner's conception of the rite of passage to Melanie Klein's two positions and to spatial intuition in the writings of W. R. Bion and Esther Bick. The idea of the imaginary twin: W. R. Bion and R. E. Money-Kyrle. Clinical material concerning the nature of the psychosomatic. Donald Meltzer and the good objects. AFTERWORD The fetish as inhibitor of thought.

269

287 robably every thinking individual eventually finds t h a t his experience of life a n d h i s knowledge derived from education t h r o u g h contact with other m i n d s places h i m on the rim of h i s culture. There he not only experiences the catastrophic c h a n g e s of personal development b u t c a n observe a n d think a b o u t these b o u t s of turbulence. Goethe r u s h i n g away from Weimar a t three o'clock on a Monday morning to fly from his friends to the golden land of Italy serves a s a prototype of a personal periodic happening. At s u c h m o m e n t s the works of a r t t h a t we encounter have a particular impact. We suddenly experience the strugglings of a n o t h e r artist-scientist a n d gain heart. Psychoanalysis h a s been a child of the twentieth century a n d h a s h a d its own m o m e n t s of catastrophic change t h a t have transformed it In s u d d e n leaps. Its most recent leap in the dark, which takes it into the next century, known a s the post-Kleinian leap, embraces mainly the work of Bion a n d Money-Kyrle. These two have linked the efforts to describe the xiii

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

303 315

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FOREWORD

imaginative life of t h e m i n d a n d its inner world to t h e forms a n d p h e n o m e n a of the outside world. It is n o s u r p r i s e t h a t its interest in the foetus a n d its emergence into this external world should b e seen to condense a s preconceptions the events of countless millennia since mind emerged from body t h r o u g h the invention of symbol formation. This process, by which the preconception searches the world of experience for its m a t i n g to form a n idea, a conception, produces the u n i t s of t h o u g h t b y which the individual builds his picture of the world, n o two identical b u t possibly congruent enough to allow for communication. This communication between self a n d internal objects would seem to constitute creative thought. S u c h a view envisages a continual potential commerce between self a n d objects in preconception a n d suitable realizations, for u n s u i t a b l e ones produce mis-conceptions. It is to this point in the process of thought t h a t Mr Rhode addresses himself in h i s search t h r o u g h literature, art, a n d cultural anthropology for the precursors of this essence of catastrophic change. Bion's imaginative conjectures envisage the new idea a s being in existence a n d seeking a thinker. Mr. Rhode studies in some detail the opposition to this conjunction a n d shows some of the ways in which it c a n manifest itself in the primitive levels of transference a n d countertransference, recognizable from careful studies of the infant-mother relationship.

P S Y C H O T I C M E T A P H Y S I C S

INTRODUCTION

An hypothesis concerning the r a t i o n a l i t y of mind. Mind emerges out of a certain ground, among whose constituents are: (1) the relationship posited by Melanie Klein between the paranoid-schizoid and the depressive positions taken as a postulate to thought; (2) the good objects, described by Donald Meltzer, as instigating mind's buffeting between the two positions; (3) the buffetingin W. R. Bion's terms, the state of catastrophic changeas the grit in the psychic oyster, which originates bodily and architectural creation and the discovery of form.

The title Psychotic Metaphysics covers two books. One w a s written immediately after the other. Both deal with the s a m e set of problems, a n d I begin with a n introduction t h a t describes the n a t u r e of the problems. E n s u i n g c h a p t e r s provide clinical evidence.

n her 1935 paper, "A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States", a n d in h e r 1946 p a p e r on schizoid m e c h a n i s m s , Melanie Klein inferred from a n experience of h u m a n interactionsIn particular from a n experience of the mother-infant relationshiptwo types of mental configuration: the paranoid-schizoid a n d the depressive positions, each of which c a n transform into the other u n d e r the influence of love or hate. Melanie Klein's u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the two positions invites exploration in m a n y directions. Here is one a m o n g the m a n y directions. It is possible to describe the movement from the p a r a n o i d schizoid position into the depressive position without allusion to the instinctual a n d to elucidate the transference without resort to s u c h extra-transferential criteria a s biological factors. An infant c a n look into its mother's face a n d intuit t h a t the radiance in her expression is true of a n inward radiance, a n integrity of outward a n d inward t h a t is iconic. The discovery of

INTRODUCTION the depressive position reveals t h a t t h o u g h t is similarly iconic: t h a t thought exists in its own right a n d is t r u e to itself a n d carries within itself a dynamic for transformation. Under the impress of the depressive position, the ingredients of the p a r a noid-schizoid position intensify, a n d in their intensification they c a n either increase the dissolution of m e a n i n g or bring a b o u t a transfiguration t h a t is prototypic of transfiguration in art. Sensations t h a t are persecutory in themselves are reformed into a meaningful constellation. The discovery of the depressive position, a n d of the mysterious threshold to it, which is the a r e a of Bion's catastrophic change, transformed the n a t u r e of the transference. It w a s no longer a way of elucidating some unresolved b u r d e n concerning the p a s t (the facsimile theory, or t h e theory of transference a s a form of mental digestion); it had become a means of elucidating structures that are specific to the human mindstructures that disclose how mind originates in a rationality of ideas. One s u c h idea is otherness a s annihilation, which is a motive for entry into the state of catastrophic changespecifically, the geometric-seeming idea of the b a b y in the b r e a s t . When translated into space a n d time, the idea of the b a b y in the b r e a s t becomes a conception of the future a s without the self, a s in the belief t h a t one day the mother in the transference will have a n o t h e r b a b y who will take over the patient's place. Defining the depressive position helped to bring into focus all the transference difficulties t h a t can impede therapeutic progress; a n y a t t e m p t to cross the threshold tests out a n d demonstrates the existence of all disablements. It also h a s each of u s face something t h a t is essential a n d u n i q u e in h u m a n n a t u r e t h a t determines our social forms. Melanie Klein's 1935 p a p e r Is for the m o s t p a r t devoted to describing the nearly i n s u r m o u n t a b l e difficulties t h a t face a n y therapist in helping a patient over the threshold. At the s a m e time, the discovery of the threshold endorsed the irrefutable power of transference to be associated to a b o u n d l e s s optimism. Implicitly, Melanie Klein showed the transference to b e a function of reason a s love. It is one of the p o s t u l a t e s of its progress t h a t the inscrutable patterning of liminal p h e n o m e n a (images whose s t r u c t u r e s find their origin in s u c h emblems a s the m a s k or the labyrinth) will resolve itself into a meaningful

INTRODUCTION

communication. As a function of reason, transference is always b o u n d to succeed; failure in therapy depends on s u c h factors a s t h e therapist's i n e p t n e s s in being able to read the evidence, for there is n o notion of inadequacy in the idea of the transference itself, a s there is no notion of inadequacy in the idea of r e a s o n a s love. T h o u g h t a s reason, a s transference, contains within itself t h e m e a n s of its own development. An environment m a y n o u r ish a mind, b u t a n environment does n o t create a mind. A foetus is related to a very restricted externalityand yet conceivably a foetus m a y b e able to undergo the transformation of the two positions, a n d to know the wondrous transfiguring power of reason, before it h a s entered the world.

Charting the depressive position g r a n t s the therapist a n opportunity to observe how ideas derive from two sources, which are also s o u r c e s for the transference. One of the s o u r c e s is mental pain, which plays s u c h a n important role in the movement into the depressive position. Mind is endlessly, if unconsciously, in negotiation with itself a b o u t the meaning of some pain t h a t is intrinsic to its existence. Thinking is modified less b y way of sense information t h a n by the p a r t p a i n plays in its transformations. Unable to b e a r the pain to more t h a n a limited extent, mind is liable to call into doubt the existence of pain in the core of m i n d t h a t generates meaning. The other source for ideas is the ideal. Mind h a s to have h a d some relationship to its source in the ideal, if it is to acquire any dimension in its u n d e r s t a n d i n g of actual people a n d places a s objects in thought. The generation of depressive m e a n i n g requires the functioning of the concepts of goodness, truth, a n d beauty, which n a t u r e alone c a n n o t endorse. Any inhibition of the functioning will activate the paranoid-schizoid retreat, which degrades objects in thought a n d consequently is liable to perceive t h e m a s vengeful r e v e n a n t s or persecutory h u s k s . If mind enters t h e depressive position a n d takes on responsibility for its degradations, it may experience the objects in thought a s m e s s e n g e r s of the u n k n o w n a n d the unknowable. Bodies exist a s agents for interchanges between different personalities. But by implication the theory of the depressive

INTRODUCTION position denies any s t a t u s to body a s a self-sufficient fact a n d it t e n d s to deny s t a t u s to facts a s m e a n s to self-sufficiency. At most, a fact c a n claim authority for itself a s a sign or a failed symbol, a n d a sign in the semantics of the mind is a n unreliable form of communication. If bodily sensation is described a s a fact. It is described so on the u n d e r s t a n d i n g that a "fact" is a n example of a protomeaning. Signs are representations t h a t tend to fall a p a r t , or to relate to each other misleadlngly, or to become emblems in which p a r t s of the self are muddled in p h a n t a s y with p a r t s of a mother's body. An actually unknowable site, the interior to the mother's body, can be appropriated a n d p o s s e s s e d by m e a n s of a type of linkage t h a t H a n n a Segal (1957) h a s defined a s the symbolic equation. In metaphor, a s opposed to Segal-type equations, the relationship of p a r t s a s s u m e s a dissimilarity a s well a s a similarity between themselves; m e t a p h o r s require t h a t sort of amplitude in mental space. Segal-type equations, on the other h a n d , postulate t h a t the discovery of a similarity between p a r t s h a s the power to a n n u l any evidence of difference. ("If I a m like you, t h e n I have the power to become you.") They abolish the idea of the figurative, which a s s u m e s t h a t difference within likeness is possible, a n d they claim (as does the cloning reflections of two facing mirrors) t h a t all forms of comparison indicate t h e s a m e two-dimensional appearance. In a n evolution of Melanie Klein's theory, Bion proposed t h a t the language of signs usually leads to misrepresentation, whereas the language of the symbol, which is a language t h a t emphasizes difference in similarities, is a paradigm for truthful communication. The presence of the corporeal in thought, the corporeal as idea, in effect provides a system of c o m m u n i c a tion, either by sign or symbol. The mapping out of the p a t h from paranoid-schizoid to depressive position covers failures in mental development a s well a s m o m e n t s of achievement. If the therapist is negligent, the movement into development can falter or be s u b m e r g e d by forms of destruction that are basically suicidal. The a p p r o a c h to a loving relationship can precipitate a retreat into s t a t e s of incoherence a n d self-annihilation. Melanie Klein created a n environment in which it was possible for Bion to p u t forward the concept of foetal preconception.

INTRODUCTION

which incipiently is a concept of p u r e thought. It implies t h a t the capacity to r e a s o n (to r e a s o n even a b o u t reason itself) may precede the capacity to think a b o u t n a t u r e , a n d it m a y be in operation d u r i n g the time of pre-birth. S u c h possibilities in speculation allow for the revival of the neoplatonist hypothesis t h a t m i n d a s a recipient for a pain, a n d for a system of ideas t h a t is u n k n o w a b l e in origin, h a s logical priority over the conception of m i n d a s a receptor for body sensation.

Reversal

in

perspective

Bion writes a b o u t psychopathological u s e s of reversal in perspective, in which the patient, possibly without conscious guile, reverses the context in meaning of everything the therapist says, p e r h a p s a s a way of dealing with the inscrutability of the picture of the future to which the therapist b e a r s witness. (The liminal p h e n o m e n a t h a t occurs on the threshold of the depressive position can take the form of the dangerous m e a n ings represented by the Oedipus Sphinxmeanings t h a t face anyone on the verge of depressive renewal.) The therapist is misled into the belief t h a t b o t h parties are in agreement a n d t h a t between t h e m h a r m o n y reigns. An act of transformation of this kind is in itself n e u t r a l a n d sometimes possibly benign. On occasion the transformations between t h e paranoid-schizoid a n d the depressive positions c a n entail a 180-degree conversion in meaning that is compatible with a n increasing depth in u n d e r s t a n d i n g . In the a r t s a n d the s t r u c t u r a l conception of mythology, concepts of reversal a n d of perspective, either singly or together, can be u s e d constructively. Claude Levi-Strauss (1973) traces the condensation a n d collapse of m y t h s (as though they were dying stars) in a process of transformation similar to reversal in perspective: Mythological systems, after passing through a minimal expression, recover their original fullness on the other side of the threshold. But their reflection is inverted, a bit like a bundle of light rays entering into a camera oscura through a pin-hole opening and forced by this obstacle to cross over

INTRODUCTION each other. The same image, seen rightside-up outside, is reflected upside-down in the camera, [pp. 259-260]

INTRODUCTION evolved out of the good objects theory t h a t is implied by Melanie Klein's 1935 paper. It is possible t h a t the good objects, a s elements in foetal thinking, precede the coming into being of p a r e n t s , n u r t u r e r s , caretakers, a n d other agents for the good objects. In this respect, m i n d a s t h e site of self-awareness h a s only a secondary dependence on body or bodily function; its prime dependence is o n t h e p r e s e n c e of s o m e o t h e r n e s s within, a g r o u n d to the self t h a t c a n n o t b e known a n d over which the self h a s no proprietary rights. To b e b o r n is to enter space a n d time a n d to become a being in history, whose s e n s e of experience a n d u n d e r s t a n d i n g of knowledge s t e m s from the premonitions of a body ego. The t h o u g h t of the newborn is u n d e r p r e s s u r e to b e of a historical kind. B u t history a n d n a t u r e are n o t seamless. Any act of observation in the world of n a t u r a l process is liable to become a t some point a n observation of w h a t is n o t there: a n absence, or s t a t e of discontinuity, t h a t c a n only b e m a d e s e n s e of by t h e emergence of a poetic symbol t h a t a p p e a r s to come o u t of the nowhere of a n unknowability, like a n inspiration. An empiricist who denied validity to the poetic symbol, while recognizing the essential n a t u r e of the concept of u n knowability, might a t t e m p t to account for the void by claiming t h a t the categories of p a s t a n d future are the archives of u n knowability a n d provide the space that mind needs to b e able to t h i n k a b o u t the present. B u t it is doubtful whether the p a s t or t h e future a s providing s u c h spaces can offer more t h a n a skeletal representation of t h e t r u t h . A y o u n g w o m a n s p e a k s of a painful loneliness a s a hole in t h e stomach, which might be the hole in the h e a d that in popular parlance nobody wants. An infant leaning against its mother's a b d o m e n will concretely s e n s e the future within her. The hole within is the place t h a t one day may contain babies; in a more developed configuration, it is the a b s e n t breast. It is not only t h e b r e a s t t h a t is lost in death, it is the plenitude of the u t e r u s a s the future itself. As well a s being a biological organ, t h e u t e r u s is a prototype for the poetic symbol in its fullness; it is t h e source a n d site of t h e psychotic metaphysic. Retrieving t h e poetic symbol, the "lost" conceptions of t h e psychotic metaphysic t h a t do not derive from n a t u r e , is a task

Conceivably, t h e foetal m i n d is p r e s e n t e d with a reversal in perspective a t the time t h a t it moves from t h e closed environm e n t of being within the u t e r u s to the bewildering environment of the postnatal world. It is a s though the c i r c u m s t a n c e s of birth impelled a reversal in perspective of the motifs t h a t constitute the thinking of the foetus (Levi-Strauss's "bundle of light-rays"), so that the elements of a magical system become, in reversal, the concepts by which n a t u r e can b e t h o u g h t about. As a system of Junctions, m i n d is dependent on body; to this extent, experience derives from t h e corporeal, a n d t h e ego is body-ego. B u t m i n d is more t h a n a system of functions: it exhibits powers; a n d in any consideration of m e n t a l powers, the a s s u m p t i o n t h a t meaning might derive from s e n s a t i o n is p u t in doubt. Powers erupt a n d spill over the physical b o u n d a r y . The source of h u m a n i t y is something other t h a n the h u m a n . Freud t h o u g h t of the id a s a witches' cauldron; more generally, mind is a crucible for energies t h a t seem to come from "another world". H u m a n beings a r e capable of a c t s of inspirationand of atrocitiesthat c a n n o t be imagined without the t h o u g h t t h a t "this act is surely beyond h u m a n comprehension". At the core of a h u m a n self b o u n d to n a t u r e lies a not-self t h a t requires a s u p e r h u m a n or p r e t e r h u m a n description. This is a psychological, not a theological point, though it invites translation into theological terms. Foetal thought originates in a n u n d e r s t a n d ing of the immanence in thought of the demonic a n d the divine; conversely, t h e n e o n a t e m u s t come to t e r m s with a n experience of n a t u r e in which presences of t h e s u p e r n a t u r a l are slight a n d realized a t m o s t b y way of implication.

The good

objects

In order to consider the n a t u r e of foetal experience, I will t u r n to the theory of internal good objects which Donald Meltzer h a s

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION Experience of the good objects a s "reason" is a determining factor in the development t h a t may later result from the n a t u r a l enquiries of infancy. The "reason" that confronts the foetus is not ratiocination: being without soundings in n a t u r e , it might b e magic. It is t h e primary imagination by which, in Coleridge's definition, the eternal act of creation is enacted continuously in every finite m i n d (Watson, 1975, p. 167). "Reason" can disclose itself as the aesthetic presence of changing proportions, a danqe of s h a p e s , which maturely articulates itself a s m a t h e m a t i c s a n d music. If the foetus were never to b e born, or never to know the unpredictability of n a t u r e , it might imagine t h a t the laws of n a t u r e preceded the existence of n a t u r e itself. [The m e a s u r e of the first days in the Genesis creation, for instance, is a liturgical a n d n o t a n a t u r a l conception of time a s changing proportion. Liturgy is the ritual form of t h e poetic symbol; it s e e k s to retrieve a knowledge in p a r t lost a t birth b e c a u s e the conditions t h a t meet the infant in b i r t h are u n a b l e to validate the knowledge.] Platonism a s s u m e s (as in the creationist m y t h of the Timaeus) that the powers of mind can commune with the powers of mathematics and music, whether or not the natural world exists. Clearly, m a t h e m a t i c s a n d music reflect some transcendental a s p e c t to mental powers, which is unrelated to a n y source in n a t u r e . Their epistemological s t a t u s in the world is perplexing. Presumably, a n ability to appreciate s o u n d s in utero d e p e n d s on s o m e preconception of m e a s u r e t h a t precedes the first hearing of a n y s o u n d . Post-birth s t r u c t u r e s in mind seek for the type of historical knowledge known a s recognition. Nature a n d history cannot a c c o u n t for the dimensions of recognition b e c a u s e they cannot be the source for the mythological a s s u m p t i o n s that underlie the formation of recognition. The transition a t the time of birth between the two perspectivesof body's dependence on mind a n d mind's dependence on bodycan fail in various ways. The newborn may be u n a b l e to tolerate t h e conditions of existing in n a t u r e a n d history a n d refuse to give u p the mythological type of thinking t h a t applied to its former situation: in which case it may survive in delusion (the psychosis in the psychotic metaphysic having become

t h a t confronts anyone who h a s been born. Coleridge told Poole in a letter t h a t w h e n his father first pointed out the s t a r s to him, h e w a s able to feel awe b e c a u s e already h e h a d a preconception of awesome space, which a reading of the Arabian Nights h a d realized in him. The motifs of foetal thought take on m e a n i n g within the context of myth; a n d mythic thinking is essential to the structure of the uterine setting. The foetus a n d the placenta oscillate in thought by way of the umbilical cord, a s though they were twins in a state of m u t u a l projective identification. They discover in each other microcosm a n d macrocosm. The notion of a n eternal centre from which poetic or group transference symbols e m a n a t e is carried over into types of postnatal thought cognate with pre-birth intuition. In a n c i e n t China, collective representations "emanate from a sort of centre" (Granet, 1934, p. 112). A light p o u r s into the cave to endorse the authority of a king, or a n omphalos, or a n altar, or the victim on the altar. The dream ideograms, to which m i n d a t t a c h e s .itself, seem to arise out of nowhere. Foetal thought is pre-epistemological. On this b a s i s it is possible to s u p p o s e that it h a s no a w a r e n e s s of the concepts of credulity a n d scepticism, a n d it h a s no m e a n s to differentiate dream thinking from hallucination. It receives suppositions without foundation, which are like r u m o u r s over which it h a s n o power of a s s e s s m e n t . Whether this unavailability of ground is evidence of revelation or u n t r u t h , it c a n n o t know. The foetus lives b y way of faith. One foetal myth a s s e r t s that in the beginning exists the unknowability known as the good objects. Foetal m i n d is formed out of this beginning; a n d foetal body is formed out of mind. Preconception implies t h a t the foetal body is a m e t a p h o r for mind, in the s a m e way a s psychosomatic disorders c a n be viewed a s m e t a p h o r s for a type of thought. The good objects impel various forms of conceptualization. They give meaning to the concept of eternitya concept t h a t h a s no place in nature, b u t which compels attention in a n y theory of the mind's powers. They manifest themselves a s a n illumination or first light comparable to Descartes' n a t u r a l light of reason, a radiance whose impingement on t h o u g h t precedes the awareness of n a t u r e .

-lir-

10

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

11

virulent), or it m a y live within the narrow c o m p a s s of foetal inspiration a s a damaged type of artist. Alternatively, it m a y deny a n y reality to its former knowledge a n d exist within the n a t u r a l world, dissociated from its former self a n d u n a b l e to find any validation for dreaming. S u c h psychic failures in birth possibly depend on some breakdown in the perception of the rationality of the good objects. Reason may contain within itself the preconception of anti-reason, a negation t h a t takes the biological form of a n u n t e m p e r e d a n d disconnected ground to experience. Later in the book I propose (with clinical evidence) t h a t migraines a n d other p h e n o m e n a t h a t Gowers described long ago a s "the borderland of epilepsy" may be similar to the scintillations of the u n t e m p e r e d ground. Mythology often gives evidence of the u n t e m p e r e d ground, a s w h e n it a p p e a r s to be the residue of a mode of communication t h a t h a s b e e n destroyed, a deteriorated version of the angelic speech of m a t h e m a t i c s a n d music. Frequently its s u b ject m a t t e r is concerned with the theme of retrieval from a universal catastrophe. The b u n d l e s of light-rays that travel through the pinhole of Levi-Strauss's (1973) camera oscura take on the property of myth w h e n they are related to the m a n y m y t h s a b o u t light t h a t dwell on loss a n d damage a s well a s renewal, a s in the m y t h of the Objibwa Indians of n o r t h e r n America, in which six gods rise u p out of the ocean in order to parley with the Objibwa peoples (Levi-Strauss, 1964). Inadvertently p e r h a p s , one of the gods unveils his eyes. His glance kills a h u m a n being on whom it falls; a n d h e is obliged to r e t u r n to the ocean in disgrace. This is why the Objibwa have five gods, r a t h e r t h a n the six that any classification of the universe requires a s the essential categories of meaning. The Objibwa seek to compensate for their deficient s e m a n t i c system by resorting to metaphoric thinking (p. 19); in a similar way, h u m a n beings are obliged to extemporize m e a n i n g s with inadequate resources. They have to give u p thinking by way of concrete equation. In pre-birth, the mind is t u r n e d towards a n illumination t h a t c a n n o t b e tolerated. Ancient Greek m y t h h a s Zeus's t h u n derbolt strike down Semele, who is seven m o n t h s p r e g n a n t

with Dionysus. In a n o t h e r myth, his lightning incinerates four of t h e Titans who have cooked a n d eaten the sacred child Dionysus. Yet again, the lightning is transformed into a n eagle t h a t eats the liver of the Titan Prometheus, who h a d t h o u g h t to steal the power of fire (identified with the sacred element in the body of t h e infant Dionysus). The binary a p p e a r s a s a theme at this point: there is a splintering of the light (and one splinter falls away a s Lucifer). Certain m y t h s propose the split a s occurring in the mind a t birth: one twin is identified with the power a n d movement of the s u n ; the other twin m u s t bear the guilt of fallen light a n d travel a s a mirror image through the s h a d e s of the underworld in identification with a s u n t h a t emits d a r k n e s s . In A. M. Hocart's (1927) account of primitive representation (with which the first p a r t begins) the priest-king is conjoined to the powers of the s u n at the m o m e n t of his coronation, in a n equation reminiscent of Segal's concrete equation by sign. The group is granted by way of a dream the idea of the king a s a poetic symbol, whose function, in containing the essence of solar energies, is a version of the function by which the group inhibits its m e m b e r s ' craving for incest. The idea of the king is a s a group transference object intended to hold in check states of u n b o u n d e d psychotic sensation. It s e e m s likely t h a t within the psychotic metaphysic notions of evil derive from some foetal inability to tolerate the proximity of the good. If the good objects are unveiled, or without insulation, or without the moderation of thermostatic control, or without some m e a n s to stabilize perceptions of space a n d time (psychic equivalents of telescopes, microscopes, chronometers), they will blind anyone who looks a t them, a s does the Platonic s u n . The good objects are beyond the capacity of h u m a n u n d e r standing; a n d this is why they c a n n o t be separated from the possibilities of psychotic invasion. The s u n that Socrates describes in his p a r a b l e of the Cave, which is a blinding source of revelation, is n o t a n object in n a t u r e : it is a light that derives from pre-birth; a n d , conceivably, a s a psychotic fact, it could be a p l a n e t t h a t e m a n a t e s absolute cold.

PART

ONE

T H E

U N B O R N

On becoming emperor, Mahasudassana set out to circumambulate his new realms, beginning at the East and following the course of the sun. At each of the four quarters he received the homage and fealty of the vassal kings. . . . [Similarly,] the Cambodian king goes round the city in the direction of the hands of a clock, and at each of the cardinal points is received by dignitaries, washes his face and sprinkles the earth to show that he takes possession of the ground. . . . Like Mahasudassana, he promulgates rules of conduct. Hocart, 1927, pp. 80, 82

A person who is by nature dominated by the subjective factor is committed to a life of faith whether he likes it or not, since all his important mental processes are unconscious. If he does not continually seek expression for his faith, for his sense of the force by which he is lived, then . . . his dependence on the unseen within himself will be a continual torment. Milner, 1987, p. 5

CHAPTER

ONE

On representation. individual becomes

The

turbulence for

by which the good

the objects.

an agent

o b e truly a n agent for a n idea is "to have a n experience as". And "to have a n experience as" is to come to know how i n a d e q u a t e you can be. Something is a t stake; you take on the h a r n e s s , b e a r the b r u n t , a n d at best pull through. In parenting, to give an instance, you become a n agent for some formative principle. Arguably, parenting is a function a n d not a representationit might be argued that a p a r e n t is j u s t a n a m e covering anyone who "happened to be around" at the time of a procreation or a pregnancy or a birth or through years of n u r t u r e ; b u t a nominalism of this kind does n o t engage with the situation t h a t I wish to describe. For a brief while, p a r e n t s are agents for a child's good objects: t h e n a t u r e of these good objects is unknowable yet approachable through myth. Philip Roth's story a b o u t a n u n successful theatre agent who writes to Albert Einstein, offering to m a k e h i m a s u c c e s s in show b u s i n e s s , gets the idea exactly. The t h e a t r e agent could b e a n y p a r e n t encouraged to enter the agency b u s i n e s s by the a p p e a r a n c e of a newborn. 15

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Intuiting t h e presence of the infant's good objects, which, like goodness itself, is unlimited in potential, the p a r e n t would b e right to think of its newborn in terms of genius. There is genius in every new manifestation of life! Perhaps the p a r e n t takes on the newborn with expectations t h a t are too worldly. P a r e n t s uphold something, p e r h a p s for the first time in their lives, a n d in their upholding, mysteriously, the formative principle would seem to work through them. They m a y expect to a s s u m e this responsibility, b u t so does anyone who t a k e s on care for others. Priest-kings in former times thought to acquire power through a n identification with the s u n ' s essence (Hocart, 1927).' The s u n w a r m s the earth, a n d the crops grow; the s u n brings prosperity to the kingdom. It is tempting, a n d improbable, to think t h a t the priest-kings identified with a n a t u r a l energy. Nature is a concept t h a t takes on m e a n i n g in the depressive position, a n d it required the genius of Aristotle to evolve it. The s u n t h a t the priest-king identifies with is a p r e t e r n a t u r a l object, a god, or something the gods usewhich is group talk for a transference object t h a t carries the power in the group's craziness. It exists before any differentiation between inside a n d outside the m i n d h a s come into being; it is proto-psychological a n d p e r h a p s originates in foetal intuition; its being carried over into n a t u r e shows it to b e liturgical in meaning. (A liturgical object is one t h a t carries over m e a n i n g from pre-birth times.) It is only with hindsight t h a t it is possible to describe it a s a representation of psychotic energies, a mythic, paranoid-schizoid emblem for a psychic power stolen from the good objects. Henri Frankfort, among others, has criticized the universal motive in Hocart's thesis, which produces "a variety of institutions specifically different but generically alike" (Frankfort. 1951, p. 6). "Cultural setting can modify identifications of ruler and deity that at first sight look similar. The Mesopotamian king was, like the pharaoh, charged with maintaining harmonious relations between human society and the supernatural powers; yet he was emphatically not one of these, but a member of the community. In Egypt, however, one of the gods had descended among men. . . . For (the Hebrew prophets) all values were ultimately attributes of God; man and nature were devaluated, and every attempt to establish a harmony with nature was a futile dissipation of effort" (Frankfort, 1948, p. 6).
1

T h r o u g h t h e rites of coronation, the priest-king hopes to obtain control over energies t h a t permit h i m to integrate the group. Otherwise the group would splinter into factions, each of which would think to appropriate the s u n ' s essence. The priest-king's model is Prometheus, who stole the power of fire from Zeus. P r o m e t h e a n fire is mythic fire, a n d it is something other t h a n n a t u r a l fire. The superstition t h a t governments in power tend to win elections if the weather is good, though trivial, carries some t r u t h a b o u t the magical way in which governors r e p r e s e n t the n e e d s of those they govern. Good or wise g u a r d i a n s a r e not enough; we need g u a r d i a n s who have the magical essence a n d who bring good fortune. In myth, a n infant, looking into its mother's eyes, comes to believe (in a n echo of pre-birth) t h a t her formative principle was the fire of t h e s u n ; it s e n s e s the w a r m t h of her b r e a s t a n d thinks of h e r procreative powers a s stove-like or incubatory: s h e is the goddess of the kitchen a s well a s of other places. Beyond t h a t , s h e reveals a unifying ground, some formative principle, p e r h a p s emblemized (as the Milesian philosophers thought) a s s u n , water, or the u n b o u n d e d . To this infant, a father is like a mother, n o t least w h e n h e is maternal. Both p a r e n t s have the function of encouraging a capacity in the child of being able to experience meanings, while realizing p e r h a p s t h a t m e a n i n g s originate through some function of the child's good objects. A p a r e n t s t a n d s at some psychic j u n c t u r e between solidities a n d powers (and p r e s u m a b l y in order for this to h a p p e n for the child, its good objects do so too). A child will discover p a r e n t a l qualities in stars, trees, a n d stones; a n d in stars, trees, a n d s t o n e s discovers its p a r e n t s (as the primal gods), without realizing the cost its p a r e n t s incur in upholding the fabric of its world. The misleading idea of n a t u r e a s a continuity is b o u g h t for the child by those who s u s t a i n it t h r o u g h its earliest time of need. If its p a r e n t s should a b a n d o n it, it m u s t face a Lear-like storm a n d know a n air more chill t h a n any actual air. Far from "knowing" the formative principle directly, a p a r e n t embodies it intuitively, by being b o t h the s t a r s a n d trees a n d s t o n e s in the child's kingdom, while at the s a m e time epitomizing s o m e t h i n g else, the realm of powers, of cosmic

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THE UNBORN

CHAPTER ONE

19

principles, the often buffoonish, m e t a m o r p h o s i n g family of the gods. Through a n a t m o s p h e r e of good h u m o u r a n d s e n s e of play (fostered p e r h a p s by its experience of its p a r e n t s ' relationship), hopefully the child will be able to tolerate its desire to m u r d e r rivals a n d to attack the formation of meaning. Parents have m o m e n t s when they are most themselves. A child will observe a parent's h a b i t s a n d u n c o n s c i o u s behaviour a n d imitate them. It may observe its p a r e n t s with a c a n n i n e s s in perception t h a t it reserves for no one else. Some of t h e h a b i t s it observes are disabling (you would, a s parent, b e a s h a m e d to think t h a t they h a d been observed); some less so. You m a y b e u n a w a r e of your enabling h a b i t s b e c a u s e your p a s s i o n for t h e m blinds you to anything else. A p a r e n t who loves reading m a y find t h a t its child takes to reading easily. P a r e n t s a n d other types of n u r t u r e r naturally feel inadequate, insofar as they are aware of a lifelong immersion in a psychopathology t h a t could, if unchecked, h a r m the child. The Crow Indians of Montana have a myth, recorded by R. H. Lowie, in which the coyote, a s trickster or transformer, becomes united with the s u n , as s u p r e m e deity. In the cycle connected with him as transformer he possesses hardly one redeeming feature. He is obscene, a fool, a coward and utterly lacking in self control. Yet the moment he becomes associated with the creative deity all this disappears. [Radin, 1924, p. 25] Here, succinctly, is a process of transformation by which a n individual might become a parent. The coyote a s trickster is transformer a n d culture-hero; his powers for destruction c a n b e h a r n e s s e d to the formative principle a n d u s e d in n u r t u r e . In some ideal construction, the child perceives the s u n a s a central a n d unifying m e a n i n g in its p a r e n t s ; a n d at the s a m e time it perceives something else t h a t is more bewildering. Not the monotheism of the formative principle, b u t t h e polytheism of the tricky argumentative gods, the strife of p a r e n t s in argu-^ m e n t . Here to b e faced is the realm of confusion in meanings, of lies a n d psychopathological intrusions. B u t the trickster c a n b e h a r n e s s e d to the formative principle, the s u n , andwhen transfiguredbecome some crucial transforming element in the evolution of meaning.

The infant begins to glimpse the good objects it will never directly know t h r o u g h the interstices of experience. In a sense, the distinction of inside a n d outside the self gives a misleading impression of this type of intuition, in which (as in certain myths) the dreaming a n d the waking self are n o t really separated. Meanings for the infant do not begin a s denotative or fixed elements; a t some stage in their evolution, a s contained in its p a r e n t s , it feels t h e m to be specifically in the b r e a s t . The incipient m e a n i n g s exist in flux, molten steel in a furn a c e of meaningsa s u n furnace, which a certain type of child will t h i n k of distrustingly a s the uterine place t h a t m a k e s all women dangerous to ita vision of meaning in transformation t h a t c a n n o t b e distinguished from the despairing p r e s u m p t i o n t h a t all m e a n i n g automatically enters into the fee of the trickster a n d liar. In Plato's p a r a b l e of the s u n a n d the cave, the self in the cave, its neck clamped so t h a t it can look in one direction, a n d one direction only, m u s t look at, a n d believe in, a n unfolding procession of delusions. Some tyrant a p p e a r s to feed errors of m e a n i n g into the trapped self, in the form of lies. Only b y escaping from the cave a n d looking into the s u n is the self liberated from the condition of having been s u p p r e s s e d . Looking into the s u n in this Platonic way is comparable to the experience of becoming a p a r e n t or g u a r d i a n of othersa m o m e n t of conversion t h a t is, if sincere, a c h a n c e for the s u n a n d t h e trickster to work together, a s necessary elements in the makings of meaning. Obviously things can go wrong. Someone may become a p a r e n t or g u a r d i a n insincerely. But the fact that some people u s e p a r e n t i n g to cheat, or public office to defraud, does not invalidate the theory of representation, even though, when it is looked a t closely, the theory t u r n s out to be contrary to good sense. One b a d p a r e n t , or even a n unlimited n u m b e r of b a d parents, c a n n o t discredit the activity of parenting. B u t the satirist, in exposing fraudulence, may aim for the wrong target, by locating the corruption in the function of representation r a t h e r t h a n in the individual representation itself, p e r h a p s b e c a u s e h e finds t h a t this theory of representation is so intransigent in its rejection of the aberrant.

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THE UNBORN

CHAPTER ONE

21

Roland Barthes's (1973) celebrated criticism of the 1950s U.S. exhibition of photographs known a s The Family of Man raised issues of this kind. The exhibition gave a n impression of certain universals in h u m a n experience. A considerable artistry in b o t h photography a n d choice of p h o t o g r a p h s persuasively p u t over a "humanist" representation. Anyone writing a b o u t western culture in the 1950ssignificantly, writing a b o u t the culture of the Cold Warwould find the catalogue to this show a revealing document. It caught a spirit of the times: b u t Barthes, with reason, sensed some hidden p e r s u a s i o n (though surely n o more t h a n h e might have s e n s e d in the American Depression photographs of Walker Evans or the Italian neorealist films out of which t h e aesthetic of this exhibition derived); a n d h e went to the h e a r t of the problem, a s h e s a w it, by attacking the belief that there might b e some u n c h a n g i n g essence or generality in experience, some underlying commitm e n t to a n ideaon the g r o u n d s t h a t this belief in a n u n c h a n g i n g essence obliterated any m e a n i n g t h a t history or social change might have. He thought t h a t the powerful corporate style of the exhibition aimed to reinforce the spectator's t r u s t in the ideology of American capitalism: specifically, the belief t h a t forever the labourer will labour a n d the employer maintain h i s power. Any classic humanism postulates that in scratching the history of men a little . . . one very quickly reaches the solid rock of a universal h u m a n nature. Progressive humanism, on the contrary, m u s t always remember to reverse the terms of this very old imposture, constantly to scour nature, its "laws" and "limits", in order to discover History there, and at last to establish Nature itself as historical, [p. 101] Barthes thought to infer that the m i s u s e s of representation would discredit the principle of representation on which they were based; indeed, would discredit a n y belief in the. individual's ability to p a r t a k e of the universal. Not only c h e a t s p r e t e n d to be agents for the idea a n d to defraud those in their care; anyone who thinks to b e agent for a n idea h a s entered into a Platonic a n d (extremely, for Barthes) a Fascist alliance. He

implies, without stating, t h a t the only t r u t h lies in nominalism. On these grounds, a father a n d mother have nothing in comm o n with any other father a n d mother, a p a r t from the fact of a nomenclature. The a r g u m e n t is so involved with its own idea of freedom t h a t it takes n o a c c o u n t of the salutary a n d informative shock t h a t can occur when someone becomes an agent for the idea. As agent for a power you h a d known nothing about, you waver a n d hope to acquire some s t a m i n a . Suddenly, you realize, other lives depend on you; a n d if you stumble, they will b e e n d a n gered. Obviously you could betray the commitment. But the fact t h a t t h e possibility of betrayal is there does n o t discredit the c o m m i t m e n t itself.

I a m s t a n d i n g on the westbound Central-line platform at Oxford Circus u n d e r g r o u n d station, a n d I a m looking at the poster for a Henry Moore exhibition. I see the representation of a stone carving of a m o t h e r a n d child, a n d I recognize t h a t this is other t h a n the s t u d y of one particular m o t h e r a n d child. Moore, the object s e e m s to tell me, is concerned with communicating some essence of motherhood a n d with inviting me to appreciate the tenderness a n d s t r e n g t h t h a t his own markings of the stone convey. It is a s t a t u e a b o u t maternity t h a t in the m a n n e r of its making activates a n appreciation of maternity. Mothers, it implies, p a r t a k e in some labyrinthine a n d occult community of interests. Mothering is not only a b o u t origins; it invites me to think a b o u t s o m e originality, or prototype, behind all mothering. I might picture this perception as being like a genealogical table t h a t a s c e n d s in narrowing perspective a n d increasing ideality to the perfect primal motherperhaps the very subject of Moore's s t o n e carving. The mythic ideal mother is a n appropriate subject for anyone who aspires to m a k e a n ideal work of art. The ideal work of a r t takes the spectator u n d e r its wing, a s though it, too, were a mother, a n d invites the spectator to join some order of cherished children. Motherhood of this kind is a n ideal t h a t can be lived u p to or b e failed. One becomes a n agent for a n idea. In this, all mothers a n d children are blurred copies of some prototype.

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THE UNBORN

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23

Moore's m o t h e r a n d child are deities, a primal couple, the m o t h e r a n d founder of a revelation; at the s a m e time. In tactile suggestion, they derive from s e n s a t i o n s a n d inclinations of the h e a r t t h a t p r e s u m a b l y Moore himself would have experienced a s a one-time infant or, later, a s a n a d u l t observer of m o t h e r s . In seeing some potential kinship in all mothers, the Moore stone carving implies a kinship in modes of representation. It works through a s h o r t h a n d , hinting at its kinship to early Renaissance sculpture or to Mexican art, etc. Someone looking at the Moore m a y congratulate themselves on picking u p the allusions a n d think to have entered the sacred family of art, in which all things become one, a n d all issues of o n e n e s s become issues of origin. Against this view would be the nominalist belief t h a t the attributes s h a r e d by all m o t h e r s a r e so few or trivial t h a t they can be dismissed. Admittedly, all m o t h e r s undergo the biological conditions of procreation a n d birth. B u t why should these be thought of a s qualitative? A mother m a y have undergone them in some dissociated state. The nominalist allows no notion of procreation a n d birth a s mental concepts, concerning experiences endurednor with the notion of a n idea (of the mother) a s accruing through experiences t h a t have transformed the self. The nominalist believes t h a t the concept of m o t h e r may have some u s e in questions of law; b u t it confuses a n y picture h e might have h a d of whatever relationship, if any, there might have been between the offspring a n d the woman who h a s given birth to it. For him, a m o t h e r is n o more t h a n a word with a n awkward moralistic edge: a n d having babies is no different from clearing yourself out in other ways. In other words, the nominalist seeks to discredit the wisdom of the mythic imagination a n d to deny its relationship to the sacred. He a n n o u n c e s a new order, in which the sexual a n d moral adventurer is acclaimed for his dissociated ability to explore physical extremes of sensation (the notion of h u m a n i t y being long since discarded).

h a p s for something else. Your child expects you to live u p to the responsibility. This child is the epitome of life, helpless, precious, d e p e n d e n t on you. It b e a r s in on you, p e r h a p s for the first time, t h a t you are responsible for a sacred essence: in certain extreme circumstances, this child might be everything t h a t is precious in the universe. Surviving a s p a r e n t (if only just) is obviously crucial to the child's spiritual survival. You uphold the fabric of its world. Through you, the child experiences a s e n s e of solidityand comes to discover solidity in the world. The child discovers r e a s s u r a n c e in s t a r s a n d trees a n d stones through the survival of those who n u r t u r e it. In time, when it, too, becomes a parent, it will probably become aware of itself a s related not to solidities b u t to powers of u n u s u a l m a g n i t u d e t h a t would seem to dissolve the authority of the solid. It may begin to doubt its formerconfidence in s e n s e information or worldly knowledge of a n y kind. F. M. Cornford proposed t h a t the experience of self a s agent for othershe i n s t a n c e s the role of kingship (1952, p. 237) finds its prototype not in biological process b u t in the non-biological a n d logical relationship of particulars to Platonic ideas. The ideas are mysterious powers a n d logically precede any notion of pre-birth experience. For m o s t people for m o s t of the time the powers are relegated to split-off a n d unperceived psychotic p a r t s of the self. To find yourself as the particular agent for t h e m is to find yourself in a situation t h a t is very different from t h e state of being upheld by the containing solidities of t h e actual; you will b e buffeted by the powers a n d may think of t h e m a s m a n n e r s of inspiration, a n d possibly a s m a n n e r s of destruction. The p a r e n t a s agent is no different from a n y other agent of the unknowable.

On becoming a parent, I learnt that experience h a d taken on two aspects. I was needed for myself a s a n individual: b u t also I was needed for w h a t I represented. You a r e the awkward intermediaryfor motherhood or fatherhood p e r h a p s , or per-

CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER TWO

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Representation in the transference, with reference to a part-object picture of the mother's spine as a support for both the foetus within her and for the feeding child (or patient) at the breast Skeletal structures idealized in myth as stone constructs raised between earth and sky. Such rite centres separate those who are privileged from those who are not; in origin, this is a binary division between a mother-foetus couple that lives and a mother-foetus couple that dies, enacted at birth by the loss of the umbilical cord and the placenta. The central working model of the psychotic metaphysic: a binary split, implicit in the fetish-cults of umbilical cord and placenta among the pharaohs.

h e evolution of the transference is the evolution of reason. The existence of a b l a n k n e s s between the p a r a noid-schizoid a n d the depressive positions indicates a dichotomy in the s t r u c t u r e of r e a s o n itself. Transference, a s a form of r e a s o n motivated by love, moves b a c k a n d forth between the two positions, translating t h o u g h t s from one to the other, a s though the positions faced each other across a no-man's-land, a s armies u n c o m p r e h e n d i n g of each other's language, or culture, or reason for being. T h e n a t u r e of the move b a c k a n d forth through painful transformation is informative of the s t a m i n a t h a t p a r e n t s or other n u r t u r e r s need: Bion (1975, p. 125) thought of the s t a m i n a a s being like Keats' negative capability. In transference, a myth dying on one side of the depressive threshold kindles into new m e a n i n g s on the other side, in a m a n n e r analogous to Levi-Strauss's (1973) assertion t h a t "Mythological systems, after p a s s i n g through a minimal expression, recover their original fullness on the other side of the 24

threshold". Mind on either side of the paranoid-schizoid a n d depressive divide looks on the s a m e objects in entirely different ways a n d sometimes tries to square their contrasted perplexities in communication by conceiving the difference between them in terms of an immense distance, whether in space or time. P a s t a n d future, a s they stretch away from the self, transform into representations of a n increasing incomprehensibility. T h e greater the distance, the greater the difficulty in knowing how to elucidate the evidence. A writer on the religions of early m a n (Leroi-Gourhan, 1964) h a s described the difficulties t h a t face anyone who wishes to m a k e s e n s e of Palaeolithic evidence a s similar to a n exploration t h a t t a k e s place in a fog-bound slippery terrain beside a ravine. Thought aligned to t h e depressive position sees the r u d i m e n tary sign-systems a n d communication by sensation a n d gesture of its paranoid-schizoid alter ego a s being a s mystifying a s the tracings of earliest m a n ; while m i n d in the paranoid-schizoid position experiences the onset of depressive symbolization a s a n intensifying s t a t e of persecution, a leap into a future in which a sibling h a s b e e n born a n d the self feels itself to b e annihilated. The transliteration of sign into symbol can p r e s e n t itself a s nightmare. Progress across the threshold t h r e a t e n s the stability of any s p a c e - t i m e model. Dreamers fear to drown in the spaceless a n d timeless condition of love. The experience of being born is not the source for the later oscillations in m e a n i n g between the two positions; it is, r a t h e r , a copy of the tripartite i d e a of the two positions a n d of the liminality t h a t exists between them. The idea of a tripartite s t r u c t u r e is implicit in certain rites of p a s s a g e a n d is so fundamental to the ontological condition of the mind t h a t no one seems to have been able to have perceived it before Melanie Klein did. It is a p r e t e r n a t u r a l idea, like a platonic form, a n d it would a p p e a r to be intrinsic to the n a t u r e of being itself. Techniques of empirical enquiry, a n d analogies t h a t relate it to n a t u r a l process, are beside the point in intuiting it. The gist of Wittgenstein's (1979) criticism of J . G. Frazer's descriptions of myth was t h a t Frazer applied an inappropriate set of procedures, modelled on eighteenth-century empiricism, to primitive (i.e. paranoid-schizoid) types of thought. He

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thought t h a t s u c h types of thought h a d kinship more with the s t r u c t u r e of geometric forms t h a n with the methodology of empirical enquiry. In terms of Frazer's latency-type of u n d e r standing, for instance, the priest-kings who identify with the s u n at the time of their coronation are magicians who aspire to b e scientists; they w a n t to h a r n e s s the powers of n a t u r e to h u m a n use. The fact t h a t they repeatedly fail to do so is taken a s token of their stupidity, even though the a s s u m p t i o n t h a t they aspired to the m e t h o d s of science is b a s e d on a m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the significance of primitive rites. The identification of priest-kings with the essence of the s u n , a n d the identification of p a r e n t s with the physical world, is to liturgical concepts, which are residues from pre-birth, a n d n o t to physical facts. References to air, fire, water, a n d e a r t h in the rites of m a n y religions, in mythic thinking a n d in the d r e a m imagery a n d anecdotes of p a t i e n t s suggest t h a t h a u n t i n g intuitions from foetal thought are carried over into n a t u r e a t the time of birth a n d then relocated in n a t u r e a s liturgical presences. Air, fire, earth, a n d water, a s c o u n t e r s of possible meaning, are defined by their attraction to, or repulsion from, the processes of reason-as-love. Frazer t h o u g h t of primitive p h e n o m e n o n a s originating in m a n ' s transactions with n a t u r e ; Durkheim a n d M a u s s (1903) were closer to the formal organization of the p h e n o m e n o n w h e n they defined primitive classification in terms of a rational cultural order, from which the tribe m a d e m a n y deductions: a s in the physical lay-out of its institutions, in its theory of kinship, even in s u c h details a s the patternings of its tattoos. Meaning of this kind arises out of a group culture conceived of a s the reasoning of one mind. It is a s though, in psychoanalytic terms, the s u n ' s essence were a s h a r e d transference object which the psychic s t r u c t u r e of the group h a d to contain by replication. The transference object is a psychotic power ("the sacred"), which c a n n o t b e defined. At some early stage in thinking, the s u n ' s essence, the psychotic a s sacred, c a n n o t b e differentiated from the immeasurable power of the good objects. The separation of powers into good a n d evil, usually on the b a s i s of h u m a n advantage, is a late occurrence.

A m i n d in paranoid-schizoid states of mind will b e persecuted by r e a s o n ' s n e e d to discover symbol in the disjointed language of sensation a n d sign. If the symbol relates to the idea of s t a m i n a in the transference, the failure in u n d e r s t a n d i n g can t u r n K into -K. Now for some clinical material. A woman r e t u r n s to therapy after a s u m m e r break, in which s h e h a s been to a n island in the tropics. S h e a n d her h u s b a n d h a d there met a long-standing friend, Christine, who was with her h u s b a n d . One day Christine a n d h e r h u s b a n d h a d suddenly gone away, without explanation. Another friend later told the patient t h a t Christine h a d left b e c a u s e s h e h a d realized t h a t s h e detested the patientwho was u n n e r v e d by this information, not surprisingly. By c h a n c e a n d in a n o t h e r place s h e h a d later m e t Christine, who h a d m a d e no reference to h e r disappearance, nor to a n y motive s h e might have h a d in going away. The p a t i e n t detaches the meaning of a mother's coming a n d going from the idea of coming a n d going; h e r need to m a k e this d e t a c h m e n t is pressing in relation to t h o u g h t s concerning t h e therapist's going away on holiday. Dissociated from meaning, the idea of coming a n d going becomes a motif, like a lightswitch, which s h e c a n u s e in other circumstances to t u r n on a n d off anything (including remembering a n d forgetting) a s it suits her. To this extent, s h e experiences Christine a s a n alter ego. B u t s h e also projects the motif into h e r mother in the transference, who loses any depressive significance a s someone other t h a n herself. T h u s Christine's' behaviour becomes her u n c o n s c i o u s impression of the therapist, transposing the therapist a s the emblem of reason or primal patterning into a light-switch therapist u n a b l e to hold her in mind. Two factors relate to this manoeuvre. Her earliest relationship to her mother h a d been characterized by their both reciprocating mysterious s t a t e s of b l a n k n e s s in history a n d feeling; a n d s h e w a s p r o n e to intense migraines, which occurred on the threshold of the depressive position, a n d in which the evolution of meaning was stopped in its tracks a n d reversed. S h e was then afflicted by a state of conflicting sensations t h a t destroyed the operations of u n d e r s t a n d i n g . The migraine enacted a failure in dreaming a n d was analogous to the b l a n k n e s s of her memory failures, in the s e n s e t h a t

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both b l a n k n e s s a n d explosive sensation hindered communication from the good objects. Stridencies of this kind are evidence o f - K in operationthe opposite of the K function of the transference a n d yet contained within it, a s though -K were a b r a n c h of the larger enterprise of K. In regard to the disappearings of Christine, the patient said t h a t when s h e h a d been aged nine, at a time when s h e h a d b e e n through a b o u t of pneumonia, s h e h a d almost drowned. On the night following h e r telling me a b o u t the Christine episode, s h e h a d a dream in which s h e found herself in the jungle. S h e t h o u g h t s h e h a d h e a r d threatening animal noisesa s n a k e hissing p e r h a p s a n d s h e h a d been relieved to find, a s s h e awoke, t h a t the noise was being m a d e b y her cat scratching a t the door. She associated the danger in the jungle to a tree s h e h a d h e a r d of in the tropics t h a t can kill you if you fall into it. Her description of this danger gave m e the picture of someone falling into a tree t r u n k , which s h e corrected: falling into the tree, s h e said, w a s like falling into a b u s h of b r a m b l e s . W h a t s h e h a d meant, in fact, was t h a t the tree was dangerous from the outside a n d not on the inside. The leaves on the tree were hairy a n d could poison you if the hairs on them touched you. And then c a m e the significant clue: s h e t h o u g h t the leaves were like the leaves on a lime tree, h e a r t - s h a p e d . Her topographical confusion concerning the inside a n d outside of the tree was relatable to the m a n o e u v r e s involved in u s i n g the on-off device. B u t the principal source of interest in the d r e a m was the tree's m e a n i n g a s a liminal representation of a depressive symbol representing a n aspect of love (the h e a r t s h a p e d leaves); from her point of view in the paranoid-schizoid position, the fact t h a t the tree w a s a sign system on the verge of being a depressive symbol filled h e r with dread. The ambiguity of its n a t u r e a s a representation w a s reminiscent of Donald Meltzer's account of a m a n who dreamt of his analyst a s lying on the ground with the b r a n c h of a beech tree through h i s heart, the meaning of the b r a n c h in Donald Meltzer's (1988) u n d e r s t a n d i n g being the patient's intuition of the extent to which h i s analyst could b e a r depressive p a i n (p. 2). An arrow through a h e a r t is a popular representation of love a n d only secondarily related to a n infant's intuition concerning the locking-together of the primal couple, the p a s s i o n a t e em-

blem of r e a s o n itself. The provisional n a t u r e of liminal p h e n o m ena is noticeable in m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g s a b o u t the n a t u r e of pain in t h e liminal p h e n o m e n o n of birth, which is essentially a m b i g u o u s in its meaning, like the tree in the garden of Eden, which m a y b e the tree of life or the tree of death a n d plays some role in t h e b i r t h or expulsion of the first couple. The dreamer's confusion a b o u t whether the inside or the outside of the tree would poison her, a n d h e r need to convey a n impression of falling in, a p p e a r s to b e a paranoid-schizoid transformation in u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the coming out of the birth process. [Arguably, all m y t h is a paranoid-schizoid sign representation of potentially a depressive symbolization of the birth process. It is noteworthy t h a t the topography of Eden, with its four rivers a n d firmly demarcated boundaries, is identical to the Hades of the ancient Greeks a n d t h a t in b o t h places the theme of crossing frontiers h a s kinship to rites of p a s s a g e t h a t focus on initiation/rebirth.] As it links sky to earth, the tree is a verticality t h a t challenges the horizontality of the liminality between two positions. It links a n d s u p p o r t s the generations: it is the s t a m i n a in thought a n d s e n s a t i o n b y which each generation recognizes its predecessor. Maternal s t a m i n a d e p e n d s on the introjecting of another m a t e r n a l s t a m i n a , b a c k through the generations to the beginnings of time, so t h a t a n infant, enjoying the u n i q u e particularity of a m o m e n t a t the breast, is able to participate in the idea of the first m o m e n t (which p r e s e n t s itself a s one of the formal emblems of reason). In terms of h u m a n anatomy, the tree is embodied in a mother's bone s t r u c t u r e , especially her backbonea psychic stiffening, which a h u s b a n d ' s potency augments.

The s e n s e of expectation projected by certain transference situations contains a history of failed realizations, of p a r a n o i d schizoid signs a n d s e n s a t i o n s t h a t never become symbols. In depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g , expectations bring into sight the u n b o r n : foetuses t h a t miscarry, or presences t h a t would never have been b o r n u n d e r a n y circumstances. And it brings into sight those who have been through the physical act of being b o m , b u t who have never come alive a n d who s p e n d them-

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selves in unsuccessful a t t e m p t s to m a n a g e their own births. S u c h people can experience life a s a succession of spiritual miscarriages, very m u c h a s the p a r t s of the self t h a t r e m a i n in the paranoid-schizoid position can be baffled by their continuing state of confusion. The therapist in transference, like a p a r e n t , can b e experienced a s substantive, having the properties of a n o u n , timeless, immutable, a n u n b r e a k a b l e n e t against which the m o s t dangerous feelings can b e kicked. At s u c h times, the agent for the transference represents some notion of Being in nowness, unchangeable a n d indestructible. B u t the agent c a n also carry a projection of being the incipiently u n b o r n , a n adjectival object, fluctuating in meaning, transient a n d on t h e verge of being wiped out. The poetic idea, the primary imagination, creation itself, c a n n o t contain this s t r a t a of f l u c t u a n t s with its element of negation, akin to some paranoid-schizoid Hades, which the patient would wish to p u t into the therapist. A male patient, in a slip of the tongue, refers to three girls in a table. He projects the feeling of being disappointed in love into these three girlsactual girls with whom h e h a s flirted, a n d then left in a state of dissatisfaction. In the narrative of the dream, the girls s a t a r o u n d the table. To me, though, they seemed to emerge from the table's surface a s ideas, or embryosas though out of the waters of the future or out of s o m e frustrating chthonic underworld. They were actuality a t t e n u a t e d . In the s a m e dream, the p a t i e n t described a garden, a n d t h e image w a s so powerful t h a t I could feel the garden to be in the room. He recalled how early one morning h e h a d kicked a football a t the n e t s of a r a s p b e r r y p a t c h in his p a r e n t s ' garden. Once the football h a d been left outside overnight, a n d it h a d been s a t u r a t e d a n d heavy with the night dew. The girls emerging from the table a n d the s a t u r a t e d football were ways of thinking about a n incipiency in experience, r a t h e r t h a n a realized actuality. The adjectival condition of the girls would be a way by which someone who n u r t u r e s a n d doubts the seemingly irrefutable claims of the actual might experience states of potentiality a n d becoming in others. The s a t u r a t e d football, in contrast, is how a child might conceive of the solidity of its sustaining world, insisting t h a t the

s u s t a i n i n g of its world is in things r a t h e r t h a n in the spiritual fabric of t h e upholding parental community. Later work with the s a m e patient h a s me qualify my unders t a n d i n g of the m e a n i n g of the ideas t h a t h e p r e s e n t s t h a t are dense with gravity. Foetal thinking can include a preconception of the concept a s a m o u t h loosely filled with content, a partially filled empty-space type of thinking t h a t persists in schizoid thought, in which a n empty space (as empty proto-concept) is often plugged u p with a placatory rubbish, so that the inclination to fill it with a prohibited n o u r i s h m e n t can b e denied. The prohibited n o u r i s h m e n t is a version of the beloved next baby, or sometimes, with a n elder sibling's nonchalance, it is a b a b y degraded to faeces. In c h a p t e r five I consider a n allusion the p a t i e n t m a d e to a dead carp in a pond. The image of the carp c o m m u n i c a t e d a n impression of density, a s of m a n y m e a n i n g s impacted into one small point. T h e density of the image conveyed the possibility t h a t it contained the idea of a sacrificial victim, a p a r a n o i d schizoid proto-symbolization in which m a n y signs are impacted (the beloved next baby, the future itself, the world of it without me). The density of the image carries all the sign m e a n i n g s of the world. One of its icons is the point at which all the lines of a perspective come together like piercing arrows, to a n extent that m a t t e r is so compacted that it is identical to n o t h i n g n e s s (a version of Frances Tustin's, 1972, concept of black hole). Conversely, a n image of this type can radiate outwards, a s in a child's picture of the s u n , a s though it were the m o m e n t of first creation. It is helpful to intuit how far all concepts a n d images carry the presence of the next baby, the future itself, even in the case of patients who ostensibly suffer from a n indigestion concerning the p a s t .

A child n e e d s to b e able to enjoy the solidity a n d gravity of things a n d to b e able to j u m p u p a n d down on its parents' double bed. For the egotist in a n y child, the world exists in order to s e c u r e the solidity requisite to its s t a t e s of well-being. It takes the world a s a m a t t e r of fact; a n d it is right to do so. It

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inhabits the world a s its appropriate place. It is only w h e n it reaches adulthood t h a t it may think to give u p the world of solidities for the mysterious realm of representation. The spirit of poetry is n o t necessarily egotistic; b u t for m a n y people it is first reached through a child's belief in its right to have a world s u p p o r t it. Wordsworth needs stones a n d m o u n tains a n d s t a r s a s furnishings for his inner a s well a s outer world, a s Milton h a d needed the act of God's primal creation for the furnishings of his. The furnishings of Wordsworth's world are the furnishings of Milton's egotism in a n o t h e r guise, stimulating (through b r e a k s in routine minor t r a u m a s ) a m o t h e r ' s s u d d e n shifting awareness, a s u d d e n discovery of previously "unknown modes of being". A cliff suddenly uprising, within the securing context of the observer's being in a b o a t on a lake, p u t s the poet in the child in touch with a non-egotistic insight. . . . huge and mighty Forms that do not live Like living men mov'd slowly through the mind By day and were the trouble of my dreams. [De Selincourt, 1926, p. 24] Conceivably someone might draw a n imaginary m a p a n d then, out of nowhere, discover a place t h a t tallies with it. It s o u n d s improbable, a s though mind h a d r e t u r n e d to the conditions of pre-birth; b u t in practice it can occur in the a c t u a l world a n d leave the participator in a s t a t e of wonder a s to why inner prompting should have anticipated a correspondence in something outside the self. In a n early draft of this book, I find a c h a p t e r t h a t might have been written by someone other t h a n my p r e s e n t self, someone who w a s living out states of mind that at t h a t time h e was u n a b l e to comprehend. I h a d been u n a b l e to see how my interest in h a r d stones in a soft landscape w a s to anticipate the discovery, three years later, of the likeness of the depressive symbol to a n infant's intuition of its mother's psychic bonestructure. I know t h a t when I h a d the experience I described there, I w a s fascinated b y a theme t h a t I thought w a s characteristic of primitive thought in general, which is the existential s t a t u s of existents t h a t m a y or may not become actual. It occurred to

m e t h e n t h a t I might have to posit some imaginary organ of consciousness to contain these paranoid-schizoid indications t h a t never become thoughts, foetal-like existents who a r e never b o m . Anyway, h e r e is the early chapter.

The solid

world

Memories of a brief visit to Stonehenge earlier this year keep coming b a c k to meI don't know why. The rain w a s cold, the day bleak, a n d the outcrop of stones scarcely m a d e a n architectural impression. A presence emerged with rain-swept clarity out of a white landscape: s t o n e s drawing attention to themselves, without forfeiting stoneyness. A Londoner, b r e a t h ing fresh air, looked on sights remote from the lifeless marble of Marble Archand a disturbing of the habitual took place that gave delight. I began writing this book knowing t h a t the stones were of importance to it, b u t n o t knowing why. Events t h a t h a u n t you often t u r n out to be w h a t Bion. like Hume, calls c o n s t a n t conjunctions, m o m e n t s of unknowable conceptions, inviting exploration of their resonance. The painter Paul Nash h a d a flair for uncovering h i n t s of certain c o n s t a n t conjunctions; a n d he kept seeking them out, although his intuitions did not extend into a n intention to articulate their meaning. (Perhaps looking for words in this context might have seemed inappropriate, since the experience was pre-verbal.) He communicated his fascination with the Dorset a n d Wiltshire landscapes t h r o u g h his Shell Guide Book to Dorset a n d h i s Wiltshire paintings of hill tree-clusters a n d of massive stones on the plains. His geometric illustrations to Sir T h o m a s Browne's Urn Burial a n d to the creation c h a p t e r s in Genesis deepen u n d e r s t a n d i n g of his landscape. Recurrently, the ancient n a t u r e of the earth reveals itself through flint a n d stone and the contours of earthworks. In m o m e n t s of reverieover a familiar landscape, for instanceall p a s t n e s s seems to suffuse the present. There appears to be a timeless dream element in the act of observation. Practising introspection during the act of observation, you can feel the p r e s s u r e of a n inward articulation manifesting

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CHAPTER TWO new discoveries in earth, and even earth itself a discovery. That great Antiquity America lay buried for a thousand years; and a large part of the earth is still in the Urne unto us. [Herford, 1906, p. 95]

35

itself outwardly, modifying impressions in the conscious mind, a primary motive in s t a t e s of wonder. A d r e a m a t m o s p h e r e manifests itself, transfused by a s e n s e of p a s t n e s s . The observer feels a s t h o u g h to be the first, a n d yet to b e the m o s t recent of observers in a long succession. In acts of this kind there is a s e n s e of common notionsof my being m e b u t also of my being, in some problematic way, a coming together of ancestors real a n d imaginary; a n d in this conjunction of p r e s e n t a n d p a s t I come to believe in realistic universalstimeless s h a r e d qualities t h a t in pre-verbal intuition act a s the ground to the meaning of particular things a n d would seem actually to s u b s i s t . At s u c h m o m e n t s I have a s e n s e of poetic nowness, which of its n a t u r e implies some primal act of creation, renewing itself continuously. The world p r e s e n t s itself a s paranoid-schizoid s e n s a t i o n s a n d signs t h a t can be reformed a s the poetic symbols of the depressive position. On the level of signs, p a s t a n d future are n o t differentiated: they are mythic motifs, in which the p a s t c a n b e read a s a form of divination. The l a n d s c a p e arranges t h o u g h t s of the living a n d the dead: a n d revenants seem to seep through rock. In t/rn Burial, Browne meditates over a h earth t h a t contains r e m n a n t s of its own p a s t historyurns, s h a r d s , coinscapsules of spiritual energy that explode different time s c h e m e s a n d s p a n s at different stages of the earth's unfolding, These residues are n o t unlike the creatures a n d things in the "entangled b a n k , clothed with plants of m a n y kinds" t h a t Darwin contemplates in the final p a r a g r a p h of The Origin of Species; objects in time living out time a t different durations. E a c h of u s lives out a life, or variety of lives, a t different pulsesunless, t h a t is, we fail to live out a n y life. (And it is those p a r t s of the self who fail to live out their lives, who r e m a i n u n b o r n , who concern the therapist.) Browne's e a r t h a n d Darwin's entangled b a n k are in infant reverie a mother's body t h o u g h t to contain m a n y psychic entities of differing spatial a n d temporal conditions. In timelessness, p a s t a n d future play together in endless delight. Through contraries in time, Browne's s u b t e r r a n e a n site of h u m a n residues becomes a n undiscovered place. Time makes

Time h a s u s d r e a m of its underlying timelessness; a n d n a t u r e , like a gauze dissolving in light, discloses a creation in c o n s t a n t renewal. The ancient mariner rightly thought himself "the first t h a t ever did b u r s t u p o n that silent sea"; b u t each of u s in time comes to this s e a a n d looks on it with newborn eyes: exactly t h e impression conveyed by Nash's m o s t celebrated painting, Totes Meera skein or "dead sea" of World-War-Two debris, destroyed a n d a b a n d o n e d German b o m b e r s t r a n s formed into a portent: a geometric revenant invoking Nash's Genesis illustration to the dividing of the first waters.

I do not find it surprising t h a t when I was thinking a n d writing about the visit to Stonehenge, a patient should have brought her own experiences of this r e s o n a n t place, almost a s a gift. Again I quote from a n earlier draft of this book. She told m e today a b o u t a visit to Stonehenge. She h a d been awed b y the v a s t n e s s of the Wiltshire sky. A guide to some party of tourists h a d said, in her hearing, t h a t the stones before them went down a s deeply into the ground a s they stood above ita disputable contentionand that between two of the stones t h e s u n would rise a t the m i d s u m m e r solstice. Her a c c o u n t of Stonehenge came in the middle of a session. I asked her if the depth of the stones' burial p u t her in mind of teeth, a n d s h e said it did. Neither s h e nor I were able to p u r s u e this line of thought; yet it was in the n a t u r e of the a t m o s p h e r e in which we were contained t h a t this line of thought, in relation to Stonehenge, w a s feasible: the climate of thought granted representation to t h a t sort of intuitive a n d possibly pre-verbal dimension. A powerful idea h a d manifested itself in the room which in p a r t the visit to Stonehenge contained. The idea h a d originated in her a n d w a s u n k n o w n to her. It w a s like the demon that Socrates describes, which we may glimpse for the first time, if we are fortunate, at the m o m e n t when we are dying.

36

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CHAPTER TWO

37

W h a t I do know w a s t h a t in m y intuition of t h e idea I linked the Stonehenge stones to a rib-cage; b u t this w a s a lead that, like the analogy to teeth, petered out. The rib-cage related more securely to a dream, which s h e h a d told me before the Stonehenge incident, of a fire-basket u p t u r n e d over a s u n k e n spot on a grass b a n k . S h e associated this spot to a grotto with a n iron grill a t Alexander Pope's garden in Twickenhamalso to a n enclosed order of n u n s , a n d to a pessimistic, misguided conception of m o n a d s a s isolates. The s u n k e n spot a n d the grotto seemed to b e representations of a living grave. She was worried a b o u t the p a s s i n g of years a n d the fact t h a t h e r h e s i t a n t yearnings for a h u s b a n d h a d n o t been answered. Hopes of parenting a child were fading. S h e talked of sitting with a male acquaintance, unlikely to b e a lover, together watching a television programme tonightand the thought of h e r watching a screen t h a t gleams a s vacantly a s the moon revives a thought t h a t h a d already occurred in the session, of the Stonehenge stones rising u p into the sky a n d holding the s u n between them. I might never have been to Stonehenge, a n d need never have read Hesiod's description of the marriage of sky a n d earth, to have felt the idea in the room: t h a t the power of the s u n at this m o m e n t was like the first impression of a newborn on its p a r e n t , the a r m s of the earth mother, like the rising stones of Stonehenge, stretching o u t a n d holding h e r infant against the figure of its father. The infant fills the father sky with radiance, which reflects b a c k into its mother, the earth of the Wiltshire plains. S h e h a d n o t been a m e m b e r of the guided party; a n d the guide h a d not spoken to her. S h e h a d looked on Stonehenge a s a traveller without a t t a c h m e n t , feeling excludeda familiar sensationand almost enjoying her isolation. I a m n o t s u r e t h a t s h e endorsed my belief t h a t the s u n c a u g h t between t h e uprising stones might b e compared to a newborn in its mother's a r m s . S h e h a d visited a birth shrine, I thought; b u t it w a s possible t h a t the experience s h e h a d undergone would be one s h e would never be equipped to know. In h e r t u r n , s h e might have claimed that I was misguided in reading her experience in the way I didmy Understanding of it being superfluous to w h a t s h e h a d thought a n d felt.

It is a s t h o u g h s h e a n d I, in c o m m u n i o n with each other, were a foetal consciousness t h a t is vulnerable to binary division w h e n it is b a t h e d in the light of the rationality of the good objects. The m o s t dramatic of binary divisions takes place a t birth, a t the time of separation from the inside of a mother's body; b u t a b e t t e r model for it, b e c a u s e of its manifest relationship to the transference a s a process of reason, is a t the onset of the depressive position: between a self t h a t determines t h a t its egoism should die so t h a t it might be reborn through others a n d a self t h a t determines to achieve a s p u r i o u s immortality by way of paranoid-schizoid delusions. A m a n on the verge of the depressive position d r e a m s t h a t a friend who is a competent physician, a n d the s a m e age as he, diagnoses a terminal heartdisease in t h e dreamer. The dreamer thinks: my friend will live, and I m u s t die. The circumstances of the d r e a m reveal that the friend is expected magically to attain "immortality" by the practice of a perverse sexuality. S u c h a division within the context of rationality would appear to replicate a division that first occurred in similar circumstances during the time of the m o s t n a k e d a n d s u s tained communication with good objects t h a t m a n y of u s know, as a foetus in pre-birth. The contrast in meanings of the two p a r t s of the binary are variable, a n d t h e division of the psyche into twins can have many meanings. In the case of the Stonehenge session, the division appeared to b e between depressive a n d p a r a n o i d schizoid m o d e s of apprehension. One twin, identified with t h e act of parenting, looks into the s u n a n d sees the futurity of the newborn infant; the other twin, a child committed to perpetual night, never sees the s u n a n d r e m a i n s in a n obscurity where there is little in the way of a vocabulary of expression. A child exists in every possible parent, who by n a t u r e of its condition c a n n o t b e procreative a n d m u s t e n d u r e a s well a s it can the painful co-existence in its inner world of a mother who is capable of giving birth to children. To be a finite h u m a n , a s opposed to being a psychopathic god, is to know a twin who carries the b u r d e n a n d often the projection of one's own paranoid-schizoid failures in development. When the first child of a certain pair of twins arrived the

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THE UNBORN women in the courtyard made themselves ecstatically happy over it, until it was whispered from within the house, that a second baby was on route, when they dashed the helpless babe to the ground and fled as if they were escaping from wild beasts. [Rendel Harris (1913, p. 58), paraphrasing a passage from Mary Kingsley's Travels in West Africa]

CHAPTER TWO

39

A belief in superfoetation a n d the mother's culpability in having two lovers (one for each baby) m a y underlie the desire to m u r d e r one of the children. In certain versions of the s u p e r foetation theory, one of the lovers is a god, whose child is allowed to survive a n d sometimes is deified. B u t arguably in m a n y of u s , at some level of unworthiness, there is a belief t h a t a mistake occurred at the time of our birth. The god's child w a s dispatched into the underworld, a n d we were allowed to u s u r p its life. In birth, a b a b y can be a n object of wonder, touched b y divinity a n d a guilty s e n s e of fraudulence; a n d not only m o t h e r s a r e ecstatic a b o u t it. To b e a god is to b e invulnerable to time a n d deathand to feel dissociated from the taint of original sin. An infant's m o m e n t of experiencing ecstasy, of enjoying the privilege of being loved, can a r o u s e the latent grandiosity of its thinking itself identified with the s u n . B u t conversely, a n d p e r h a p s a s a consequence of its grandiosity, to b e mortal is to b e devoured by time a n d to undergo t h e s e n s a tion, in dying, of being r e n t a p a r t by the teeth of wild b e a s t s . One twin is raised to divinity, the other dashed to the ground, filled (as it were) by the grinding of wild b e a s t s . Psychotic metaphysics operates a s a closed system; a n d the dynamic of creationism requires some concept of sacrifice a s a m e a n s to renew a n entropic situation. The sacrificial victim renews sacrality, either by a n actual or a symbolic annihilation; it m a y then e n d u r e a painful rebirth into meaning, a s it moves through the underworld of the paranoid-schizoid position. The threat of annihilation intensifies a s the traveller approaches the possibility of depressive symbolization. Aware of the difficulties t h a t face patients a s they enter the depressive threshold, Melanie Klein (1935) drew attention to the increasing extent to which they are threatened by the wish to m u r d e r .

or to commit a suicide which is always (her word) motivated by a wish to s p a r e t h e good objects (p. 276). Myth is b o u n d to t h e type of thinking t h a t p r e s u m e s t h a t soul h a s a n a priori existence to body; it inclines to doctrines of rebirth a n d reincarnationwhich imaginatively m a k e s e n s e a s doctrines concerning the ways in which the good objects speak a-physically to the foetus before birth. It s u p p o s e s t h a t the doctrines of r e a s o n precede their e n a c t m e n t in experience. The central myth I u s e in this book is taken from Frankfort (1948). It is important b e c a u s e it clearly delineates some of the implications of the psychotic metaphysic. To say t h a t it is a birth myth does not indicate t h a t it is a b o u t a beginning. To this extent, it is n o more a prototype to experience t h a n is physical birth: t h e b i n a r y split t h a t it describes is a version of a n inferable split t h a t occurred a t least once in utero. It concerns a p h a r a o h ' s twin, who dies at the time of the p h a r a o h ' s b i r t h a n d who moves through the underworld of night (like a black sun) in analogue to the p h a r a o h ' s identification with a s u n t h a t moves through the day-time sky. The p h a r a o h c o m m u n e s with his other self, p a r d y in placation, by worshipping within a shrine t h a t contains a s objects of veneration the p h a r a o h ' s own embalmed placenta a n d umbilical cord, discarded p a r t s of his own body that he presumes to be parts of his twin's body. Fetishism, a s this situation shows it, is a confusion between p a r t s of one's own body with the body of someone othera confusion t h a t continues to b e inextricable b e c a u s e of its concentration on the materiality of things. In psychotic depression, a n infant will concretely identify the pain in p a r t s of its body, understood a s mutilations (a face without a nose, a body with chopped-off legs, etc.), with a mother's nipple t h a t h a s left it. The a b s e n t nipple is concretely identified with a damaged p a r t of the infant. The p h a r a o h ' s twin h a s to carry the damage, while the p h a r a o h is able to revere the mutilated signs a s fetishes devoid of pain by seeing them emphatically a s material things. A rite similar to the p h a r a o h ' s worship of the birth fetishes prevailed n o t so long ago among the Baganda of east Africa. It reveals how the fetish objects can be linked to the mouth specifically to the jawbone as the a p p a r a t u s by which biting.

40

THE UNBORN

CHAPTERTWO tiation of the two faces. It remains to notice yet another development of the same primitive conception. To put it briefly, the twofold sky splits into twins. [Cook, 1940, p. 422]

41

tearing, a n d clamping takes place; it suggests t h a t fetishism is a n outcome of oral sadism. The king's jawbone is removed from his corpse and prepared, decorated and kept in his temple. Since the king is born as a twin of the stillborn placenta and the royal person after death retains a dual character, the stillborn twin, as well as the ruler, requires a material anchorage for its spirit; and for this special purpose the navel cord is deposited in the temple erected after the king's death, and only when both jawbone and navel cord are presentonly when the dual person of the late monarch is thus represented in the shrinecan oracles be forthcoming. [Frankfort, 1948, pp. 69-70] In association with rites of this kind concerning the idea of twinship, which reveal how n a t u r a l p h e n o m e n a can r e p r e s e n t the foetal need to articulate liturgical p r e s e n c e s by way of the n a t u r a l world, it is fascinating to learn t h a t in certain p a r t s of Africa a woman who gave birth to twins was named after the sky. In other words, the sky, out of which the mother gives birth to the paranoid-schizoid a n d depressive conceptions a s twins, is the n o - m a n ' s land of the liminal threshold, the beautiful azure of a nowhere t h a t is the everywhere out of which acts of symbolizations may arise. A m o t h e r in this conception is a n absence of materiality t h a t gives issue to matteroften of the most condensed kind: a s in the case of meteors, which can have the material intensity of a fetish. . . . amongst the Baronga tribes in Portuguese East Africa, it is the custom to attach to twins when born, the collective name of Bana-ba-Tilo, or children of Tilo, where the word Tilo is used for sky in the general sense, including the thunder and lightning, and possibly the rain. [Harris, 1913, p. 4] Looking into the sky, into mind, into the primal u t e r u s itself, uncovers a binary source to geometry t h a t precedes the existence of body a s matter. The divine sky was represented not only as a celestial archway, b u t alsosince it was bright by day and dark by nightas a double-faced god with a tendency to differen-

These a r e objects of p u r e reason t h a t inform foetal intuition: the n a t u r a l world can only shadow forth their sublimity. They have to b e looked for in the realm of the sky (at a time when m o t h e r s were associated with the sky) a n d not in the realm of the earth (the earth-mother is a later conception). The twins are two h e m i s p h e r e s that hold the world within a celestial sphere. Philo, in his Decalogue, writes that: They bisected the sky theoretically into hemispheres, one above, the other below, the earth, and called them dioscuri, adding a marvellous tale about their life on alternate days. Philo a n d other neo-platonic commentators see geometry a n d t h e movements of the gods in the sky-kingdom a s tokens of the play of r e a s o n in the service of a disinterested love. Earlier the Pythagoreans, to whom Plato was indebted, regarded semicircles a s sacred to the dioscuri, a n d thought t h a t w h e n the twins c a m e together, they m a d e u p the perfection of the circle. In other even earlier versions, the twins, a s son a n d father, Chronos a n d Ouranos, prove destructive of each other, in the way t h a t dawn might be t h o u g h t destructive of night. Anyone who looks into the night sky might discover the heavenly twins, Castor a n d Pollux. By superfoetation. Pollux (sired b y Zeus) is divine. Castor (sired by a h u m a n father) is mortal a n d m u s t die. Pollux gives u p h i s divine s t a t u s when faced by Castor's death. He would r a t h e r die t h a n live without Castora situation t h a t throws light on Melanie Klein's observation t h a t mind on the threshold of the depressive position is threatened b y the possibility of suicide. Invited by the circumstances of the depressive j o u r n e y to a b a n d o n the comforts of egotism, a mind may b e led to confuse the invitation with a cruel voice within the self that encourages it to commit suicide. This is n o t Pollux's decision. Pollux is a n exemplar of depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g , a n d even Zeus is moved by him to t h e extent of granting each of the twins half a n immortal life each.

CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER THREE

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Clinical material concerning psychically unborn people who are intrusively identified with a dead mother-foetus assigned to the underworld.

t the end of a session a patient talks a b o u t someone h e knows who is in prisonand who suffers from a n u n u s u a l b o n e disease. The m a n in prison a p p e a r s to have two skeletonsor, rather, one full skeleton a n d a n o t h e r adjacent one t h a t seems to shadow the first skeleton a n d to exist only in bits. The fragments of the second incomplete skeleton keep growing. The growing bits of b o n e c a u s e h i m pain, a n d h e h a s h a d surgery to take the growing bits away. He believes t h a t something went wrong with h i s mother's ability to ovulate at the time h e was conceived. An inseminated ovum in p a r t began to split; a pair of twins should have b e e n formed; b u t the process was somehow arrested. The other twin never reached life, b u t its residue, the growing bits of bones, continue to exist a s a disabling physical reproach within the twin who livesor partially lives, for although the living twin w a s effectively given birth to out of his mother's pregnancy, h e was n o t b o m into life. He now finds himself in a prison, b o t h a c t u a l a n d symbolic, a u t e r u s in negative, a limbo-like or rectal 42

place (a condition t h a t is reflected in the limbo-like condition of the p a t i e n t who told m e a b o u t the m a n with the double skeleton) . It is a s t h o u g h the guilt of being the living half of a pair stops the m a n with the double skeleton from being really born a s a personality. In his body h e carried the reproaches of a stillborn twin who is also his stillborn self. I h e a r d of this condition in one session, a n d the idea of the m a n with a semi-double skeleton was in my m i n d w h e n the session with the next patient w a s a b o u t to begin. The patient I was a b o u t to see was someone I h a d only j u s t b e g u n working with, who h a d been t h r o u g h a good experience of psychoanalysis previously b u t was new to mehe a n d I were trying to get onto each other's wave-lengths. This may be why, while waiting for him, I h a d b e g u n to form a t t h e b a c k of my mind a n image of two identical clock faces, two photographs of the s a m e clock face, Inexactly superimposed, one on the other. These two clock faces were like the image I h a d formerly experienced of the complete a n d incomplete skeletons shadowing each other in one body. The two clock faces, the two skeletons, did n o t glide together into the image of one clock face or one skeleton; they remained slightly apart, like a photograph in double exposure. The p a t i e n t t u r n e d u p slightly late. He was u p s e t a t being latemore u p s e t t h a n the circumstances would have warranted. The least one c a n do, h e said, rebuking himself, is to be on time. He a n d I h a d b e g u n the session at different times. In my m i n d the a p p o i n t m e n t h a d b e g u n on the hour, a n d h e h a d been p r e s e n t in my mind in the room, like a p h a n t o m presence; he h a d b e g u n his session with me a b o u t five m i n u t e s later. Emotionally we seemed to live out the a n a lytic h o u r by different clock times: although h e was consciously obliged to acknowledge t h a t my clock time, by n a t u r e of the analytic conventionthat we should s t a r t on the hourhad precedence. He h a d been r u n n i n g from the station; he was out of breath. He described the s e n s e of ineffectual fury h e h a d felt in the u n d e r g r o u n d station. He h a d been r u n n i n g along the platform; piles of luggage, people, h a d blocked his way. No one noticed him; he might n o t have existed. I h a d two t h o u g h t s a b o u t this that I w a s u n a b l e to report to himI w a s only able to articulate them fully to myself after the

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session w a s over. The first t h o u g h t w a s t h a t his race along t h e platform was analogous in behaviour to someone who h a d b e e n coerced into a n identification with the h a n d s of a clock a n d who experienced the movements of the h a n d s a s too fast for him; my world went a t a pace t h a t did not suit his. The second t h o u g h t t h a t occurred to m e was t h a t h e seemed to r e s p o n d to the people on the platform a s though h e were a t most a biting gnat. He could observe them, a n d h e could feel that they blocked h i s wishes; b u t they seemed not to perceive him. He fulminated, a n d they did n o t react. Two different time-worlds t h a t overlapped, b u t only one of them impinged on the other. He experiences the other world a s obstructive a n d irritating a n d denying h i m his wishesultimately the right to be b o r n . An ovum h a s only in p a r t split. He is to m e a s the second incomplete skeleton w a s to the two-skeleton m a n . He feels h e is given a n i n a d e q u a t e space in which to grow. The s p a c e h e feels to be a d e q u a t e is the delusional space t h a t the tyrant inhabits. But this is a space t h a t cannot be s u s t a i n e d . He can only m a k e himself a sort of life, by tagging along a s the b o n e shadow to my skeleton, or a s a shadowy space-time system b o u n d to the space-time system t h a t n u r t u r e s his living peerin this case, h i s therapist. He t h i n k s of m e a s inhabiting a relatively full existence in space a n d time, while h e inhabits a space a n d time t h a t is i n s u b s t a n t i a l to the point of being ghost-like. The s p a c e t h a t n u r t u r e s me might be a killing space to him. Reluctantly, h e m u s t try to overlap my world a n d enter it like a p h a n t o m a n d m a k e u s e of it, a s h i s only hope of survival. As a m a n n e r of doing this, h e weaves a narrative a b o u t himself, cultivated a n d thoughtful a n d self-referential, a n d then a t t e m p t s to slip out of it, a s though out of a cocoon, leaving a void. He seems to have no private life. It is a s t h o u g h h e were trying to create a uterine place for himself t h r o u g h words, so a s to bring off a suitable starting-point for h i s own birth, b u t somehow the process keeps miscarrying. All t h a t is left is a n empty cocoon. The self miscarries a n d s i n k s into depression. The other world of the people on the underground h e didn't experience them a s couplesis a world t h a t h e t h i n k s of a s actual, unlike the world h e lives in. It is s m u g a n d u n h u r t a b l e by him. It is a n actuality to which h e r e s p o n d s a s

t h o u g h it were the empty cocoon t h a t will not enable his progress to birth. (The content of the session is concerned with people dying from cancer. He is relieved to know t h a t the power of h i s magical wishes r e m a i n s u n a s c e r t a i n e d r a t h e r t h a n invalidated.) He h a s a right to grievance. The feeling t h a t the u n d e r ground people are arrogant in their sense of actuality h a s some t r u t h to it. (In the transference, this is how h e experiences a n y sense of fullness in being in his therapist.) The philosopher David Lewis (1986) challenges Pharaonic complacence w h e n h e points out how luckily coincidental it is t h a t we should think we have been born into actuality, a n d t h a t actuality is n o t a n attribute of some other possible world. In contradiction to this chastening t h o u g h t is the t h o u g h t t h a t if you have b e e n born, you then have some right to believe t h a t you inhabit a n actual world. That seems to be p a r t of the unwritten contract. On a n o t h e r level, reason in the form of the transference indicates t h a t the paranoid-schizoid position could n o t exist without the depressive position, whether or not the depressive position is realized. One is necessarily a t t a c h e d to the other. It is only when you acknowledge the actuality of t h e world you inhabit, in t e r m s of its depressive possibilities, t h a t you c a n freely utilize space a n d time, languages a n d other forms of symbolisms related to individuality, a n d enter into a friendly exchange with the symbolism of others (their conceptions of s p a c e a n d time a n d language, for instance). If you experience yourself a s psychically u n b o r n , however, you will n o t feel secure in actuality; your own possible entry to the depressive position is always projected out there, into someone else. You will experience the world a s though you were a n initiate taking p a r t in some rite t h a t begins to awaken you from symbolic death b y m e a n s of a n improvised a n d tentative sign language. He b r o u g h t a dream in which h e was playing football magnificently, a s t h o u g h u n d e r a special light. The other players were in the s h a d e . He w a s the adored child, his rivals having no place in h i s mother's adoration. Possibly, h e experienced his mother's attention a s a re-forming a b o u t him of the lost womb. But this w a s n o t the light of otherness, the light of insight; it was t h e phosphorescence of delusion, in which the infant on its

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THE UNBORN

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mother's lap thinks of its mother a s some depersonalized captive who m u s t endorse its tyrannical claims to omnipotence. A b a b y who lives within a p h a n t a s m a l image of itself a s its mother's star performer is so concerned with being the object of a recognition, whose m a n n e r of recognizing it controls, t h a t it will fail to see a n y evidence of otherness a b o u t it. The possessive element in jealousy determines the formations of jealous p h a n t a s y ; a n d it determines the jealous mind's limitations in perception. It is u n a b l e to recognize the value in any knowledge which m a y a s s i s t it to move beyond self-centredness. It s h r i n k s away from any intimation of t h a t knowledge a s though it were threatened by annihilation. Dominated by the need to be recognized, a n infant of this kind can allow no experience of its m o t h e r to be evident; it dissociates the admiring light in her eyes from her personality, purloins a n d dehumanizes it, a n d t u r n s it into a l u m i n o u s cell in which it hopes to find consolation. It feeds on i n s u b s t a n t i a l light, a s Caesar feeds on the praise of the crowds who tell h i m h e is immortal; it creates a s u b s t i t u t e for the lost u t e r u s . Its one fear is t h a t the luminous cell will collapse, a n d it will find itself invaded by a death t h a t is experienced a s terrible in its impersonality. (Those who depersonalize the ones who love t h e m will also experience death a s depersonalized a n d a s a n attribute of the self.) People who suffer from delusional jealousy of this kind are s u r r o u n d e d by paranoid-schizoid invisibilities, p h a n t o m states, pale c o n t o u r s r a t h e r t h a n s u b s t a n c e s . They are hermits a n d magicians by n a t u r e , who prefer air a n d water to earth; transparencies within transparencies modified by light; things t h a t in a s e n s e are not. If they imagine fire, they imagine it to b e a n ethereal fire. They prefer to feed on the insubstantialities in their mother's eyes, r a t h e r t h a n to attend to the nipple in their m o u t h s . They are b e m u s e d by the reflections in her eyes, a n d by denying her any reality they are able to see the reflections a s representing a world that is not: twins in the mother's eyes, dividers of celestial power, who in logic precede actuality. It occurred to me t h a t h e was trying to p u t into me the belief t h a t I h a d great expectations for him; a n d this belief w a s reasonable, insofar a s the infant expects t h a t its mother, if healthy, will have hopes of its being well n u r t u r e d . But I did n o t

think t h a t the great expectation belief h e p u t into me was quite so graceful a s that. It was dictatorial; a n d . moreover, it t u r n e d out t h a t it w a s being p u t into m e in order t h a t h e could t h e n disappoint me. He would determinedly not live u p to any expectation. I w a s p u t in m i n d of a foetus who t h i n k s it m u s t m a k e its own u t e r i n e setting in order to bring a b o u t its own birth a n d who fails in this enterprise a n d m u s t persistently undergo its own miscarriage. He wanted me to be h i s uterine setting: b u t it w a s p a r t of his wish t h a t I should forever collapse, like a b u r s t i n g s o a p bubble. His failures to give birth to himself were phantom-like. One day h e told me a b o u t a n Egyptian aetiological myth, in which a God on the b a n k s of the shrinking Nile m a d e little m e n out of the slippery clay a n d then h a d the power to m a k e these clay m e n walk: the myth supposed t h a t m e n came into being in this way. The patient h a d b e g u n the session by saying t h a t h e was convinced that I h a d a furious look on my face, a n d t h a t I looked furious b e c a u s e h e continuously m a d e m e s s e s everywhere. A modern reading of the myth would see the God a s a fool in thinking to give life to slippery clay: a n d the patient would feel justified in thinking his therapist a n omnipotent fool in hoping to m a k e something of someone who did little else b u t m a k e c o n t i n u o u s messes. 1 It w a s quite clear t h a t he wanted me to u n d e r s t a n d the myth with myself a s the God a n d himself a s the slippery clay. His slanting of communication was intended to p u t me on the spot. He w a n t e d me to identify with the God in the Egyptian myth in order to demonstrate my ineffectuality. I was to b e shown to b e the genie in the bottle whose magic always failed. However, it w a s j u s t before Christmas, a n d I was a b o u t to leave him for a while. I was inclined to think t h a t in regard to the

'Creationist myths in which the creator seeks to bring inert matter to life are characteristic of the culture of those who feel themselves to be unborn. An instance of this would be the Winnebago myth of the Earthmaker. He took a piece of earth and made it like himself. Then he talked to what he had created but it did not answer. He looked on It and saw it had mind or thought. . . . He made it a tongue. . . . He made it a soul. . . . It very nearly said something. . . . Earthmaker breathed into his mouth and talked to it and it answered. . . . [Radin, 1924, p. 401

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myth, h e might experience m e a s the s h r i n k i n g Nile. He h a d t h o u g h t to u s e m e a s a depository for omnipotence, b u t perh a p s I h a d a n o t h e r u s e for him, which h e was coming close to acknowledging a t the m o m e n t of our parting. He w a s the infant lying in the slippery clay, a n d the source of possible life w a s shrinking from him. In his hopeless condition h e felt impelled to generate into existence the idea of the omnipotent God who would bring h i m to life. B u t at some level h e felt this God to b e a species of hallucination (possibly invaded by some conception of death). It w a s this figure t h a t h e wanted m e to represent, a s a fool, so a s to defuse the presence of death. At a n earlier stage in his life h e h a d almost died from starvation; a n d it was possible t h a t for u n k n o w n r e a s o n s h e h a d a great need to live out some experience of a b a n d o n m e n t , of dying on the b a n k s of the Nile. Perhaps someone would p a s s by a n d save him; b u t this w a s not given in his t h o u g h t s . He would lie in sunlight or moonlight, a n d h e would die. In h i s hopelessness, h e would experience his m o t h e r (whether i n n e r or outer) a s being so close to dyingthe shrinking Nilethat s h e h a d lost all interest in h e r children. He would n o t deh u m a n i z e her; s h e would be d e h u m a n i z e d by circumstance. He needed someone to s h a r e a n experience of hopelessness. He could n o t reach the r e a s o n in transference t h a t facilitates the movement into the depressive position a n d brings a b o u t the emergence of conscious meanings. He was u n b o r n b e c a u s e his mind could not meet helping h a n d s .

Clinical material concerning separated couples who live in time schemes that opposing directions.

mother-foetus move in

psychotherapist's roster tends to come into being by chance. S e n s a t i o n s of the r a n d o m recede in working t h r o u g h the s a m e p a t t e r n of a p p o i n t m e n t s week by week, a n d a n aspect of the myth-making faculty related to the primary imagination, which craves eternally to r e t u r n to the first moment, begins to bring necessity to even the m o s t tenuous of relationships, so t h a t the therapist might ask, with some wonder, why do t h e s e people a p p e a r in this succession? It is a s though t h e n a t u r e of the succession h a d in itself become m e a n ingful, a circular movement like a clock-face. A movement into integration occurs in a situation in which integration s e e m s inappropriate. The various individuals might be the s a m e person, appearing u n d e r different guises, a s can occur in a d r e a m . The therapist begins to see patients a s m e m b e r s of the s a m e family, related to each other through this place a n d type of work. They might always be the s a m e child. The s a m e meeting occurs again a n d again within different constellations of meaning. 49

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In the coming-together of these personalities into a microcosm there is a corresponding move outward, into a macrocosm in which each individual seems to open out as a n interiority t h a t contains m a n y others. In a n y single therapy more t h a n one person gets received, t h o u g h t about, possibly understood. The contrary movement of all into one a n d one into m a n y operates on the mythic level in the therapeutic encounter. I know t h a t in writing this book the m y t h - m a k i n g process in myself w a s from the start, a n d against my wishes, inclined to bring my therapy family into the microcosm of m y a c t u a l familyand the impression m a d e on me by Stonehenge, though how they related to each other I did n o t know.

Visiting Stonehenge n o u r i s h e d m e for a b o u t six m o n t h s . I kept looking a t photographs of it. I was conscious of how Stonehenge seemed to relate to Salisbury Cathedral, a s sacred sites on the Wiltshire plain, one being morning s t a r to the other a s evening s t a r . B u t I did realize t h a t there was a n o t h e r sacred place in this area, which I h a d never visited, a third point, m a k i n g u p the s t r u c t u r e of a triangle. And so one S u n d a y the family embarked for Avebury. I w a s not aware at the time of how the double-skeleton material t h a t I h a d experienced in my work was to modify my perceptions of this place.

Stone

clocks

The Neolithic s a r s e n stones at Avebury describe a v a s t floating circle, so considerable in size t h a t at no point on the ground does t h e observer arrive at a s e n s e of the circle's completeness. To walk a m o n g the stones is to enter the face of a n i m m e n s e clock t h a t r e s p o n d s to the wheelings of planets in the night sky. In medieval times, people were offended by the existence of this p a g a n site a n d sought to destroy it. Stones were knocked down, or s m a s h e d to pieces; a n d a village, with a c h u r c h a n d m a n o r h o u s e , was built over p a r t of the circle of s t o n e s a n d without a n y care to their siting. Bits of p a g a n s t o n e were buried

in the walls of the h o u s e s . The idea of burial is important to my theme. I tried to s e p a r a t e my experience of the ancient s t o n e s from my perceptions of the village. I wanted to exclude the intrusive facades of s h o p fronts a n d h o u s e s so a s to isolate the n u m i n o u s . Taking photographs, I framed the shots so a s to exclude the h e r d s of grazing cowsout of a m i s t a k e n piety to t h e stones. I wanted a p u r e experience, a s I h a d wanted a p u r e experience when, years before, I h a d visited Italian c h u r c h e s a n d regretted t h e demotic clutter of a living faith a b o u t the aloof masterpieces. I suffered from the m u s e u m malaise of wishing to isolate elements of the p a s t so a s to m a k e them more securely aesthetic objects. And yet t h e incongruity of two conflicting m a n n e r s of representation w a s t h e meaning of the experience presented: in the s a m e way a divine a n d a h u m a n twin may live side b y side in the u t e r u s a n d after birth s u p p o r t the idea of life itself. The pallid stones, grey-wethers, which at first h a d looked drained, b e g a n to r e - a s s e r t themselves. Contemplating the facade of a tea-shop, I found it possible to catch, out of the corner of a n eye, the glum presence of a stone a n d to feel t h a t the stones were more recent arrivals t h a n the h o u s e s . It w a s a s though petrified sky c r e a t u r e s were taking over the place. Later, memories of the s t o n e s tend to overlay memories of the village. The m a d , who are fascinated by Stonehenge a n d Avebury, with r e a s o n wish to relate t h e m to the sky a n d the movement of the stars; b u t t h e n the m a d sometimes have intuitions denied to the relatively sane. If s u n s have their dials, so have moons. The s t o n e s are moon-dials. And if sunflowers are heliotropic, t h e n s t o n e s p r e s u m a b l y can be lunatropic. The night after the visit to Avebury, I awoke in the small h o u r s to the thought that the placing of the stones a n d the village together realized the two-skeleton principle. The idea of the body with its fossil-like evidencethe skeleton of living life a n d t h e twin skeleton a s fragments of bitter bone t h a t c a u s e p a i n m u s t have been a t the b a c k of my mind the whole time. At Avebury, the twin denied existence was more a twin m u r d e r e d t h a n a twin denied fullness of parturition. The fragm e n t a r y second skeleton of stones in its shadowy way knits itself into the landscape. The earlier skeleton seemed to take

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over the later one, a s though, in reversal of the facts, the fingers of E s a u were to have followed in birth on the heel of his younger twin J a c o b . The idea of a perspectival reversal in the b i r t h process is a n important adjunct to twin p h a n t a s i e s .

A fascination with theories of reincarnation, of spirits a s p a s s ing t h r o u g h stages of embodiment a n d disembodiment, a n d a fascination with the sensation of circularityas in the belief t h a t the s u n a n d moon in their disappearing circle the earth a n d t h e n reappearare crucial to the imaginative excitement of m a n y myths, reflecting a s they do a n eternal r e t u r n in which twin-like selves, one disembodied, the other embodied, one divine a n d one h u m a n , Pollux a n d Castor, sky-children or h e m i s p h e r e s t h a t circle a n d embrace the earth, s h a r e the cosm o s between them like day a n d night or s u m m e r a n d winter. The wheelings of the planets function a s evidence for these speculations: a n d through their coming a n d going, personified a s twins, a n d through the emergence of perspectival reversal, which this conception of twinship generates (as r e c u r s w h e n the self looks at its twin reflection in the mirror), it is possible to reach the kind of recognition t h a t d e p e n d s on the discovery t h a t inside a n d outside the self are n o t identical. Kant's relating of the inexorable movements of the p l a n e t s to the categorical imperative in morality practised a n imaginative Newtonian reversal in perspective, a pivoting t h a t Freud re-employed when h e described the awesome r e m o t e n e s s of the planets a s reversible into a representation of a n infinity of psychic space (and the presence in this space of objects in determined movement). The functioning of the reversal requires for its being a fluent a n d creative stage to occur before the distinction of inward a n d outward h a s b e g u n to form. I w a n t to look at some material from a patient who h a d experiences characterized by a twin-like division which entailed some theory concerning circularityin particular, the notion of circularity a s applied to a therapist's system of appointments, the eternal r e t u r n of the s a m e patient. In the case of this patient, the positive experiences of one twin were m a r k e d by the negative experiences of the other. His ability to appreciate sessions (positive) was m a r k e d by the intensity of

his therapeutic reaction (negative). His u n u s u a l capacity to symbolize in dreaming seemed heightened by c o n t r a s t with his unimaginative behaviour in waking life. At one point binary division took the form of identifying his session with a forward movement in time, in Which he appeared to b e reluctantly b o u n d to a developmental process, while in his p h a n t a s y life h e thought t h a t the woman who a t t e n d e d the session j u s t before him was allowed to experience her sessions in a time s p a n t h a t went backwards. She w a s allowed all t h a t h e w a s n o t allowed, including the p l e a s u r e (as h e saw it) of being ravished into insanity. The idea of the clock t h a t moves forward a n d the clock t h a t moves b a c k w a r d h a d its context in a n experience of birth a s occurring t h r o u g h two passages: uterine a n d rectal. By the very fact of being a birth p h a n t a s y , it raised the possibility of some prime ground before the division of the two clocks or birth places h a d occurred.

Coming to his session, h e sees two m e n s t a n d i n g on some scaffolding. He imagines one of the m e n to fall. The scaffolding s u r r o u n d s a building in the process of being built; a n d it is like his therapy, a liminal s t r u c t u r e built a b o u t a future both of u s h o p e to build together without a n y expectation of its being s h a r e d . He c a n n o t believe t h a t h e a n d I can both have a future. Only one b a b y m a y live. One of u s m u s t fall from the scaffolding. In his p r e s e n t mood of self-sacrifice, h e sees himself a s the victim. He is the one who is to travel down the discard passage. He h a s p u t himself into the empty space where the m u r d e r e d b a b y m u s t be; h e feels drawn into the space, compelled to become the scapegoat. In our mother's gaze we grow into the light. In the absence of our m o t h e r ' s gaze, in some s t a t e where focus in gaze is identified with annihilation, there is a space that devours all life, the position of the inevitably m u r d e r e d baby, which compellingly draws the self a s the other twin into it. In the case of this patient, h i s belief t h a t one of u s h a d to die was related to a n u n c o n s c i o u s theory a b o u t the existence of two entities at birth, one of whom h a d to be valued, the other (because in his

Lk

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view there could b e only one valued child) to b e blotted o u t a s worthless. After a session t h a t h e h a s enjoyed, h e t u r n s u p for the next session at 22 m i n u t e s p a s t the hour, almost half time. He says h e h a d forgotten the session b e c a u s e he h a d been writing a court report a b o u t "a paranoid woman". He h a d blotted m e out. a n d h e h a d blotted out the meaning of our relationship, the good time h e h a s h a d . a n d h e got inside me a s the therapist, a s the one who does the analytic work. It seems h e needs to get inside me, to work o u t on p a p e r his ideas concerning someone h e thinks of a s the patient, h i s unwelcome a n d projected self"the paranoid woman". In writing his report during session time, h a d h e t h o u g h t t h a t h e h a d b e e n inside m e ? Oh yes. h e t h i n k s h e h a d b e e n inside me. He joyfully agrees to agree with me in order to slide into some vigorous a n d all-embracing lie. He says, without a quiver of doubt: "I c a n only b e truthful if I get inside you." So m u c h for truth. He feels himself to b e a n illegitimate infant, condemned to die. He m u s t displace the real b a b y in order to have s p a c e to think a b o u t a p a r t of himself t h a t h e insists on splitting off, "the paranoid woman" (who is a b o u t to lose a child t h r o u g h a court orderhe expects t h a t s h e will lose the child). But h e says h e h a s h a d enough of this: time is r u n n i n g out (because h e w a s late); h e w a n t s to talk a b o u t dreams. He now reports a n u m b e r of d r e a m fragments, which are fascinating, a s his d r e a m s often are. I feel coerced to explore his d r e a m s a t a speed to which my mind does not r e s p o n d well. I s u s p e c t h e m u s t have been frustrated a n d u n d e r similar p r e s s u r e s w h e n h e cobbled together his report on the paranoid woman. In the first dream, h e is with his older brother. They are s u r r o u n d e d by rocks. Sea water floods in. His brother escapes t h r o u g h a hole in the rocks above. Next dream. He is on a b u s in North Africa with two brothers, who are obstetricians, possibly twins. Also on the b u s is a Moroccan. He recalls how the Republican s u p p o r t e r s in the S p a n i s h Civil War feared los Mows, who fought with Franco, b e c a u s e they decapitated all prisoners of war. I wondered whether the decapitation could b e related to obstetrics. Yes, perhaps; h e thinks of babies' h e a d s at birth, like apples, with grease on them.

In the third dream, h e is with a woman, leaning against her; s h e b e h i n d him. The position of their bodies is obscureor I did n o t have time to work it out accurately. He is having vaginal intercourse with her, a n d h e holds her b u t t o c k s . He is covered in blood. Some children direct a spotlight on him, a n d h e tries to cover himself in r u b b e r y stuff. He insists t h a t h e is having anal intercourse, a n d t h a t this is a repellent dream. I don't agree. He may b e inside m e in this dream; b u t the important point a b o u t the dream is his guilt a t the loss of his brother a t birth. He identifies with h i s brother, now identified with worthlessness, a n d t h i n k s him to b e h i s t r u e self. His insistence on being r u b b i s h is a guilty defence a t t h e loss of a n imaginary brother a t birth. His mythology requires two passages, like the two gates to the Roman underworld: one is vaginal a n d leads to life a n d selfrealization, the other is anala r u b b i s h p a s s a g e t h a t discards its contents. In labour, the birth p a s s a g e exhibits the m u s c u l a r power of contraction. This power can be confused with the more dreaded power of the anal sphincters, which c u t of the faeces a s though in some act of decapitation. The feared Morocc a n troops, los Moros, have the effect of sphincters. The confusing of birth a n d anal p a s s a g e s would a p p e a r to b e a consequence of fraudulent gettings-into the object. If I b r e a k into a good place, it h a s a way of turning into a b a d place. He h a d hoped to get into the creative site, the u t e r u s , a n d t h r o u g h the act of intrusion found himself in the rectum. He h a d hoped to travel down the birth p a s s a g e a n d found, instead, t h a t h e was travelling down a n a n u s a n d was shorUy to b e ejected a s worthless. The t h e m e of birth a n d of two selves undergoing two m a n n e r s of process, developmental a n d regressive, the clock or planetary system t h a t move forward a s against the clock t h a t moves backward, the two selves a n d the two processes separating from each other a t the m o m e n t of birth, continues to r e c u r over the sessions during the next few weeks. One day h e t u r n s u p for his session five m i n u t e s late, looking disgruntled. He says h e h a s a grudge. I was five minu t e s late l a s t time, a n d I didn't give him extra time. He h a t e s having to care a b o u t issues like these: h e h a t e s having to be d e p e n d e n t on me. His being late today is his way of saying, I

A i -j-

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don't care a b o u t five m i n u t e s more or less. He says aggrievedly t h a t h e h a d been a b o u t to tell m e a nightmare last time w h e n I h a d thrown him out. (Without having time to h e a r the nightmare, I h a d suggested to him t h a t the fact t h a t h e h a d mentioned a nightmare a t the end of the session h a d indicated to m e the possibility that the end to the session could b e equated with a nightmare, a n d t h a t this was something h e thought I would not w a n t to hear.) He now told m e the nightmare. Two m e n h a d a p p r o a c h e d him a n d p u s h e d b a c k his h e a d as though to b a n g it on the wall behind him. He was convinced t h a t the two m e n were a b o u t to kill him. He screamedonly in the dream, h e thought, although he h a d m a d e some noise in actual fact for h e h a d awoken his wife. It seemed clear that the inference t h a t the two m e n were killing him was a n interpretation included in the d r e a m a n d could be detached from the dream itself, a t least for the p u r pose of d r e a m investigation. Thinking h e was being killed w a s a little like his report on t h e paranoid womanan a t t e m p t to take over my contractual obligation to be the therapist, denying m e the freedom to u n d e r s t a n d in my own way. In fact, I did n o t think h i s d r e a m was a death experience; I t h o u g h t it to be a birth experience, to b e linked to h i s feeling a t the end of the session t h a t I h a d intended to throw him out. I linked it b a c k to his dream a b o u t the two twin obstetricians a n d the Moroccan in the b u s . He w a s in the b i r t h passage. The two m e n p u s h i n g b a c k his h e a d represented a persecutory experience of a labour contraction. I do not know whether a t t h a t m o m e n t in time h e h a d the model in t h o u g h t which later came to himthat h e was not moving down a b i r t h p a s s a g e b u t w a s being ejected out of his mother's r e c t u m a s waste, the two obstetricians now turning into the dreaded Moroccan-sphincters who decapitate their prisoners of war. He h a d been b o r n not a s a lovely baby, b u t a s a degraded bit of rubbish. He recalled family stories a b o u t his birth. It h a d b e e n difficult a n d protracted b e c a u s e h e h a d been a large baby, with broad shoulders. He said h e h a d b e e n born a t a time of international catastrophe, though at this point h e did not w a n t to see

t h a t h e seemed to think t h a t his birth h a d precipitated the catastrophe. He now found himself investigating critically a certain family myth, which h e h a d formerly accepted unquestioningly. When h e h a d b e e n four years old, h i s family h a d undergone a crisis t h a t h a d resulted in a loss of s t a t u s a n d income. The c i r c u m s t a n c e s of this crisis h a d encouraged him to believe t h a t h i s father's potency might have been damaged. I wondered a b o u t t h e m e a n i n g of t h e five m i n u t e s ' lateness in this context. He thought t h a t it might relate to the fact that the detailed examination of a b a b y five m i n u t e s after its birth w a s often t h o u g h t to b e crucial to the determining of its physical well-being. He himself is going through a chronic crisis a b o u t a n examination t h a t h e h a s failed a n d m u s t re-sit. He is convinced h e will be u n a b l e to p a s s it. He now m a d e a valuable disclosure, in describing a n o t h e r situation. It w a s like a n examination. He h a d been to visit a n encouraging supervisor, to tell her a b o u t a case in his care t h a t h a d filled h i m with despair. It concerned a boy aged fifteen, whose forename w a s almost identical to his s u r n a m e . The boy's m o t h e r h a d died a few years before. The boy's father was t h o u g h t to b e "weak" a n d u n a b l e to s u p p o r t him during the m o u r n i n g . At a b o u t this time, the boy h a d gone to some swimming b a t h s a n d h a d been anally a s s a u l t e d by a m a n in the locker-rooms. The boy h a d been taken into care, a n d a t the in-care home h e h a d formed a gang of younger boys, for the p u r p o s e of a n a l intercourse. He h a d been sent away from the in-care h o m e to a very strict "macho" institution a n d then, w h e n this place h a d clearly been of no u s e to him, to a "feminist" organization, where there h a d been little in the way of organization. Not surprisingly, the boy h a d entered a state of despair. I pointed out the parallel between the boy's experiences a n d his previous description in the session of the journey down the birth passage. It seemed a s though the breaking of the waters a n d the leaving of the uterine place a n d the beginning of the birth j o u r n e y could be compared to a kind of death, the first poignant anticipation of a mother's death. At this point of vulnerability occurred the first anal a s s a u l t .

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If the parallel holds, I don't know how this might b e experienced by the foetus a s it begins its descent down the b i r t h passage, b u t it would suggest that this is the m o m e n t w h e n the nightmare of being in the wrong passage, of being a piece of r u b b i s h moving down the rectal exit a n d liable to decapitation by the Morrocan sphincters might begin. He experiences the leaving of the u t e r u s a s a grief; a n d in his grief h e is vulnerable to a s s a u l t . I would link this to my observation t h a t before the weekend break he conceives of the b r e a s t a s sexualized a n d belonging to someone else a n d t h a t h e deals with his feelings of being rejected a n d degraded (as though the sexualized b r e a s t a n d its lover were the legitimate baby) by turning the b r e a s t s h a p e inside out, a s it were, a n d identifying it with his r e c t u m . The sexual exciting of the a n a l m e m b r a n e is associated with r u t h l e s s n e s s . He t r i u m p h s over others. He b o a s t s of his authority over the people h e works with a n d their deference to his opinions. For instance, h e r e t u r n s from one weekend in a state of despair tinged by complacency a n d says in a voluptuous tone of voice t h a t h e h a s now come to know of a hopelessness t h a t c a n never be p u t right. He refers to a child in special t r e a t m e n t at a school. The child came b a c k to school one day a n d found t h a t h i s specialist teacher a n d h e h a d been moved to a n o t h e r room. The new room was divided, one half being full of r u b b i s h , the other half being available for the teacher a n d for him. At this point, I could not u n d e r s t a n d where the hopelessn e s s lay: b u t it did seem probable that retrospectively h e was suggesting t h a t the foetus in utero thinks of the other half of its mother a s filled with r u b b i s h . When it is born, the foetus-infant carries this idea over into its relationship at the breast. If it t h i n k s of its mother a s being pregnant, it a s s u m e s t h a t the pregnancy occurs in the other half of the room, the rectal a r e a full of r u b b i s h . No possibility is allowed for a change in the s t r u c t u r e of relationships.

In leaving the u t e r u s , the foetus in despair h a s its first experience of wishing to get back into s o m e place where it is n o longer welcome. It h a s its first in-place-and-time experience of projective identification, of fraudulence, of illegitimacy. The act of

being dislodged from the uterine space begins the birth process; it initiates notions of worthlessness a n d rejection a n d fraudulence (related to the wish to reclaim w h a t is n o longer available to it). It initiates the first experience of time a n d foreshadows the concepts of the forward- a n d backward-moving clocks. The boy's experience of the "macho" institution with its p s e u d o m u s c u l a r i t y a n d s a d i s m presented a s "discipline" would b e like a n u n p l e a s a n t experience of the birth contractionespecially so, a s it w a s in h i s case, if your shoulders are too b r o a d a n d your h e a d is j a m m e d back. The "feminist" institution, with its absence of boundaries, would b e like the release of the contraction, setting u p bewilderment in the mind of the foetus a t its very unpredictable passage. By now, the foetus would b e in despair a n d convinced t h a t the only fate it deserved would b e to be dropped out of a r e c t u m . It is unlikely to believe t h a t its relationship to its mother is a b o u t to change from a n ideally benevolent enclosure into an imaginative encounter. The s o u r c e s of negativity at this point c a n be summarized a s follows: You are a b o u t to be born. But you think you are a b o u t to b e killed. Having been p u s h e d out of the u t e r u s , you t h i n k t h a t your m o t h e r h a s died. Being born, being weaned, are unavoidably t h o u g h t of as forms of being discarded or dying. You a r e illegitimate. You cannot believe that at the end of your j o u r n e y down the birth passage, or at the end of your therapy, the m o t h e r you have lost a s a witness will be discovered once more, a s some one whose loving gaze you might meet. The prototype for the definition of weaning a s a losing a n d a findinga losing of the actual b r e a s t a n d a finding of the b r e a s t a s a p r e s e n c e in the mindis reversed by this prior experience. The loss of a m o t h e r a s a uterine s u r r o u n d i n g or ambience is hopefully followed by the discovering of a mother as a person, a s someone you meet face to face. He becomes more t h a n usually preoccupied with the woman who a t t e n d s the session before him. He thinks this woman is a favourite of mine a n d is able to solicit extra m i n u t e s from me at the end of m a n y sessions. He is convinced that if only he were a woman, h e would be able to get extra time from me. Her therapy h o u r a n d h i s therapy h o u r were like the two p a s s a g e s in a mother's body, divided by the space of ten minu t e s . It was clearly important for him to imagine h e w a s m a k i n g

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the j o u r n e y into life; b u t s h e was m a k i n g a more attractive anal journey, which h e conceived of in terms of time a s a j o u r n e y backwards, against the clock, reversing the laws of n a t u r e a n d n u r t u r e a n d leading to annihilation. He imagined my concern for h e r deliciously to reverse the n o u r i s h i n g process; it w a s disintegrating, a n d it induced m a d n e s s . (This conjecture defended him against the pain a n d guilt h e felt a t other times over the condition of a n e a r kin, a woman who h a d been committed to a mental hospital.) Being a male, h e h a d to p u t u p with the p a i n s of growth, while she, being female, could enjoy the delights of being tortured a n d driven out of h e r mind. He begins a session by saying t h a t h e h a s h a d a d r e a m t h a t h a s disappeared. In its place, h e h a s a thoughthe imagines himself on a table, a n d a saw is moving u p between h i s legs. I suggest h e is now identified with the woman who comes to the session before him, who, in turn, is enjoying herself with the thought of castrating the patient who follows her. In logic this should b e he, b u t the point of his t h o u g h t is to have the woman torture the male h e believes will one day take over his h o u r . The b e s t way to attack someone who is going to fill y o u r h o u r is to think that the person before you, your elder sibling, will destroy him for you, allowing you clean h a n d s . He reports a dream in which h e is in intercourse with his n a k e d elder sister, whose (foreign) n a m e p u n s on the word for "hour" in his native language. Under the bed a m a d girl listens in to the couple. In terms of the infancy model, h e might b e a confused b a b y feeding at a good b r e a s t a n d p u t t i n g m a d n e s s into his mother's lap or genitals (the girl b e n e a t h the bed). Boundaries, insofar a s they exist, are fragile in his mind. He freely enters into at least two of the m a n y relationships h e ascribes to me, or at least imagines to be events in my diary one being the woman whose session is before him, the other being the anticipated sessions with his as-yet-unborn sibling. He h a s m a n y t h o u g h t s at this time of driving his car at right angles across railways tracks, seconds before the express train r u s h e s past; h e expects t h a t someone will c u t a t ninety degrees across h i s temporal progress through life, like a patient who is able to drive from dawn to d u s k through every one of his therapist's sessions each day. His fear of my favouring the

previous p a t i e n t is in p a r t a fear that the narrower the tenm i n u t e gap between his a n d her sessions becomes, the more a t risk h e is from his split-off femininity taking him over. He is worried by the possibility t h a t h e p u t s m a d n e s s into others, less consciously worried by the thought t h a t they might p u t m a d n e s s into him. Clearly h e is fascinated by the anti-life experiences he ascribes to m y relationship with the previous patient. He comes to one session saying h e h a s not brought a cheque for our work, followed by the t h o u g h t t h a t h e was late b e c a u s e h e h a d been to the lavatory. He h a d been to the lavatory at twenty-five m i n u t e s to the h o u r . In reverie, a t least, h e seemed to have thought he w a s the woman patient having her enjoyable a n a l tortures in t h e session before him. He cannot p r e s e n t his faeces/money in t h e session b e c a u s e a s a male h e would think it improperly homosexual. Anality is admissible on heterosexual occasions b e c a u s e it c a n be confused with the creativity of childbirth. It emerges t h a t h e thinks I extract faeces from the w o m a n p a t i e n t a n d t h e n eat them, a s though they were babies. This conception of a w o m a n in labour might b e from Greek myth: Kronos eats the e v a c u a n t s of his wife's body (babies/faeces). He d r e a m s t h a t h e is a t a party a n d married to a disturbed woman. He sees a woman sitting on the lap of a m a n . He a p p r o a c h e s a nice woman a t the buffet a n d a s k s for some steaming cannelloni. S h e tells him they are for the family only. He h a s salad instead. He is h a u n t e d (he says) by a s e n s e of recognition in women. With women h e feels on the verge of insight. Is it a s though h e were almost a b o u t to see his mother's b r e a s t s once more, I ask. He says, yes. The c o n t r a s t between the divine a n d h u m a n twins, Pollux a n d Castor, might b e reasonably described in terms of the c o n t r a s t between a n infant self latched to a feeding object, who p e r h a p s fails to acknowledge t h a t the b o u n t y it receives (the sense of divinity) is not its own a s of right, a n d a n infant self who h a s been left on its own a n d hopes to hold on to the next feed, if only j u s t . This would be to feel on the p u l s e the incipient transience in all mortal states. An infant undergoing s u c h s t a t e s would be reasonably sane; b u t sanity would b e less secure if, a s in the case of the patient.

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the division between the two s t a t e s b e c o m e s split between appropriating the birthright a n d delegating worthlessness to the other self. To b e mortal, then, is to be identified with a buried a n d a b a n d o n e d self, who can only hope to survive b y appropriating a delusion, the place of its twin, idealized a s divine a n d in some way preferable to the h u m a n condition.

Clinical material related to the fetish-cults of the pharaohs. A living twin triumphs over the victim in sacrifice, whose dispatch into the underworld transforms the profane into the sacred. The antisymbolic and condensed representation of the sacred, as it appears in a patient's train of thought.

h e hallelujah of first creation brings into existence a binary system personalized a s twins. The p a r t s of the binary system are sometimes rigidly held apart, a s between the p h a r a o h a n d his underworld reflection, a n d sometimes interchangeable, a s between Pollux a n d Castor. Hellenic self-esteem postulated t h a t mortality (Castor) could a s s u m e s o m e of the powers of divinity (Pollux). At the s a m e time, it was critical of any h u m a n claim to omnipotence. P a u s a n i a s described a temple mirror t h a t did not reflect the features of the mortals who looked into it, only the s t a t u e s of the gods b e h i n d t h e m (Frazer, 1898, p. 422). Hellenic scepticism concerning the centring of any idea of t r u t h in h u m a n i t y prefigures the extreme Byzantine belief t h a t only the s u p e r n a t u r a l h a s reality. The mirror t h a t reflects the s t a t u e s of gods conceivably symbolizes a n idealized future t h a t h a s no place for those who are alive a t present. An infant may feel annihilated when it looks in p h a n t a s y into the b r e a s t a n d there discovers the r a d i a n t presence of t h e next baby; it may feel a s though its 63

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essence h a d been sucked into a future in which it does n o t exist. The p h a r a o h s thought to control the r a d i a n c e of t h e future b a b y by associating themselves with the s u n , which they believed was yoked with t h e m to a universal law. The alter ego twin, who moved through the liquid d a r k n e s s of the night sky in conjunction with t h e night s u n , was similarly yoked. The psychic ovum splits, and, secure in the symmetry of their relationship, two identities, the self a n d its alter ego, travel down the s a m e birth p a s s a g e a n d t h r o u g h the s a m e p a s s a g e in time, a s b o u n d a s the self a n d its mirror reflection. But the two personalities within rigidly identical mask-like s t r u c t u r e s are u n s t a b l e a n d interchangeable a n d possibly in a state of m u t u a l projective identification with each other. At b i r t h the twins t h i n k to separate, t h o u g h in later life, a t times of sacred crisisas during a n epidemic (which is perh a p s a paranoid-schizoid u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the emergence of new life)the distinction between the self a n d alter ego disappears, a n d the two selves realize in panic t h a t notions of differentiation have b e e n lost. A scholar in Hellenic studies. Marcel Detienne (1986) describes the word epidemic a s follows: Epidemic in Greek belongs to the language of theophany . . . the epidemics are sacrifices offered to the powers of the gods: when they arrive in a country, or appear in a sanctuary, or take part in a feast day or are present at a sacrifice. . . . Apodemics are sacrifices to mark the departure of a god. [p. 12] The living twin h a s every reason to wish to b e freed from its sibling, who carries the h a t r e d t h a t it would lodge into t h e r a d i a n t next baby. The turbidity of the alter ego's suffering recalls the annihilating black-hole space t h a t can transform into a n o t h e r paranoid-schizoid dread, the nipple t h a t contains the divine b a b y that radiates all the m e a n i n g s of the world. The sufferings of the alter ego threaten to devour the living twin, who fraudulently claims (as did the pharaohs) a n identity with some cosmic phallic conception of the nipple. The paranoid-schizoid conception of pain is of a terrible enclosure. It h a s the alter ego lodge in a malignant wombm o u t h , which distresses it by its discomfiting s h a p e a n d extreme t e m p e r a t u r e s a n d is liable to be devouring. The self

lodged in t h e comfortable womb can realize at any m o m e n t t h a t its s e n s e of security is delusiveand it may find t h a t it h a s changed position with the alter ego. Worse, a s ancient sacrificial practices demonstrate, the lining of the malignant womb, a s tormenting a s the shirt of Nessus, can be perceived to transfigure into a r a d i a n c e t h a t b a t h e s t h e foetus. One of m y p a t i e n t s h a d been faced in childhood by a situation in which h e h a d been u n d e r p r e s s u r e to identify with the fortunate twin. He h a d learnt t h a t three years before his birth his father h a d survived a plane crash. His father h a d been aware of the plane's rapid fall through the sky a n d of its hitting the ground, a n d h e m a y have been aware of flames, b u t h e h a d then lost consciousness. A farmer h a d dragged him from the plane, a n d h e h a d survived, though badly b u r n t . The patient never came to know why the plane h a d crashed; h e believed t h a t ice may have accumulated on the wings. He w a s aware of how distressed h e h a d been at the sight of his father's face a n d body. The extensive skin grafts h a d been clumsily handled. His m o t h e r h a d n u r s e d h i s father after the accident; the marriage of the parents, a n d the conception of the children, h a d come later. He tended to avoid thinking directly of his father's accident. Much of his thought, in u n c o n s c i o u s p h a n t a s y at least, centred on himself a s a n infant in u n e a s y alliance with his mother, mixed u p with her, possibly in a folie-a-deux. The s t r u c t u r e of his conscious thoughts suggested that the infant in him believed t h a t his mother h a d the power "to sanction the delusion t h a t the universe revolved a r o u n d him. He believed that his m o t h e r sanctioned this belief from disturbed, even mad motives; s h e allowed him to b e deluded in this way so a s to m a i n t a i n h e r power over him. The p h a n t a s y was: my mother m a s t u r b a t e s my a n u s while both of u s play-act the idea of a lovely relationship a t the breast. He acted out the hypocrisy of the relationship in later life by playing the anal Don J u a n while maintaining the pretence of being a happily married m a n . After a term or so in treatment, h e broke off with a girlfriend, a n d s h e felt s h e h a d r e a s o n to inform the p r e s s a b o u t a perversion t h a t s h e h a d encouraged in him. He was excited by this threat. His belief that m a n y people would rejoice in his "downfall" was a way of coping with a state of b l a n k n e s s .

k.

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m a s k i n g anxiety, which afflicted him w h e n u n c o n s c i o u s t h o u g h t s of his father's fall through the skies began to surface into consciousness. He h a d delighted in t h e experience of h i s wife's giving b i r t h to a child. At the s a m e time, h e could not tolerate the experience; it h a d s h a k e n h i s confidence in the defensive usefulness of egocentricity; a n d in p a r t this w a s why h e h a d come into therapy. It is a s though any father who witnesses the b i r t h of a healthy child at some level might realize his kinship to a n alter ego in the b a d womb. He h a d a dream early on in therapy in which h e was h a n d in-glove with his mother a n d contemptuously looking down through a window a t a m a n called Farrow. The n a m e 'Farrow' w a s noteworthy, for a farrow is a litter of pigs. His mother's m a s t u r b a t i n g of h i s a n u s (at least in h i s phantasy), experienced a s contempt for the procreative abilities of women (they give birth to faeces), was projected into the damaged, excluded presence of his father. His father's pain began to a p p e a r in the material in covert ways. He recalled two patients who h a d come to a clinic h e visits, who diagnostically did n o t suit its u n u s u a l specialization. One, a m a n , was a high-risk h e a r t p a t i e n t with p a i n s in the chest; the other w a s a w o m a n with inflamed arteries. Her condition h a d been correctly diagnosed, b u t s h e h a d died from lung congestion half a n h o u r after being admitted. The c a u s e of h e r death remained u n k n o w n ; a n d in this it w a s like t h e c a u s e of the plane disaster. During the last session of the previous week, h e h a d b r o u g h t a d r e a m in which h e w a s a diagnostician. On the couch was a patient, a baby with breathing difficulties a n d with bloodshot eyes, which h e associated to a memory of h i s father's eyes a t the time of his death, m a n y years after the p l a n e accident. His father h a d been u n a b l e to breathe, a n d no one h a d b e e n able to help him. He equated his father's suffering with the sufferings of a baby on a couchpresumably h i s own b a b y self. He recalled how shortly after learning the news t h a t his father w a s dying of cancer of the spine, he h a d travelled on a plane a n d felt a tingle of elation in his spine. He h a d loved his father, b u t h e w a s conscious of the excitement h e h a d felt w h e n h e h a d h e a r d of h i s death.

Allusions to h i s father's suffering b e c a m e more b l a n d a s they b e c a m e more threatening to him. He reported a dream in which h e was a passenger on a plane t h a t was flying too low. He described the plane a s weaving t h r o u g h trees; somehow or other, it landed successfully. As h e left the plane, h e congratulated the pilot on having m a d e a successful landing. He shook h a n d s with the pilot. The idea of his congratulating the pilot h a d a c o n t e m p t u o u s ring about it a n d drew attention to itself. It w a s a reasonable expectation that a professional pilot would bring a p l a n e down safely without weaving it through trees. It w a s equally reasonable to expect a patient to weave through the h a z a r d s of a therapist's interventions. Whether h e saw m e at this m o m e n t a s the mother who u n m a s k s h i s delusions in order to a s s e r t her authority over him, I did not know. He certainly saw my communications a s trees t h r o u g h which h e h a d to weave in order to survive. They were bringing him close to realizing t h a t his father's experiences could b e h i s own. Something like a plane crash existed in him, like a bullet whirling a b o u t inside a tank. It existed a s a historical event affecting his father; b u t it also existed a s a psychotic possibility, in which any distinction between himself a n d h i s alter ego might b r e a k down: a n d it existed a s a potential language b y which h e might dream. He did not enter a state of psychosis; b u t h e was flooded by the stuff of psychosis, mediated through nightmares, which h a d the s a m e function a s h a d embalmed placentas a n d umbilical cords for the p h a r a o h s . Many of them alluded to the theme of a plane crash: the idea of b u r n i n g was central to them. In one dream h e w a s looking out of the b a c k of a b u s . He saw a m a n with a flash-bulb camera b u r n u p the people he was photographing in the flash of his camera. In the next dream, the defective gas-cooker in h i s mother's b a s e m e n t was out of control a n d flaring u p . A week later h e dreamt of a m a n a n d woman in intimacy, a n d t h e m a n w a s c o n s u m e d b y flames. He remembered a film h e h a d seen in which a m a n h a d been placed in a wicker b a s k e t a n d b u r n t a s a sacrificial victim. He h a d told m e when we h a d first met t h a t one of his difficulties was t h a t h e could never feel angry. He now found himself very angry after sessions. Feelings of unworthiness began to emerge, b u t he swiftly got rid of them. One day he

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remembered how his father h a d b r o u g h t him a p r e s e n t of some toy soldiers a n d a handkerchief. He said: "a terrible storm was taking place; t h u n d e r a n d lightning. . . . I r e m e m b e r the sight of his b u r n t legs. . . . I'm convinced lightning, not ice on the wings, b r o u g h t his plane down." The session h a d b e g u n with a d r e a m in which he w a s driving u p to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. He h a d found himself faced by traffic lights t u r n e d to red. a n d h e h a d j u m p e d the lights, even though h e knew t h a t there was a one-way traffic flow beyond the lights a n d t h a t h e was likely to c r a s h into one or more of the oncoming cars. This dream w a s followed by a n o t h e r dreamof being on a jetty by the sea. listening to old sailors talk approvingly of the m u r d e r of babies in the war. A photographer in the group broke into this talk to deplore the atrocities of war. He associated the photographer to the photograph of a little girl b u r n i n g from the effects of n a p a l m in the Vietnam War. Toy soldiers a s against real oneshis father brings him toy soldiers a n d a handkerchiefacts of war are b o u n d to tears. But the lightning a n d t h u n d e r t h a t overcame h i s father overwhelms h i m also. At this point, h i s father, a s well a s being identified with a mother in childbirth, is identified with the littie Vietnamese girl b u r n i n g from n a p a l m . I p r e s u m e t h a t a t a m o m e n t similar to this one the self in birth is first aware of its alter ego a s moving away from it. carrying with it the suffering t h a t might otherwise h i n d e r the self from living. At this moment, fitfully, h e was beginning to b e able to tolerate the sight of his father's suffering. Some time earlier h e h a d d r e a m t of a photographer whose flash-light h a d incinerated those whom h e h a d photographed. The situation h a s b e g u n to change. The eyes t h a t see the agony are now no longer the flash-bulb eyes t h a t project the suffering t h a t they then see. The second d r e a m photographer is able to stabilize the image; h e brings into being a certain food for thought. It was questionable whether thought needs s u c h food. Within terms of his development, the second dream photogr a p h e r is a compromise between a personification of himself a s a benevolent being a n d an identification with the sailors who delight in the m u r d e r of children. He r e p r e s e n t s a compromise, too, between the driver 'who j u m p s the lights a t the Arc de

Triomphe a n d the m e a n i n g of the Arc de Triomphe, which is b o u n d u p with the meaning of depressive symbolization. Those who talk of a negative theology direct attention to mysteries t h a t c a n n o t be seen or touched or directly known about, a s in the case of the u n k n o w n soldier who died on the battlefields of the First World War, whose tomb the Arc de Triomphe contains. This is a depressive symbolization. A flame b u r n s a s a memory to this soldierthe flame being a fire of a quite different order from the flash of a camera or the flames t h a t leap a b o u t a c r a s h e d aeroplane. The psychic authority of the dead soldier lies in his u n knowability. Because his individuality is not recognized, the u n i q u e pain h e h a s suffered c a n n o t be buried with his body. To link t h e theory of t r a u m a to the theory of the sacred is to discover t h a t on one level a pain can be timeless a n d spaceless a n d waits to b e suffered by everyone. In acts of consecration the victim of the sacrifice draws all psychic power into it. a s t h o u g h entered into by all the energies of the universe. B u t this relationship between a p a r t a n d the whole works in two directions. For while the whole universe may seem to condense into t h e sufferings of the victim; t h e victim a t the s a m e time c a n seem to b e transfigured. Though lost within a black-hole planet, h e t u r n s into a sun-like radiance, m u c h a s day takes over the place of the night.

Hilda Kuper's (1947) remarkable observations of c u s t o m a m o n g the Swazi people of South Africa, collected during the mid-1930s, are informative of the n a t u r e of archaic thinking a b o u t transfiguration. Swazi rites of renewal a n d the birth rites of the ancient p h a r a o h s provide similar ways of thinking a b o u t the idea of someone else's pain. E a c h year the Swazi renew the king's power in rituals whose degree of potency depends on the point a t which the moon is waxing or waning. When the king is a boy, the rituals are few a n d weakly performed; when h e r e a c h e s maturity, they attain strength. The capacity to m a k e distinctions, between individuals or between life as a n energy a n d life a s a n embodiment, increases or decreases in relation to the extent to which the king, a s sacrificial victim, acquires the gravity of the sacred. At

Li

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the m o m e n t of sacrifice, h e is the negation of the s u n : h e is the black-hole p l a n e t into which all distinctions collapse. There is eclipse a n d darkness, a n d lightning r e n d s the sky. The king carries all b a d n e s s a n d danger a n d pollution. He is h a t e d b y his people, a n d they dance a n d sing out their h a t r e d . Ceremonies of this kind have the s a m e function a s h a d embalmed placentas a n d umbilical cords for the p h a r a o h s : they mediate. They are liminal p h e n o m e n a t h a t bridge the gap between the sign systems of the paranoid-schizoid position a n d the symbolizations of depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g . The king is painted black a n d placed in d a r k n e s s . He is n o t alone. One of h i s m a n y wives m u s t cohabit with h i m d u r i n g this time. In symbolic death a s h a r i n g occurs: w h a t does this m e a n ? The psychic ovum splits, a n d one twin p e r h a p s does n o t w a n t to know a b o u t the j o u r n e y of its alter ego; b u t there is a n o t h e r mind p r e s e n t during the act of primal division. During the waning of the moon Isis, as mother, sister, a n d lover, m u s t grieve over the dismembered Osiris. In other religious myths, too, the motheror wife or sisterof the tortured child m u s t b e a r witness to its sufferings. The idea t h a t during eclipses in meaning someone is able to s h a r e the paranoid-schizoid s t a t e is central to depressive transformation. The entire population is placed in a state of taboo a n d seclusion a s soon a s the king is in d a r k n e s s . In a literal u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the word atonement, the population is at one with the king. Spies report on the breaking of taboo in a s t r a n g e fashion. They do not say of the taboorbreaker: you were doing wrong by scratching yourself. They say: you were scratching the king. Social differentiations between individualities a p p e a r to have collapsed, a n d everything h a s become one. The u n k n o w n soldier might be anyone, a n d "anyone" h a s the power to become "everyone". The fact that the soldier c a n n o t be known, t h a t h e is a presence in a negative theology, allows him to mediate between mind a n d catastrophe so t h a t thought can arise.

Earlier I described the paranoid-schizoid conception of someone else's pain a s a type of environment. The aeroplane p l u m m e t s , a n d the sufferer is always still; it is the world that

moves a b o u t the sufferer, a s a w o m b - m o u t h t h a t t h r e a t e n s to devour those who enter it. Realizing the important p a r t played by the idea of the plane c r a s h in his capacity to think a n d feel helped the patient perceive the instability of the relationship h e h a d of the idea of the c r a s h to a conception of time. The c r a s h h a d occurred some time before his birth a n d may have given him a n u n u s u a l belief a b o u t the n a t u r e of his own conception, b u t this belief w a s secondary to h i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the plane c r a s h a s a timeless act t h a t might be u s e d appropriately in divination, a s though it were a p r o n o u n c e m e n t of the Delphic oracle. Womb spaces, which include the c r a s h a s a type of womb space, take the form of geometric ideograms a t some early point on the depressive threshold; they exist outside space a n d time a n d can b e located equally in the future a n d in the p a s t . He knew the c r a s h a s a s p a c e into which anyone might enter at a n y time; it was a space h e h a d avoided a n d therefore felt t h r e a t e n e d by. He was convinced t h a t the plane c r a s h would h a p p e n to him; a n d h e h a d to keep his father in mind a s someone who would live out this nightmare for him. His wife gave b i r t h to a healthy child; the child clearly h a d taken over t h e fortunate space, his prerogative to b e born into life: h e felt filled with panic; h e now might be overwhelmed by the fate of t h e alter ego. His s e n s e of dread w a s the p u r e culture of t h e sacred in all b u t one particular: h e was able to dream. His nightmares showed the p r e s s u r e of divinity, b u t they did not annihilate him b e c a u s e they were partial symbolizations or types of myths that were in p a r t able to metabolize a n awareness of the divine. No capacity for symbolization exists in a mind t h a t h a s been invaded by the p u r e culture of the sacred, which is anti-symbolic a n d unknowable. From one point of view, the p u r e culture of t h e sacred is the light of the good objects, from another point of view it is the psychosis t h a t activates all psychoses. A radioactive object does n o t symbolize radioactivity; it is a n object t h a t contains or conducts radioactivity; more likely t h a n not, it is a n object t h a t is devoured by radioactivity. The sacred devours all forms of c o n t a i n m e n t a n d is, in turn, devoured: a n d all types of psychic skin or containment are ineffective against

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it. It can only b e described by way of a negative theology. It represents nothing a n d h a s a way of becoming everything.

An e m p h a s i s on the paranoid-schizoid conception of s p a c e a s a terrible enclosure can conceal the depressive possibility t h a t movement out of the paranoid-schizoid position is usually indicated by the presence of pain. The m a n who h a d b e e n sensitive to t h e degrees of reality in liminal p h e n o m e n o n a s degrees of densityhe talked of three girls in a table a n d of a football heavy with dew lying at dawn by raspberry n e t s in his p a r e n t s ' gardentolerated the situation of being trapped in a p a r a n o i d schizoid type of hell by projecting any evidence of growing p a i n s into representations of the sacrificial victim. His images of the sacrificial victims projected s t a t e s of compression into the mind of the therapist, a n d this was why they were noticeable. The communicated state of density arose from a p a r a n o i d schizoid conception of the alter ego a s a sacrificial victim m a d e u p of signs t h a t r u s h together, like particles being drawn into one point. (The condensation of a r a d i a n t m a t e r n a l face into the dense rind of a m a s k h a s the s a m e meaning.) [The alternation in m e a n i n g between black hole as nipple or space that attracts everything into annihilation a n d a space that radiates primal glory is similar to the conceptual device by which a m i n d is able to perceive the cosmos a s either microcosm or macrocosm, a n d which h a s the attributes of both telescope a n d microscope.] He began a session by talking a b o u t two incidents. The first one concerned a b u s a n d its bullying driver: the second concerned a frozen pond a n d a solitary dead carp in it. The incident on the b u s was without outcome. It h a d a s t r u c t u r e typical of tyrannical states of mind. The patient informed the driver t h a t he wanted to get off at a r e q u e s t stop close to his p a r e n t s ' h o u s e in the Midlands. The driver told him t h a t this was not possible; he needed a ticket validated at the t e r m i n u s in London. In telling m e a b o u t this incident, the p a t i e n t conveyed a n a t m o s p h e r e of universal despair. The driver's tyranny allowed no escape: it seemed to possess the i n h a b i t a n t s of the bus. Although the situation was one that h e often found himself in, h e did not find it familiar. In order to survive a s a slave, h e

h a d to m a k e totalitarian situations invisible to himself. He was s u r p r i s e d by the bus-driver a n d did not recognize him a s the r e c u r r e n t intrusion of negativity in his u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the world. Someone stops h i m from getting on. And a b o u t this h e is complacent. I indicate to h i m t h a t t h e bus-driver r e p r e s e n t s a split-off projected bit of himself, a n d from the quality of his silence I think h e approves of my m a k i n g this point: the u n changing is t h e unthreatening, a n d this is the kind of thing h e h o p e s I will say. He experiences change concretely a s the crossing of some disturbing transition point. Better to s u b m i t to a tyrant t h a n freely to have to cross a frontier. In the days w h e n his local s u p e r m a r k e t h a d a check-out point for eight items, h e would c o u n t the items in other peoples' b a s k e t s a n d complain if they tried to take t h r o u g h more t h a n t h e stipulated n u m b e r . He was a Charon vetting travellers a s they crossed into the underworld. At the s a m e time, if h e h a d been without his ability to project h i s tyrant self into t h e bus-driver, h e might have b e e n u n a b l e to intrqject the second incident, concerning the dead carp, which was of a different dimension. The idea of the carp h a d two of the attributes necessary to mobilize the imagination: it posited r e a l m s in t h o u g h t that have a binary relationship to each otherthe living a n d the dead, the sacred a n d the profane; a n d it allowed mental space for the belief t h a t thought m u s t travel between psychic realms of radically different k i n d s if it is to develop, however dangerous the frontier-crossings into the sufferings or joys of others might be. He talks of the frozen pond in his father's garden. He informs m e without regret that the silver carp that lives in this p o n d h a s died from the cold. He wonders w h a t will h a p p e n to the c a r p w h e n the p o n d thaws. Will it b e eaten by crows p e r h a p s ? B u t then, h e says, why bother?it is dead. I take the idea of the carp to b e a sacrificial-victim type of protosymbol capable of transforming into a charismatic image that is sacred, dangerous, a n d compelling of awe. It is a p a r a n o i d schizoid misconception concerning the m e a n i n g of symbolization a s a depressive identification with the otherness of others. His m o t h e r h a d recently died. He h a d always thought of her a s good (although prone to be taken over by him), b u t the notion t h a t h e might experience her goodness a s a n endowment

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to h i m h a d not been a p p a r e n t before. Through the m a n n e r of her death, s h e h a d m a d e a gift of her dying to him: s h e h a d helped him to undergo the experience. Shortly before h e r death, the family h a d gathered a b o u t h e r wheel-chair a n d listened to a piece of music (by Mozart) on the gramophone. He realized t h a t something h a d been given to them a t t h a t mom e n t . His capacity to be involved in the experience of her dying a n d to s u s t a i n the involvement h a d moved me. But, n o t unexpectedly, a few weeks after his mother's death h e r e t u r n e d to limbo once more. He was gnawed by jealousy at the t h o u g h t t h a t his mother h a d loved other people a p a r t from himself, a n d t h a t other people were m o u r n i n g her loss. This w a s the state of mind t h a t possessed him w h e n he told m e a b o u t t h e tyrannical bus-driver a n d the dead carp. He h a d n o intention of seeing himself a s the carp. To be identified with it w a s to b e identified with a potentially living s o u r c e in his internalized mother, which experiences coming alive a s a n attackto this extent, the bitings of the crows' b e a k s r e p r e s e n t a fear of being born. He can only know the carp from the paranoid-schizoid position a s a bizarre object, a sucking-in of signs, arrows sucked into one perspectival point. His fear of it w a s a form of the fear of ghosts. "The ancestors . . . are spiritually p r e s e n t in the social life of their d e s c e n d a n t s in the s a m e way a s the sacred animals are p r e s e n t in sacred pools" (Fortes, 1945, p. 143). The foetus-carp within the m o t h e r is a spirit of the ancestors, a sacred fish in a sacred pool, a liminal p h e n o m enon t h a t will devour him if h e cannot devour it. For him the pool c a n n o t be a place of outcome; if it thaws, it will become a source of anti-life, the psychotic underworld womb t h a t tortures any life within it. He is convinced that h i s father h a d a proprietorial claim over his mother's creativity: h e does not allow himself to think t h a t this claim might be a projection of his own negativity. He would see his father a s the bus-driver. The incident on the b u s does n o t allow for a n alternation in symbolism. It is oppressive a n d projects irritation. On the other h a n d , the pond by its n a t u r e a s a paranoid-schizoid type of psychic enclosure sets u p malign-womb a n d benign-womb c o n t r a s t s that are r e s o n a n t in symbolism: frozen-unfrozen, within the water a n d without the water, dead-alive. When unfrozen, the p o n d is fertile in

m a n y ways. His m o t h e r h a d given birth to m a n y children, a n d s h e h a d enjoyed h e r professional career. There h a d been one ' miscarriage, to which h e tends to r e t u r n , a s making s e n s e of his inability to live out h i s own life. As a t h o u g h t in the transference, the carp indicates t h a t h e anticipated crossing the b o u n d a r y between the paranoid-schizoid a n d depressive positions a s analogous to being attacked by the b e a k s of a flock of crows. He identifies the dead foetus with the dead carp (all paranoid-schizoid s t a t e s entail a commitm e n t in identification with a foetus in miscarriage). He w a n t s to m a i n t a i n this situation: better to be a dead carp attacked by living crows t h a n a living carp attacked by dead crows (who p r e s u m a b l y would be sibling ghosts: p e r h a p s the ghosts of a denied future). The body of the carp, b o m b a r d e d by crow b e a k s , is similar to a body riveted by lightning or convulsed by epilepsy or contorted by the plague: evidence of the sacred, of new life, entering into the profane. This is one of the meanings of the act of sacrifice. It is a version of the j o u r n e y through the depressive threshold, in which space a n d time demarcations c a n become unpredictable (as in the space a n d time condensation of the lightning flash). All space a n d all time enter one place a n d m o m e n t a n d transfigure the corporeal: a similar crisis is unavoidable a t some point in the transference process, a s t h o u g h this were some defect or incomprehensibility in reason. During the previous session, a startling event h a d occurred. For 40 m i n u t e s h e h a d presented thoughts that were insincere, a n d then, out of nowhere, in a strangulated voice, he h a d said t h a t all day h e h a d been thinking of Purcell's a n t h e m , "Rejoice in t h e Lord Always". Having got this painful confession out t h a t h e h a d a b a b y within him capable of rejoicing in the worldhe h a d b e g u n to s m a s h the fist of his right h a n d into the p a l m of h i s left h a n d . I thought he was s m a s h i n g in a baby's skull. At this m o m e n t the carp in the pond was himself, only seemingly dead, a n d a b o u t to come alive a s the pond thawed (when the m o u r n i n g process could b e no longer delayed) a n d t h e n threatened to be s m a s h e d u p by crow beaks. The key alternation in meaning t h a t characterizes the paranoid-schizoid a n d depressive divide concerns the pain a n d mystery of initiation, sometimes conceived of a s the birth pro-

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cess itself. Within the sign system of the paranoid-schizoid position, the mother in parturition is reduced to being a cruel orifice t h a t eats the baby. Within the symbolization of the depressive position, s h e is the power of love t h a t is able to b e a r witness to, a n d share, the joys a n d afflictions of her infant: a n Isis who m u s t suffer the death a n d d i s m e m b e r m e n t of h e r beloved Osiris, a s a p h a n t a s y arising from the pain of being bom. In paranoid-schizoid terms, the thawing of the pond water is like the e n t h u s i a s m with which the followers of Dionysus tore a p a r t living animals a n d ate their raw flesh, in imitation of the Titans p e r h a p s . The Titans tore a p a r t a n d cooked the b a b y Dionysus, in order to appropriate his immortality. Zeus s t r u c k them down with a thunderbolt, a n d out of their c h a r r e d rem a i n s rose the h u m a n race.

Catastrophic change as determining phantasies of "being devoured" in birth The nature of the "gap" between the separated twin couples: the myth of uninterrupted reverie and the myth of double annihilation. The dead twin foetus returns as a murderous avenger in narcissistic organizations, or as a "soma" inhibitor of the feeding couple, if its reality as a presence in the mind has been denied.

o enter the transformatory space of the depressive threshold is to learn of a fury a t the h e a r t of reason. An intimacy of communication evolves transference to a point where the infant in the adult feels compelled to a s k of itself a n d its p a r t n e r : which of u s is m a d ? Melanie Klein's discovery of the two positions, a n d of the threshold between tnem, reveals t h a t reason a n d transference h a v e a n identical s t r u c t u r e b y which to communicate m e a n ing. F r e u d a n d h i s successors investigated the workings of the transference a s a passionate h u n c h ; they did n o t have the concept of depressive position, which includes the concept of a m o t h e r whose t u r b u l e n t n a t u r e a t one stage in the transference challenges every counsel to well-being: they did n o t have the m e a n s b y which to see how transference was meaningful in its own right a s the agency t h a t recovers mind's ability to receive communication from its good objects. The recovery entails the j o u r n e y t h r o u g h transformatory space. 77

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Psychosis is not something to be got rid of; transference indicates t h a t it can be p u t to the service of the depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g in order to throw light on the mysterious n a t u r e of r e a s o n a s a depressive p h e n o m e n o n . Thought requires the passionate rationality of the depressive position to comprehend the minus-knowledge of psychosiswhich is never r a n d o m , m a r k s a retreat from the good, a n d h a s to be placed within the context of the rationality of the good to be perceived. Psychosis can invalidate the concepts of space, time, a n d sensation; its perversity lies n o t in the act of invalidation b u t in its denying t h a t the rationality of the depressive position invalidates these concepts for different reasons. The good objects confirm the existence of a n inner world perceivable b y the eyes of the mind, a n d in which nothing c a n be verified or proved. The two positions, a s K a n d -K ways of looking at the s a m e phenomenon, are b o u n d to each other like p a r t n e r s who are u n a b l e to speak if they are u n a b l e to speak with each other: one gives voice to the other. Psychosis, a s the antagonism to reason within reason, is a s emblematic of the h u m a n mind a s is reason itself. It h a u n t s the institutions of h u m a n culture; a n d it articulates itself through the ways in which groups form themselves. The two positions impose the p r e s s u r e of transformation on each other. The stress is so intense a t the point where they have contact t h a t Melanie Klein was convinced t h a t a n y impulse to cross from one side to the other could not be extricated from the prospect of m u r d e r a n d suicide. Interpretation frequently s h u t t l e s across the point, a n d interpretation in microcosm carries the macrocosmic p r e s s u r e of transformation between the two positions; it abridges m a n y postulates a b o u t the n a t u r e of mind. Transformation b r e a k s down the cognitive a p p a r a t u s a n d induces a state of helplessness; it is similar to the state of the two p a r t n e r s in the birth process. A p a t i e n t on the depressive threshold said that her sense of disquiet p u t her in mind of a n operation for h e a r t surgery, which s h e associated to a m o t h e r ' s experience in giving birth a n d to a film in which four m e n shot the rapids. ('They were looking for deliverance, a n d w h a t they got was retribution.") The project of r e n o u n c i n g selfhood is

d a u n t i n g when mind in paranoid-schizoid states is u n a b l e to retain depressive symbolizations. H u m e believed that questions concerning the situation of knowledge before a n d after birth throw no light on the n a t u r e of the u n d e r s t a n d i n g . Work with the transference a d d s s u p p o r t to his view. Transference is reason, a n d the dynamics of reason depend on the transformation t h a t can occur between the two positions, a n d on nothing else. The neo-Platonic belief that "soul is form a n d doth the body make" (Edmund Spenser, An Hymn in Honour of Beauty) is true of the depressive conception of u n d e r s t a n d i n g . Myths a s liminal p h e n o m e n a are not "about" birth experiences; r a t h e r , b i r t h s imitate liminal mythsand sometimes imitate t h e m badly. Birth m y t h s a s vehicles for the transformatory function of reason draw to attention certain "flecks" in the transference turbulence that otherwise might p a s s unnoticed. In m y t h a cannibal m o t h e r devours Dionysus; in depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g , a n d quite in contrast, s h e is the mother who suffers pain a t the time of the infant's birth, a n d whose love for it allows her to identify with its paintwo mothers in p h a n t a s y , one within the other: one archaic a n d inexplicable; the other a source of u n d e r s t a n d i n g in intimacy. Behind the Dionysus myth lies a n earlier Egyptian myth in which Isis suffers the knowledge of Set's sacrificial m u r d e r a n d d i s m e m b e r m e n t of Osiris. Isis's relationship to Osiris a s mother-sister-lover is primordial a n d pre-definitory: while in a similar fashion the m u r d e r e r Set is Osiris's twin-son-father. Plutarch compares Isis to a normative mother, the queen of Byblos, so a s to heighten the poetic psychotic rites by which s h e t r a n s m u t e s the fragmented god into "immortality" by way of a n analogic relationship. Within the normative mother, who in intimacy s h a r e s a n d transforms the meaning of pain in the infant, is Isis a s the archaic maternal otherness t h a t regresses u n d e r s t a n d i n g on the depressive threshold into terrifying paranoid-schizoid formulations. A coffin containing the dismembered p a r t s of Osiris's body floats across the Mediterranean towards Byblos a n d comes to rest in a p a t c h of h e a t h e r t h a t grows by the shore. The h e a t h e r grows into a tree a b o u t the coffin, which the king of Byblos c u t s

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down: h e u s e s it a s a pillar to s u p p o r t the roof of his palace. Isis, in s e a r c h of Osiris, p r e s e n t s herself at the court; s h e plaits the h a i r of the ladies in waiting. The queen of Byblos is enc h a n t e d by her a n d hires her to n u r s e her baby. The j o u r n e y through maternal transformation takes the traveller through a s t a t e of b l a n k n e s s akin to delusion; the concept of "immortality" might b e a n unfathomable "deep time" reached through fire a n d water. Isis nursed the child by giving it her finger to suck instead of her breast, and in the night she would b u r n away the mortal portions of its body. She herself would turn into a swallow and flit about the pillar with a wailing lament, until the queen, who had been watching, when she saw the baby on fire, gave forth a loud cry and thus deprived it of immortality. [Babbit, 1936, p. 14] The "immortality" rites, resembling the Eleusian rites t h a t Demeter practised to restore her daughter Persephone, belong to the s a m e class of motif a s the eagle (representing stolen fire a n d lightning) that devours Prometheus's liver by night b u t n o t by day, the incineration of Zeus's sacred t h u n d e r b o l t a n d the potential power of the Medusa's glance to t u r n Perseus to stone. Myths define themselves in sensation, a n d s e n s a t i o n s in themselves are void of time, space, or body. In myth, beings are insecurely embodied a n d frequently undergo physical transformation or division, while bodies are m e t a p h o r s for sensation. A sensation-thought called devouring, for instance, brings a m o u t h into being: conceivably it is possible to know devouring without a n actual m o u t h . Something or someone h a s s e n s a tions, may think, may give issue to bodies, b u t there is no closed definition of this source. Thinking in myth, which is omnipotent, does not necessarily stem from a n y one mind. Birth m y t h s are paranoid-schizoid r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s of depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g . They are often provisional in meaning, like the "cursorily improvised" m e n t h a t Schreber invented to carry him through breakdown: a n d they convey the contradictory impression of being entrenched in w h a t A. N. Whitehead called "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness", in s e n s a t i o n s of beta-thinking, while at the s a m e time seeming disembodied.

For Wittgenstein (1979), embodiment in myth is a m a t t e r of choice r a t h e r t h a n of necessity. That the feeling we have for our life is comparable to that of a being who could chose his own standpoint in the world is, I believe, the basis of the mythor beliefthat we choose our body before birth, [ l i e ] One twin m a k e s this assertion, not the other. The twin who m a k e s the assertion is the one who claims omnipotence b y obliterating a m o t h e r a n d a n infant: in obliterating their relationship, h e destroys a n essential link in himself represented by this relationship. The twin who dies, on the other h a n d , is the twin who claims t h a t birth a n d rebirth (the m e a n i n g of the depressive threshold) arises out of transformatory power of the mother-infant intimacy. Myths can b u r y all evidence of mothers while registering the often unexpected ways in which the presence of a m o t h e r can r e t u r n from the underworld, a s in a myth from Epeiros, which is cognate to the narrative of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. A young woman, who is a third daughter, wishes to marry a certain prince so as to bear him a boy as handsome as the morning star and a girl as beautiful as the evening star. The prince, overhearing the third daughter make this wish, determines to marry her and in time does so; b u t when she is about to give birth, he goes off to the wars. His jealous mother orders the midwife to put the newborn twins into a basket and let them loose on the river, with a dog and a cat as companions. {The stars have now turned into animals.) On his return, the husband is outraged and walls up his wife, allowing only her face to show through a hole in the wall. Passers-by spit into her face. Ten years later the prince meets the twins and thinks they are like the morning star and the evening star. (He does not know them to be the same stara bewilderment about this star frequently occurs in myth as an image for dioscuric mystery.) He adopts them, but fails to recognize them as his own children. After many adventures, the prince realizes that his wife has been wronged. He has her released and his mother and the midwife tortured to death. [Cook, 2, ii, 1006]

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Mind in retreat from depressive insight enters a regression in which thought metamorphoses in a sky (for instance) in which space either h a s the property of expanding indefinitely or of contracting into itself a s in a black hole: two s t a t e s definable a s conceptions of the future. In s u c h circumstances, twins can p r e s e n t themselves a s points of referencein a context t h a t otherwise provides no model to u n d e r s t a n d s e n s a t i o n by. "Points of reference" is a primary idea with antithetical m e a n ings, a coincidence of opposites, a s are all religious ideas: sometimes the points are terrifying, like the eyes of a witch; sometimes they are benign, a s in the case of "Pollux a n d Castor", s t a r s related to the heavenly twins, who lead travellers through a turbulent d a r k n e s s to safety a n d whose trustworthin e s s s t a n d s in contrast to the deceptive will-o'-the-wisp dance along the rigging of St Elmo's fire. In m a n y forms of African geomancy. s y s t e m s intended to divine the future are binary. Twins may personify the fact t h a t binary presences have the power to act a s witnesses for the future: points of reference able to bear, if only j u s t , the painful evocations of s t a t e s of loss in memory a n d consciousness (represented by the motifs of a beautiful mother, who is b u r i e d / degraded, a n d of newborns being a b a n d o n e d to the t u r b u l e n t elements in sacred chests). The patient I refer to in c h a p t e r twenty, who was terrified b y twin eyes in a m a s k face, a n d who sought to b u r y his good objects in dung, d e m o n s t r a t e s this juxtaposition. In my view, Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, with its theme of a mother t u r n e d to stone, is a twin play, though no twins appear in it. The concept of futurity describes a type of u n s i t u a t e d thought (in the transference, thought without a maternal framework); a n d t h o u g h t of this kind c a n n o t b e defined. The duality of twins would seem to bridge the difficulty. Without a model or holding internal mother, m i n d enters into s t a t e s of splitting a n d disintegration, though it m a y wish to escape from disintegration by the substitutive form of holding known a s fetishism.

In the myth of t h e p h a r a o h ' s birth, a twin of t h e pharaoh's sometimes related to the p h a r a o h ' s umbilical cord a n d pla-

centais dispatched into the underworld. The p h a r a o h sets u p a s h r i n e to h i s own embalmed cord a n d placenta a n d venerates t h e m a s a surrogate for the lost twin (and, by implication, for his obliterated mother). As a paranoid-schizoid representation, the twin is the umbilical cord t h a t communicates u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie: w h e n t h e cord is cut, the twin is dismembered. In depressive terms, the twin is the essential link to the good objects by which t h o u g h t is converted into alpha function. He disappears into the underworld with his mother, represented b y the placenta. Depressive insight reveals how the omnipotent self is tempted to transform the m e a n i n g of the cord a n d placenta into a type of fetish-thinking by which the self expects to be able to m a i n t a i n its paranoid-schizoid omnipotence. By extension, the u n c o n s c i o u s presence of placenta a n d cord a s part-object equations with space (placenta) a n d time (cord) gives authority to t h e erroneous belief t h a t space a n d time are essential categories of ontological u n d e r s t a n d i n g . Fetishes a c c r u e to themselves a type of idealization often associated with stolen goods. Weighted with some intensified essence of materiality, a s though intended to deflect attention from some crime, they typify the imperative in beta-thinking to trap t h e spirit in a n o b t u s e quiddity. The p h a r a o h thinks of the twin a s a n otherness t h a t t h r e a t e n s the reality of his being. He idealizes the cord a n d placenta a s agencies able to control the twin's essence; they confirm his centrality in the universe. His worship of t h e m is analogous to rites in which Indian villagers once thought to trap a god in a stone. In part-object language, the placenta is a microcosmic representation of all space or the lost uterine mother, a n d the cord is time without interruption, a version of the linking power of the twin who descends into the underworld of psychosis a n d death. Imprisoned by the self a s p h a r a o h , the placenta a n d cord embody a n archaic conception of a cosmos a s divided between the fortunate a n d the unfortunate, each of them rigidly yoked, as t h o u g h the umbilical cord h a d lost all flexibility. Each twin is yoked to different conceptions of the cosmos: the fortunate twin is b o u n d to t h e good s u n (and to a m o t h e r who is the sky), while the unfortunate twin is yoked to a black-sun mother, identified

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with the underworld realm of psychosis a n d death. The twins exist within different paranoid-schizoid conceptions of s p a c e a n d time. The split between good a n d b a d m o t h e r entails the splitting of space a n d time into a t least two different conceptions of space a n d time. Steeped in psychosis a n d death, the good twin r e t u r n s from the underworld a s a n antagonist committed to revenge. The self, attempting to renounce omnipotence on the depressive threshold, is liable to experience the diminution of p a r a n o i d schizoid m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g a s a n increase in exposure to the antagonist's attacks. Unable to perceive loss of selfhood a s a liberation, it believes a n y transference evolution from p a r a noid-schizoid discourse to depressive discourse concedes victory to a n enemy. The insights of the depressive position destroy the authority of the inadequate links on which self-centredness relies. They reveal how t h e embalmed placenta a n d cord, m a r k i n g the loss of a good relationship, have been converted into idealizations of beta-thinking, in order t h a t the p l a c e n t a a n d cord might be venerated a s elements of the self a n d not of otherness. They show how self-centredness similarly misconceives the concepts of space, time, a n d sensation a s m e a n s to control otherness. Patients entering the depressive position may discover t h a t the reminiscences they h a d formerly u s e d a s satellites to their vanity are paranoid-schizoid inhibitions to thought, in which the p a s t is reviewed a s a miscellany of indigestible b e t a elem e n t s . They may come to realize t h a t travelling through s p a c e a n d time in the transference is a m e t a p h o r for a p p r o a c h e s to, or r e t r e a t s from, the u n d e r s t a n d i n g of symbolization, while contingencies in space a n d time, "accidents", a r e m e t a p h o r s for issues concerning abortion. From the depressive viewpoint, the concept of p a s t m e a n s no more t h a n a failure in mental indigestion, p e r h a p s through a superfluity of selfhood, while the concept of future signifies a n o w n e s s characterized by a freedom from me. Take the equation now a n d me, s u b t r a c t the me, a n d you have eternity.

a n d maintained through the abolishing of the twin, representing the foetus-source, to the m i n d in communication with its good objects. The collapse of all meaning into the black hole collapses all sensation into itself. It dismembers the good twin a n d creates the world according to me. The career of me requires the unfolding of space a n d time a s its framework, although space a n d time are fetish m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g s of alpha thinking, intended to stave of psychic turbulence. The Wichita Indians link day a n d night to the white-andblack skin colouring on certain deer in a myth in which the killing of a deer releases time into the world. When they got to the bank the black-and-white deer jumped out, and as it was jumping out the man of the grass-lodge shot it. After shooting it, he heard a voice from above, saying he had done well. This meant that everything would move, that the s u n would rise, the stars would move, and the darkness and the light move on. [Dorsey, 1904, p. 26] Patients on the depressive threshold may lose self-centred conceptions of s p a c e a n d time a n d imagine themselves to be victims in some barbaric act of sacrifice t h a t takes place on the site of a twin m u r d e r : the act of twin m u r d e r annihilates the self t h a t originally wielded the sacrificial knife. To b e renewed into sacrality, to become the sacrifice, to rediscover the communication of the good objects, is to know a n annihilation that is only contingently related to death: it is to b e identified with the priest-king who undergoes the suffering of the j o u r n e y t h r o u g h the underworld, a n d not with the priest-king who seizes the power of the planets by magic; it is to know Prometheus' fate. The cord a s paranoid-schizoid system of encoding carries the foetus's later knowledge of the nipple; it keeps space-time considerations in a n encoded form so that u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie c a n be s u s t a i n e d . The cutting of the cord, identified with the sacrifice of the twin, releases the m e a s u r e s of space a n d time. P a n d o r a married to Epimetheus, brother to (and doublet for) Prometheus, opens the box, which in origin Dumezil (1924, p. 98) thinks was the container of immortality. The minutiae s h e releases (in the myth, particles of evil) are attributes of the

One of the functions of the concentrate in materiality of the fetish is to conceal the fact t h a t self-centredness is arrived a t

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sacred baby quantified a s the m i n u t e m e a s u r e s of s p a c e a n d time. All the minutiae, if they were drawn b a c k into one definition, would be the sacred baby. The cutting of the cord, the sacrifice of the twin, reveals that knowledge of n a t u r a l s u b s t a n c e s is of a fetish kind. As Descartes reveals in his Meditations, belief in this type of knowledge c a n n o t be s u s tained in black-hole s t a t e s of mind. Paranoid-schizoid thinking u n d e r s t a n d s the transformatory power of depressive insight to b e a n assault; it c a n n o t comp r e h e n d the idea of transformation; it thinks in terms of conversion, a violent act in which sign s y s t e m s deteriorate into somatic attacks, specifically on eye-links, head-links, abdomen-links. The priest-king who magically appropriates the s u n ' s power (the fire t h a t P r o m e t h e u s steals) is dismembered a n d eaten a s the sacrificial victim a t first light a s the s u n rises. Conflating the victim of the sacrifice with the sacrificer creates a n ideogram for migraine states, the m o m e n t of conversionhiatus-cataclysm, in which language a n d sight m a y b e lost. Saul transforms into Paul, a n d in the interim there is no naming, a s though Saul were identified with the cataclysmic light of a n u n n a m e a b l e deity. Time in Platonist thought is the mind of space: in t h e pseudo-transformatory m o m e n t of paranoid-schizoid conversion, time is ripped out of space, the cord c u t from the placenta. Space deprived of time, a s a womb aborted of its infant, collapses into the black-hole/blinding-light m i n u s - s p a c e of psychosis a n d nightmare. Phantasies of this kind are implicit in the process of transferential transformation, which the patient may experience a s the crossing of some gap basic to r e a s o n in which all former securities have been lost. The gap of transformation might be the black hole of conversion, a s though the s t r u c t u r e s of t r a n s formation a n d annihilation were cognate: the energies of one flow too easily into the other. The Timaeus demiurge, for instance, can b e seen a s a condensation of sacrificer a n d sacrificial victim, a n analogue for Prometheus. Faced by a condition of chaotic vestigialism, the demiurge, a s conductor of the sacrifice, gives the vestiges a distinct configuration by means of shapes and numbers. . . . Fire, water, earth and air possessed indeed some ves-

The dismembering of the demiurge's body r e s u l t s in a mathematized proportionality, the intelligence of the cosmos, a paradigm for the first communication of the good objects. Intent on maintaining its empire, the individual is tempted to project the sacrifice into its twin, o u t of whose dismemberment arises the m u s i c of the spheres. ' T h e overwhelming power of m u s i c comes from a transformation a n d overcoming of death" (Burkert, 1983, p. 39). To characterize the p h a n t a s i e s as prenatal is to enter into a paranoid-schizoid m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g concerning the n a t u r e of birth m y t h s . From the depressive viewpoint, birth m y t h s are meaningful only a s liminal p h e n o m e n a : a mode of communication t h a t is important a t a certain stage in the transference. Like other liminal p h e n o m e n a , birth m y t h s have the power to transmit, if only fitfully, two types of discourse: one of a partobject fetishistic kind, the other closer to the primal articulation of t h e objects by way of pulse, proportion, a n d light. There is a radical difference in the m e a n i n g s of being born a n d of crossing the threshold of the depressive position: in being born, the self may realize t h a t a death h a s occurred a n d t h i n k the death (as psychosis) to be lodged in its twin; on the threshold of the depressive position, it m u s t realize t h a t it will have to die in order t h a t the twin can live. The twin m u s t live b e c a u s e it is the one essential good link to the objects.

The infant in the p h a r a o h venerates the fetishes as s u b s t i t u t e s for a mother who h a s been denied passion a n d is b o u n d to servitude. In depressive insight, the intense materiality of the fetishes translates into a n image of the mother a s buried or t u r n e d into stone. In a s e n s e all m o t h e r s give birth to twins. One mother-twin relationship carries reverie without interruption; the twin loses itself in the mother a s u n e n d i n g skya relationship idealized a s "immortal"and this is the relationship t h a t m u s t be consigned to the underworld by the other twin, who knows the

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proto-jealousy t h a t is p a r t of the transformatory t u r b u l e n c e of the depressive position, the relationship to a black-hole b r e a s t in which forms cannot s u s t a i n definition, a n d whose m e a n i n g is denied by t h e burying of the mother: s h e is t r a n s l a t e d into a n object of fetish worship.

Dioscuric birth m y t h s among the ancient Greeks often g r a n t a transformatory function to a mother. Helen a s m o t h e r / s i s t e r influences the relationship of Pollux a n d Castor, a n d the presence of Gaia a s mother-earth incites her imprisoned son Chronos to castrate Ouranos-Zeus, the u s u r p e r of h e r sky kingdom: son a n d father are equally infantilized a s twins. The fascination with the splitting of one into two contains a mystery: that the two may be one. Intimacy is n o t oneness: it sets in motion separation a s well a s closeness, a n d this is why it precipitates depressive turbulence. An adhesion between t h e couple gives rise to the psychotic concepts of u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie andwhen some outside force destroys the joining of two into oneof double annihilation. In TheBacchae of Euripides, Zeus kills Semele 6 / 7 m o n t h s p r e g n a n t with Dionysus with a bolt of lightning, sews the foetus in his thigh, a n d later claims to give birth to it a s a god. T h e action implies t h a t Zeus is able to remain immortal by dispatching b o t h Semele a n d Dionysus into the underworld. In p h a n t a s y a n infant might think of the two wombs of Dionysus a s the interior to a mother's two b r e a s t s , each interior containing Dionysus a s an identical twinthe "gap" between the b r e a s t s being the dangerous place associated with annihilation, the site of psychic death a n d possible rebirth. Travelling from one b r e a s t to another would b e a version of the j o u r n e y down the birth passage, both states of transition being derived from s o m e incorporeal prototype. In a cognate creationist myth, the Titans cook a n d eat the sacred body of Dionysus, with the intention of ingesting h i s immortality. Zeus strikes t h e m down with a bolt of lightning, a n d out of their smoking a s h e s arises the race of men. In the language of myth, being s t r u c k by lightning is a version of the fire by which Isis b u r n s the baby: it confers immortality.

In b o t h these m y t h s Zeus is god of the sky; like the p h a r a o h , h e is the twin who h a s u s u r p e d the sky kingdom from his m o t h e r Gaia-Semele. Dionysus is the umbilical-cord twin who "dies" with h i s m o t h e r a s t h e p l a c e n t a earth-mother. T h e cord links sky to earth, a n d the gap t h a t occurs w h e n it is cut. a n empty space, swiftiy a s s u m e s the a t t r i b u t e s of a black hole. In some m y t h s Dionysus descends through into the cold waters of the lake a t L e m a to restore his mother to life by music. The surface of the lake is like a n imaginary mirror within the narcissist's mirror, which denies reflection to any mortal who looks into it; it is a version of the black hole. The t h e m e of Dionysus a s being devoured in birtha theme in which initiation is viewed in terms of a persecutory pain h a s its c o u n t e r p a r t in the theme of a birth denied all reality a s sensation. The child who c a n n o t see its reflection in a mirror h a s , a s a n internal authority, a psychotic mother who is able to deny the child's existence to t h e extent of blanking out a n y experience of t h e labour in birth.

In the myth of uninterrupted reveriethe u n c u t cord in paranoid-schizoid languageSemele's pregnancy translates into h e r c o n t i n u o u s dreaming with Dionysus a s her foetus. As against it s t a n d s , a s the other aspect of the psychotic metaphysic, the myth of double annihilation. The cutting of the cord entails the b a n i s h m e n t to psychosis a n d death of the mother a n d one of t h e twins. The mother's sexuality, including her powers of procreation, are b a n i s h e d also. The surviving twin is liable to feel t h a t the b a n i s h e d couple is a repository for b o t h the idea of immortal bliss a n d the idea of damnation, equally identified with gods who eat ambrosia (they are immortal a n d substantial) a n d s h a d e s in hell (who are immortal a n d insubstantial). The remaining twin sometimes does not realize that the b a n i s h e d couple was formerly a couple of which it was a m e m b e r a s in the following dream, in which the dreamer is identified with two actual twins, one of whom died violently. The dreamer does not realize that s h e h a s split herself into a Zeus twin t h a t survives a catastrophe (in a state of omnipotent

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control) a n d a Dionysus twin t h a t is annihilated with its Semele mother. One of the forms t h a t the annihilated couple takes in the dream is of a p a r a c h u t e , representing the cord a n d placenta during the birth process. In the transference, the dreamer gave evidence of a p h a n t a s y in which s h e imagined herself a s related to a companion who s h a r e d the couch with her. In the dream s h e is falling from an aeroplane t h r o u g h the skies with a p a r a c h u t e instructor, who faces her a n d shows h e r how to release a p a r a c h u t e . What h e shows her is n o t clear; a n d it is n o t given in the dream whether or not s h e h a s a p a r a c h u t e . At the s a m e time, s h e is floating above the aeroplane, looking down. S h e infers the existence of the couple falling below, t h o u g h i n t a c t the plane is in h e r way a n d s h e cannot see them. In association s h e thinks of an American movie of the Second World War. The doctor in the American warplane does n o t know how to help a seriously wounded air-crewman. The crew debate whether they should drop the wounded m a n by p a r a c h u t e into the enemy territory they are flying over, or keep h i m on board. The first course p r e s e n t s two problems. The wounded m a n would not be able to u s e his initiative if h i s p a r a c h u t e landed him in a lake, say; a n d there is no evidence t h a t the Nazis would observe the Geneva conventions a n d give the m a n medical treatment. The dreamer w a s inclined while dreaming to p u t her trust in the good intentions of the Nazis. She did not hold to this view when s h e awoke. The thought of p a r a c h u t e s recalls her brother, S. Her m o t h e r a n d S's twin brother were killed together in a car crash: the body of S's twin was severely mutilated. S now goes flying with I, a n older brother. It is a s t h o u g h S were trying to c a p t u r e his former closeness to his twin. Sometimes they fly over the place where the couple h a d died. The dreamer h a s fears t h a t S w a n t s to c r a s h the plane; h e c a n n o t b e a r separation from his twin. There is a split between the p a r t of herself t h a t looks down from above the aeroplane a n d the p a r t of herself t h a t falls t h r o u g h t h e skies, into which the p h a n t a s y of double annihilation h a s been projected. As opposed to the situation of u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie, in which two m i n d s s h a r e one space, s h e m u s t know in the dream the experience of being one p e r s o n

in two spaces. This can lead either to suicideshe then being identified with S a n d his need to be a t one with his twin. Or it c a n lead to a n identity split t h a t m a r k s the separation of "divine" a n d "mortal" aspects of the self. The divine self in the d r e a m e r is, in fact, mortal a n d misled. The p a r t t h a t falls, the mortal twin, is later the American air-crewman who is a t risk a n d may b e dropped over enemy territory (Nazi Germany being the underworld of psychosis a n d death). The American air-crewman a n d his p a r a c h u t e are identified with the placenta-cord p a r a c h u t e of the dream, whose existence is u n c e r t a i n . At this point the placenta, a s token of the u t e r i n e mother, is in a state of deterioration a n d a b o u t to b e lost, a n d the e m p h a s i s now moves onto the umbilical cord a s t h e twin a b o u t to follow her. Positively, the cord t h a t u n i t e s two m i n d s is the life-saving communication that allows for a n alternation between two minds; when cut. it t u r n s into the negative presence t h a t carries in a concentrated s t a t e the threat of double annihilation. The point a b o u t the dead child being a twin does not acc o u n t for the need, in the second association, of the surviving twin a n d a n o t h e r brother to s h a r e the space of a n aeroplane between them, b u t it a d d s some depth to this relationship. Twin foetuses emblemize the notion of two m i n d s sharing one space, so t h a t losses a n d forgettings are felt to be contained. The s h a r i n g of one space by two m i n d s is to be contrasted with a n idea of forgetting in which the loved a n d forgotten being m u s t move t h r o u g h space for ever (being dropped out of the plane). The p a r t of herself t h a t observes the events from above the plane does n o t feel the gravitational pull into destruction. It is the p a r t of herself located delusionally inside her mother that is m o s t a t risk w h e n s h e is faced, a s s h e is now, by a long holiday separation from her therapist.

Moments of insight in the transference, though fitful, can give the impression t h a t u n d e r other circumstances they might have been persistent. Some factor outside the self resolves the crisis of transformation, a n d a m o m e n t of integration occurs.

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The notion of s u s t a i n e d reverie can be tormenting d u r i n g the crossing of the threshold of the depressive position a n d m a y be reified a s the liminal image of the labyrinth. The labyrinth derives from a n idea of the u n e n d i n g lineone of E s t h e r Bick's conceptions of the sustaining maternal object (Haag, pp. 93ff.) [vide chapter 20). The architecture of the labyrinth complicates the idea of continuity with diversions, similarities, a n d dead ends. It is possible t h a t m i n d s c a n s liminal p h e n o m e n a to perceive geometric s t r u c t u r e s of this kind in order to retrieve the proportionality of foetal knowledge. In the myth of u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie, two m i n d s alternate in micro-macrocosmic states: the cord functions a s b o t h their microscope a n d telescope. A gravitational type of sign language comes into being, evident in transference experiences concerning the n a t u r e of the psychoanalytic couch: that the couch is the whole world, that it is a n altar between the worlds represented by the paranoid-schizoid a n d depressive positions, t h a t it m a r k s the place where the sacrifice will occur or b a p t i s m b e carried out, etc. Phantasies centred on the couch are b o u n d to the formulation my mouth is the whole worldi.e. my m o u t h is indistinguishable in its mysteriously comprehensive potency from the cauldron of my mother's womb. S u c h identifications entail flexible space-time models. Hocart (1927) compares representation in kingship (as in the coronation in which the king a s s u m e s the essence of the s u n ' s motion by m e a n s of miming its actions) with the B r a h m i n priests' building of the fire altar in the Sadapatha Brahmana, out of which a cosmos arises in microcosm. A lump of clay has been dug up and prepared with the most elaborate observances, each accompanied by appropriate formulae. With part of this clay a fire-pan is fashioned. This process reproduces point for point the first and original act of creation. Water is poured on the clay with a verse mentioning water; the clay thus becomes water as was in the beginning. Then foam is produced and placed upon it, j u s t as in the creation foam was produced out of the waters, and thus by degrees the clay is made to be like the earth . . . the sacrificer, having made this world, now invoke blessings upon it. [pp. 190-191]

In transforming n a t u r a l s u b s t a n c e s into liturgical symbols, the priest "cooks" fetishes, m a d e out of s e n s u o u s l y perceived objects, into the m e a n s for a pre-birth communication by way of a p h a n t o m umbilical cord. The craving of the two m i n d s to be one space is sometimes evident in post-birth observation. A girl in early latency arr a n g e s to sleep in a different room from her twin brother. She tries to escape from the pull of the need for a s h a r e d womb space by imitating, in m i n u t e s t detail, the behaviour of a n older brother. S h e arranges t h a t the bed in her new room should be identical to the bed in her elder brother's room, with the s a m e trophies a n d even a copy of the book t h a t h e r elder brother r e a d s in bed. In this way s h e recreates the uterine setting of the twina setting t h a t is h e r s alone b u t also one that s h e s h a r e s with a brother. Meanwhile her twin brother insists that h e will only b e h a p p y if h e can sleep in a double bed. In the transference, a yearning for a s h a r e d space as a paranoid-schizoid representation for the myth of u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie c a n translate into a h u n g e r to enter into someone else's space on the couch. A young woman reports how s h e h a d to wait for 4 5 m i n u t e s while another lodger h a d a b a t h . S h e h a d a b a t h then, a n d took only 20 minutes, even though s h e read a book in the b a t h , whose title s h e cannot now remember. (She talks of r o m a n c e s in which you get into the heroine a n d improvise variations on the heroine's adventures. S h e is convinced t h a t this is how books should b e read.) In her therapy, s h e experiences the couch a s a warm b a t h of water. S h e wants to get into the immersions of other patientsa r o m a n c e t h a t s h e elaborates onand to rise from the couch re-born. S h e falls asleep, while travelling by train, a n d as the powers of regeneration fails her, s h e wakes with a s t a r t to find t h a t s h e h a s p a s s e d her station. She would like to fall asleep on the couch a n d b e magically transformed through the right touch a n d temperature, b u t s h e fears being jolted into the realization t h a t s h e h a s got it all wrong again. S h e compares herself to a caterpillar in a childrens' story who eats continuously, enters a chrysalis, a n d emerges a s a beautiful butterfly. S h e eats continuously a n d h a s a n ache in h e r s t o m a c h a t present, b u t s h e does n o t know transformation.

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Anyway, s h e says bitterly, butterflies die outside in the cold, don't they? S h e remembers a dream in which s h e is calling into a microphone for someone who does h o t a n s w e r her. S h e fears being a b a n d o n e d in the act of becoming someone else. The microphone is a conception of the umbilical cord t h a t h a s b e e n cut a n d fails her. It is a fetish t h a t will not serve its master. The cord, as a paranoid-schizoid representation of the communication by which the good objects communicate with the foetal mind, is experienced a s the good twin or emissary who carries the idea of the tragic fact, a s well a s being the recipient to projected fears of interruption, which t a k e t h e form of sacrifice, miscarriage, cut cord, the void t h a t translates into the black hole. The tragic fact comes between the couple in reverie a s a dangerous a n d alien thing. A mother a n d infant can be disabled w h e n a fissured nipple fills the infant's m o u t h with blood. T h e nipple might b e a something "out there"an isolated mindless soma, for whose damage a n d outpouring neither are responsible a n d yet for which each feels guilt. A m a n d r e a m s t h a t he a n d his girlfriend, flying over Nepal (nipple), observe a traffic j a m (a blockage) in the m o u n t a i n s below. Both mother a n d infant deal with their disablement over the bleeding nipple by rising above it into "superior" s t a t e s of mind. Earlier, h e h a d dreamt of cutting a cake that bleeds. He is h a u n t e d by a n internal figure, identified with his father, who r e s e n t s his once having been a favoured infant a n d projects h a t r e d of babies into him; it a d d s to his guilt over the bleeding of the nipple, which h e experiences a s a twin dismembered in sacrifice, though h e is n o t responsible for the bleeding. His mother w a n t s a friend to take a cake to him in a foreign country; the father of the friend stops the friend from taking the present. The concept of the nipple uhat bleeds intimates dismemberment, sacrifice, the miscarriage of the good twin, sometimes the miscarriage of justice itself, a n obdurate a n d irrefutable tragic element. It is possible to avoid it by fetishism, a s some of the p h a r a o h s did. The dreamer h a d a n exceptional inclination to somatize his feelings in the form of a c u t e skin r a s h e s ;

p e r h a p s somatization involves t h e s a m e processes a s the creating of fetishes. The n a t u r e of the cut-cord bleeding-nipple transformation w a s b r o u g h t h o m e to m e while listening to a series of observations by Catherine J o u a n n e t at the Lorient Tavistock conference, concerning a m o t h e r whose relationship with a newborn girl was threatened by the presence of a bleeding nipple. The nipple a s object t h a t p o u r s blood into a m o u t h can be a type of psychotic "remembering" of the cut cord, a coming-too-close of the m u r d e r e d a n d dismembered twin. The severance of the cord is the source of the "gap" of the ancient Greeks, which opens out between Icarus a n d his wings when the s u n ' s h e a t melts the wax that holds the wings to him. Entering t h e gap is to enter the black hole t h a t destroys definition. Icarus falls through w a t e r - t r a n s m u t i n g air, a s the sacrificial victim who m u s t drown in some reversal of the a m p h i b i o u s birth process; only in later formulations may the separation from his wings be thought of a s a mother's disabled h a n d s . He is the twin who violently dies in the aeroplane dream, the p a r t of the self in the transference that m u s t know the disintegration of a certain kind of s e n s u o u s information into the labyrinth in which the progress of one continuous line recurrently m u s t lead into deceptive places. The cord, when cut. becoming the gap, disintegrates beta knowledge. It becomes the feared boundary-crossing of the rite of passage: the crack in t h e pavement, the no-man's-land of the depressive threshold space t h a t destroys the traveller. It is the bleeding nipple identified with the dismembered twin. Fetish-thinking compacts into a n intense materiality. (It is the point where the lines in a drawing in perspective come together; t h e point t h a t everyone w a n t s to project a s far away from themselves a s possible, into their twin.) The couple t h a t falls into the underworld r e t u r n s a s the ghost-monster, the m a s k e d face, the g u a r d i a n of the realms of the deada mode of i n s a n e "remembrance' that m a d d e n s those who exist in a different reality from it. In ancient mythologies, it takes the form of works of a r t of a power (in myth, a t least) to kill anyone who looks on it.

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THE UNBORN The idol is not made to be seen. To look at it is to go mad. It is also often s h u t up in a chest. [Vernant, 1991, p. 154]

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The idol is of Dionysus; the chest is the womb t h a t contains him a n d t h a t reveals a n underlying transformation into immortality of those who enter the psychosis a n d death of the underworld through a disintegration of the forms of the n a t u r a l world. Associated with Osiris a n d other deities a n d heroes a s they cross t h e waters of transformation, the c h e s t is the cista mystica of the Orphic mysteries a n d other religions, a psychotic place of mourning, in which a mother t h i n k s to assemble broken bits. In the chest, Athena preserves the h e a r t of Dionysus after his dismemberment by the Titans. It is venerated with the s a m e s t a t u s a s were the retrieved genitals of Osiris in ancient Egyptian religion or Siva's dismembered phallus in ancient India. In double annihilation, remembering is concretely equated to ordeals of a kind that faced Dionysus when h e descended into the black lake at Lerna to discover h i s dead m o t h e r . Eurypylus opened the chest and saw the image, and no sooner did he see it than he went out of his mind. [Frazer, 1898, pp. 356-357] The idea of the work of a r t that drives the spectator m a d is equivalent to remembering a t this stage in the psychotic metaphysic. It h a s the s a m e significance a s the Medusa's glance; it t u r n s the spectator into stone. In comparison. Leontes' perception of the stone s t a t u e that t u r n s into flesh a n d blood a n d embodies Hermione a s a living being in S h a k e s p e a r e ' s The Winter's Tale is a n example of remembering a s recognition.

Certain s h r i n e s dedicated to Persephone in Anatolia are cons t r u c t e d in s u c h a way as to depict death: in the shape of enormous vultures over headless (that is, dead) human bodies; opposing them, the goddess appears in one, ever-recurring shape, namely, in the act of giving birth. [Zuntz, 1971, p. 14] A vulture (mother) who eats headless corpses is set in contrast to a mother in the act of giving birth. The underworld

v u l t u r e p l a c e n t a - m o t h e r a n d the cut-cord sacrificial victim, representing devouring a n d decapitation, are opposed to the m o m e n t of birth, in which a head a p p e a r s out of a mother's body. The b a n i s h e d couple, which h a s h a d the dynamics of devouring projected into it. cannot know the meaning of living through a body, c a n n o t know how body gives issue to new life in the form of reverie or of a n actual infant; it can only know insubstantial sensation, the meaning of being exiled to the underworld. Recovering knowledge of the vulture-couple entails a n u n u s u a l kind of remembering. To remember in these circ u m s t a n c e s is to meet thoughts within the collapsing space of the black hole; it is to be penetrated by Zeus' thunderbolt or the M e d u s a ' s glance. To forget is to meet thought in a s p a c e t h a t is forever unfolding from within itself, a n d in which good thoughts are lost over a n interminable distance. In the Timaeus, Plato compares forgetting to the sinking of the city of Atlantis ben e a t h the ocean, a s though forgotten t h o u g h t s were a m o t h e r sinking through water. The surface of the lake t h a t Dionysus enters to win b a c k his mother is (like Zeus's thunderbolt) a version of the biting-cutting-glaring equation, which severs the p h a n t a s y of u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie. Ulysses seeks for his dead m o t h e r in the underworld of the Odyssey a n d fears that "dread" Persephone (an aspect of his mother) will u n l e a s h the gorgoneion against him. In a n o t h e r retrieval, Perseus holds u p his mirror-shield in order to r e t u r n the terror of the look in the Medusa's eyes. The look in her eyes is equated with the gnawing-contractions of a vulture m o u t h - w o m b t h a t c u t s off the cord a n d leaves the impacted condition of biting-cutting-glaring in the psychic space, which the cord u s e d to inhabit. When Perseus decapitates the Medusa (a version of the Dionysus-Semele murder). Pegasus a s a newborn foal leaps out of her severed throat. The decapitation is undifferentiated from the gorgo scream s h e emitsand after which s h e is n a m e d . The congested mask-face a n d the scream are confusing a n d intense s e n s a t i o n s on the verge of definition that arise from the a n g u i s h of severance. In the fifth century BC the mirror-shield is r e t u r n e d to the Medusa, who then shows herself in her true light a s the m o s t beautiful woman the world h a s ever known

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(Vernant, 1991, p. 149). M e d u s a - P e r s e p h o n e takes the cruelty of the projected glaring eyes into her a n d is able to b e the Semele of the loving glance with her child Dionysus. Semele's capacity to receive a cruel visual projection is evocative of the placenta's capacity to receive pre-sensory foetal projections that can be translated into the idiom of a n y of the senses. The projection can be auditory, for instance: the placenta is then able to temper an incipient foetal screaming into the tonalities of music. ' T h e overwhelming power of m u s i c comes from a transformation a n d overcoming of death" (Burkert, 1983, p. 39). The decapitated h e a d of Orpheus floats down the H e b r u s river to Lesbos: a m o u t h emits a song of unearthly beauty. Music is the foremost liturgical symbol, a communication from pre-birth; it s u s t a i n s a s well as s u m m o n s u p the p a n g s of b r e a k d o w n intrinsic to any state of longing. In post-birth it can restore the delight in form that, disintegrated, entered the psychotic u n derworld at the time when double annihilation threatened. In Pythian Ode 12, Pindar describes m u s i c a s the essential link between the world of the living a n d the world of the dead. In therapy the m u s i c of the therapist's voice m a y b e a solitary thread that leads mind in paranoid^schizoid s t a t e s to rediscover the primal communication of its good objects. Pindar hopes that Persephone will welcome the dead flute-player Midas, whose a r t Pallas Athene invented "when s h e wove into m u s i c the dismal death-dirge of the Gorgons bold, a dirge t h a t Perseus heard". By way of "the many-voiced m u s i c of flutes", Pallas Athene sought to imitate the shrill cry t h a t escaped from "the ravening jaws" of one of the Gorgons.

Creationist fears that an empty space or gap known as Chaos arises from some binary division in the sky. The mythic belief that a mother of twins is sacred because literally she is the sky. Anti-developmental "dramatic" conceptions of change in terms of disguises and dismemberments. Liberation from a sky/placenta, which is "read" as a constraining divine text. In its place a notion of evolving forms as a substrate to mythic thought.

technique to contain transformational space h a s to b e rigorous while open to spontaneity. If the aspects of the technique are at all like the techniques of the very different activities of the rite a n d the d r a m a , they are so, p e r h a p s , b e c a u s e they engage with dangerous religious unknowabilities. Rite in certain religions (vide reference to the Sadapatha Brahmana on p. 92) depend on exactness in replication. The slightest deviation from rule a n n u l s it. In the drama, a s in t h e rite, there is the s a m e micro-macrocosmic idea: the here-and-now is able to draw into itself a n d transform the t h e r e - a n d - t h e n . B u t the d r a m a differs from the rite in one i m p o r t a n t respect: it is occasional. The priests at the Dionysia were aware of this fact when they ordered that plays should be performed once, a n d once only, during a brief festival at a certain determined season. The provisional n a t u r e of communication in the theatre is s u c h that, in theory at least, stagings should be dismantled after every performance.

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In the transference mythico-dramatic possibilities p r e s e n t themselves a s ways of responding to s p o n t a n e o u s m u t a t i o n in the patient, a t m o m e n t s when notions of the containing m o t h e r a n d models for thought disappear, a n d p h e n o m e n a a p p e a r to become metamorphic. Myth a n d d r a m a concern themselves with a type of p a s s i o n a t e knowledge t h a t can only be c a u g h t fleetingly, a s though it existed on the periphery of dream, pre-definitory, disposed to m u t a t e . "Whenever myth precedes ritual, then d r a m a is produced" (Fontenrose, 1959, p. 464). The woman who dreamt of falling from a n aeroplane later dreamt that s h e w a s sitting on the b e a c h in the tropics. Huge waves c r a s h e d before her; s h e t h o u g h t s h e was protected by a high fence, which probably was inadequate. S h e h a d entered a transformatory maternal space (the waves), a n d s h e h a d to seize on transitional emblemsof air, fire, or waterto convey the n a t u r e of her predicament. The n a m i n g of the mother of twins a s Tilo, m e a n i n g Sky, a m o n g the Baronga peoples of E a s t Africa (Harris, 1913, p. 4) is suggestive of how transformatory space h a s the property of coming into focus a s two particles known a s the twins. Sky a s u n e n d i n g space, thought without model, realizes the twins a s points of reference, m e a n s for granting magical knowledge a b o u t a h object that in fact cannot be known ("the future" is one m e a n i n g of this object). In a seminal insight, Plutarch a s s e r t s t h a t m y t h s depend on a fundamental binary contrast between disguise a n d dismemberment. The king-priest a s one twin p u t s on disguises. He wears the crown, seizes n a t u r a l powers, a n d a s s u m e s their forms; h e claims to b e at one with primal creation: h e becomes a fragment of the s u n in allowing himself to b e crowned; he t h i n k s to become the essence of the s u n . Dangerously a t one with the life source itself, h e averts danger by having his dismembered sibling b e the victim in the act of sacrifice. The twins have a way of interchanging. And as for his turning into winds and water, earth and stars, and into the generations of plants and animals, and his adoption of such guises, they speak in a deceptive way of what he undergoes in his transformation as a tearing apart, as it were, and a dismemberment. They give him the name of Dionysus, Zagreus, Nyctelius, and Isodaetes; they

construct destructions and disappearances, followed by returns to life and regenerationsriddles and fabulous tales quite in keeping with the aforesaid transformations. [Babbit, 1936, p. 223] S u c h tales are told against a n uncontained space, in which n o one dies b e c a u s e the commitment to embodiment is hesitant, a n d the fear of annihilation can be projected. In the form of fire, a s a deadly flash of eyes, a s Zeus's lightning, the gap of the c u t cord invokes its earliest antithetical meaning a s the s u s t a i n e r of u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie. In a Pawnee Indian myth, the sky-people send a figure called Lightning to the earth to confer immortality on h u m a n beings. The gift is lost; b u t Light^ ning himself, a s one of the sky-people, is able to remain immortal by having priests r u b buffalo fat a n d a mixture of red clay a n d fat into h i s skin. Mummification saves him from death: "and t h a t m a d e Lightning h a p p y again" (Perry, 1927, p. 43). In some myths, Dionysus survives by alternating the fate of annihilation with his twin. He seemed to die, but really it was his enemy: it was Pentheus or Lycurgus who died while Dionysus lived on in secret. When the world seemed to be dead and deprived of him, he was there in the ivy and the pine and other evergreens; he was the fire in the wine . . . [Dionysus represented] some mysterious life that persists through death or after death. [Murray, 1927, .p. 362] He persists in The Bacchae by projecting states of m a d n e s s a n d incoherence into his rival a n d alter-ego Pentheuson w h o m h e c a s t s the spell of m a d n e s s in saying: "You don't know w h a t y o u r life is, nor what you are doing, nor who you are." I take this to b e a crucial insight into the n a t u r e of experience on the depressive threshold. Dionysus arranges for P e n t h e u s to lose any conception of identity a n d to be torn to piecesand in p a r t eatenby a mother in frenzy. The devouring of P e n t h e u s a s a birth myth is a n important component in the mystery out of which Orphism emerged. In the p h a n t a s y of u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie, forgetting consists of t h o u g h t s t h a t have entered a neighbourly maternal space t h a t allows for a r e t u r n of them. B u t t h o u g h t s forgotten during

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s t a t e s of transformation, a s during the crossing of the depressive threshold, can b e aligned with the loss of placenta + cord; they enter a space t h a t covers u n e n d i n g distances a n d extreme modification. T h o u g h t s move from one environment into another, a s though they were water c r e a t u r e s who m u s t re-find themselves t h r o u g h fire. An evocative type of symbolism is called for, which r e a c h e s b a c k across a divide to a knowledge t h a t m a y have been lost in the world. Liturgical symbols are not repositories of feeling; nor do they distil e n d u r a n c e s of the n a t u r a l world. They are n o t symbols of n a t u r a l events; a n d they are without potentiality. They carry the gap, a n d they contain the interruption of changed bodily processes. The fact t h a t they exist a s liminal p h e n o m e n a eases guilt at the identification each h u m a n being h a s with anti-reason, the participation in the totemic feast of dismembering, cooking, a n d eating the sacred baby, food of the gods who is creative b y way of being t h e immortal element in food. The group in proto-mental reverie conjures u p a n u n s t a b l e transference object out of a n i m m e a s u r a b l e psychotic space. It faces a disjunction, which is like the c h a s m to the underworld over which Heraclitus's sibyl with raving mouth . . . utter(s) things mirthless and unadorned and unperfumed, her voice carrying through a thousand years because of the god who speaks through her. [Kahn, 1979, p. 45] Like cord a n d placenta, lungs differ from other m e a n s of s u s tenance in being a system that cannot be c u t off from their source without bringing the organism to a n endunless, t h a t is, the organism should enter a different order of existence, a s the h u m a n organism does at the time of birth. In sleep, when the opening of the senses close, the mind which is in us is cut off from contact with that which surrounds us, and the only connexion with it is preserved by means of respiration as a sort of root. Sextus Empiricus, quoting Ainesidemos, who in turn claims to quote from Heraclitus. [Burnet, 1908, pp. 169-170]

In Greek myth, severance defines itself a s the emergence of the binary out of oneness. Out of the one emerges the two, a n d the gap between the two is the empty space in thought in which the containing presence of the sky-mother might have been. Hesiod's thought never reaches beyond Heaven and Earth, the two foundations of the visible world; before these was Chaos. . . . In the Physics Aristotle speaks of Chaos as empty space. . . . Apparently the idea belongs to the prehistoric heritage of the Indo-European peoples . . . and from the same stem "gap-" Nordic mythology has framed the word "ginunga-gap" to express the same notion of the gaping abyss that existed at the beginning of the world. The common idea of Chaos as something wildly confused is quite mistaken; and the antithesis between Chaos and Cosmos, which rests on this incorrect view, is purely a modern invention. [Jaeger, 1947, p. 13] In Hesiod, Theogony, Ouranos. a sky-god doublet for Zeus, blocks the birth of Gaia's babies in a myth t h a t depends on a twin conflict between day a n d night. Mother-earth, in whom they were hidden, groaned at having so many of the unborn within her. She thought of a cruel way to free them. She took a grey flint and fashioned a sickle out of it and told one of her sons, Chronos, her plan. . . . At night her lover Ouranos came, bringing the night with him, and full of love lay upon her, spreading himself out upon her. Chronos, in a position of ambush, stretched out his left hand and in his right hand took the sickle with jagged teeth and swiftly lopped off his father's genitals and cast them away so that they fell behind him. [Evelyn-White, 1914, pp. 91-93] A rim of light a p p e a r s on a dawn horizon; the act of castration releases day from night, a n d earth from sky. Blood straying from the severed organs gives birth to various races of giants a n d to the fates. Landing in the sea, the organs are "swept away over the main for a long time: a n d a white foam s p r e a d a r o u n d them from the immortal flesh, a n d in the foam there grew a maiden".

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Objects in the mythic imagination do not observe process in n a t u r e ; they borrow from n a t u r e to r e p r e s e n t liturgical press u r e s from the inner world. They are self-transfiguring without being embodied: two points change s h a p e in a sky so dazzling t h a t nothing in it can translate into three-dimensionality. The s e a foams a b o u t volcanic rock, a s though b r e a t h e d into by t h e divine pneuma or celestial quintessence, a sky-god once more interfused with a n earth-goddess through water. Generation, a s b r e a t h or inspiration, t u r n s into the goddess of b e a u t y herself, who rises from the sea. All creationist myth contains within it the act of h u m a n sacrifice. Hesiod's legend implies a s m u c h , though n o t clearly enough p e r h a p s . His narrative "keeps u s in a n a t m o s p h e r e of clear, cold daylight" (Guthrie. 1952, p. 84), unlike t h e Orphic poems, which are "pervaded with a source of mystery" a n d indicative of a religion, the reason being t h a t in Hesiod there is n o telling of Chronos's attempt to eat the baby, of Dionysus's birth from Zeus's thigh, of the Titans' m u r d e r of the infant Dionysus a n d their cooking a n d eating of him: oral m y t h s out of which systems of veneration can evolve.

In the beginning, claims the philosopher Anaxagoras (in Aristotle's account of his thought), there is mindand against m i n d there is confusion. Mind, being the one, is a coherence set u p against the two, or the other, "which is of s u c h a n a t u r e a s we s u p p o s e the indefinite to be before it is defined a n d p a r t a k e s of some form" (Metaphysics, 989b). The binary is the indefinite dyad, a notion dreaded in neo-Platonic t h o u g h t b e c a u s e twon e s s h a s the power of multiplying indefinitely, so t h a t the whole realm of mathematical thought becomes uncontrollable. Those who sense the gap look to the unity of the sky a s evidence of a time when the gap did not exist (when p r e s u m a b l y reverie could be uninterrupted). Xenophanes, the first monist according to Aristotle, "contemplates the heaven a n d says the one is" (Metaphysics, 986b. 24-25). The sky feeds potency into the male a s a loan of immortality. The male t h i n k s to b e able to appropriate the sky's powerone reason, p e r h a p s , why Xenophanes looked to the sky for inspiration. At one time initiate medicine-men a m o n g certain Australian aborigine tribes

c r u s h e d rock quartz, the sky stone, a n d d r a n k it with liquid, in order to ingest the c h u n k s of solid celestial light, or insight, which endowed t h e m with a semi-divine s t a t u s (Eliade, 1970, pp. 137-138). An u n i n t e r r u p t e d j o u r n e y of food from source to m o u t h (as by way of the umbilical cord) differs from a j o u r n e y in which food r e a c h e s a m o u t h by way of a m u t a t i o n or gap or radical transformation (as by cooking). The conception of the one a s a n omnipresent luminosity overrides the observation that anyone who looks into the daytime sky will b e aware of the edge of s u r r o u n d i n g earth. Possibly Xenophanes looked u p into a night sky a s dark a n d m a s s y a s the earth itself a n d conceived primal unity a s a universal d a r k n e s s . A sky in unity is indistinguishable from the earth; indeed, if the one s u p p o s e s a unity in s u b s t a n c e , the likelihood is t h a t the one w a s entirely m a d e of earth a n d was entirely identified with the feminine (like Aristotle's conception of the h u m a n u t e r u s in pregnancy a s a space containing formless matter, the pre-divine vestiges of the Timaeus). There is some evidence for this. In ancient China the sky w a s alleged to have been m a d e of jade; in ancient Greece it was believed to have b e e n m a d e of stone. "Among the p e a s a n t s of Gythion . . . the sky w a s m a d e of stone" (Cook. 1940, 3.1, p. 942). Stone, as a condensation of earth, belongs to the earthmother. The sky a s the placenta of the earth-mother gives birth to a stone meteor that divides the sky into twin hemis p h e r e s a n d reifies the experience of the gap a s a black hole. The meteor is a p r e c u r s o r of Lucifer, a sacred object involved in the dangerous activity of boundary-making a n d boundarycrossing. Half-buried in the earth where it lands, it is venerated a n d feared (as are the stones at Stonehenge a n d Avebury) a s a n aniconic, non-figurative art work that h a s the power to annihilate the spectator. It is the hermes or b o u n d a r y stone t h a t kills b e c a u s e it is interfused with the s u p e r n a t u r a l meaning of having crossed the b o u n d a r y between the living a n d the dead: like the Medusa's glance, it cannot be tolerated by h u m a n eyes. From a biological viewpoint, the s t r u c t u r e s of myth defend against a n y notion of development. Aristotle a s biologist complained a t the mythic way in which the demiurge transformed the content of the sky in the Timaeus b e c a u s e it did not allow

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for the concept of potential, which Aristotle saw a s basic to a n y theory of development. The same thing cannot be both ordered and unordered; there must be a process and a lapse of time separating the two states. [De Caelo, 1.10. 280a] Plato ascribes his theorem of how the world comes a b o u t to the Pythagorean thinker Timaeus. It is liturgical, n o t n a t u r a l . Its notion of intelligence does not take on being within s o m e temporal system; it contemplates the sky-placenta, a s a s u r face in space that discloses the p a t t e r n s a n d forms of meaning, the transfigurations of music a n d myth. The foetus is inseparable from the sky-placenta a s a text on which its well-being m u s t rely. In pre-birth knowledge, everything is divinely given; nothing h a s to b e realized. Reverie requires no potentiality. The demiurge practises his geometry within a context in which time a n d intelligence are derivatives of magic, a n d magic, the language by which the foetus first thinks to c o m m u nicate, is the m e a n s by which projective identification is able to function.

Mythic thinking in the psychotic metaphysic operates either b y p u t t i n g on disguisespurloined skins^or it projects breakdown into some victim in the group. When the s t a t e of breakdown c a n n o t be contained, the metaphysic itself b r e a k s down, the sky a s placental system miscarries, a n d the act of birth begins; or a retreat occurs into the state of riOt being b o r n . Movement in the placenta sky stops, a n d the foetus c a n n o longer identify with the meaning in the movement. Hippocrates invented the techniques of medicine a s a m e a n s to retrieve the subject of breakdown from the limitations of myth. Much later in time, Augustine looked to Aristotle a n d not to Plato to give him a framework for u n d e r s t a n d i n g failures in mythic expectation; a n d h e did so by adapting Aristotle's biological concept of potentiality to theological use. Augustine frees himself from a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the sky a s a fundamentalist account of divine intelligence to which t h o u g h t m u s t be rigidly b o u n d . The hierarchical theory by which the two twins are yoked to the day s u n a n d the night s u n

b r e a k s down, a n d t h o u g h t liberates itself from its rigid identification with the sky a s placenta. Augustine took the legend that J o s h u a stopped the s u n seriously a s a fact. He did n o t u n d e r s t a n d how J o s h u a ' s act should b e interpreted if the movement in the skies w a s to be r e a d a s a n edict concerning the n a t u r e of divine intelligence. J o s h u a is a king-priest who wrestles the s u n ' s power to his own u s e a n d is n o t smitten down. He institutes a system of time t h a t differs from the system of time t h a t divinity h a s established in the heavens. He declines to identify with the fundamentalist interpretation of the sky a s the one source of intelligence. Augustine arrived a t the notion of time a s having a potential a s well a s a n actual condition by proposing t h a t time a n d movement n o longer needed b e concretely equated with divinity. Time in one of its aspects depends on the Aristotelian notion of "lapses", which probably owes more to the theories of initiation, the idea of Zeus's p r e g n a n t thigh, t h a n to the idea of the p r e g n a n t womb. Saint Augustine said, in the eleventh book of his Confessions: While the sun was stopped, the potter's wheel turned [Duns Scotus (Duhem, 1985. p. 299), quoting Augustine (Watts, 1962, pp. 259-263)]. As in birth, h u m a n intelligence is no longer b o u n d to the s k y / p l a c e n t a a s a feeding object. The potter continues to work in spite of the magic of the warrior king who stops the s u n in its tracks. While the s u n circles wondrously a n d uncontrollably, the potter's wheel t u r n s arduously. The u n d e r s t a n d i n g of m e a n i n g is n o longer linked to one source, the s k y / p l a c e n t a conceived of a s a fundamentalist text. The skills the potter exercises a r e a s m u c h the r e s u l t of application a s of introjected celestial magic. The fundamentalist text h a s evolved into m a n y versions, each of which carries a certain t r u t h . As in birth, h u m a n intelligence is no longer b o u n d to the placental sky a s a feeding object. The potter continues to work in spite of the magic of the warrior king who stops the s u n in its tracks. While the s u n circles wondrously a n d uncontrollably, the potter's wheel t u r n s arduously. The skills Uie potter exercises are the result of application a n d not of magic. Potentiality is not a delusive concept: the idea of development is

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required in a mind t h a t awaits a physical birth for its realization.

Within a uterine environment in which s e n s u o u s information is restricted, which is a benefit for the u n d e r s t a n d i n g , the foetus is able to receive communication from its objects, primarily in terms of states of proportion, pulse, a n d light. In p a r a n o i d schizoid terms, t h e communication is personified in t e r m s of the twin b a n i s h e d into the underworld who a c t s a s a good link or umbilical cord between the good objects a n d the foetal mind. The psychological foundations of m a t h e m a t i c s a n d m u s i c have their site in the prenatal, a s articulations of the steady light of the good objects. On the threshold of the depressive position the self t h a t h a s denied its dependence onand, indeed, the very existence ofthe good objects in its paranoid-schizoid states of mind becomes once more able to receive the signals of the good objects, if only intermittenUy. Communication in the p a t i e n t - t h e r a p i s t p a r t n e r s h i p (and p e r h a p s in the infant-mother p a r t n e r s h i p during the act of birth) involves sensing a pulse out of which the forms of m e a n ing emerge. Wittgenstein's (1979) criticism of Frazer goes some way towards this theory of scanning. Wittgenstein t h o u g h t t h a t Frazer was on the wrong track when h e described myth a n d rite a s pre-scientific a t t e m p t s to control the world or to verify n a t u r a l law. Magical thinking is not failed scientific thinking: it engages mind in quite a different way. Wittgenstein t h o u g h t of m y t h a s a communication t h a t h a s m a n y versions. The m e a n ing of the versions becomes p e r s p i c u o u s w h e n they are placed in series without explanation, like a modulating evolution in series of geometric s h a p e s . He is inclined to think of the formal kinship of myths, a s Bion thinks of preconception, in terms of a n intuited proportionality. Similarly, George Kubler (1962a) avoids the Renaissance conception of art, a s a n interplay between tradition a n d the individual talent, by r e t u r n i n g to a more archaic view of art a s a n impersonal evolution, split off from consciousness a n d experienced a s very distanced in s p a c e a n d time, in the m a n n e r of the fossil series. The primitive aesthetic, of which this is a n example, s u p p o s e s a rationality whose serial existence pre-

cedes the emergence of personality. Types of series impersonally come into being a n d e x h a u s t themselves. The cycles of evolution a r e sometimes entered into a n d extirpated by alien p r e s e n c e s t h a t seem to appear from some different dimension in which space a n d time, if they exist, are of a different order from the space-time systems of the n a t u r a l world. I would relate this violent intrusion to a concrete equation of the twin being dismembered with the cutting of the cord. The notion t h a t foetal mind s c a n s the unknowable in evolving series t h a t either are inseminated or remain void of inspiration is depicted in the geometric creationism of Plato's Timaeus, in which the demiurge brings into existence intelligence a s well a s m u s i c a s facts in the world, by evoking time out of space. His evocation takes the specific form of planets t h a t begin to move in ellipses a n d t h u s to generate the sublime m u s i c of the spheres. In Platonic terms, to look into a night sky full of s t a r s is to know the s t r u c t u r e s of intelligence; the sky is a book t h a t insists on being read: its presence is of the s a m e order a s the information t h a t the s c a n n i n g mind of the foetus receives from its good objects.

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as if it were the primal word and very quintessence of all philosophy. [Jaeger, 1947, pp. 21-22] Within the continuent of pre-birth life every occurrent every glint or flashis a god sign. Every glint or flash is imbued with divinity. In life after birth, Thales's watertransparent, fluid, touchless, tastelesspresents itself a s retrieved from some former time. It is a dreadful resurrected life, n o t a memory derivative: a notation dissociated from s e n s e experience, a liturgical symbol emerging from the fragmented condition of depression. It might have r e t u r n e d from "deep time", the geologist's conception of a duration so u n c h a r t a b l e t h a t t h o u g h t c a n n o t comprehend it. It is a s though some negation of the symbolic-making power h a d come into being in the u n d e r world of t h e dead a t the time of the cutting of the umbilical cord. In later life the d e a d n e s s may be associated with deterioration in a l p h a function. Meaning drains from the concepts of space a n d time, a n d a s e n s e of c a t a s t r o p h e d a r k e n s any a t t e m p t a t comprehension. Spectral, the water h a s the quality of d r e a m water, without the significance t h a t a dream image might have. The Uitoto tribe in Colombia, South America, believed in a creator who "spat out saliva so that the forests might arise". Nothing existed. Through the agency of a dream, the he-who-is-appearance-only father pressed the phantasm to his breast and then was sunk in thought. Not even a tree existed that might have supported this phantasm. Only through his breath did he hold this illusion attached to the dream thread. . . . He spat out saliva so that the forests might arise. [Radin. 1924, p. 32] The illusion is a conception of the actual world s u s t a i n e d b y way of the umbilical cord. Like Heraclitus's breathing "root", t h e d r e a m thread is a precursor of the lungs, a somatic equiva^ lent of u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie. The creator s u s t a i n s a d r e a m of a p p e a r a n c e s a n d activates it by m e a n s of his saliva. In birth, the interactions of foetal a n d maternal mindsone m i n d s h a r e d by two, like a womb space inhabited by twinscan give rise to the m y t h t h a t the interiors of infant m o u t h a n d of b r e a s t are interchangeable creative spaces. Paradigms of the world

Breakdown: natural concepts as liturgical symbols bridging the experience of symbolic death Clinical material alluding to the mediating role played by the liturgical idea of water.

iturgical symbolism is one of the m e a n s by which the traveller crosses the i m m e a s u r a b l e gap of the depressive threshold into a rediscovery of the earliest forms of communication. Space a n d time are drawn into the gap, a s though into the vortex of a baptism. Although the water of b a p t i s m m a y seem to be water known by way of the s e n s e s , or water known to the chemist, it is something other, a s in the case of Thales's water. [Thales's] view of the origin of things brings him very close to the theological creation-myths, or rather leads him to compete with them. For while his theory seems to be purely physical, he evidently thinks of it as also having what we may call a metaphysical character. This fact is revealed by the only one of his utterances that h a s come down to us in verbal form (if, indeed, it actually goes back to him): everything is full of gods. Two hundred years later, at the end of the first period of philosophical thinking, Plato cites this apophthegm with special emphasis, almost 110

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are created in the m o u t h , diagrams of eternal space, the u n i n terrupted reverie of pre-birth taking the form of a n oral creationist microcosm. A creationist myth of the Winnebago people begins with t h e existence of a m a n who is the whole universe. Isolated a n d helpless, the father of m a n k i n d begins to weep; in this case, the dismemberment of sacrifice is identified with a n idealized loss of bodily s u b s t a n c e . Tears began to flow from his eyes. After a while he looked down and saw something bright; his tears had flowed below and formed the present waters. [Radin, 1924, p. 41] His falling tears t u r n into lakes, a n d the world begins to be created. 1 People struggle to survive, a n d even to develop, by creating p h a n t o m environments in their mind, a s though a t t e m p t i n g to re-create the conditions they h a d known before the waters broke. They m a k e a version of the amniotic s a c for themselves. A patient recalls how. at certain u n h a p p y m o m e n t s in childhood, s h e would weep into her pillow a n d console herself by resting h e r hot cheeks against the cool, wet pillow; a n d s h e would s u c k two fingers. Her sister b e h i n d her would sleep. The patient w a s creating a tolerable world by re-creating the u t e r i n e condition. There were other reveries in which other bodily extrusions were u s e d in a consolatory way. The u n b o r n live in a realm t h a t h a s duration b u t no time. They are identified with double annihilation, the dispossessed mother a n d mortal twin, the birth t h a t failed to h a p p e n . By way of the p h a n t o m environment, they hope to reach the condition of t h e divine twinto persist a s does Dionysus. They live in a state of chronic miscarriage. The patient whose session followed the woman who wept into her pillow w a s faced by a different situation. Over the years s h e h a d imagined the therapist's private life a s a n idealized

scene into which s h e could i n t r u d e a n d which s h e would then discover to b e blighted (which kept her from the pain of giving u p control over h e r objects). Her waking life was like a series of dreams, self-made amniotic sacs, by which s h e h a d failed to engage with actuality; s h e lived recurrently the need to intrude into h e r good objects a n d by the power of her intruding to degrade their good experiences into disappointments that gave h e r satisfaction. This m a n n e r of existing h a d begun to break down. The places i n t r u d e d u p o n in d r e a m s b e c a m e incoherent or incong r u o u s a n d n o longer convinced her of their t r u t h a s plausible fictions. S h e r e a d Melanie Klein's 1935 p a p e r on the depressive position a n d could not s t a n d it. Then s h e h a d a dream, a n d some associations to the dream, concerning a caravan where s h e h a d gone to change tickets a n d been surprised a n d gratified by t h e k i n d n e s s with which some official in the h u t h a d changed the tickets for her. S h e saw in this caravan a woman s h e admired, whom s h e related to Melanie Klein, a n d s h e was impressed by the way this woman held a baby in her a r m s a n d talked to it. This d r e a m p r e s e n t e d a created world: the caravan admittedly w a s derived from a n experience, a memory, b u t the totality w a s a something given to her. Her reveries of intrusion h a d b e e n self-deceiving; her t h o u g h t s a b o u t the w o m a n irt the caravan did n o t have this quality. It Was solid a n d other; it was something to b e learnt from. Like t h e m a n who wept in the Winnebago myth, s h e h a d become aware, for a m o m e n t at least, that her thinking was n o longer a n extension of her body or of herself. When the tears leave t h e weeping m a n a n d fall away from him a n d transform into d i s t a n t lakes, they enact a process by which thought s e p a r a t e s itself from the self, a s though it were placenta a n d cord moving transmutingly into another condition of being. T h o u g h t enters a condition of continuous changeability uncontrolled b y the thinker.

'"Among the Khonds of Bengal, and likewise in Mexico, the shedding of tears is believed to be an homeopathic method of producing rain. . . . The Egyptian hieratic papyrus of Nesi-Amsu attributes the creation of mankind to an effusion from the eye of Ra" (Gaster, 1950, p. 16).

A w o m a n who felt confused with dying presences b e g a n to recover from a s t a t e of symbolic disablement through a d r e a m a b o u t a creationist game with water.

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Those who h a d known her in her childhood were dead, a p a r t from a n elder sister, who h a d b r e a s t cancer a n d was possibly dying. S h e remembered h e r mother. S h e h a d desperately insisted on calling in a n emergency doctor, a woman, to restore her mother, when her mother h a d been dying. S h e now feels this to have been a mistake. The doctor's a t t e m p t to revive her dying m o t h e r h a d c a u s e d her pain a n d h a d lead to a disquieted death. Chemotherapy, psychotherapy, a n d the doctor's m e a n s of reviving her dying m o t h e r are linked in h e r mind. A p a r t of h e r is someone dying here, wanting to die a n d to enter the land of shadows, where h e r father a n d m o t h e r are. S h e does not w a n t me to bring her to life, b e c a u s e s h e fears t h a t my efforts will be painful a n d unsuccessful. S h e c a n n o t recall dreams: p e r h a p s s h e fears t h a t the dreams, if recalled, would not allow her to be free; they would be addictive in some way. She t h i n k s of h e r therapist a s someone who, in giving her the kiss of life, would allow her to slip b a c k into the s h a d e s , to her dead father. S h e would leave the therapist, a s the emergency doctor h a d been left, with the failure of n o t having resuscitated her. J u s t before the holidays, s h e h a d imagined herself a s lying in a coffin, which also h a p p e n e d to b e the couch. She h a d thought of herself a s a princess waiting throughout the holidays on the coffin/couch. S h e h a d watched a television play a b o u t a dying girl who h a d lived out her wish to b e a ballet dancer. Corny, compulsive viewing, s h e thought; b u t it w a s probably a s u b s t i t u t e for dreaming (and a denial of dreaming by its having intruded into someone else's m a n u f a c t u r e d dream); a n a t t e m p t to reach out for the function of dreaming, for a lost inwardness, the sources of her autobiography. Some key h a s been kept from her which would allow her to live. She thinks s h e knows w h a t it is. For years s h e h a d believed, in error, that h e r father worked for a totalitarian government, which s h e thought of with loathing. Her father h a d joined the army a n d h a d died in appalling conditions while fighting for this government. Recently s h e h a d found out from a published book that h a d been in her mother's possessionand which her mother h a d never shown herthat her father h a d taken p a r t in a plot to overthrow the totalitarian government. Her father h a d been suspected of his p a r t in the plot a n d s e n t

u n a r m e d to the war front. She r e s e n t s her mother's keeping her father's good reputation from her. The fact t h a t s h e h a d formerly t h o u g h t ill of h e r father was dispersed in this a c c u s a tion. If s h e dreamt, s h e did so in fragments a n d in images that tended to be u n r e s o n a n t a n d disconnected. This began to change. S h e began to dream of lakes; of water-skiing, in a lake behind some unspecified l a u n c h , holding on to a loop t h a t might b e of cord or metal; then of a n empty lake-site m a d e of m u d a n d clay. S h e was holding a n object associated with m a s t u r b a t i o n , which s h e wished to throw away, b u t s h e could not find a place where s h e might throw it so t h a t it would r e m a i n out of sight. The d r e a m m a r k e d a defensive r e t r e a t from a little boy's desolation a t the death of a young father. In t h e dream s h e is the little boy, t r i u m p h a n t at winning a s his bride a mother lost in the depression of mourning. The next night, there was a loosening u p of her capacity to symbolize. S h e dreamt s h e w a s with a boy. The boy drew a lake on the top of a m o u n t a i n , a n d s h e a n d h e r u m i n a t e d over whether a lake on the top of a m o u n t a i n was a possibility. They placed the lake on the side of the m o u n t a i n . She felt sympathy for the actual boy s h e h a s dreamt about. She knows t h a t his m o t h e r h a s tried to commit suicide more t h a n once. Her m o t h e r h a d also attempted suicide, after her father h a d been sent to t h e war front. I t h i n k s h e is playing with me, a s the boywe are playing a creationist game in which we m a k e u p the world together. We m a k e u p a mother, p e r h a p s as a way of coping with the knowledge of how precarious a mother's existence m u s t b e when faced by the absence of a father a n d the m a n i c reparations of a d a u g h t e r identified with a father. Both s h e a n d the boy h a d been through a breakdown. She was r u m i n a t i n g over the making of the world with him a n d in so doing considering the a t m o s p h e r e s a n d places t h a t m a k e u p the presence of a n u r t u r i n g mother. "Would you have a lake on a m o u n t a i n if, say, the m o u n t a i n were not a n extinct volcano?", s h e asks, in discussion of the dream. These were semi-geological enquiries, fascinating in their own right, b u t they were also emotional questions a b o u t the n a t u r e / g e n e s i s of feelings, questions a b o u t the site of the u t e r u s or the place of tears in a

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mother. In practice, p a r e n t s may represent the creationist powers in a family. But u n d e r certain c i r c u m s t a n c e s the child in its play (often with its mother) will become the creator through speculation discovering a n d inventing the rich sites a n d a t m o s p h e r e s of a mother or a universe.

A world in winter is not a world that h a s "forgotten" s u m m e r ; it is a world t h a t s u m m e r h a s left a n d to which it m a y never return. Dionysus m u s t descend into the lake a t Lerna in order to retrieve h i s mother; s u c h is the act of recollection t h a t discovers the circlings of intelligence in the vestiges a n d t h i n k s of memory losses a s kingdoms t h a t sink into the Atlantic. The changes of the earth are so slow in comparison to the duration of our lives, that they are overlooked; and the migration of people after great catastrophes, and their removal to other regions, cause the event to be forgotten. Aristotle Meteorology, 2: 14-16 [cf. Lyell, 1840, p. 22] Measuring the s p a n of a h u m a n life a n d placing events within it, the self thinks to gain partial m a s t e r y over "the duration of our lives". If it s u p p o s e s memory to be the capacity to retain the self's experiences in facsimile, t h e n memory is a s determined a s this m e a s u r i n g way of looking a t experience. The notion of temporal changes t h a t are not contained within this system b e c a u s e their p u l s e is different from h u m a n intuition, or contain losses so catastrophic that no mind c a n register them, does n o t imply t h a t n a t u r e is mindless, nor t h a t its chronology is alien to the conceptions of h u m a n history; it s u p p o s e s a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g of mind t h a t does not derive from the consolations a n d ambitions of the self. The world h a s n o memory a n d m a k e s no recognitions. Leontes in The Winter's Tale m u s t suffer a similar c o n s e q u e n c e b e c a u s e of his jealousy, dramatized by his limbo-like disapp e a r a n c e from the action during the middle r e a c h e s of the play. In Lyell's view, the world does n o t know a b o u t p a s t a n d future. It does n o t have an experience in time; it is like m i n d only insofar a s the mind is psychotic. The s e a u n d e r m i n e s cliffs, a n d land buckles: b u t in m e t a p h o r only can the world b e said

to e n d u r e or change u n d e r stressunless, that is, one takes the m e t a p h o r literally a n d conceives of the world a s a soul that w a n d e r s t h r o u g h the underworld. Fossils are n o t memory traces; to see t h e m a s s u c h is to see t h e m a s vagaries of the Zeus imagination, a s p e r h a p s Leonardo does w h e n h e considers them a s shells "formed in the hills by the influence of the stars" (Lyell, 1840, p. 34). A glowing s t a r falls t h r o u g h the night, buries itself in a mountainside, and, growing dormant, becomes a fossil. Similarly, the stone s t a t u e of Hermione, who h a d been p r e s u m e d dead, t u r n s out to be a living presence in The Winters Tale, in a m o m e n t of recognition t h a t is unlike a recollection. Recognition is something other t h a n recollection; it is a r e t u r n of the dead, a transforming of the vestiges by the Platonic demiurge. Mythology h a s little place for memory; b u t through glances a n d gleams a n d glints it is h a u n t e d by m o m e n t s of recognition. Lyell (1840) describes the world's p a s t without m a n in t e r m s of a gynaecological creationism: The waters are represented to have poured out of an oven; a strange fable, said to be borrowed from the Persian Magi, who represented them as issuing from the oven of an old woman. Some people think of nature as "in the act of parturition", or compare Noah's Flood to "a common menstruum" or "chaotic fluid", [pp. 32, 76, 85] When Lyell writes a b o u t the sea a s destroying the land, or the l a n d a s swelling out of the sea, or the sea or land "swallowing" each other, h e raises the possibility that in time, a n d u n d e r certain circumstances, thoughts are whittled away in mind, or forgotten, or discovered like some archipelago t h a t h a s appeared out of the waters over-night. Naturalists visit the archipelago a n d formulate theories a b o u t its existence. A t h o u g h t surfaces in mind, a n d thinkers swarm to it. formulating theories. Or a n island disappears. You draw the curtains b a c k one morning a n d find that the world h a s vanished: it takes a m o m e n t for you to realize t h a t fog wreathes the window, or t h a t snow h a s fallen a n d obliterates familiar places. Remembering or forgetting (worlds) is like trying to hold onto a figure in a dream t h a t may represent the ebb a n d flow of p h a n t o m

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tides. Lyell (1840, p . 33) cites a story from the Arab writer Mohammed Kazwini in which a n imaginary a n d god-like observer keeps r e t u r n i n g to the s a m e place every five h u n d r e d years. E a c h time the place changes: once it is a lively metropolis, a n o t h e r time a field, then once more a city. Each time the observer a s k s the people of this place a b o u t the past, a b o u t w h a t h a d b e e n there t h e previous time h e h a d visited it. They always profess ignorance a b o u t the p a s t . This is like Aristotle's "migration of people after great catastrophes, a n d their removal to other regions, [which causes] the event to b e forgotten". The god-like observer is the conscious m i n d t h a t pities u n c o n s c i o u s mind's reluctance to dwell in other t h a n n o w n e s s . Unconscious mind does not u n d e r s t a n d , does n o t w a n t or need to know the information a b o u t the p a s t that conscious m i n d retains. Clearly there is force in the idea t h a t things a p p e a r a n d disappear; a n d a curious likeness is discovered between losing things a n d forgetting things, though these are quite s e p a r a t e types of events. There is j u s t as m u c h force in t h e idea t h a t things t h a t seem to a p p e a r a n d disappear in some u n a s c e r t a i n able way continue to persist a n d cannot be denied. Where has the tree gone, that locked/Earth to the sky? Meanings ebb a n d flow in the mind. A poet of the u n b o r n h i n t s at w h a t might have been. In visiting a c h u r c h , h e m a r k s the spot where life h a s drained away. A w o m a n marries; a n d h e writes a tribute to h e r discarded maiden n a m e . It is a s though, through the negative, h e glimpses the alien positive. Childless, wifeless, h e constantly h i n t s a t a world where things are, b u t n o t for him. He is blitzed like a foetus in miscarriage by acts of extinction, which in other c i r c u m s t a n c e s might have b e e n thoughts. The emptiness of a n o r t h e r n hotel by night is alive with a life t h a t is not actually therethe fingerings of air, water, a n d light.

The infant's need to confuse the nature of space in its mouth with the space in the mother's breasts (representing two wombs, each containing a twin) as one of the first embodiments of the relationship of microcosm to macrocosm. Infants who think to triumph over their mothers by ascribing the creativity of the womb to their mouths.

o u t h m a y equate itself with womb on the b a s i s t h a t womb can renew lifeits capacity being idealized a s a form of immortality or cloning magic. "In general, anyone who c a n exhale h i s soul is a magician. This soul is his double, a transient materialisation of his breath" (Mauss, 1950, p. 27). In b r e a t h i n g o u t b u b b l e life, a magician u s e s m o u t h a s womb: m o u t h a n d womb invite psychotic equation by way of the fact t h a t b o t h are able to inflict a "biting" pain. A. B. Cook believed t h a t Hesiod's gap might have b e e n "a gaping or yawning m o u t h " (1940, p. 1039). Piaget asked a boy where h e dreamt, a n d the boy answered: in my m o u t h . By analogy, consider a twenty-six-year-old m a n whose equipment of thought is still somewhat fixed in this buccal phase so that the theatre of thought has not yet become located in his dream life but is still in his mouth during waking hours. . . . If the buccal cavity is his theatre of thought, anything happening in his mouth might be ex119

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pected to have the same impact on his view of the self and world as we are accustomed for dreams to have. [Meltzer, 1986, p. 180] Conceivably the boy who spoke to Piaget t h o u g h t of h i s m o u t h a s being a glowing magic temple whose walls h a d the capacity to generate immortality (fertility being ascribed to skin). The dead a n d u n b o r n exist in a s h a d o w cave, which t h e tongue-magician hopes to bring alive. Tongue equated with nipple takes over the space associated with the u t e r u s : it becomes u t e r u s - m o u t h . The acquiring of speech a u g m e n t s this belief; b u t guilt is also mobilized. The tongue can find itself cast in the role of a sacrificial victim threatened by the arrival of teeth. The concept of m o u t h that dreams is a rationalization of the need to cope with the imbalance between empty m o u t h a n d creative u t e r u s . Empty m o u t h h a s to steal or plagiarize creativity, a n unsatisfactory way of digesting anything, b u t at least the food gets in. Someone h a s to pay the price. A dream m o u t h c a n function like a prison, renewing itself by working a scapegoat system, with t h e tongue a s victim. An idiom c a t c h e s the p e r s e c u t e d caution t h a t workers in this system know well: I could have bitten my tonguemeaning I should have held b a c k my malevolence, I should p u n i s h myself for my malevolence, better to p u n i s h myself t h a n bite the h a n d t h a t feeds me. The prison system can b e idealized a s a c h u r c h in which profanityfragmented bits of n o u r i s h m e n t , aftertastes, obscenitiesare consecrated by a rite t a n t a m o u n t to a Eucharist. Food, s o u n d s , speech r e t u r n to their rightful condition, which is to b e holy a s well a s wholesome. The m o u t h thinks to have r e c a p t u r e d the creative process: it thinks itself to be a dream site that generates symbols. In s t a t e s of degradation, when everything is in bits, there is one way in which it is possible to r e t u r n to the sacred primal condition: a n d t h a t is by the act of sacrifice. Something living m u s t b e offered u p in expiation or gift to the s o u r c e of the sacred. The tongue m u s t be offered u p in sacrifice to the teeth; a n d if this thought is too uncomfortable, then tongue m u r d e r can be projected into a mother's u t e r u s a s a p h a n t a s y a b o u t baby m u r d e r in the parental intercourse.

In the one-time aborigine rites of central Australia, fathers of t h e tribe initiated young m e n into adulthood by way of painful genital mutilation: the cutting of the initiate's penis reenacted the womb-devourings of the birth process a n d the "biting-off" of the cord. The ancestors dreamed into existence t h e forms of t h e physical world, a n d t h r o u g h the d r e a m totem a n i m a l s communicated a n inheritance of biting. In no way different from the writers of the ancient Dionysiac theatre, the fathers of the tribe were explicit a b o u t the oral significance of sacrifice. In the initiation rites, two m e m b e r s of the eagle-hawk tribe wore elaborate m a s k s a n d disguised themselves a s eagle-hawks. Each man had his arms extended and carried a little bunch of eucalyptus twigs. They were supposed to represent two eagle-hawks quarrelling over a piece of flesh, which was represented by the downy mass in one man's mouth. At first they remained squatting on their shields, moving their arms up and down, and, still continuing this action, which was supposed to represent the flapping of wings, they jumped off the shields and, with their bodies bent and arms extended and flapping, began circling around each other as if each were afraid of coming to close quarters. Then they stopped and moved a step or two at a time, first to one side and then to the other, until finally they came to close quarters and began fighting with their heads for the possession of the piece of meat. . . . The attacking man at length seized with his teeth the piece of meat and wrenched it out of the other man's mouth. [Spencer & Gillen, 1927, p. 244] Initiates achieved qualification as medicine m e n by sleeping close to the m o u t h of a cave fourteen miles s o u t h of Alice Springsin trepidation usually, b e c a u s e they believed t h a t the cave was inhabited by ancestral spirits. H u m a n beings who entered the interior of the cave were thought to disappear forever. The act of symbolic death in this rite of p a s s a g e w a s focused on tongue r a t h e r t h a n on penis mutilation. It was a s s u m e d t h a t a spirit would leave the cave a t day-break, a n d t h a t it would throw "an invisible lance" a t the initiate, if it should find him asleep. The lance would pierce his neck from behind, p a s s through the tongue, making a large hole, a n d

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then come out of his m o u t h (Spencer & Gillen, 1899, pp. 5 2 3 524). A second lance pierced the m a n from ear to ear, a n d h e w a s t h o u g h t to die. The cave-spirits would carry h i m into the cave, a hallucinatory place of perpetual s u n s h i n e a n d r u n n i n g waters, a n d they would remove his internal organs, replace t h e m with a new set, a n d place magic stones inside him, condensations of celestial light, intended to combat the forces of evil within him. When h e awoke from sleep, h e was often found to b e insane. With the passing of time, the insanity would lessen, a n d h e would be acknowledged a medicine m a n . Epimenides came by his religious skills by m e a n s of lying a t midday in the cave of the Diktaean Zeus a n d thinking to sleep for m a n y years. He dreamt of meeting with the gods a n d with T r u t h a n d J u s t i c e a s actual beings. As a d o r m a n t tongue asleep for years in the cave-mouth, h i s situation evokes the pre-verbal period in infancy. Mouth-dreamers do n o t see their inspiration coming from outside them; they think of the u t e r u s a s being a s i m u l a c r u m of their own m o u t h s .

in a parcel of skin, a n d h e keeps the best m e a t for the other people a t the feast. 2. Zeus realizes h e h a s been cheated. This is presented a s a n amazing discovery, though common sense would suggest t h a t Zeus h a d only to open the parcel to realize he h a s been cheated. Zeus takes revenge on Prometheus a n d his tribe by withholding the power of fire from m a n k i n d . Prometheus retaliates by stealing fire from Zeus's domain a n d so restores h i s authority a s the benefactor of h u m a n i t y . 3. Zeus takes revenge for a second time by having Prometheus b o u n d to a rock in the C a u c a s u s . An eagle eats Prometheus's liver b y day; a n d the liver re-grows by night. The high priest h a s now become the sacrificial victim, b u t within a cyclical process by which it is possible to imagine the sacrificial victim to b e a participant in a n initiation rite a n d a g u a r d i a n of the sacred. Mouths t h a t appropriate the power of dreaming from the couple are b o u n d to work within a cyclical model. The tongue is destroyed b y t h e nipple-teeth, b u t then is restored a n d can once m o r e speak eloquentlyas tongues of fire, p e r h a p s . I w a n t to look a t the myth u n d e r the following headings: the totemic significance of Zeus; the m e a n i n g of the inedible food; the m e a n i n g of the stolen fire.

Hesiod's two versions of the Prometheus legend bring o u t the n a t u r e of initiation rites. The conflict between P r o m e t h e u s a n d Zeus is a sparring m a t c h in four r o u n d s : Hesiod does n o t refer to the central religious creationist myth t h a t m a k e s s e n s e of the sparring match. 1 1. Prometheus is the high priest, medicine m a n , or trickster who presides over the sacrifice. He knows t h a t Zeus will attend the sacrificial meal. For r e a s o n s u n k n o w n , h e decides to trick Zeus; h e gives him b o n e a n d fat wrapped u p

The totemic

significance

of

Zeus

'"When we hear that the Titans dismembered Dionysus, that they cooked his limbs in a cauldron in order to eat them, that Zeus sent a goddess, Athena, to take the essential of that horrible food from them, namely the heart, and that Zeus inflicted on them punishments in the underworld that recall those inflicted on the Indo-European demons who tried to steal the immortal's food, it does seem likely that there is a mixture here of Zagrean and Ambrosian themes" (Dumezil. 1924, p. 115).

In the first instance h e carries projections that have a way of retaliating on the projector. He carries the projection of being a mouthspecifically, teeth t h a t eat babies b e c a u s e they are rivals a n d b e c a u s e they are delicious. In some m y t h s h e eats h i s own children. His function in the theory of m o u t h a s dreamsite is to confuse tongue a n d nipple; h e exorcizes a n d consecrates by biting the tongue. He a p p e a r s later in the myth in totemic form a s the eagle t h a t eats Prometheus's liver. The eagle resembles the aborigine

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cave spirits, who take out the internal organs of the noviciate medicine m a n , b e c a u s e they are organs limited to s e n s u o u s u n d e r s t a n d i n g . Correspondingly, the nightly re-growth of the liver is similar to the medicine m a n ' s internalizing of new bodily organs t h a t restore foetal intuition, the reasoning of pre-birth, reason a s logos, the faculty to intuit universality in experience, the divine patterning t h a t waits to be evoked in the vestiges of nature. Noticeably, the theory denies a n y recognition to o t h e r n e s s a s a factor in psychic transformation; it denies reality to the internal couple a s originator of meanings. It effectively throws light on the n a t u r e of integration a n d division, a s becomes a p p a r e n t if we move to:

The meaning

of the inedible

food

The parcel of bone a n d fat t h a t P r o m e t h e u s gives to Zeus a t the feast recalls the extrusions that owls p u t out after they have eaten their prey. Its inedibility sets u p a hard-soft cont r a s t with Prometheus's soft liver, which resembles a n edible tongue. Robertson Smith (1894) discusses a celebrated case in the third-century writings of St. Nilus, in which a group of m e n in the desert were compelled to devour by rite a n entire camel, including its bones a n d fat, between the sign of first light a n d the rising of the s u n (p. 338). S u c h a devouring, incredible in its a p p a r e n t ingestion of gristle a n d bone, unites the eating of raw m e a t with the a p p e a r a n c e of fire in the sky. In order for something new to occurthe emerging s u n being linked, perhaps, to the vision of a new babyit would seem that a representation of the new, the sacrificial victim, m u s t first b e devoured. In h i s s t u d y of totemism, Claude Levi-Strauss (1964) investigates two m y t h s that are informative a b o u t the m e a n i n g of the inedible. He compares the myth of a Tikopia god who c h e a t s h u m a n beings of a prize of food a n d who therefore m u s t be given some inedible fruit (p. 26) to a n Objibwa god whose unveiled eyes strike dead a h u m a n beingit is a s if h e h a d

b e e n "struck by one of the t h u n d e r e r s " (p. 19). In LeviS t r a u s s ' s view, b o t h these legends concerning disablement relate to some failing in symbolization t h a t obliges m a n to seek compensation for loss in metaphorical systems of communication. Man c a n only tolerate the dangerous powers of divinity in m a s k e d forms. Metaphor a n d mythic thinking are forms of insulation against Zeus's thunderbolt. In other words, the immortal is a condition of u n i n t e r r u p t e d reverie t h a t can only be retrieved in post-birth by a healing of t h e s c h i s m t h a t occurs a t birth, in which a m o t h e r a n d infant have been t r a n s m u t e d into a couple t h a t carries psychosis. By the antithetical n a t u r e of primary ideas, inedible food is syno n y m o u s and opposed to stolen fireas signs in mathematics: this being a myth a b o u t addition a s well a s subtraction. T h e inedible food, a s a principle of integration, is the m e a n s by which two separated entities are added together, while the stolen fire, particularly in the form of Zeus's lightning, m a r k s the emergence of the divisive duality of twinship. On one level, the inedible food invites some thought on the relationship between h a r d a n d soft in the m o u t h , teeth, a n d tongue, the ability to differentiate c o n s o n a n t s from vowels. B u t this distinction does n o t account for the association of inedibility with the gods. The softness of the sacrifice is laid on the h a r d n e s s of the altar, a b o u n d a r y between the profane a n d the sacred, a stone hermes t h a t m a r k s the end of one estate a n d the beginning of another. Inedibility is associated with t h e divine b e c a u s e it indicates the s u r e n e s s of m e a s u r e a n d boundary. Among the aborigine the parcel of inedible food takes the form of churingasbits of stone or pieces of wood of the u t m o s t sacrality, with the power to transmit the spirit of the ancestors. The churingas embody the continuity of a n u n i n t e r r u p t e d d r e a m reverie, which s u s t a i n s the p r e s e n t relationship of physical objects to the primal dream source of the first creation; they contain the m a d n e s s - i n d u c i n g "bite", the electricity of the sacred, t h a t is synonymous with the cutting of the d r e a m cord. Touching churingas, a n d r u b b i n g the body with them, is important in initiation rites: a tactile way of communicating with the spiritual resources of the tribe.

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In another form, the parcel of inedible food becomes the r e m n a n t s of the birth process, the embalmed placenta a n d umbilical cord, through which the living p h a r a o h keeps in communication with his alter-ego twin in the world of the dead. It is essential that the reborn self should not lose touch with the self that h a s symbolically died, otherwise the dead self will b e dangerous. This is the feared meaning of the birth schism, in which the couple t h o u g h t to have b e e n devoured by the birth process is relegated to the psychotic conditions of the underworld. Any p a r t of the self t h a t symbolically is thought to have died is liable to b e a n antagonist to well-being, to the extent t h a t it r e m a i n s unacknowledged a s a presence in the inner world. It m a y (if only provisionally) be identified with damaged p e r s o n s in the outside world, which h a u n t the living self a s blackmailer a n d murderer. But how should we u n d e r s t a n d the primal m e a n i n g of psychic division, the act of symbolic d e a t h ? This brings u s to:

d r e a m s r a t h e r t h a n babies. Among the Macha peoples of Bolivia, lightning is identified with the a p p e a r a n c e of harelips a n d the m a k i n g of twins: it is as though the lightning were divisive flashes b o t h in a m o u t h a n d in a womb. It is said that if a pregnant woman is frightened by thunder and lightning, the child in her belly divides into two. I was recently told that twins are sometimes born with lips split vertically down the middle; this, too, is attributed to the fear caused by the thunder and lightning. [Levi-Strauss, 1987, p. 209/h.] Division c a n n o t b e stopped once twoness h a s appeared. The inimical is the first dyad, the splitting into the forked tongue t h a t mocks the two nipples. The fire t h a t Prometheus steals is sky fire, a n intimation of dangerous electricity. It is associated with m o u t h in states of psychotic depression. Patients a t the end of sessions can feel a n excruciating pain in their m o u t h s a n d m a y even feel t h a t their tongues are being pulled out. They think t h a t the nipple t h a t leaves t h e m is a p a r t of their own body being ripped from them; a n d this pain invites a further confusion with biting, ulceration, a n d other fiery forms of pain in the m o u t h . In the aborigine initiation rites, boys are removed from m a t e r n a l space; they m u s t die in order to be reborn in paternal space. In The Bacchae, Zeus kills Dionysus's mother, the pregn a n t Semele, with a flash of lightning a n d places the foetus of Dionysus into a thigh-womb analogous to the m o u t h a s dream site, or the churingas of the aborigine, or the p h a r a o h ' s u s e of his own placenta a n d umbilical cord a s talismans: links to the world of the dead a n d the u n b o r n . Using the m o u t h a s a dream site h a s its imaginative value; it is a way of being in contact with the other world, the creative place within the mother. Dionysus, the patron god of the d r a m a , is identifiable with a foetus who m u s t undergo two experiences of birthor, rather, h e undergoes a n interrupted pregnancy t h a t s e e m s like two births. In Pindar's variation on this m y t h (Pythian Ode 3), Zeus kills Asclepius with a bolt of lightning for having attempted to revive the dead. In Orphic myth, Zeus destroys by lightning the race of Titans for having dismembered, cooked, a n d eaten the infant Dionysus. These

The meaning

of the stolen

fire

In the beginning there is a n inward foetal vision of the shining skya vision that gives issue to the proportions of reason. The presence of the good objects can be a u g m e n t e d after the time of birth by the infant's mother, whose radiance feeds it. Sometimes the radiance may be felt to be too powerful to b e tolerated openly; the infant m a y think to have to steal t h e r a d i a n c e in order to b e able to metabolize it. This is analogous to the m a s k e d or metaphoric or mythic thinking t h a t Levi-Strauss (1964) describes. The shining sky takes on embodiment: Zeus in his m a n y forms, the divine baby a s well a s the father. Certain legends describe Zeus's fire as lightning: a n d the flash of lightning finds its magical reflection in the stoop of eagles (La Barre, 1972, p. 195/h.) a n d in the emergence of the binary. Levi-Strauss (1964) alludes to a n article by Tristan Piatt on mirror symmetry, in which the flash of lightning is identified with binary divisiona suggestion that h a s relevance to the idea of the m o u t h a s a purloined, surrogate womb t h a t creates

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are all myths concerning religious initiation or the crossing of the depressive threshold. The flash of lightning is the pain of death-in-life t h a t the initiate m u s t undergo while passing through the liminal p h a s e of the rite of passagea p h a s e t h a t the anthropologist Victor T u r n e r (1967) h a s thought to b e educative. The totem of Zeus a p p e a r s before the initiate, compounding m a n y themes, like a n African initiation-mask: m a n , sky, lightning, a n d animal m o u t h . The totem m a n a g e s to suggest the terrors of lightning a n d the contours of a n animal face a s well a s of a h u m a n face. Similarly, Melanie Klein sees a d r e a m image of a u r i n a l / vase/gas-mantlethe type of object agglomerating m a n y functions t h a t Bion later was to describe a s bizarreas a consequence of the transition between sign a n d symbolization t h a t m a r k s the beginnings of the j o u r n e y into depressive a w a r e n e s s (Klein, 1935, p. 279). Conceivably, the topographic value of the bizarre object a s lying between the radically dissimilar semantics of the paranoid-schizoid a n d the depressive positions is analogous to the liminal function of the African m a s k a n d may have a similar value a s a tool in education, a s s u m i n g (that is) that initiates can meet someone willing to i n s t r u c t t h e m in the translation of one type of m e a n i n g into the other. A m o u t h in communion with a mother's love takes on the a t m o s p h e r e of that love. But the infant can think to purloin its mother's capacity for creativity a n d to deny t h a t there might b e any difference between them. It can claim that its m o u t h , a n d not h e r womb, is the one site of procreation, a n d it can confuse the act of procreation with the ability to dream. S u c h a belief is instructive of Isakower's (1938) profound equation of infant-mouth with mother-skin, which a n infant may think is indistinguishable from its own skin. The infant may believe that its m o u t h ' s ability to exercise symbolism is u n b o u n d e d ; which is true, in the s e n s e that speech s e e m s to offer unlimited opportunities. B u t the belief h a s another aspect. By it, the nipple is denied reality, a n d m o u t h u s u r p s the territory of mother-skin, creating a geography where there is no b o u n d a r y stone, n o demarcation between estates, no altar identifiable with inedible foods. If this h a p p e n s , skin becomes a pale extension of the

infant's own m o u t h , a n ectoplasm or ghost tongue, a dream screen t h a t exudes like b r e a t h in a sub-zero temperature. This is n o t a s fantastic a s it may s o u n d : the novelist Proust imagined t h e world of recollection to e m a n a t e from a flavour in his mouth. It is possible to define dream in two ways. There is d r e a m t h a t occurs in a specific a n d b o u n d e d location: the mother's u t e r u s or, by misappropriation, the infant's m o u t h ; or d r e a m s t h a t seem to unscroll in a n u n b o u n d e d situation. An infant who experiences its mother's skin a s a n extension of its own reverie m a y confuse her skin with its own skin a n d imagine the skin t h a t swaddles its body a s being an extension of its mother's cradlings of it. Idealizations of the m o u t h a s d r e a m site c a n n o t be s u s tained b e c a u s e they are misappropriations. Idealizations collapse, a n d the m o u t h is understood to b e a place that h a s been desecrated. Hope of symbolization is disappointed: a n d m o u t h s p e a k s in lies a n d obscenity. In remorse, in a n atmosp h e r e in which love is absent, m o u t h becomes a punitive institution, a prison or a n altar. It bites the tongue. Only if the a t m o s p h e r e of love r e t u r n s , from some source recognized to be other t h a n the infant's self, will the s a c r e d n e s s of the m o u t h b e renewed. There is a s e n s e of r e t u r n to pre-birth a n d to the binding relationship of the cord. In a report on a tribe of Indians situated in Iowa. J . O. Dorsey refers to a n Indian who told a fellow worker: These are sacred things, and I do not like to speak of them, as it is not our custom to do so, except when we make a feast and collect the people and use the sacred pipe. [Dorsey, 1894, p. 430]

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perfect looking-glass; save only that my books on the side shelves of the room were lettered, as it were, on their backs with stars. |S. T. Coleridge, in Rooke, 1969, pp. 144-145]

'The membrane": an infant's surrogate for the umbilical cord, a form ofLewin's dream screen, sometimes represented by a look in a mother's eyes, which can communicate liturgical meanings as well as immediate thoughts and feelings. A dream that pivots on the significance of a view through a window. The dream concerns the appropriation of the breast and the transmission of death and madness into a twin self dispatched into the underworld. A later dream describes a reversal: the banished twin self manages to take control once more of the dream narrative.

The window of my library at Keswick is opposite to the fire-place, and looks out on the very large garden that occupies the whole slope of the hill on which the house stands. Consequently, the rays of light transmitted through the glass (i.e. the rays from the garden, the opposite mountains, and the bridge, river, lake, and vale interjacent) and the rays reflected from it (of the fire-place, &c.) enter the eye at the same moment. At the coming of evening, it was my frequent amusement to watch the image or reflection of the fire, that seemed to burn in the bushes or between the trees in different parts of the garden or the fields beyond it, according as there was more or less light; and which still arranged itself among the real objects of vision, with a distance and magnitude proportioned to its greater or lesser faintness. For still as the darkness increased, the image of the fire lessened and grew nearer and more distinct; till the twilight had deepened into perfect night, when all outward objects being excluded, the window became a 130

oleridge describes a naturalistic situation. The quality of h i s description suggests other meanings. It is a s though two different types of spatial being adhered to either side of the window. The two types of being are on the verge of becoming inside a n d outside space in psychic reality; b u t they are u n s t a b l e in relationship a n d continue to oscillate one with the other, like twins in a state of m u t u a l projective identification. In pre-birth the umbilical cord holds together the foetus a n d placenta a s though it were the window. B u t a reversal occurs, for w h a t is spiritual in post-birth is corporeal in pre-birth, a n d vice versa. The source of m e a n i n g in post-birth is body-centred a n d historical: hence the need for a concept of thought, or reverie, a s s t e m m i n g from bodily sensation. In Bion's (1962) theory of reverie, c a t a s t r o p h e e n s u e s when the infant's projections are n o t maternally received. Correspondingly, in prebirth. where t h o u g h t is disembodied in origin, a s in mythology, the interruption of reverie, experienced bodily a s the cutting of the cord, is registered a n d t h e n avoided b y the creation of a m e m b r a n e , which contains a n d s u b d u e s the violent impact of s e n s a a n d averts catastrophe. The existence of the m e m b r a n e allows the magical interaction of subject a n d object of the pre-birth to continue into post-birth life. The m e m b r a n e is a container of sensation. It is only tenuously derived from n a t u r a l objects, a n d then from elements, like water a n d air, that are the least associated with the corporeal. The Uitoto god s u s p e n d e d in space whose spit falls away from him a n d transforms into the world of sea, lakes, a n d land personifies the makings of a m e m b r a n e . The m e m b r a n e m a k e s contact: it operates by touch, a s though touch were not one of the senses, for the meaning of the m e m b r a n e is that it represents a n absence of sense informa-

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tion. It leaves traces or h a r d e n i n g in the form of the skin t h a t m a k e s u p the surface of mirrors, m a s k s , or water. The surfaces are dangerous b e c a u s e they t h r e a t e n a n end to magic a n d the emergence of a third dimension. 1. Developmentally, the m e m b r a n e is the agent b y which liturgical symbols communicate, a s w h e n eyes become windows for the soul, or m u s i c (as in the m u s i c of certain voices) becomes the food of love. To this extent, it is a b a s i s for the processes of recognition, which depends on post-birth s t a t e s of m i n d being able to carry the religious dimension of prebirth experience (as represented by the m o m e n t in S h a k e speare's The Winter's Tale when Leontes sees the s t a t u e of Hermione t u r n from s t o n e into flesh). 2. Anti-developmentally, the m e m b r a n e is the vehicle of omnipotent manipulation, the pivot on which reversals in perspective occur. By it, the newborn is able to continue to alternate self a n d object, so t h a t microcosm becomes macrocosm, or movement forward becomes movement backward, or the far becomes the near. The oscillation operates a double-time scheme, in which clocks c a n go forward or backward at the s a m e time, a n d in which the foetus impiously takes over any notion of the paternal function to further a state of triumph.

less (Lewis, 1971, p. 38).] The r h y t h m of the dance a n d the p r e s e n c e of the spider p o s s e s s the dancer a s a form of devouring, analogous to a t r a u m a . At a certain moment during the ceremony a young man wearing a red and yellow striped pullover appeared for a moment in the doorway. The tarantulist [a woman who had been bitten (symbolically or otherwise) by a spider and who was possessed by the spirit of the spider] was about to begin a new cycle in the dance. She immediately became very agitated and lost the rhythm of the music. She showed quite clearly that she felt that the bond between her and the musicians had been broken. The assistants moved to the door and cursed the unfortunate young man, who fled. She rocked aimlessly, dissociated from the music. The only way to bring her into its orbit once more was to throw yellow and red ribbons at her. Someone was dispatched to get the ribbons. She ignored yellow ribbons when they were thrown on their own, but she took hold of the ribbons when red ones were mixed with them. She stared avidly at them, as though wishing to absorb their colours. She tore at the ribbons with her teeth and began to enter into the movements of the dance once more, allowing the musicians, who all this while had been playing aimlessly, to regain their hold over her. [De Martino, 1966, pp. 70-71] Implicitly, in intrusive identification, the tarantulist takes over her m o t h e r ' s pregnancy (the bite being a sexual conception in which the father bites or devours or possesses the m o t h e r ' s insides, the exorcism by music being the a t t e m p t to abort the foetus). The sight of the young m a n a n d the threatened emergence of a n awareness of inside-outside (he is seen three-dimensionally through a doorway) precipitates the belief t h a t h e is a foetus in the mother, truly imaginary in the sense of being the m o s t a u t h e n t i c of beings, who continues to exist in spite of the dancer's delusory denial of his autonomy a n d of his right to maternal protection. His presence, which depends on a certain conception of three-dimensional space, u n d e r m i n e s the dancer's p h a n t a s y of abortion, in which the liturgical experience of music is u s e d a s the m e m b r a n e b y which s h e controls reality. Only by biting

I w a n t to look a t a situation t h a t is anti-developmental, a n d in which oral a n d kinaesthetic s e n s a t i o n s exist in s y n a e s t h e s i a a n d discharge into aural or visual modalities without discrimination. The m e m b r a n e that holds this incongruous s t a t e of affairs together consists of s o u n d as a n attribute of m o u t h , a s t h o u g h s o u n d were a kind of skin. Specifically, the m e m b r a n e arises from a p u l s e in music t h a t flows without c o n t a i n m e n t into biting a n d m u s c u l a r s e n s a t i o n s a n d into the movements of a dance in which the dancer is equated b o t h with the dance a n d with a totemic presence, a spider whose bite is mythic in its capacity to poison. [There are two k i n d s of t a r a n t u l a spider. The one credited with the capacity to poison is, in fact, h a r m -

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the ribbons, which are identified with t h e foetus, is s h e able to re-establish the rite of abortion. The m e m b r a n e functions in this magic a s the cord w a s once thought to do. It establishes congruences in m e a n i n g (i.e. the red a n d yellow of the pullover being equated with t h e yellow a n d red ribbons), whose meaning is diminished when the inside a n d outside distinction Is admitted to. The m e m b r a n e carries the interruption of the birth crisis within it. It holds in check the violent sensations t h a t the infant h a d projected into it at the time of the birth crisis; as a container of the sacred, it insulates against danger, a s though the sacred were u n i n s u l a t e d electricity. The m e m b r a n e holds within it a n experience of interruption, a flaw or wound or m o u t h , which is indistinguishable from the dreaded presence of the perfect baby. The conflict in interest between the m e m b r a n e u s e d a s a n agent for liturgical symbolism a n d a s a m e a n s to control reality was evident in the dream of a woman who felt confined b y internal persecutors a n d obsessional manoeuvres. An actual experience of persistent paternal violation in h e r early years (though n o t overt sexual abuse) h a d a d d e d s u p p o r t to her unquestioned a s s u m p t i o n that to be born w a s to enter the c l a u s t r u m a n d to be in utero w a s possibly to enjoy the s u s t e n a n c e of a n impersonal a n d visionary m e m b r a n e object. On one occasion s h e talked of a "bubble theatre". In the dream s h e was looking a t a view through a traincompartment window. She described the window t h r o u g h which s h e looked a s a screen. She did not m a k e a distinction between the t r a n s p a r e n c y of the glass surface of a window a n d the opacity or semi-opacity of a screen. In the s a m e session s h e talked of looking into the eyes of one of her babiesher second sonand thinking to see all wisdom there. If the light filtered through a screen is related to the prebirth experience of light glowing through a uterine wall, while the view through the train window is associated with post-birth experiences of looking through, or into, a n object, then the eye a s a m o d e t h a t communicates m e a n i n g a n d feeling in the h e r e a n d now can be taken a s the agent that reveals pre-birth

m e a n i n g (wisdom) in a post-birth situation. It is the foremost communicator of liturgical insight. The situation of looking through the window, when associated to screen a n d eye, takes on the meaning of a m e m b r a n e , which contains t h e sensations of breakdown in birth.

S h e presented herself a s having been u n b o r n or, r a t h e r (as s h e h a d been b o r n on Christmas Eve), a s having been born a s a u s u r p e r of the holy child. The account s h e gave of her earliest years w a s appalling a n d r a n g true. She was the target of h e r father's sadism, a n d s h e was in various ways tortured a n d degraded by her siblings a n d the n u n s at convent school. E d u c a t e d a n d articulate, s h e conveyed the belief t h a t all knowledge was a cage. The experiences s h e described tended to be s e n s u o u s l y disagreeable. Someone h a d s c r u b b e d away the bloom. S e n s e information, atmospheres, climates were seldom m o r e t h a n verbal referents. If s h e touched something, it tended to b e either too h o t or too cold. There was seldom pleasurable contact, or fragrance, or resonance. It was a s though s h e h a d b e e n confined to a cold hospital ward during the darkest days of t h e Second World War; on t h e floor a worn linoleum smelt of disinfectant. One evening s h e told me that s h e could not stop thinking a b o u t the period of time that h a d p a s s e d since our last session together. S h e gave a detailed account of the last session, as t h o u g h still holding on to it. The telling h a d the feel of a lifeless object, a rind, something to hold on to until we meet again, a something t h a t could not b e brought b a c k to life. S h e was intensely depressed. I wondered whether s h e was using words in t h e way s h e did to hold off a conscious awareness of h e r depression. S h e said s h e was so u n h a p p y ; a n d then s h e entered into a long silence. It felt a s though her verbal self h a d b e e n brutally s h o r n away from her. Two m i n u t e s before the end of t h e session, s h e gave a cry of p a i n a n d began to sob. I h a d the belief t h a t if we ended then I would be taking her off a lifes u p p o r t system. S h e told me that s h e h a d lost something. She did n o t know w h a t it was: the loss w a s dreadful. The next day s h e said t h a t before our previous session s h e h a d been for a walk in the p a r k nearby. S h e h a d felt in distress

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while contemplating the varied n a t u r e of the early s u m m e r light on the leaves, intensities of green light on green leaves. It occurred to m e that s h e was describing the coming to the fore in her mind of a n experiencelight, p u r e lightthat might take her mind over entirely. At the time I thought this might have been a p r a m experience; later I thought t h a t it w a s a case of a pre-birth experience breaking through, of light shining through the uterine screen; a n d even later, I came to a n o t h e r view. At the m o m e n t s h e could see only a n impersonal vision. S h e talked a b o u t the mulberry tree in her p a r e n t s ' garden, a b o u t which s h e h a d felt ecstatic as a child. Without conscious intention, s h e h a d moved from the experience of universals to a n experience of particular things. A "realistic" voice within h e r said t h a t h e r p a r e n t s ' garden h a d b e e n shabby. Two voices in herthe voice of ecstasy a n d the voice of disillusionnow divided; a n d the second of them went into one of h e r brothers, who h a d been virtually destroyed b y their father's brutality. S h e recalled recently visiting h e r brother, w h e n h e w a s dying. They h a d sat together in the grounds of the hospital on a warm evening, a n d s h e h a d said, "Look! There's a mulberry tree!" He h a d been so distanced from the experiencehe h a d said, a s though it were so remote from him, "Wasn't there a mulberry tree in our p a r e n t s ' garden?" The mulberry tree t h a t h a d been almost a god to her h a d been no more t h a n a dim memory to him. S h e found this very painful. Exacdy a week after the occasion w h e n s h e h a d wept without being able to articulate the experience of light, at the s a m e time in the evening, we met again, a n d s h e found herself in a similar frame of mind. S h e was barely able to speak. S h e felt guilty. S h e h a d been remiss about something, b u t a b o u t w h a t s h e could not be sure. A remark, which s h e thought was Churchill's, a b o u t the lights going out over Europe came to mindshe related it to the time of the Dunkirk retreat. I asked her w h e t h e r this r e m a r k took her close to memories of her brother's death (not the mulberry-tree brotheranother brother, loved passionately a n d idealized by the family, killed by s h r a p n e l j u s t after the Dunkirk retreat: family life h a d ended then, s h e said; h e r

m o t h e r h a d continued to live for a n o t h e r twenty years, b u t without a n y h e a r t in it). S h e said, yes, her brother h a d died a b o u t t h a t time, on active duty, w h e n the lights h a d gone out over Europe. When h e r other brother h a d recently died, his widow h a d given her a b u n d l e of wartime letters written by the brother who h a d died in the war to the brother who h a d continued to live. She h a d b e e n moved by the letters a n d felt herself to b e no longer the youngest child in the family; s h e h a d thought of herself a s a m u c h older person, being allowed some glimpse into the friendship of two young people. She h a d lost a great deal that h a d been good in herself (often t h r o u g h jealousy; s h e h a d a way of replacing memories of the beloved brother, beloved of h e r m o t h e r a s well a s of herself, b y memories of the damaged, despondent brother, a b o u t whom n o n e could b e jealous). Seeing the lights in the p a r k h a d wrenched her h e a r t b e c a u s e grief, the m o u r n i n g process, h a d been re-activated. It w a s painful to discover t h a t s h e was n o t a discarded thing, a n u n b o r n : t h a t s h e w a s someone who might have a life a s a creative being. Seeing the light in the park, re-entering a n a b a n d o n e d process of grief, was not to engage in an empirical enterprise: even if s h e h a d been blind, s h e might have seen the light. In a s e n s e s h e h a d been blind, or at least sightless in her seeing, for s h e h a d seen the light without perceiving its connection with grief, and, without perceiving the connection, s h e h a d lost the light. Only in our meetings together was it possible for her to discover a n experience that let the blood flow through the arteries of h e r grief; a n d yet the experience might have lain there u n a t t e n d e d for ever. The fact t h a t the experience h a d occurred recently w a s neither here nor there. She might have found it without ever having undergone it. The notion that the only language of expressiveness we have in deposit is the language of experience, of something that h a s been through the physiological system, whether endured or not, is more fragile in its certainty t h a n the dogmatic assertion of it often allows. It might b e said, to u s e a n outworn idiom, that light is a function of the soul, without which the soul would perish. The fact t h a t light is a n indispensable adjunct to n a t u r e is a bless-

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ing; b u t this fact is not essential to the life of the mind in which light h a s other meanings.

Some time passed. One day s h e told me s h e h a d joined a n a r t classher material h a d implied t h a t this might come about, b u t when s h e mentioned it, s h e did so a s though to deflect persecutors by saying t h a t it h a d h a p p e n e d by chance. S h e did not w a n t to admit that our work together might have b r o u g h t her to the a r t class. Her interest in colour h a d been hinted a t in m a n y sessions over the years, b u t s h e h a d been u n a b l e to accept the possibility t h a t s h e might ever have some active relationship to colour. Now s h e h a d somehow managed to get a r o u n d h e r internal persecutors. She enjoyed the chatter a n d friendliness of the a r t room, a n d s h e felt as if s h e might be aged eleven once more. She w a s immersing herself in coloursthe glow a n d h u e a n d depth of the three primary coloursthere being s o m e link between the uterine light a n d patterning, the impersonal visionary wonder of pre-birth a n d of the view through a window t h a t is mythology giving way to history a n d the beginnings of knowledge by way of a mother's eyes. In h e r pre-birth s t a t e s h e was rediscovering the primary imagination, r e a s o n itself, the prime heritage of mind, the identification with the first m o m e n t of creation, which was at the core of the here a n d now. It is a s though s h e h a d begun to be able to sink into t h e different colour radiances provided by her three sessions in the week, the three primary colours symbolizing the different placings of the sessions in the week. Out of these places in time m a n y colour possibilities can be modulated. The colours are bodiless in their radiance: they allow you to enter t h e m a n d to b e enclosed by them. They are mythic r a t h e r t h a n historical entities in their capacity to transfigure one another, a s well a s anyone who enters them.

The evening before the morning session in which s h e told m e a b o u t joining the art class, s h e brought the dream of the train compartment window.

S h e found herself in the carriage of a train, the kind of carriage with tables on which you can rest your book. This is the kind of carriage s h e prefers. The window beside h e r offered a wide u n b r o k e n vista. Facing her w a s her daughter, V, who h a s h a d a history of mental instability. [She a n d her d a u g h t e r travelled in two different types of space; two p a r t s of the s a m e self, each with their own m e m b r a n e , weaving different conceptions of pre-birth reality.] The train w a s moving. She described the view s h e saw outside t h e window. Her description was r e s o n a n t : it b r o u g h t the view into the room. I could feel the view in the roomor, r a t h e r , I could see it, a s I might see the image of a setting when reading a novel. It w a s only four-thirty in the afternoon; outside the carriage window it w a s already dusk. Snow h a d fallen, a n d s h e saw people trudging through it. S h e thought of their wet feet a n d s h e imagined her own feet as getting wetas though the glass between h e r a n d them h a d thinned away. S h e projected dolefulness into the scene outside the train c o m p a r t m e n t window, which benevolently r e t u r n e d it to her, purged of despair, so t h a t now, through the window, s h e was able to see a n amazing sight: High in the m o u n t a i n s , the s u n w a s setting. Its light fell on a mountainside, which appeared to b e covered by t h o u s a n d s of small pieces of glass. It blazed with every possible colour. Astonished, s h e pointed out the view to h e r daughter, who shrugged a n d looked away from the window. Later, h e r daughter asked her w h a t w a s to be seen, a n d with regret s h e h a d to tell her daughter t h a t the view h a d now disappeared. The sight of green light on green leaves h a d overwhelmed h e r w h e n s h e h a d walked in the park, a n d s h e h a d been unable to speak. The equation of window-screen-eye seemed to contain a similar distress: b u t this was not so. For s h e h a d used the window a s a m e m b r a n e to control the relation of movem e n t within a n d without the carriage in order to appropriate a mother's experience of sexual passion (the view on the m o u n tain) a n d to p u t the incoherence associated with sexual t r a u m a into her daughter. In mythic terms, a recognition w a s achieved by projecting a state of symbolic death into someone else.

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The dreamer believed (and s h e m a y have b e e n right) t h a t h e r d a u g h t e r h a d to go m a d in order to be able to s p e a k out publicly a b o u t her father's a b u s e of her. In a n o t h e r version of this situation, which brought out her jealousy, s h e said: "I saw h i m sitting with h e r in front of the television. He w a s caressing h e r and, h a n d in pocket, was playing with his genitals." To be liberated from the experience of incest allows h e r to control the object b y way of the m e m b r a n e . In this s h e is n o different from the tarantulist. S h e controls the direction of space, time, a n d movement; if s h e did not do so, s h e would think to be devoured b y them, a s by jealousy or by a father's abuse.

conception of time, a n d in which the way out is n o t t h e gates of horn, t h e way of truthful dreams, b u t the gates of shining ivory t h r o u g h which lies p a s s . Dreams often reveal this deception. A m a n who was born with t h e cord a r o u n d his neck dreamt of being inside a pyramid. T h e interior was labyrinthine. A priest w a s leading h i m out of this place with false a s s u r a n c e s a s to his safety. A door opened in the darkness, a n d beyond he saw brilliant light. He stepped through the door a n d found himself on a scaffold, on which h e w a s a b o u t to b e executed.

A father hostile to birth will be t h o u g h t to be like Kronos who devours newborns, or the thunderbolt glare t h a t kills a pregn a n t mother a n d h e r foetus. Ideas of devouring time, of clocks t h a t reverse direction, of malignant wombs, come into being through s u c h possibilities. The foetus leaves the good womb to enter a g a p - m o u t h t h a t devours it. [The malignant womb may, in fact, b e the good one t u r n e d b a d if the traveller into b i r t h should b e so disturbed by the beginnings of the j o u r n e y down the birth p a s s a g e that h e t u r n s b a c k in t h o u g h t a t least to the place h e h a s j u s t left (vide p. 58). This, t h e first m o m e n t of projective identification, will never give b a c k the h o m e t h a t h a s been lost.] The d a u g h t e r p a r t of the dreamer declines to look t h r o u g h the train-compartment window b e c a u s e it r e p r e s e n t s the dreamer's m e m b r a n e , n o t hers; it shows for h e r a d a r k n e s s associated with a m u r d e r i n g father. In the p a r k one p a r t of h e r saw the light; b u t a n o t h e r p a r t of h e r saw a terrible d a r k n e s s b e c a u s e the light s h e h a d seen h a d been a n ecstasy stolen from her mother. To recognize t r u t h (which is to have insight) is u n c o n sciously to enter into a hopeful j o u r n e y into birth. B u t t h r o u g h a n intrusive identification with her m o t h e r in childbirth, s h e h a d entered into a negation of recognition, in which the act of being born was equated with the executing of a death sentence. To b e born in this way is to a s s u m e the fate of the twin who travels through a n underworld in which there is n o benevolent

Over a y e a r before the dream of the railway c o m p a r t m e n t window, the p a t i e n t b r o u g h t a series of d r e a m s that s h e u n d e r stood to b e a b o u t the onset of senility a n d death. In one of these d r e a m s s h e w a s being transported to a Nazi death c a m p in a taxi full of elderly people. The dreamer in this case was the psychotic d a u g h t e r p a r t of herself, who t h o u g h t t h a t in being born one is h a n d e d over to a Nazi father a n d p u t to death. To b e b o r n in this case w a s to enter a hostile m o u t h a n d to be devoured. The distress a t being s e p a r a t e d from the womb w a s experienced a s a devouring m o u t h a n d a s a n incestuous fusion, in which the newborn is swallowed u p inside her father's terrible insides. The idea of demarcation (in p h a n t a s y associated with the paternal) was now transformed into a black-hole experience, informative of the terror t h a t archaic m i n d s know a t any division of unity; it is analogous to sensations of being violated. In terms of the transference, the experience of a n incestuous fusion w a s acted out in a n u n u s u a l way. It took the form of a telepathic communication between patient a n d therapist, a b o u t which the patient did n o t know, a n d which was probably benign. The patient h a d a dream t h a t "answered" a problem in aesthetics t h a t the therapist h a d been puzzling overin other words, the p a t i e n t unconsciously took over a m a t e r n a l function for the therapist. In this case the m e m b r a n e was experienced a s carrying a liturgical symbol a n d not a s a m e a n s for psychic incest.

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Let me describe the problem before I describe h e r d r e a m . It arose from two facts associated with S h a k e s p e a r e ' s play, The Winter's Tale. From the mythological point of view, these two facts seemed related, though I could n o t see how they were related. AristoUe u n d e r s t a n d s plays to b e comparable to biological spontaneities whose movement into fulfilment is by way of a continuity in action. According to this criterion. The Winter's Tale is broken-backed a s a structure, since during its middle section its protagonist Leontes disappears from the action. In a state of delusional jealousy Leontes comes to believe t h a t his friend Polixenes h a s sired his son Mamillius. As a c o n s e q u e n c e of his actions, his son a n d his p r e g n a n t wife Hermione die (though Hermione only dies seemingly), a n d his newborn daughter Perdita is a b a n d o n e d on a distant shore. Sixteen years p a s s in the narrative: then Leontes r e t u r n s , though a s a n a t t e n d a n t to the action, as though h e were a m e m b e r of the audience. The issue that puzzled m e was whether Leontes's disappearance from the action was a flaw in some Aristotelian conception of dramatic action as modelled on the spontaneously a n d direct fulfilment of certain biological organisms (acorns into oaks), or whether it m a d e s e n s e a s a p r e t e r n a t u r a l s t r u c t u r e in reason, the rite of p a s s a g e of psychic death a n d rebirth a s a Platonic idea t h a t precedes a n y act of embodiment, a n d indeed in relation to which embodiment is n o more t h a n a n after-thought. One version of the idea would b e the myth of Dionysus's interrupted gestation. The two wombs Dionysus travels through in order to b e born, a n d the interruption of the birth process a s h e travels between them, is translatable into the infantile p h a n t a s y t h a t the "gap" between a mother's two breasts, each of which contains one of two identical twins, the two Dionysii (in strife, Dionysus a n d Pentheus; in amity, Pollux a n d Castor), is a place of psychic death. To b e able to relate one b r e a s t to the other by travelling in m i n d from one to the other would be one way of describing a stage in depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g . A historian, wishing to psychologize the audience's feelings a b o u t the a b s e n c e of Leontes from the middle p a r t of the action, might a r g u e t h a t Leontes's absence is like the absence of winter in s u m m e r ; it depicts, by

way of a s e n s e of absence, something of Leontes's p a r a n o i d schizoid state, his disavowal of responsibility, his spiritual a m n e s i a , his inability to m o u r n loss. But from a mythical point of view, Leontes's mental s t a t e s are incidental. The play is n o t "about" Leontes's mind a s a history in thought, described in t e r m s of the Aristotelian poetic a s u n d e r p i n n e d by the imperatives of biological fulfilment. The play's centre lies elsewhere. Its model is a Platonic idea, a n idea t h a t c a n be intuited in the forms of mathematical s t r u c t u r e and, especially, in the forms of music. The n a t u r e of the poetic connection between the weighty motif of Leontes's prolonged absence a n d the motif of transfiguration, in which the stone s t a t u e of his dead wife t u r n s into a living being, is comparable to the aesthetic effect of a n interplay between silence a n d the articulation of a theme in a piece of music. Music, awake her; strike! [Music] Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach; Strike all that look upon with marvel. [5.3.11.97-100] The m u s i c t h a t a w a k e n s the s t a t u e validates the divine sanity of the universe: t h a t it moves, a n d it moves in the right direction, the direction associated with love. In a similar fashion, Plato's demiurge in the Timaeus is able to animate the meaningless bits of matter, the paranoid-schizoid vestiges, a n d suffuse them with the being of intelligence a n d love. I say this with hindsight. At the time my patient brought her dream, I h a d n o idea how the "deep time" of Leontes's disapp e a r a n c e in the play might be related to the ecstasy grounded in m u s i c of the m o m e n t in which the s t a t u e seems to move, t h o u g h I b e g a n to u n d e r s t a n d this poetic connection when my p a t i e n t gave the dream. S h e w a s looking through m a s s e s a n d m a s s e s of paper. S h e knew t h a t the information s h e was looking for did not concern a n individual; it concerned a twin. S h e was looking for her twin. S h e saw a moving roada conveyor-belt passage-way, s u c h a s you see a t airportsand s h e thought to herself that s h e would never find her twin. The people on the conveyor belt looked spent. Among t h e m were two friends who looked very aged. She w a s terribly u p s e t .

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The conveyor-belt passage-way is w h a t t h e psychotic daughter p a r t of herself would have seen if she h a d looked a t the l a n d s c a p e outside the railway carriage window. It reverses the meaning, a n d probably the direction, of the l a n d s c a p e of love into a l a n d s c a p e of hate. It h a s the s a m e function a s t h e taxi t h a t took the dreamer a n d her companions to the d e a t h camp. Plato imagined certain epochs in which the movements of the planets go into reverse a n d spiral into self-destruction. A clock so reversed does n o t register living time; it s h a d o w s forth the two-skeleton type of experience (p. 42 ff.) in which the patient seemed b o u n d to a slow wheeling opposed to everyone else's movement through space a n d time. Conversely, the p a s s i n g vision of the beautiful m o u n t a i n side seen through the train-compartment window reverses the movement of the conveyor belt of dying p h a n t o m s , m u c h a s the movement of the s t a t u e releases the cosmic absolutism of Leontes's delusional jealousy t h a t petrifies a n y experience of being b o m into time. The patient h a d presented the dream of the conveyor belt at her mid-week session. She h a d not a t t e n d e d h e r Monday session (missing sessions was quite exceptional for her), a n d the reason for this was that on the S u n d a y night before t h e session s h e h a d at one m o m e n t awoken a n d felt a s t h o u g h s h e h a d been "pole-axed". (Later material indicates t h a t poleaxing h a d the s a m e psychic m e a n i n g a s the breaking of some cosmic axle-tree, the b r e a k i n g of a m o t h e r ' s psychic bone structure, the essential link that creates the parental couple.) She h a d slept through the s o u n d of her alarm clock a n d in this way failed to get to her session. The pole-axing h a d b r o k e n her relationship to time a s a n on-going benevolent progression into birth a n d p u t her into the limbo in which clocks begin to go backwards. The r e a s o n why time w a s reversed b e c a m e clear w h e n I asked her for h e r associations to the idea of twins in the dream. She said t h a t when s h e h a d been a b o u t to give b i r t h to h e r second child, s h e h a d h e a r d the midwife say t h a t s h e was a b o u t to give birth to twins.

The midwife w a s a s t r a n g e a n d elderly w o m a n n a m e d Miss White. In those days, in the early 1950s, the c u s t o m was to encourage second b i r t h s to take place a t home. Before Miss White, my p a t i e n t h a d lost a n y sense of j u d g e m e n t ; s h e h a d b e e n so incapacitated t h a t s h e h a d been u n a b l e to realize how terrified s h e was. In spite of the connotations of her n a m e . Miss White represented for my patient a condition of devouring psychic d a r k n e s s . Ageing was equated to being helpless, in the way t h a t a w o m a n in childbirth will feel helpless if s h e feels s h e is dogged by some anti-procreative presence of intense power. "I have delivered over a t h o u s a n d babies", said Miss White, a n d it seemed from the way s h e talked that s h e conceived a n d procreated the babies, or possibly m a s s a c r e d them, out-Heroding Herod, at the very m o m e n t of their delivery. Miss White kept saying, "You will have twins". And after the single b i r t h s h e said, "Where is the other one?" Miss White's claim to b e able to predict the arrival of twins h a d t h e feeling of a n awesome threat: if I have power to increase the n u m b e r of births, I have also the power to decrease themthat is, to m a k e s u r e t h a t you have a miscarriage. To say that Miss White was like some allegorical representation of devouring Time did n o t do j u s t i c e to h e r effect a s a dense metaphysical presence b y every birth bed, a Hecate or Diana of the cross-roads, seen by s o m e a n d n o t by others. During the labour, which was painful a n d without anaesthetic. Miss White insisted on giving my patient a lengthy a c c o u n t of how to m a k e a steak a n d kidney pudding. "You oil the dish a n d chop u p the onions . . . now give a n o t h e r p u s h . " The patient's h u s b a n d was fat. a n d Miss White kept saying, "You will m a k e this p u d d i n g for your h u s b a n d " . This resembles Leontes's linking of his son Mamillius with cattle a n d his u n conscious wish ritually to devour child a n d mother, a s though h e were a tarantulist in the throes of a n abortive form of childbirth. Miss White represented some aspect of my patient t h a t could n o t b e got rid of. Indeed, Miss White attended the birth of h e r next baby, a n d although my patient recognized t h a t s h e feared Miss White, s h e w a s so paralysed by some concentrate

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of m u r d e r o u s n e s s in herself that s h e found Miss White useful a s someone into whom s h e could project h e r m u r d e r o u s n e s s in order to disown it. Miss White, for her part, w a s a n appropriate receptacle for these discharged feelings. Her ecstasy a t giving birth, in looking into the eyes of h e r newborn son a n d seeing all wisdom there, was symbolized in the train-compartment-window d r e a m by the sight of the light on the m o u n t a i n . But the experience of giving birth a n d the joy t h a t c a m e with it h a d been misappropriated; in terms of h e r feelings, s h e h a d taken over h e r m o t h e r ' s body a n d h e r mother's babies, a n d s h e h a d projected h e r h a t r e d a t h e r mother's procreative abilities into h e r d a u g h t e r (or into Miss White). There w a s no evidence of a good father being about; a n d this was one of the sources of the confusion. In speaking to the mother in labour, Miss White is saying: "If you give birth to twoness (whatever the kind of twoness: b r e a s t s , nipples, eyes, babies), you will b e alright." (In the light of the taboo against twins, p e r h a p s Miss White is saying the opposite: "If you give birth to twoness, I will b e in t h e position to b e able to destroy the lot of you.") By way of a sadistic contract, I a m a s s u r i n g your escape from helpless infant s t a t e s into the delusional security of being a mother. My offering you this contract implies t h a t by appropriating the role of a sadistic mother, you are becoming the only kind of m o t h e r there is. Miss White p r e s u m e s t h a t m o t h e r s are necessarily sadistic a n d t h a t motherhood m u s t be experienced a s a n appropriation of one's own mother's function: for her, there is no other possibility. Behind these a r a b e s q u e s in rationalization, there is some inexorable a n d u n a p p e a s a b l e psychic presence, t h e b a d womb, or prototype of the b r e a s t black-hole, whose energies are refuelled by its power to devour everything, including itself.

A father who a t t e n d s the birth of his children with a view to devouring them is only t h o u g h t trivially to be jealous; h e is, rather, s o m e principle of the anti-procreative, of which Miss White was a reflection. The tyrant Kronos (perhaps t h e son Chronos transformed into father) a t t e m p t s to eat h i s newborn son, Zeus. He s t a t i o n s himself by Rhea during labour, with the intention of swallowing

t h e babies a s they are born. Realizing his intentions, Rhea h a s h e r p a r e n t s arrange for h e r newborn, Zeus, to b e taken elsewhere, a n d for Kronos to b e given, a s decoy, a "great stone wrapped in swaddling bands". Another version of this ruse, which points to the t h e m e of t h e m e m b r a n e , is t h a t Rhea in childbirth a n d child n u r t u r e is protected by a guard of kouretes who circle in a dance before her cave, creating a p h a n t o m shield. Kronos swallows t h e stone, thinking to ingest h i s son. Saved a n d t a k e n elsewhere. Zeus grows u p with amazing speed a n d is able to defeat his father in battle. Kronos spews u p the stone; a n d Zeus places it a t sacred Pytho to commemorate h i s s u r vival a n d t r i u m p h . The naturalistic implausibility of the idea of stone-swallowing is a component in its being religiously significant: it belongs to the s a m e order a s the Platonic idea a n d owes little to n a t u r e . It is like Leontes's incredulity w h e n faced by the conjunction of a m u s i c t h a t stirs feelings a n d the sight of a s t o n e s t a t u e t h a t comes alive. Kronos might b e imagined to face every m o t h e r in labour a s t h e figure who negates a n y promise in creation, a b a d womb presence of massive authority, judgemental, its powers increased by its capacity to devour everything. Kronos dissociates creation from its source in originality a n d b i n d s it to a n anti-creationist vortex t h a t destroys. As m o n u m e n t a l a s a m o u n t a i n range, a s implacable a s the stone t h a t h e devours, h e is the u n e a s e t h a t lies a t the core of gravitas; the presence of psychotic disintegration t h a t Cezanne b o t h perceived a n d projected into the density of the Montagne St-Victoire, a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g of which (as h e told J o a c h i m Gasquet) w a s intrinsic to his capacity to communicate through p a i n t the massive authority of the m o u n t a i n itself. The s t a t u e Leontes contemplates trembles within his gaze. It trembles b e c a u s e the eyes t h a t contemplate it are the eyes that, in thought a t least, have destroyed Hermione a n d Mamillius; it is a s though within the poignancy of the moving s t a t u e a n act of m u r d e r might be undone, as when Abraham's knife hesitated over Isaac. It trembles b e c a u s e it is of its n a t u r e precarious in definition; it is a witness to unknowabilities. J e a l o u s persons, who believe that creative power can b e in the service of the ego, are confident of their capacity to r e m a k e

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> to

in their own image the world they devour. Like the power of Leontes's eyes to give flesh to the b o n e s of the long-dead, the eating m o u t h would steal the powers of the womb a n d m a k e something out of t h a t which it devours. Kronos denies biological evolution by discovering t h a t the son h e wishes to eat h a p p e n s to b e his father; it is a s though in his mind devouring were a way of reversing biological process, so t h a t s o n s might give b i r t h to fathers. He h a s the inexorability of the stone s t a t u e of the m u r d e r e d comme'ndatore in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni; a conception of the punitive superego that contains within it the earlier m e a n ing of the altar on which the sacrificial victim is slain, a n equivalent for mother earth who receives the dead a t the time of burial a n d later devours the corpse. Certain Pacific islanders have a rite t h a t d e m o n s t r a t e s why a sacrifice (in the form of a fowl) m u s t be offered on the stone altar a t the frontier between the realms of life a n d death in order for the dead person to cross over into the l a n d s of the afterlife. The dead man now quickly presents the stone with the ghost of a fowl which he has been carrying with him, in order to save his nose. : . . If he delays in presenting it, his nose will be flattened. If he has no fowl to give at all, the stone will eat him. [Layard, 1934, p. 124] Among the E t r u s c a n s , the stone s t a t u e took the form of persu, the persona or m a s k e d priest (or priest with h e a d covered in a veil) who represents the dead a t funeral performances, a figure of chthonic characterPerseus, Persephone, Perso (one of the Graiai), Perse (one of Hecate's names)a figure who g u a r d s the way into the afterlife, which, a s I see it, is a representation of a way into birth (Croon, 1955, p. 16). Kronos, like Leontes, h a s some kinship to the wolf in the Grimm brothers' tale who eats all the pigs a p a r t from the pig in the clock case, who is able to inform his m o t h e r of the crime. At which point, the stone motif recurs: the mother, finding the wolf asleep, slits open the wolfs a b d o m e n a n d s u b s t i t u t e s stones for her stolen babies. The wolf drowns u n d e r t h e weight of stones while drinking water from a lake.

In relation to this parallel, Leontes's son Mamillius is identifiable with b a b y Zeus in the Kronos story, or the clock-case pig in t h e folk-tale. [The clock-case motif, as Andrew Lang suggested long ago, is a late interpolation into the tale a n d should n o t b e given m u c h significance. And yet, why not? The m o m e n t in Orphic legend in which Orpheus looks b a c k at his wife on the a s c e n t from Hades a n d thereby loses her is a late interpolation also a n d yet it is a n important element in the legend. Sometimes late interpolations spell out a latent t r u t h that n e e d s to b e spelt out.] He is the b r e a s t - b a b y (as his n a m e implies), which the enraged infant Leontes ingests a n d then finds h a s t u r n e d to stone. Leontes is left to swallow the idea of the counterfeit stone s t a t u e , while in some s p h e r e beyond grief t h e Dionysiac Mamillius is transmogrified into the Dionysus of the other b r e a s t . Autolycus, the peddler who sleeps with other men's wives, a n d who a c t s out the superfoetation principle so often levelled a t t h e mother of the twins: all t h a t Leontes dreads, the principal factor in exciting the delusions of jealousy. The Dionysiac ideaa rite of passage, whether it takes the form of a cauldron of apotheosis, or of a second g e s t a t i o n violates feeling by diminishing the meaning of the child's death; for who will grieve for Mamillius if in dying he becomes someone else? Reasonably it might be proposed that the legend modifies t h e pain of some n a t u r a l birth act t h a t h a s failed. A m o t h e r a n d infant die in the act of birth; a n d a father m u s t feel t h a t his m o u t h a n d his stomach are full of stone.

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The

membrane"continued.

dreamer u s e s the image of a t r a i n - c o m p a r t m e n t window a s a m e m b r a n e to weave together t h e images of the dream a n d to evacuate their possible danger into h e r companion. The m e m b r a n e does n o t exist in n a t u r e , a n d it cannot be directly a p p r e h e n d e d by the s e n s e s . It is a n idea t h a t re-creates the psychic function of the umbilical cord in postnatal situations, a two-dimensional conception of the u t e r u s a s a skin that contains entities, which is tolerable when the entities take t h e form of babies, intolerable w h e n t h e b a b i e s transform into bites, representing a whole range of s e n s a t i o n t h a t h a s to b e got rid of. [The babies within the m e m b r a n e a r e perceivable a s motifs or a t o m s of meaning; w h e n they are evacuated, they are known a s s e n s a t i o n s of a n excruciating m u s c u l a r kind a n d are associated with psychosis a n d torture biting, blinding, burning, freezing, cramping, etc. They a r e closer to being beta elements t h a n to being sensa.] The m e m b r a n e a s a two-dimensional conception of the u t e r u s originates from the foetus's experience of the cord a s a 150

source of creativity a n d does not necessarily indicate a regression. It differs from the cord to the extent t h a t it can b e used to deny the m e a n i n g of b i r t h a s a radical transition. The n e o n a t e is liable to resort to it when it fears violation or intrusion, a s w h e n it c a n n o t distinguish the experience of assault, actual or imaginary, from s t a t e s of transition, a s of being b o m . It then m a y u s e t h e m e m b r a n e to control a n d evacuate terror on the a s s u m p t i o n t h a t the m e m b r a n e can distance it from terrors associated with incest a n d the perversions. The m e m b r a n e is one of the liminal p h e n o m e n a by which m i n d in post-birth is able to receive the dimensions of pre-birth experience, the communication by the good objects that is a prerequisite to a n y appreciation of the n a t u r a l world. It is a n agency b y which liturgical representations cross the period of transition. It h a s a n u n u s u a l relationship to information; it c a n become the m e d i u m through which a n y of the s e n s e s might operate, a n d it can translate from one sense modality to a n o t h e r with facility: -but it c a n n o t be directly perceived by any one of the s e n s e s . It probably plays some p a r t in s t a t e s of synaethesia or s e n s e confusion. Its translations from one sense element to a n o t h e r are volatile a n d unpredictable a n d metonymic r a t h e r t h a n metaphoric. [Metonymic: A one-way communication (kingship-crown) r a t h e r t h a n a two-way communication characteristic of the primal couple.]

I c a m e to the idea of the m e m b r a n e by way of two a u t h o r s in particular. Bertram D. Lewin's (1973) investigation of the psychic closeness in meaning of m o u t h a n d skin in h i s essay on the d r e a m screen (pp. 87-100), in which he writes a b o u t skin lesions. Claude Levi-Strauss's (1970) concern with motifs a s reflecting the s t r u c t u r a l kinship of mythology, music, a n d m a t h e m a t i c s . I t h o u g h t it possible t h a t skin lesions a n d motifs might have the s a m e dynamic significancethe motifs in particular being liturgical representations from the experience of proportionality in pre-birth, which be-

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come u n u s u a l l y significant a s liminal p h e n o m e n a on the threshold of the depressive position. Lewin m a k e s the point t h a t eaters in p h a n t a s y sometimes equate m o u t h a n d the content of m o u t h s (p. 95). Mouths sometimes equate with wombs; a n d eaters can find r e p u g n a n t the belief t h a t a w o m b - m o u t h should eat the b a b y or the skin of the feeding b r e a s t a s a n equivalent of the baby. Lewin alludes to Isakower's (1938) proposal t h a t when the infant in the p h a n tasies of half-sleep confuses m o u t h with b r e a s t skin, it will u n d e r s t a n d skin irregularities in general a s bites. " . . . the skin is a m o u t h , a n d when there are multiple lesions, m a n y m o u t h s " (Lewin, 1973, p. 96). The contents of the u t e r u s , w h e n the u t e r u s is conceived of a s two-dimensional, translate into the idea of m a r k i n g s on the surface of the skin. A Platonist looking u p a t the night sky might imagine t h e constellation of s t a r s a s m a r k i n g s on a placental skin; b u t the s t a r s can be persecutory if they are related to the binary. The skin bites re-form a s t h r e a t e n i n g rival-babies. Lewin believes t h a t the skin-like dream screen, out of which dream images m a y arise, implies the confusion of m o u t h - s k i n . Mouth exudes the dream screen a s a skin, which, in t u r n , procreates d r e a m images a s though they were babies.

music, being the food of love, is a version of the love precipitated b y entry into the depressive threshold t h a t mind m a y experience a s a n intolerable incomprehensibility, driving it b a c k into paranoid-schizoid states. In his Notebooks, Lucien Levy-Bruhl (1975) observes t h a t in certain types of thought "it m a k e s no difference to say t h a t the m a n becomes a leopard or that h e is a leopard". Transformation is "like a change of skin" (p. 31). The c o n t i n u a n t matters, not t h e n a t u r e of the occurrents within it, which are u n s t a b l e motifs, embryos in a skin u t e r u s , unfixed in definition. Similarly, Maurice Leenhardt (1979) writes of the Melanesian kamo a s the living onea term u s e d without distinction of gender a n d with a n indefinite meaning, a predicate indicating neither outline nor n a t u r e . The fact that it takes on body is of secondary importance. Animals, plants and mythic beings have the same claim that men have to be considered kamo, if circumstances cause them to assume a certain humanity, [p. 24] In legends, the Jcamo flies, swims, a n d disappears underground without anyone stating whether it is by turn a bird, fish or deceased man. The story-teller follows the personage through his adventures, and he may change his appearance without a change of state. He undergoes metamorphoses; he is like a character endowed with a sumptuous wardrobe who perpetually changes costume, [p. 25] In this view, the babies in the m e m b r a n e have come close to acquiring a three-dimensional model: incipiently they are fish moving in water. There are various types of myth space (or ideas of the uterus) t h a t contain different types of inhabitants. The kamo, which is a nominative without outiine or n a t u r e , is suited to the transformations t h a t Plutarch thought most characteristic of myth: disguise a n d dismemberment. In infant p h a n t a s y , the k a m o lies in t h e gap between the two b r e a s t s , in each of which is a n identical twin. The twins wear a bad aspect: either they are i n h a b i t a n t s of black-hole breasts, in which definitions collapse into themselves in an ever-contracting space, whose

<tii m t!

In comparison, Levi-Strauss (1970) considers s t r u c t u r e in m y t h a s analogous to grammatical s t r u c t u r e a n d , above all (his preference), to s t r u c t u r e in music, t h o u g h m u s i c differs from language a n d myth in being u n t r a n s l a t a b l e . I would suggest t h a t all three s t r u c t u r e s imply the existence of t h e m e m b r a n e a s a solution t h a t contains the motifs a s particlesa two-dimensional version of Pandora's box. Levi-Strauss sees s t r u c t u r e in music a n d myth a s consisting of a n interaction of motifs. In h i s view, m u s i c is a distinctive a n d i n n a t e characteristic of the h u m a n mind: it is "a message, properly speaking coming from nowhere . . . we know nothing of the m e n t a l conditions in which musical creation takes place . . . (it supposes) the existence of very special a n d deep-seated properties" (1970, p. 18). In other words, music germinates in a u t e r u s t h a t fills n o - s p a c e a n d is unavailable to u n d e r s t a n d i n g by the senses. S u c h

*p

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p r e s s u r e is felt a s a n impacted remembering, or they a r e inh a b i t a n t s of spaces that, in contradistinction, unfold in a n indefinite ever-expanding process from within themselves, a n d in which all nominatives fade vestigially, into traces of the forgotten. The m e m b r a n e originates a s an oral s u b s t i t u t e for the cord: it emanates out of the mouth like a breath-skin. Volatile in meaning, the b r e a t h - s k i n modulates into any one of the m a n y agents t h a t hold onto fugitive sensory impression. Oral experience translates with facility into visual, auditory, or tactile m e a n s of communication. The dreamer of the train-compartment-window d r e a m weaves with the m e m b r a n e - w i n d o w a s though it were a tactility controlled by the movement of h e r eyes. S h e t h i n k s to be inside h e r mother's eyes a n d to feed u p o n her m o t h e r ' s joys. A newborn, thinking to take over the creativity of its mother's u t e r u s , m a y hope to translate the creative powers of the placenta-cord into its m o u t h s p a c e a n d to m e m b r a n e exudations out of its m o u t h . It is able to experience the pregn a n t space of the u t e r u s as two-dimensional b e c a u s e initially it derives its model of uterine creativity from a n umbilical cord in which the idea of a container is indistinguishable from the idea of a content. A west-African woman in a state of p o s t - p a r t u m psychosis remarked t h a t snails came out of the skin on the b a c k of her h a n d s . The babies came out of a no-space, a s though out of a cord-skin. Similarly, certain mythological conceptions of the first fiat a s s u m e the emergence of life out of a space t h a t is a no-where. A great deal of tribal art is informed by this a s s u m p tion; it conceives of a n implicitly uterine s p a c e a s existing either in t h e no-space of a skin (or mirror), or in a shell-like container (such a s a mask), whose rigidity h a s the effect of reverberating acts of psychic projection. Oceanic a r t (which includes the Melanesian Jcamo modes of a r t described b y Leenhardt, 1979) is a n a r t concerned with the .no-space within the m e m b r a n e , a n art of skin-like surfaces a n d p a t t e m i n g s on skin, tattoo effects, markings t h a t might b e flies in amber, babies in a layer of skin. The famous R u r u t u Island carving of Tangaroa in the British M u s e u m h a s c r e a t u r e s exud-

ing from t h e surface of t h e god-creator's skin a s well a s inhabiting a p a n t h e o n in his back. In comparison, African sculpture, typical of the other a r t s t e m m i n g from t h e tribal aesthetic, is three-dimensional, carved, air-cleaving. Space in the interior of t h e m a s k - w o m b is u n r e s o n a n t ; r a t h e r , it projects terror at the thought of annihilation.

The m e m b r a n e a c t s a n insulator, a s though it were a conductor of electricity. The motifs a s atoms of meaning can be so insulated t h a t they a p p e a r to be innocuous; their "bite" is lost. When u n i n s u l a t e d , they are dangerous. In the type of representation described by Hocart (1927), the priest-king "represents" the s u n in order t h a t b o t h h e a n d it should hold each other's powers in check. The s u n is only a n object in n a t u r e incidentally: it is a group transference object of a psychotic n a t u r e . Individual representation h a s to contain it within t h e group, or it will destroy the group. 1 The king-priest who fails to keep the s u n ' s power in check is t u r n e d into a sacrificial victim whom the s u n "devours". T h e motif that discloses itself a s a psychotic presencea m o u t h in the skin t h a t bites, for instanceunder investigation will often t u r n out to be a n aspect of the idealized a n d intolerably "perfect" next sibling.

It w a s a salient fact a b o u t the train-compartment-window dreamer t h a t s h e h a d been born on Christmas Eve. There was a

'Among the Australian peoples of the Arunta tribe there is a legend that a god who withdrew from the ancestors by climbing a totem-pole into the sky, pulled the totem-pole up after him into nothingness, and brought devastation to the ancestors. The ancestors tried to regain strength after this departure by relating themselves to a deeply planted totem pole. When the pole broke, all connection with the god was lost. The ancestors were afflicted by a mysterious lassitude and died shortly afterwards (Spencer & Gillen, 1927, p. 388).

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HI

touch of Miss White about the claim t h a t s h e h a d u s u r p e d the J e s u s place. Members of her family told her t h a t the protracted n a t u r e of her birth h a d u n d e r m i n e d any pleasure they might have h a d in the festivity. Her u s e of the m e m b r a n e in the dream allows her to deny any notion of a birth disturbance. One of Lewin's p a t i e n t s dreamt of a screen-like object t h a t moved away from the dreamer. Lewin took this object to b e an image of the b r e a s t leaving the infant. He raised the hypothesis from it of a d r e a m screen on which all dream images are situated. T h e trainc o m p a r t m e n t window also functions a s a screen if reality is denied to the view through it. The p a s s i n g landscape might be the moving-away of the breast, which the infant hopes to control by the t h o u g h t t h a t the movement of its eyes is t h e agent for any movement in the external world. The dream is a s composed a s a piece of m u s i c a n d h a s a mythic type of s t r u c t u r e . There is an inside a n d a n outside to the train carriageimmobility within the carriage, a n d mobility outside it. The window opens u p a contrasting realm to those who look into the carriage from outside it a n d those who look out from within. There are opportunities for reversal in perspective: potentially the view beyond the window a n d the view within the c o m p a r t m e n t might indicate different scales in time. Outside the window there is the trudging of the people on the snowy wet path, in contrast to the radiance on the m o u n tains. There is a mother who looks through the window a n d is amazed by w h a t s h e sees a n d a daughter who declines to look through the window a n d is disappointed by w h a t s h e fails to see. The d a u g h t e r who looks away from the view is the s a m e daughter who will look into her mother's private writing desk a n d find a letter there t h a t brings her father's reputation into disrepute. The mother maintains a r a t h e r brittle sanity a n d h a s divorced the fathershe h a s thought to appropriate the powers of the couple; while the daughter, who is chronically disturbed, is alleged to have h a d a n incestuous involvement with her father. Inside a n d outside do not exist a s distinctive s p a c e s in the dream. They are disclosed a s incipiencies on the surface of, or within, the m e m b r a n e .

The m o s t interesting of the contrastsbecause most revealing a b o u t the function of the membraneis the one between the broken glass on the m o u n t a i n a n d the u n b r o k e n p a n e of window glass, through which the dreamer looks. The broken glass catches the light that falls on the mountain. In a n earlier d r e a m the dreamer h a d recalled the quality of light t h a t came through a beautiful rose window in a c h u r c h . It is possible t h a t the mediation of light by way of the coloured glass reflected a foetal experience of the combined good objects. In later terms, a father's potency was mediated by way of a look t h a t the dreamer h a d seen in h e r mother's eyes. At times s h e h a d found the depth of blue in her mother's eyes de-stabilizing. S h e compared it to the sight of a c h u r c h spire against t h e sky, which s h e recalled having looked u p a t while lying in a field. S h e h a d wondered whether the spire or the sky w a s moving. Similarly, a passenger in a train m a y d o u b t whether the train or the landscape h a s begun to move. States of dislocation increase the wish to control sensations. To this extent, the broken glass is the baby in the procreating m i n d of the couple, which the dreamer h a s s m a s h e d u p . It is also a p a r t of herselfshe h a s a way of dealing with a damaged child p a r t of herself by projecting it into the nipple, so that the b r o k e n glass is a precious aspect of herself, a s well a s a n idealized a n d attacked other baby. On one occasion s h e talked a b o u t a n allegedly "dyslexic" girl who s m a s h e d u p words in her mind a n d then was u n a b l e to p u t t h e m together againa Humpty-Dumptyism that alluded both to her own experience at having being violated, a n d to her wish to b r e a k u p the hypothetical next baby, which, in fact, h a d never b e e n born except a s bits in h e r mind. (She h a d been the youngest child in the family.) She recalled experiences in which people were trapped behind glass in a fire, or in which s h e could not escape from a n insufferable landlady a n d broke the p a n e of a window with her forehead, or in which s h e found her car h a d been vandalized, its radio stolen, a n d its windows s m a s h e d . S h e s e e m s then to have been trapped in the membrane, a n d to have conceived of birth a s a break-out. She h a d to control the bits of broken baby a s a way of controlling sensation; if s h e let the bits go, s h e would b e obliged to come

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out of a state of projective identification with the u s e of h e r mother's eyes. She would experience the bits a s coming together a s liturgical symbols. At which point, hopefully, h e r mother's eyes would take over the function of the m e m b r a n e a n d t r a n s l a t e the pre-birth communication of t h e good objects into a language of the born.

D I S A P P E A R I N G

I N T O

L I G H T

Elation and terror at leaving the ground give way to a sense of disinterested tedium; Icarus, looking through the aeroplane window, observes a distant landscape far below, an unfolding scroll whose markings he does not understand. It is as though this calligraphy needed, as a key to its understanding, the presence in mind of some love affair he had long forgotten about.

CHAPTER

TWELVE

The rite of passage in psychoanalysis. Liminal phenomena, and the persecutory emergence of symbol from sign language on the threshold of the depressive position. The need to hold on to a psychotic or primitive intuition concerning an underlying and impersonal geometric order to experience. "A substrate to the inner world anterior the reach of metaphor."

to

rom h i s reading of Schreber's memoirs, Freud u n d e r s t a n d s Schreber to have experienced (in a remarkable insight) the stage in remission of certain psychic cycles of destruction a n d regeneration a s peopled by "improvised beings". [He] became convinced of the immanence of a great catastrophe, of the end of the world. . . . He himself was "the only man left alive", and the few human shapes he saw . . . he explained as being "miracled-up, cursorily improvised men". [Freud, 1911c [1910], p. 68] Levi-Strauss h a s indicated how the need to improvise characterizes primitive life in general, a n d in making this point he h a s referred to the concluding sentence of Boas's (1940) essay on the Thompson Indians: "It would seem that mythological worlds have been built up, only to be shattered again, a n d t h a t new worlds were built from the fragments" (pp. 407-424). 161

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Levi-Strauss proposes t h a t t h o u g h t of a scientific n a t u r e is t h o u g h t capable of forming models t h a t are unrestricted by the notion of function. Scientific thought, for instance, is able to u s e the concept of infinity. Primitive thought, on the other h a n d , depending on Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreten e s s , u s e s a sign system that is exigent, finite in scope a n d similar to the practice of a court etiquette. It re-cycles its exigent resources indefinitely; a n d it depends on the objet trouve. It finds its model in magic, which Levi-Strauss (following Mauss) sees a s operating within a closed t r e a s u r y of devices. In association with this argument, I propose in later chapters that a mind inclined to paranoid-schizoid perception, a n d on the verge of depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g , will perceive liminal p h e n o m e n a a s provisional in their construction a n d closer to a sign language t h a n to a symbolization. Only a slight change in the modality of perception is needed in order to reveal t h a t liminal p h e n o m e n a can b e symbols: b u t the slight change is difficult to s u s t a i n , since it contains a prospect of annihilation t h a t communicates terror. As m a s k s or h u s k s , signs exist in a world in which the culture of h u m a n expression, a n y depressive recollection of symbols a s facesfor the infant, the face of its own mother a n d the meanings t h a t faces can communicate, is n o t retrievable. Something h a s been lost in a c a t a s t r o p h e t h a t can only b e re-found by way of a n o t h e r catastrophe. In s u c h circumstances hopes for survival m u s t lie, a s Schreber saw, in a n ability to improvise. Levi-Strauss (1972) discovers a n analogue for this improvisation in the bricoleur or h a n d y - m a n who m a k e s things out of debris by a process of recycling. He interrogates all the heterogeneous objects of which his treasury is composed to discover what each of them would "signify" and so contributes to the definition of a set which has yet to materialize b u t which will ultimately differ from the instrumental set only in the internal disposition of its parts. A particular cube of oak could be a wedge to make up for the inadequate length of a plank or pine or it could be a pedestalwhich would allow the grain and polish of the old wood to show to advantage, [pp. 18-19]

W1! t i>" <:! i II! i)

The bricoleur h a s affinity to. say. the t e n t h - c e n t u r y F r e n c h farmer who u s e d massive stones from a Roman a r c h to build a farmhouse without a n y a w a r e n e s s of the m e a n i n g of Roman architecture or of the civilization t h a t once existed on his land. The bricoleur survives on the edge of the idea of history, in a state of marginality t h a t the historically conscious have found poignant. The mobilizing of historical consciousness in the mid-eighteenth century h a d Piranesi observe in his engravings the indifference by which the seemingly pygmy-sized inhabita n t s of Rome lived out their lives among the vast r u i n s of the destroyed ancient city, a n d it h a d Edward Gibbon observe the p a t h o s of Christian monks, who moved p a s t the temple of J u p i t e r with a n absence of any awareness of the loss of a p a g a n greatness. Much later, Charles Lyell deepens the s e n s e of a historian's regret a t the indifference of others to the meaning of p a s s i n g time in a fable concerning people who live in time a n d yet are indifferent to the m e a n i n g of time, a s epitomized by the rise a n d fall of civilizations. Lyell's concept of deep time, which indicates a time t h a t c a n n o t be registered b e c a u s e it exists in mindless space, gives further definition to the feeling. Deep time d e m o n s t r a t e s space to b e dumba psychotic m o t h e r u n a b l e to register the birth or death of her infants: it is the obverse of proto-conceptual foetal intuitions t h a t perceive time a s form at its m o s t meaningful in the articulations of m u s i c a n d mathematics. Lost in the aesthetics of the paranoid-schizoid position, a n d dissociated from the m e a n i n g s of history, the bricoleur tends to b e fascinated by the b e a u t y of flat surfaces when they are juxtaposed. He is conscious of conjunctions a n d disjunctions a n d focuses on s e n s a t i o n s whose link is to a type of p h a n t a s y t h a t is disengaged from metaphoric power a n d limited to sign language. The liminal p h e n o m e n a in which h e tradesmasks, s t r u c t u r e s like the labyrinth, the content of m y t h s themselvescannot become the type of communication associated with a depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the h u m a n face. An inspired person is entered into: b u t the bricoleur is not entered intohe is the one who does the entering: h e takes over; h e vandalizes creatively. He is like the jungle t h a t weaves p a t t e r n s a b o u t the a b a n d o n e d ruined templean image t h a t

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refers less to mindlessness t h a n to a n u n c e a s i n g a n d intuitive activity in pre-conscious mind.

1 3 I S > ' <:: II!

Critias, one of the characters in Plato's dialogue Timaeus, refers to a possible catastrophe that destroyed a n c i e n t Athens, a n d all evidence of the beginnings of the Hellenic peoples: a knowledge without which, in his view, a nation m u s t feel a b a n doned. He recalls how on a visit to Egypt Solon discovered t h a t the priests h a d kept a n archive of d o c u m e n t s concerning the lost knowledge. They knew (among other things) t h a t the first Athens, which h a d been destroyed, h a d been older, a n d more touched by primal imagination, a n d therefore more blessed by the divine beginning, t h a n the civilizations of Egypt (Timaeus, 23-24). By way of this rediscovered knowledge, Solon w a s able to re-invest Athens with spiritual meaning. The meaning of lost Athens a s a catalyst to knowledge is, I conjecture, the s a m e a s the meaning of the forms (geometric, mathematical, musical) that the divinizing power of Plato's demiurge is able to conjure u p out of meaningless bits of matterthe atoms a n d void of psychotic despair. In Bion's terms, the forms are the ontological a n d preexperiential preconceptions t h a t may ignite into insight in the meeting with love on the depressive threshold. The meeting is dangerous. If it induces paranoid-schizoid regression, the experience of love may be m i s u n d e r s t o o d a s a n experience of the sacred, a power t h a t annihilates, a s though it were Zeus's bolt of lightning. S u c h a n occasion is liable to a r o u s e deep pessimism; the gates of horn, the way of truth, will be thought to b e the gates of ivory, or the way of delusion a n d liesand mind is liable to t u r n away from the possibility of a j o u r n e y into the depressive position. In psychic death, the possibility of symbolism itself would seem to have died. Surfaces a n d bits are drawn to each other in a constructivist impulse of the u t m o s t fragility. The initiate in the rite of p a s s a g e m u s t hope to meet with someone outside the self to set in motion the act of rediscovery. The child who survives birth needs to recover as its messenger the twin b a n i s h e d to the underworld, a n d to identify with a self t h a t

symbolically h a s died into psychosis, in order to reach depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g . In m a k i n g the j o u r n e y into second birth, the initiate may lose sight of the fact t h a t the primitive, or the paranoid-schizoid, is a culture in its own right: for though the culture of the depressive position gives meaning, in the form of aspiration, to t h e culture of the paranoid-schizoid position, it in no way invalidates it. The culture of the depressive position h a s to arise out of the culture of the paranoid-schizoid position; it probably could n o t exist in its own right. For Plato, all art, all technique, h a s a magical or theological impetus to it t h a t activates its capacity to unfold. This is a n insight into paranoid-schizoid thinking. The ancient Greeks sometimes allude to a proto-medical model for this type of insight. Asclepius practised a dream therapy a s a m e a n s of bringing a b o u t physical cures. His dream s a n a t o r i u m a t E p i d a u r u s stood close to a theatre dedicated to Dionysus, a n d his techniques resembled the group purifications a n d rite-ofp a s s a g e plots of the tragic theatre. His dream s a n a t o r i u m a t Kos, next to the river Lethe, was identified with s t a t e s of symbolic swoon-death. Asclepius's celebrated ability to heal through dream analysis depended entirely on environmental symbolism that reiterated mythic structure. Such architectural symbols included subterranean chambersas in the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus; tunnelsarchitectural symbols for rites of passagethat connected the patients' sleeping quarters to the treatment centres; and sacred springs around which the curing centres were built and that may originally have been associated with the worship of underworld daimons and with the arriving at cathartic cures through contact with the underworld. [Napier, 1986, p. 234n] The form of revelation in the dream s a n a t o r i u m u p s t a i r s replicates the form of the dream passages downstairs t h a t wind into the earth like roots: a n architectural structuring t h a t embodies the cryptic persecutory n a t u r e of liminal p h e n o m e n a , which to m i n d s on the verge of the depressive position a n d

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< * Ji,

u n a b l e to receive the meaning of symbols is myth-thinking or sign language on the verge of becoming symbol. An Eleusian initiate would move through a hall divided into dark compartm e n t s , each of which represented a region of hell, a n d t h e n climb a staircase a n d enter a brightly illuminated megaron where the sacra were displayed (Gennep, 1960, p. 91). A traveller t h r o u g h the underworld meets the self t h a t "died" in the earlier stage of the rite of passage. If the dead self is unacknowledged, it will still escape from b a n i s h m e n t a n d r e t u r n terribly as the antagonist who destroys the self a s it reaches out to depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g . (Conceivably, villains in stories are destroyed aspects of the hero t h a t r e t u r n to life a s s u b s t a n t i a l ghosts.) In a similar fashion, the cultural achievements of Africaits sculpture, especiallyrepresent a n alter ego, the twin b a n ished to death a n d psychosis, which the E u r o p e a n m i n d disowned for a long time a n d which r e t u r n s to h a u n t him, often benignly, a s the messenger of aesthetic insight. Those unfortunate Negroes have revealed to me the meaning of the Platonic logos! Their symbolism is so tremendous and coherent! Only the study of such an archaic tradition in its living state can help us to understand other, dead religions. [Eliade, 1990, p. 46, quoting Marcel Griaule verbatim] Rediscovering this remarkable aesthetic is analogous to rediscovering the Athens of the lost series of preconceptions, the mother of Dionysus s u n k deep b e n e a t h the surface of icy waters. The obverse of the psychotic empty-mirror m o t h e r who is u n a b l e to register the death a n d birth of her infants is n o t the normative a n d caring m o t h e r who lives in n a t u r e , b u t the archaic unknowable "mother" of the preconceptions. S h e is the mother of the bone s t r u c t u r e s , the m o t h e r of the dance t h a t precedes the existence of h u m a n bodies, the m o t h e r of the architecture that precedes the existence of wood a n d brick, the mother of a mind which precedes a n y experience in n a t u r e a n d who, in mothering this essentially h u m a n achievement, is able to give it definition.

The cultures of ancient Egypt a n d of western Africa s u p p o r t each other, a s m u c h a s did those of Egypt a n d ancient Greece. 1 Many of the west African tribes believed that they had arrived at the territory they owned by way of a journey through the underworld. A tribe will lay claim to being indigenous, even when it is supposed to have originated from the soil it occupies or even when we can place geographically the caves or cliffs from which its ancestors came. Its burgeoning from the soil is only the last episode of a n underground journey whose point of departure is always far away . . . the Negroes preserve the conception of an oriental origin. When asked about the antiquity of his ownership, [a peasant of these countries] invariably replies that the real owners of the soil, the oldest occupants, those who, in time immemorial, he had to conquer or win over, were not Negroes, b u t a people of reddish colour, with large heads and small bodies. Afterwards these beings are supposed to have disappeared and to have been transformed into spirits, who, even today, are the object of a cult which is very much alive; and when the Negroes change their habitat and occupy apparently empty districts, they never fail to ask permission to install themselves near to those who inhabited the terrain before them, with the sole idea that these predecessors were chronologically nearer to the ancient owners than themselves and thus in closer contact with them. [Griaule. 1950, pp. 16-17] The red-skinned natives who "disappeared" are actual people who were m u r d e r e d , the sacrificial victims of mythology who die to consecrate a native land, ancestors on whom a

'i

'"Of the many customs and practices common to Egypt and Black Africa, certain can be shown to have originated in Egypt and to have spread southwards. . . . Among present-day Negroes, practices definitely Egyptian in origin are features of the burial customs of certain tribes of the Congo Free State and the southern Nilotic Sudan. This also holds for the artificial deformation of the horns of their cattle practised by such Nilotic tribes as the Dinka and the Nuer" (Seligman, 1932, p. 462).

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creationism is founded. On a n o t h e r level, they are the denied preconceptions that, in revenge, a s it were, fail to ignite with the love met on the depressive threshold. Symbolic rebirths, which do not accommodate the twin who earlier died, t e n d to b e paranoid-schizoid states of conversionthe u n e a s y c o n q u e s t of a n enemy's kingdomrather t h a n depressive s t a t e s of recognition. It is an established fact that the power of the Carthaginians extended as far as the gold-mines of Bambuk and as far as Nigeria. They exchanged copper and cloth for gold dust, ivory, and slaves. In the twelfth and thirteen centuries, according to Yakout, caravans carried considerable quantities of copper rods for rings and jewels from Morocco to the Sudan. . . . Traces of these industries are found today in ancient tombs in many parts of Africa: what are known as pierres d'aigris, little cylindrical glass pearls used by some natives as ornaments, recall those found in Phoenician tombs. . . . According to traditions which we cannot rule out a priori, we may believe that emigrant Jews from Cyrenaica and Egypt penetrated among the Negroes in several successive migrations, lasting from the sixteenth to the first century BC. . . . In the last few months of 1946, we discovered in the cliffs of Bandiagara a mythology giving an extraordinarily precise, coherent and developed explanation of the signs of the zodiac, a mythology embracing a dogma of the redemption and the word, which owes nothing to Christianity and which, on the contrary, seems to be the untouched age-old storehouse whence the religions of our own time have sprung. [Griaule, 1950, pp. 28-29] Among the Ndembu of Africa, the initiate in a n initiation ceremony is frequentiy presented with sacra that are disproportionate, m o n s t r o u s , a n d disconcerting in meaning, often taking the form of grotesque m a s k s . Elements are withdrawn from their usual settings and combined with one another in a totally unique configuration, the monster or dragon. Monsters startle initiates into thinking about objects, persons, relationships and features of their environment they have hitherto taken for granted. . . . Much of the grotesqueness and monstrosity of

liminal sacra may be seen to be aimed not so much at terrorizing or bemusing initiates into submission or out of their wits a s at making them vividly and rapidly aware of what may be called the "factors" of their culture. [Turner, 1967, p. 105] For Turner, the sacra are p a r t of the process of symbolic rebirth, n o t a reduction of symbol into sign a s a consequence of symbolic death. Masks a n d similar items are important b e c a u s e they lead to insight, n o t b e c a u s e they inhibit u n d e r standing. At the s a m e time, as is the case of all mythic or liminal p h e n o m e n a , the relationship of m a s k s to m e a n i n g is insecure. They are make-do a n d provisional a n d exist on the verge of the depressive position, somewhere between s e n s a t i o n a n d meaning, code-systems a n d symbolic language. They may b e less associated to recognition t h a n (for example) to the terror of being separated from a n object t h a t h a s been entered into by m e a n s of intrusive identification. A w o m a n who existed in a state of intrusive identification with h e r m o t h e r dreamt, on the night after s h e learnt t h a t h e r therapy w a s to end. t h a t s h e w a s in a n u p s t a i r s hotel bedroom with a balcony. Planes engaged in a dogfight outside the window. There w a s a n explosion, which s h e associated to a n IRA b o m b t h a t h a d gone off in a London club a n d to the wager in the J u l e s Verne novel t h a t activated Phileas Fogg into making his voyage a r o u n d the world. She complained b e c a u s e coverage of the Gulf War h a d disrupted any regularity in routine of children's p r o g r a m m e s on the television. Her delusion of ruling the world from within the object was u n d e r threat, a n d a state of irritation ensued, which took the form of a n u n p l e a s a n t aural stridency, which may or m a y not indicate the beginnings of a move into the depressive position. Similarly, a m a n faced by a holiday break dreams t h a t his eyes a n d ears are u n d e r assault, a n d h e thinks he may lose b o t h sight a n d hearing; h e t u r n s his attention to pleasurable bodily sensations. The drum-beating of s h a m a n s a n d other forms of dramatic d i s t u r b a n c e can be "associated with the formal p a s s a g e from one s t a t u s or condition to another" (Needham, 1967, p. 612). An instance of this would be the clatter of tin c a n s when tied to the b a c k of the car t h a t takes away the honeymoon couple. The

it -. 4 it 'I in 'i. <I0 h? k

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percussive translates into other types of heightened s e n s a t i o n associated with liminal p h e n o m e n a , a s in the wearing of grotesque m a s k s , cross-gender clothes, or striking ornamentation, all of which invites a persecuted state of m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g (pp. 606-614). A severing from the breast, experienced a s a n excruciating a t t a c k on the organs of communication, might have, a s a consequence, a notion of the b r e a s t a s transformed into a n admonitory lintel presence, a s dangerous as the hallucinations t h a t the dead send u p to the living t h r o u g h the ivory gates. Seeking o u t h i s mother in the underworld, Ulysses is terrified lest "dread Persephone" will s u m m o n u p the gorgoneion against him. When Perseus decapitated the Medusa on the b o u n d a r y of the underworld, "she awakened only enough to u t t e r h e r horrific shriek, from which a n etymology for the word gorgon h a s b e e n derived" (Napier, 1986, pp. 88). Dream images a n d portents t h a t occur in the transitional stage of the rite of p a s s a g e are a travesty of the idea of a mother's face, loved a s a benign otherness, a s ideograms in which the h u s k surface of the m a s k is combined with a dissection of a mother's labyrinth-like entrails. The travesty d e p e n d s on a m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the fact t h a t in terms of conceptual space a mother h a s a n inside or inner world t h a t c a n b e understood b u t n o t entered into or "experienced" by the mind t h a t accepts the conditions of depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g . A male equivalent of the gorgon, a clay representation of the face of the Babylonian demon H u m b a b a , in the British Museum, consists of a m a s k whose features are a s convoluted a s a labyrinth a n d resemble a cross-section drawing of h u m a n entrails: it might b e a n index for m u c h mythic thinking and, indeed, for m a n y types of liminal p h e n o m e n a . Inside a n d outside are entertained a s possibilities a t b e s t to be mocked at, Sign language h a s lost any reference to a signifier, a n d h u s k s are u s e d to create a formal code. In ancient Rome, ghosts a n d m a s k s were called larvae; m a s k s were shells for the invisible dead, the other self, the twin, no longer a n essential guide to depressive t r u t h b u t a n avenger enraged by its b a n i s h m e n t to the underworld a n d intent on destroying the aspiring self. Out of a literal representation of the entrails emerges the features of the feared rival

H u m b a b a (a version of the dangerous Minoan infant bull discovered in a labyrinth). In the beginning, the first big mask (of which present-day examples are only repetitions) was a serviceable reproduction of a serpent's body in a state of putrefaction, whose shape the tribes wished to preserve. But the shape was in no way intended to arouse emotion for sentimental or religious reasons; there was no question of reminding people of the original. The sculpture was not aimed at the living. In the words of the myth, the problem was to give the object a n appearance such that the spiritual principles of the ancestor, freed from the body by death, would enter this new receptacle and cease wandering abroad to the h u r t of mankind. If, then, an aesthetic effect was sought, it was aimed at a very special and unique spectator, i.e. the lead man. It was a question of both moving and placating the spiritual forces, with the aid of a symbol which could be understood by men and was also portable. J u s t as in Egypt, where the sculptor's art, working in conjunction with the science of the priests, had to provide works which would satisfy the gods, so the shape and the colour of the wood, together with the other ritual actions, had to offer the ancestors a pleasant sanctuary which he would enjoy inhabiting. [Griaule, 1950, p. 91]

Coleridge t h o u g h t to compare the inventiveness of the Seminole Indian to the in-and-out dance of falling snow: The Life of the Seminole playful from infancy to Death compared to the Snow, which on a calm day falling scarce seems to fall & dances in & out, to the very moment that it reaches the ground. [Coburn, 1957, Entry 228] The snow, in terms of the psychotic metaphysic, is a ceaselessly active s u b s t r a t e to mind, a n embodiment of the r e a s o n t h a t the foetus perceives, the organon of the primitive aesthetic from which a poetry is engendered. The s u d d e n drops, lunges, a n d spatial constrictions of nightmare intimate the possibility t h a t m a t t e r a n d motion are a s decisive in the psyche as in the

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world of n a t u r e , a n d only discovered in the world of n a t u r e a s a n afterthought. The dance in a n d out of the falling snow is the spirit of poetry in those paranoid-schizoid r e a c h e s of the m i n d in which the distinction between snow a s fact a n d snow a s sensation h a s not formed. Primary imagination s u p p o s e s t h a t the p h a n t a s i e s set u p by sensations are impersonal, p r e - h u m a n , a n d sacred, indifferently a s m u c h a b o u t themselves a s a b o u t the n a t u r a l world, implying forms of m a k i n g t h a t have no immediate contact with post-birth capacities for symbolization. Coleridge's primary imagination"a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation"^finds its s t r e n u o u s original in Aristotie's theory of active reason, in which a n enquiring mind c a n n o t b e s e p a r a t e d from the object of its enquiry, a n d the objects of r e a s o n (perceived by the eyes of the mind alone) c a n n o t be distinguished from r e a s o n itself. There is an intellect characterized by the capacity to become all things, to bring them into being and to effect changes in them in the way that states of light do. For light transforms the potential colour in things into actual colour. [De anima, 3.5] Aristotie does not define active r e a s o n a s a faculty for abstraction or j u d g e m e n t or discrimination; it is a n identification by way of intuition with the creationist impulse, a rediscovery of the lost archive. An intellect of this kind, being able to conceive of, or make, whatever it conceives or thinks, "the soul is in a way all the things t h a t exist" (De anima 3.8), h a s powers similar to the powers of the demiurge in the Timaeus, w h o m Plato h a d seen a s making the individual souls (of h u m a n beings, animals, a n d plants) out of the s a m e stuff a s the world soul. Active r e a s o n surfaces once more, a n d again u n d e r the influence of a geometric determination, in Spinoza's writings, a n d possibly by way of Spinoza it influences the G e r m a n Romantics. In Spinoza's version of active reason: . . . mind, insofar as it understands, is an eternal mode of thinking, which is determined by another eternal mode of thinking, and this one again by another, and so on to

infinity; so that they all constitute at the same time the eternal and infinite intellect of God. [Ethics, 5, 15n] Intuitive knowledge in Spinoza's thought entails a n ability to intuit non-experiential elements in thought dependent "on the power a n d n a t u r e of the intellect alone". To u s e u n d e r s t a n d i n g in this way is: as some conceive the intellect of God, before He created things (which perception clearly could have arisen from no object). [On the Correction of the Understanding, 71] Mersenne, who corresponded by letter with Descartes, insisted t h a t God deployed the elements of geometry in the s a m e way a s m e n do a n d t h a t on this score divine a n d h u m a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g s were identical (Marion, 1981, p. 170).

Catastrophe in history, a s in the destruction of the Incas, will stir a n y mind capable of grief. But impersonality characterizes c a t a s t r o p h e in n a t u r e , a n d universal deluges leaves a blankn e s s in m i n d a s well as in the world. Primitive a r t is non-experiential a n d h a s n o concept of individual sentience. It is indistinguishable from the fabled workings of divinity. Kubler (1962a), in writing a b o u t this kind of art, describes artefacts a s though they were fossils, or other types of objets trouves. Styles are isolated from a n y signature: they originate out of nowhere a n d move into decadence spontaneously; there is no reason to s u p p o s e some model of c a u s e a n d effect. So far a s sensation a b o u t these artefacts is concerned, they might b e geometric prototypes in the m i n d of God before h e created the world. In the Timaeus, Plato's demiurge fructifies mindless space with the powers of time, so t h a t space comes to embody intelligence; b u t Platonic space is not the space of the primitive aesthetic, which is analogous to a foetal type of perception of patterning. Wittgenstein: I can arrange the factual material [myths collected by Frazer] so that we can easily pass from one part to another and have a clear view of it. . . . Making easy the passage from one part of it to another is fundamental. An hypothetical link is not meant to do anything except

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CHAPTER TW ELVE America encountered it, we would have to abandon all our own positions to accept those of the conqueror. [Kubler, 1962, pp. 64-65]

175

draw attention to the similarity between the facts. As one might illustrate the internal relation of a circle to an ellipse by gradually transforming an ellipse into a circle; b u t not in order to assert that a given ellipse in fact, historically came from a circle (hypothesis of development) b u t only to sharpen our eye for a formal connection. [Wittgenstein, 1979, pp. 8e-9e] Kubler's conception of the series is unrelated to mind's capacity to know loss, or to articulate the m e a n i n g of the emerging symbol. It is similar to the jungle t h a t transfigures the r u i n e d temple, or the deluge in which whole continents vanish. An iconography of impersonal tracings exists in m i n d b e n e a t h a n y capacity it might have for grieving, as a series prone to convulsive change. Within this impersonal a n d paranoid-schizoid conception, the encounter of conquistador a n d Inca might be imagined to be explosive, like the meeting of profane a n d sacred, in a space t h a t is time without intelligence, m u t e mother, deep time in a persecutory guise. In s u c h a conception, Inca culture reveals itself to be a n agency with the t h i n n e s t of protective surfaces, which survives by channelling aggression into acts of h u m a n sacrifice: it eats its own future. Another agency, the conquistador, placates any tendency to self-devouring by turning ferocity outwards, into acts of messianic conversion, in which greed is veiled from itself u n d e r the guise of zeal. Kubler recognizes the impersonal terror t h a t occurs in a n y crossing of frontiers between sacred zones. Rites of p a s s a g e are intended to pacify this terror. In a theory of the other, not a s a loving face, b u t a s a m a s k , sentience enters territories t h a t are n o t its own a n d is destroyed by alien sacralities; it becomes the victim in sacrifice. When we imagine the transposition of the men of one age into the material setting of another, we betray the nature of our ideas about historical change. In the nineteenth century Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee was imagined as a superior person successfully enlightening the Middle Ages. Today we would view him only as a stray spark swiftly extinguished without further notice. . . . If, on the other hand, we should ever have the misfortune really to encounter the future, as the Indians of sixteenth-century

Depending on Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreten e s s , this theory of time is counterpart to a theory of space in which the cosmos is thought bounded by some wall t h a t circles it. If someone extends a n arm through the wall, the a r m will disappear. Taboo (especially the taboo against incest) operates in the s a m e way. The transgression of the b o u n d a r y leads to some d i s a p p e a r a n c e in social identity of the transgressor a n d also to some disappearance within the transgressor's own mind. The mirror is without a reflection; it no longer shows you your twin.

It *, ii [ D > Ilia.

The discovery of the primitive aesthetic, specifically of tribal art, occurred somewhere in the mid-eighteenth century. It b e c a m e a focus of consciousness a r o u n d a b o u t 1840-50 a n d w a s a n important factor in the emergence of modernism. It occurred in p a r t b e c a u s e the Romantics were drawn to it a s a tool for u n d e r s t a n d i n g the thought processes of infants a n d disturbed adults, a n d in p a r t b e c a u s e they needed a m e a n s to reconstruct their dulled perception of sensation, a s a tool for u n d e r s t a n d i n g in its own right, a reconstruction t h a t the primitive aesthetic could give. At the time in which the European mind discovered the power of tribal art, it rediscovered its own long-unacknowledged medieval inheritance: it became aware of the importance of Gothic art. Focillon (1963), with whom Kubler studied, emphasizes a n impersonality in the achievement of Gothic architecture. In the first years of the twelfth century, there appeared in Francein Midi, in Anjou, north of the Loire, and particularly in the Domaine Royal of the Capetiansa new structural member which proceeded, by a sequence of strictly logical steps, to call into existence the various accessories and techniques which it required in order to generate its own architecture and style. This evolution was as beautiful in its reasoning as the proof of a theorem.

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Everything that sprang from the vault ribin the course of a few years, rather less than two generationsrevealed the consistency, continuity and vigour of a closely reasoned argument. [Focillon, 1963, p. 3] The vault rib is evoked a s a stage in some closely r e a s o n e d theorem, which exists out there, a s a fact in n a t u r e . B u t the m a k i n g of a h u m a n i s t style without signature, comparable to the makings of tribal art, is true also of some primal creationist order, in which sources of thought c a n n o t be distinguished from notions of a n a t u r e "out there". A theorem exists in the depth of mind which, in sensory translation, is a companion to the thinking t h a t can be intuited in the fugues of J . S. Bach, god-created r a t h e r t h a n m a n - m a d e , derived from some s u b s t r a t e in the self t h a t weaves a n d unweaves images a s well a s originates nightmares a n d dreams. In the paranoid-schizoid aesthetic it is possible to trace t h o u g h t b a c k to the formal insights of foetal u n d e r s t a n d i n g . A s u b s t r a t e to the inner world exists at some level anterior to the reach of metaphor. In the psychotic metaphysic, the u n r e a c h a b l e divine element in the mind is equated with the transcendental god who exists outside the h u m a n condition, who, in the dream of reason, c o n d u c t s the sleeping Epimenides towards the ideas of j u s t i c e a n d t r u t h . The foetus, too, knows d r e a m patternings comparable to the articulations of m a t h e m a t i c s a n d m u s i c by which its good objects s p e a k to it.

Aspects of West-African culture identified with the lost mother-foetus couple. Its impact on Picasso. Cultural cross-fertilization described in terms of a rite of passage. The meanings of mask versus face; idol versus icon.

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n 1937, Picasso told Andre Malraux of his revulsion when, early in the s u m m e r of 1907, h e saw for the first time the collection of tribal a r t (he called it fetish art) at the Ethnographic M u s e u m in Paristhen, a s now, situated a t t h e Trocadero. ' T h e smell. It was disgusting. I w a s all alone; I w a n t e d to get away; b u t something important was h a p p e n i n g to me, a n d I stayed" (Malraux, 1976, p. 10) Rubin (1984) mentions interviews, dating from a s early a s 1922, in which Picasso talked a b o u t the effect on him of the Trocadero "fetishes". The decisive stylistic changes in his painting a n d sculpture at this time indicate a cultural cross-fertilization. It is possible that Picasso underwent a conversion t h a t w a s intuitive, preverbal, a n d largely pre-experiential. One hypothesis. Picasso intuited that Spain a n d Africa represented some long-standing division in Mediterranean sensibilityas Marcel Griaule (1950) was to proposeand t h a t h e recognized in the "fetishes" a twin alter ego that h a d 177

*qr"

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been b a n i s h e d to the underworld; in which case, h i s s e n s e of revulsion was similar to Perseus's shock in having to face the Medusa. Another hypothesis. Sensitive to cultural change, Picasso found a n idiom for the paranoid-schizoid inclinations of capitalism in the paranoid-schizoid conceptions of tribal art. The "fetishes" were a mirror image of some omnipresent "invisible" t r u t h a b o u t metropolitan culture. Picasso's sensibility gave expression to the fact t h a t the ideological centre of metropolitan culture h a d shifted from a n adoration of t h e icon to a cult of the idola shift that, in fact, suited h i s temperament. At one time, conceivably, culture h a d centred on the h u m a n face a s the fount of symbolic thinking. In Renaissance painting the faces of mother a n d infant are often b r o u g h t close together, the infant sitting on its mother's lap, the two faces looking outward a n d drawing the spectator into their gaze. Implicit in this sharing of a gaze is the a s s u m p t i o n t h a t the infant in anyone looking into its mother's faceinto h e r eyes, especiallymight find her expression iconic, the outward index of a n inner radiance, her eyes especially recalling liturgically the lost foetal intuitions of being close to the good objects. It is a s though in fact the iconic h a d preceded t h e idolic a n d h a d been swallowed u p by it. A paranoid-schizoid culture comm u n i c a t e s by way of a sign language t h a t b r e a k s u p the idea of the icon into two types of idol: one idol emerges from s e n s a t i o n s concerning surfacesthat is, the mask; the other idol d e p e n d s on turning the meaning of the icon inside out (like a m a s k being t u r n e d inside out)that is, the skull. Possibly the dread t h a t Picasso felt at the Trocadero was some implicit skull presence in the fetishes. Idolic thinking practises a reversal of perspective on the iconic. It denies the meaning of the distinction between inside a n d outside in order to p r e s e n t t h e m indifferently a s two types of contrasted appearance. The placatory cult of the idol confronts t h e m i n d with images of psychic death a n d engulfs it in nightmare. With the beginning of the First World War, the n i g h t m a r e became a h actuality.

iillC. I I D T Illl!>>' > < h' f '!l

One of Picasso's gifts is to m e t a m o r p h o s e forms b y m e a n s of a certain pre-birth conception of space t h a t modifies the s e n s a tions of t h e spectator in b o t h telescopic a n d microscopic ways. Picasso evokes a sacred space t h a t h a s the power to contract into itself a n d then to recoil with a release of s u p e r b energies. Bion believed t h a t it took genius to u s e psychopathology in the service of development, a n d this is evident in the game Picasso plays with t h e perspective of the inner world. He reverses its direction, a s though in imagination h e thought it possible to t u r n a good womb into a b a d one by s h u n t i n g the foetus b a c k u p t h e b i r t h passage. In iconic thinking, there is a n e a r a n d a far, a n outside a n d a n inside, a n d notions of a probity in which certain s t a t e s of i n w a r d n e s s validate a p p e a r a n c e s . Space in Renaissance painting s e e m s to contract into itself a s it travels down the perspectival railway track: it condenses a s it narrows. In Picasso's Cubist paintings, a n d in m a n y post-Cubist paintings by other artists, a space, airy in distance, grows more dense a s it moves towards the eye of the spectator. The density t h a t increases a s it a p p r o a c h e s might be a n iconic space in the process of t u r n ing into space a s matter: the materialized space out of which fetishes come into being. The remotely distant is switched a b o u t into being the overclose, a s though the wind were to t h r u s t a m a s s of wet a u t u m n leaves against a window-pane before the spectator's face. The spectator h a s arrived a t the wrong end of the telescope, a t the point of symbolic death, where the lines of perspective join together, a n d where no one should ever be. The impulse is one of assemblage. The possibilities of symbolism have dwindled to the most exigent sign language. Bits of the world, its surfaces, possess the artist as though h e were a seer, a n d come together by way of his agency. There is little capacity to mournmourning being a n attribute of personality, n o t of proto-personality. Picasso's appetite for the droll fuels his dread a t the prospect of annihilation. Through the artist, the alienmatter itself, a s well as the n i g h t m a r e s t h a t s t e m from other culturesdiscovers a usable familiarity. The impersonality of m a t t e r h a s entered into the

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spiritual core of being. ['The model for the fetish-idea involves the realization of novel divine power in material objects a n d bodily fixations within the contingency of worldly experience" (Pietz, 1987, p. 35).]

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Picasso's dread. A m a n d r e a m s of being on the top floor of his childhood home. He recalls how h e "adopted" a n attic room in this house, a n d h e associates the word "adoption" to his first wife, who was u n a b l e to give birth to a child. He would spy down the narrow stairwell. In relation to this, h e r e m e m b e r s with chagrin stealing coins from his father's p u r s e . Fascinated b y the stairwell, h e imagines w h a t it would b e like to fall between the b a n i s t e r s to the floor far below. In the d r e a m h e looks down a n d sees his brother cross the floor below h a n d - i n - h a n d with someone he cannot see clearly, possibly a male. His brother looks u p at him. Suddenly h e finds t h a t one of his brother's eyes h a s j u m p e d close to his eyes. The narrow stairwell, like the magnification of a telescope, brings a n eye close; and, like Zeus's bolt of lightning, it h a s the charismatic power to s m a s h someone on the floor. The dreamer is identified with the wife who is u n a b l e to have babies, a n d h e hopes to steal potency from h i s father. The power a n d shaping of the stairwell, though spatially penile, evokes the idea of the b r e a s t with a maelstrom interior, which, in turn, s u p p o s e s that there are two k i n d s of womb, one of which is good a n d enabling, the other malign. The stairwell is a n idol, not a n icon; it converts the instrumentality of telescopes into a demonic, contractive impulsion. In condensing the meaning of space a n d time, it reverses meaning, so t h a t space a n d time are converted into the compacted a n d threatening embodiments of m i n u s - s p a c e a n d minus-time. It is a s though the integrity of a mother's expression h a s been divorced from h e r inner radiance a n d a s k u l l penis found to exist within a m a s k - w o m b .

one culture c a n have pleasant dreams with the nightmare images of another. African sculptors, considering the u s e of actual nails in the carvings of the crucified god of the Portuguese missionaries, saw the aesthetic possibilities of this s t r a n g e assemblage a n d ignored its Christian significance. They took to inserting quills into the wooden s c u l p t u r e s of sacred hedgehogs. The English trader Andrew Battel was in Loanga from about 1607 to 1610, and during a visit to the Yombe area saw a "large image called a Maramba fetish". We can thus assume with reasonable certainty that this cult and the use of a carving for that purpose was established in the Yombe country at that date and possibly earlier. There is no mention of the use of nails in Battel's report; a feature recorded for the first time in 1818. The driving of blades and nails into anthropomorphic figures is also thought to have derived from the Kongo people's exposure to Christian icons depicting the martyrdom of the saints and the crucifixion. [Gillon, 1984, p. 285] E u r o p e a n artists, who thought of Christianity in terms of kitsch roadside Calvaries without interest, were impressed by the wit of having actual nails represent figurative quills a n d were directiy inspired to place actual bits of newspaper in Cubist collages. The communications of primitivism (whether Christian or African) h a d a way of bypassing the conscious, m o r i b u n d ideologies of the community.

Levi-Strauss (1973) h a s indicated t h a t one culture can revive the dying myths of another by a reversal in perspective; a n d

A symbol is a n icon if it contains a justification for its own being, like the radiance in a face t h a t is true to a n inward radiance. Leibniz called this type of intrinsic justification the principle of sufficient reason. An icon is t h a t which it represents; it enacts the n a t u r e of the meaning that it indicates; it is t h u s like the implied definition of thought in Melanie Klein's distinction between the paranoid-schizoid a n d the depressive positions. An icon is a likeness to a something that is directiy u n k n o w a b l e a n d yet is specifican outwardness integrated into a n inwardness.

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4*! i * s ' 'i * < - < |i II V. * f i II

The idea of a n idol is opposed to the iconic, a s a demon is opposed to the idea of a god. An idol lacks iconic integration, it is a p r o d u c t of transience a n d psychological dissociation; it is a persecutory severance, like the Gorgon's head. Its inward s t a t e is not validated by its outward appearance, a n d it m a y t u r n out to contain a void, or some other evidence of a disjunction or dismemberment in meaning. The power of the icon, however, is compacted a n d radiant, a n experience on the dream level of m i n d t h a t u n i t e s the dreamer with the first moment, the site of passion. Many of the reveries a n infant h a s a b o u t its m o t h e r m a k e consecutive sense. The p a r t n e r s interact a n d s h a r e in t h o u g h t a n d feeling in ways that are fluent a n d explicable, even w h e n unconscious. At the s a m e time, the infant c a n know s h o c k s in reverie, of which the effect on it of the idol is one example. It m a y undergo some experience of a religious conversion or deconversion. It m a y feel itself to b e buffeted by impalpable presences. An infant looking at its mother's face may see it a s iconic in its powers of expression. Observation of the a c t u a l world alone will not engage it in s u c h a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g ; it d e p e n d s on its openness to preconceptions, often manifested in its ability to dream. Without a s e n s e of the primordial sea of dreams, it would be u n a b l e to m a k e contact with its mother's expression, let alone "read" it. The intimacy of the inward seaof a c t u a l salty waves a t the infant's coreenables it to latch on to t h e expressive face a n d to intuit some corresponding sway of dream within its mother, which her features b e a r s witness to.

the masks or imagines thus preserved were worn on the occasion of the funeral of a member of the household by persons who in the funeral procession represented the deceased ancestors, whose imagines they wore. The right of using imagines in this waythe Jus imaginuum-^came to be determined and circumscribed by the law; b u t the custom of wearing masks was older than the law which limited it. [Jevons, 1916, pp. 171-192] J e v o n s linked m a s k s to m e n in 1916, a t a time of war w h e n it w a s plausible to link the male to the fields of death a n d to a n underworld t h a t a t t h a t time for m a n y h a d taken over the overworld. In Dionysiac legend, the sacred n u r s e s p e r h a p s Diony s u s ' s m o t h e r herselfdismembered a n d ate the infant god's flesh in a state of frenzied orgy. In rites a n d in the theatre, m e n alone acted out these transactions with the sacred p h e n o m e n o n of death, even though on one level the meaning of the devouring represented the possible agony of a mother a n d infant in the birth process. Since the mother-infant couple carried the lifeprocess, it h a d to be separated from a n y ceremony related to d e a t h . It was left to priest-kings, actors, a n d transvestites to enact the two attributes that Plutarch believed essential to the mythic imagination: dismemberment a n d disguise. A m o t h e r ' s face is idolic if it is mask-like, if it is dissociated from the expression t h a t articulates the dream, or if it indicates a n a b s e n c e of dream, or if it feigns m e a n i n g s emptied of the d r e a m process, if it is (as a Keatsian communication) "deathw a r d s progressing to no death", p a s t the lily a n d the snow. The face of a feeding m o t h e r who is depressed or s u n k in h a t r e d can b e like a "cheerful" grimacing m a s k . Idolism, m a s k s , certain forms of fiction deny that things are so b e c a u s e they are inwardly so. They present surfaces without content, a n d surfaces without content cannot remain neutral; they are like m a s k s , possibly benevolent, b u t possibly invaded by the void, a place t h a t r e t u r n s any fear that a n infant might p u t into it, taking on the intensity of the b a d womb, a concentration of anti-space. In the Prometheus myth, the conc e n t r a t e d b a d - w o m b s p a c e is represented by the transformations of sacred ox m e a t into stolen fire into flash of lightning

In primitive cultures, allegedly, m a s k s are worn by men. The wearing of masks amongst both Greeks and savages was a privilege limited to men. . . . The choruses which consisted of male members, alone wore masks, and alone gave dramatic performances. . . . If tragedy points back to the worship of deceased ancestors, the satyric drama points back to the worship of spirits. . . . In the period of the Aegean culture, death-masks were buried with the deceased. In ancient Italy one mask was buried with the deceased, whilst another was carefully preserved, and

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into eagle t h a t devours Prometheus's insides. Each of the transformations m a r k s a n aspect of Zeus himself. Augustine attacked the making of pictures on the g r o u n d s t h a t picture-making was j u s t a n o t h e r form of fiction-making. Fingentes a r e taken in by pingentes. "No wonder if people who invent fictions are taken in by people who do paintings" (Bevan, 1940, p. 120). The seventh-century bishop S t e p h e n of Bostra thought t h a t the nature of the pagan idol can be characterized by its unreality, its being based on a fiction (Ladner, 1953).

In iconic belief, particulars depend on sacred a n d u n knowable inevitabilities, the dialogue in which the n u r t u r e r endorses the importance of the n u r t u r e d a n d in which issues of space a n d time a r e of secondary importance. The iconic disapp e a r s when faced by the m a s k . The idols of absolute space a n d time a p p e a r in its place a n d deny any ground to individuality. Blake wrote, with Newton in mind: A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage. In Newton's heaven, there is no validation of the u n i q u e n a t u r e of the robin redbreast. The relationship of Blake's heaven a n d bird is like the dialogue of n u r t u r e r a n d n u r t u r e d . It rejects Newton's heaven, which is reminiscent of the void in earlier theory, in which atoms were thought randomly to move. An infant looking into its mother's radiance may believe t h a t no individuality, however slight, will be neglected or destroyed in the light of s u c h a radiance. Things are so b e c a u s e they are validated in being so. To love is to come to recognition, a n d to b e able to recognize something is inevitably to reach a certain kind of knowledge, in which the mysterious a n d beautiful concept of resemblance becomes irresistibly necessary. (The concept of resemblance is a t the opposite pole from the delusional cloning equations of sign language.)

' 4 m Ism In* ft ,JI i 11

Leibniz accused Newton of idol-making in asserting the existence of absolute space a n d time. Leibniz r e s e n t e d the possibility t h a t space a n d time, which h e thought of a s idolic ideas, might be given a n absolute authority in determining the place of beings. Space a n d time could n o t embody the principle of sufficient reason. Leibniz writes: "It is a fiction to s u p p o s e that God might have created the world some million years sooner. They who r u n into s u c h kinds of fiction, c a n give n o answer to someone who argues in favour of the eternity of the world" (Alexander, 1956, p. 38). Appearances, having the meaning of m a s k s , n o t faces, a n idolic belief, are provisional, unreliable, a n d without inward significance; they imply some divorce between expression a n d inwardness. Masks are analogues for bizarre objects a n d other u n s t a b l e a n d agglomerated proto-symbolizations t h a t occur on t h e depressive threshold. They echo faces, though their echo is voided of the poignancy of h u m a n communication. They c a n n o t b e a n index to love. Levi-Strauss h a s asserted t h a t primitive thought, a s a science of the concrete, is u n a b l e to comprehend s u c h concepts a s infinity. Masks are epitomes of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness; they are particulars u n g r o u n d e d in the idea of eternity. The expression on a face is different. An infant can look into its m o t h e r ' s face a n d in the radiance of the face discover the meaning of liturgical symbolizationthe i n c a n d e s c e n t metap h o r t h a t comes into existence when a preconception m e e t s with the love generated in a particular m o m e n t a n d in a particular intimacy.

The relationship of source to symbol is u n u s u a l l y interesting in those cases in which source a n d symbol interfuse (situations of consubstantiality in which concepts are indistinguishable from existents), or are so isolated from each other t h a t symbols are reduced to being residues of a lost passion, markings whose m e a n i n g s (if p r e s u m e d to have once existed) no longer can be deciphered. The fifth-century Byzantine historian, bishop Theodoret of Cyrrus, thought that while a n icon was a representation having a likeness to something, a n idol was something without a likeness to anything. An icon is a n object of probity; the meaning of its presence is validated by the a u t h e n t i c existence of a mystery. Radiance in t h e m o t h e r ' s face is true of her inward thoughts. By its

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ii . i*t i <> sin; *2 If)

integrity, the icon invites the one who looks at it to ask: w h a t is the relationship between this symbol a n d its source?a question so insistent that it may distract the questioner from another issue, which concerns the degree of aspiration in the one who looks. Belief in the importance of representation a n d of representation being iconic (rather t h a n idolic) lies deep in the t h o u g h t of western culture. Plato h a d seen all particulars a s p a r t a k i n g of ideas a n d of being meaningful through this partaking. The later debate in Byzantium concerning the truthfulness of the visual image^-whether the icon, like the body of the incarnated god, could b e a vehicle for the spiritualwas so intense t h a t it threatened the very stability of the Byzantine empire. [Similarly, Melanie Klein's fellow workers greeted her definition of the depressive position with great anxiety. The central issue in depressive understanding, the notion t h a t the meaning of phen o m e n a depends on their being interfused with a type of p a i n a n d a type of idea that belongs to mind alone, was deeply perturbing.]

Cultural cross-fertilization. Paranoid-schizoid conversion as against depressive recognition. Stolen goods, and the revival of aesthetic intuition the west

in

s a n embodiment, the fetish h a s a c h a r i s m a with the power to inhibit thought. Brilliantly it can b l a n k out knowledge in p h a n t a s y of some robbery a n d violation of the b a b y or penis within the mother, by attacking the mother's relationship to these objects. The n a t u r e of its effect is relevant to a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the modernist aesthetic, which is the aesthetic of primitivism. The c h a r i s m a of the fetish consists of a radiance stolen from the good objects a n d focused into a blinding light comparable to a lightning flash. In a p a p e r on the migraine, R. E. MoneyKyrle (1978) recalled suggesting to a migraine p a t i e n t " . . . t h a t s h e felt h e r migraine to b e analogous to the blinding light St Paul saw on his way to persecute the Christians a n d t h a t it w a s therefore related to her own unconscious sadistic p h a n tasies" (p. 361). The act of conversion depends on a paranoid-schizoid misu n d e r s t a n d i n g of the ability to recognize, or u n d e r s t a n d , the o t h e r n e s s a n d rights of others. Conversion, rather, is a m u t u a l 187

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a lif

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form of intrusive identification, in which one p a r t n e r switches place with another. By some reversal in perspective, Paul comes to identify with the m a n h e would destroy. While n a m e d Saul, h e h a d watched with approval the stoning to death of Stephen, who h a d denounced the elders of the temple for a b a n d o n i n g t h e unknowable a n d u n n a m e d God of their ancestors. Stephen h a d called for a r e t u r n to the t r u e faith. His garments, removed from him, were left in a h e a p b y the side of the stranger Saul, who watched the execution. Later, on the road to D a m a s c u s , Saul himself w a s stoned by the light of revelation, lost his sight a n d n a m e , a n d became confused with a power t h a t h e could not think a b o u t b e c a u s e h e h a d lost the ability to symbolize. B u t in m o m e n t s of annihilation, the individual can acquire socio-cultural signs, outward representations, psychic skeletals, to s u s t a i n the emergence of t h o u g h t a s a n inward presence: a s with the imagos, or hallowed s t a t u e s of ancestors, that the ancient Romans k e p t in t h e courtyards to their h o u s e s (Mauss, 1950, p p . 350 ff.). Rites of p a s s a g e are s u p p o r t s by which the group hopes to carry the initiate through a state of psychic death. Saul h a d neither rite nor group, only the clothes of the dead m a n , which h e now figuratively wore. Stephen h a d a c c u s e d the elders of becoming idolic. The fact they h a d converted to idolism b e c a u s e they wished to m u r d e r the idea of the icon b e c a m e plain when, in voicing his criticism, Stephen took on the role of the icon: h e h a d to be silenced. In the iconoclasm of ancient Egypt, the prime objects of attack were the eyes, noses, a n d m o u t h s of the sacred s t a t u e s t h e s m a s h i n g of orifices through which a mother a n d infant c a n experience adoration to p a s s .

a n exceptional aesthetic value. He h a d to appropriate their genius a n d m a k e it his own. A belief of this kind is the dynamic of fetishism a n d is characteristic of m a n y primitive cultures, in which rites of worship a n d propitiation are magics intended to detain fugitive gods t h a t otherwise might be appropriated by other tribes. Detaining the god is a misunderstandinga quite creative oneof how a symbolism might come a b o u t by the crossfertilization of stealing someone else's inspiration or wearing someone else's clothes. A civil servant in the nineteenth-century Indian Raj, William Crooke (1897), observed the rites by which it w a s possible to trap a n e r r a n t god. It "is s h u t u p in the sacred sesamum grain, which is t h e n enclosed in a piece of holy wood a n d established in a shrine. In the later form the ritual h a s been softened down, a n d the god is only implored or coerced by c h a r m s to occupy the image . . ." (pp. 325-355). In s u c h ways a notion of a r t comes into being, a n d m a t t e r a s fetish (the stone) a s s u m e s the c h a r i s m a of a work of art. Sometimes the need was to steal the god a n d to cage it, so t h a t it should not be re-appropriated by the other tribe. "In one of t h e old Aztec temples there was a cage in which the idols of conquered n a t i o n s were confined to prevent them from assisting their old worshippers in regaining their liberty" (p. 345). "A stolen god is more valuable t h a n one honestly acquired . . . every old woman will tell you t h a t the b e s t cure for r h e u m a t i c s is to steal a potato from the greengrocer's stall" (p. 355). Stealing the life of the baby within the m o t h e r either eradicates pain, or induces pain more extremely. Prometheus stole fire from Zeus a n d h a d to suffer a psychosomatic metamorphosis of the stolen goods into the form of an eagle that pecked away h i s liver each night.

Many Iberian and, indeed, Mediterranean peoples before Picasso h a d sought to trade with the i n h a b i t a n t s of west Africa, or to enslave or to "convert" them, a n d p r e s u m a b l y like h i m h a d in p h a n t a s y believed t h a t they were faced by some reflection of a denied self. Through flair (his own, a s well a s t h a t of others), Picasso was able to realize t h a t these a n o n y m o u s works from a p h a n t o m underworld, largely unrecognized, h a d

Contact between the living a n d dead twins, u n l e s s carefully insulated by m e a n s of fetish-worship (as it was among the a n c i e n t Egyptians), can lead to a dead doppelganger taking over a living twin. A b u n d l e of light-rays increases in intensity during the inversion that occurs when it p a s s e s through a

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pinhole; by a n analogical process, t h i n k s Levi-Strauss, dying m y t h s are revived. The cataclysm of conversion, a s Paul m u s t have realized, can activate quiescent m y t h s intolerably, so t h a t they possess those whom they convert. When Picasso came into contact with the "fetishes" of t h e Trocadero, h e w a s filled with dread a n d for a m o m e n t t h o u g h t t h a t h e was going to die.

Resentful, h e appropriates h i s mother's capacity to b e pregn a n t ; h e then fears t h a t his stomach tension h a r b o u r s the b i r t h / d e a t h of a two-headed monster, which h e relates to the Michelangelo s t a t u e . By clutching the crucifix, h e hopes to crucify the two-headed m o n s t e r inside the u t e r u s , t h u s realizing t h e p h a n t a s y of a b i r t h / d e a t h .

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Smashing up the inner-world mother-foetus couple, when unpartnered by a father. The presence of a fatheror father surrogatein the inner world can represent a b o u n d a r y t h a t deters the impulse to s m a s h things. A woman p a t i e n t says, with a note of t r i u m p h in h e r voice, t h a t m e n are marginal to the m a k i n g a n d n u r t u r i n g of babies. S h e denies a n y reality to the postulate that in a mother's mind, babies and fathers are cherished as differentiated beings and that the structuring of power in the mind requires both presences. Another patient, a m a n who denies psychic reality in a similar fashion, reports t h a t h e is holding tightly onto a crucifix in h i s pocket. He a d d s that h e h a s s t o m a c h tension. T h e following day h e says t h a t the s t o m a c h tension r e t u r n e d a s h e came down some steps on the way to his session. He fears something b a d will pop out of his stomach; h e t h i n k s this b a d thing is a two-headed m o n s t e r (a figure confusing father a n d baby). When the possibility is raised t h a t h e might be identified with the pregnancy of a virgin mother, a n d that the crucifix is a n emblem of the u n u s u a l circumstances t h a t occur if someone confuses a n act of birth a n d a n act of death (the crucifixion of the virgin mother's son)because there is no internalized father to demarcate the difference between birth a n d death h e recalls how, on a recent visit to Italy, he h a d been s t r u c k by the similarity of the h e a d s of father a n d son in one of Michelangelo's Pietas. The Pietct for him embodies the confusion in his inner world of a father a n d baby. And since his inner worldas the source of meaningis without the function of demarcation, h e p o s t u lates as a fact the belief that the s t a t u e discloses a terrible death concretely identified with a terrible birth.

The influence of tribal art on modernism led to a conception of the work of a r t a s fetish, in which power in a r t is dissociated from a n y relationship to m e a n i n g in content (Stokes, 1961, pp. 32ff.). The dissociation m a r k s the absence of a paternal elem e n t in the inner world. In other words, the twin who dies a t b i r t h a n d t h e n travels through the underworld is a n existent within its mother. If no father secures its context, or protects it against attack, it is liable to be reduced to being either a ghost or charismatic endowed with a n intensity that inhibits thought. A work of art of a n Isness kind does not represent something; being a n impacting of power a n d meaning, it is that somethingan idol r a t h e r t h a n a n icon. It is a species of relic; a n d relics operate a s do reflections in facing mirrors: they multiply without restriction. For instance, if a relic cake containing a god is c u t into five parts, each of the five p a r t s will t h e n contain a separate god. In On the Nature of the Gods, Cicero a s k s "Do you s u p p o s e t h a t anyone can b e so insane a s to believe that the food h e eats is a god?" (Ill; 41). His gives a n oblique answer: 'The gods exist in imagination a n d not in reality. . . . We have a n u m b e r of Dionysi . . ." (Ill; 23: 58). In one legend concerning the m u r d e r of Osiris, every p a r t of h i s dismembered body is discovered, a p a r t from his genitals, which are lost. In a n o t h e r legend, only his genitals are recovered; these were reputedly found a s identical objects a t twentyfour different locations, a n d twenty-four identical shrines were built to contain them.

In a d r e a m a w o m a n finds herself in the London blitz, s t a n d i n g outside a building one of whose walls h a s been destroyed. She is able to look into two rooms. The rooms are friendly-looking.

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a n d s h e associates t h e m to a father's generosity. There is a shifting white light, a s of fire, on the periphery of the dreamer's vision. In the dream, or j u s t after it, s h e relates t h e shifting white light to the angel of death. S h e expects t h a t h e r family, a n d possibly the entire culture, will be destroyed. S h e h a s sent a n envelope to America, containing s o m e p a p e r s recording these events. She h o p e s (though doubts) t h a t they will survive destruction. S h e compares the p a p e r s to a message in a bottle c a s t into the sea. It occurs to h e r t h a t if t h e p a p e r s do survive, they will be t h o u g h t unintelligible. Perhaps s h e faces the realistic cost of a n y movement into depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g . It is a depressive fact that in Africataken in this book to be the womb of inspirationsome of the wood-carvers who produce s c u l p t u r e of the highest calibre die y o u n g a n d without recognition. The climate rots wood, a n d m u c h of their work does not survive. lit i The patient who h a d dreamt of the train-compartment window (pp. 134 ff.) recalls how s h e h a d lain on the ground a n d looked u p a t the sky a n d thought that a c h u r c h spire against t h e clouds seemed to be moving against the sky. (She later described this experience a s entering the p e r t u r b i n g deep b l u e of her mother's eyes.) She then h a d a n association to a m a n , Denys, w h o m s h e h a d met in the far East, h a n d s o m e beyond belief, lying on the ground, his face slashed by a knife. S h e h a d swooned at the sight of his slashed face (as s h e h a d felt like swooning w h e n s h e h a d looked on his face when unviolated). These two recollections of Denys were dream-like, a s implausible a s the moving of a spire against still clouds: b u t the events h a d actually h a p p e n e d to her. This is revelation-jealousy material, by its n a t u r e cryptic a n d fragmented a n d not directly yielding to u n d e r s t a n d i n g . Its quality of intense Isness, of swooning before the power of the stolen visual, is intertwined with the iconoclastic impulse to stone the object, to s m a s h it to bitsthe iconoclastic dynamic in her case being s u p p r e s s e d . Looking into the sky, s h e loses m e a s u r e . Inside a n d outside, w h a t moves or is stillall these become u n c e r t a i n . It is a s though in a n u n g u a r d e d m o m e n t s h e (the patient) were to see

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the emblem of some twin's death within her mother, the spire or crucifix travelling against the clouds. The b e a u t y experienced in looking u p into the sky is checked b y a n intimation of m u r d e r . No one knows who is the attacker or the victim. Looking u p into the sky, supine, s h e is in a similar physical position to the a s s a u l t e d h a n d s o m e victim. Denys r e m i n d s h e r of seventeen-year old boys s h e h a d enjoyed teaching y e a r s ago. a n d of a n o t h e r m a n , Doug, a w a r correspondent, who h a d lost a leg a t the front. Doug h a d been bitter; s h e h a d been u n a b l e to console him. Out of the blue the doodle-bugs would come: their dread s o u n d would c u t out, a n d t h e n you k n e w they would fall within seconds. S h e r e m e m b e r s the shadow of a doodle-bug gliding along the ground. Boundaries h a d disappeared. Doug, d u g / b r e a s t , doodlebug: the echoic progression chimes with her anxieties concerning a b r e a s t in which s h e experiences the beautiful newborn child a s victim in a sacrifice. In dealing with her guilt, by confusing herself with the victim, s h e resembles S a u l / P a u l in revelation losing any self-definition. Paul says (Corinthians 15:49), "we have born the image of the earthly"the culture of ancient Egypt, of death a s identified with mother earth, from whom the babies arise a n d r e t u r n ; the Alexandrian philosophy of deity a s arising ex nihilo"let u s also b e a r the image of the heavenly", which is the double image of the b a b y a n d spire against the clouds. Fragmentations in the service of m u r d e r o u s ecstasy were evident in one of h e r dreams. Her mother sits in front of a w a s h b a s i n . The tap on the w a s h b a s i n is fixed to a n exposed lead pipe t h a t goes u p the wall to the ceiling. The pipe h a s b u r s t , a n d water s p u r t s out of it. In a double bed lies one of h e r two older b r o t h e r s a s a n infant. The brother in the bed grew up; a n d recently, when in his sixties, h e h a d died: the dreamer t h i n k s of him a s having h a d a n unfulfilled a n d even desolate life. What the dream does not giveand the meaning of this reluctance becomes clear from the dreamer's associationsis t h a t the b r o t h e r in the bed is a s u b s t i t u t e for a n o t h e r brother, whom the family h a d idealized a n d the mother h a d adored. The idealized brother h a d been killed in the early days of the war, a

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195

piece of s h r a p n e l entering h i s neck. T h e b u r s t water pipe, a s a dreadful thought of miscarriage in the mother's mind, might represent h e r going to pieces over her beloved child, a s blood issues from a severed j u g u l a r vein. In jealousy, the dreamer could n o t allow her m o t h e r to have the full experience of grief. Denying the m e a n i n g of h e r mother's feelings for her brother played some p a r t in her denial of the concept of inwardness.

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The passion to procreate a n d to destroy the procreation of others underlies the need to worship images. In certain Mediterranean cultures, women kiss a n d fondle the holy images a n d weave themselves into the procession of p h a n t o m forms in t h e hope t h a t they might steal one of them away a s their own child. Possibly they see the images a s fetishes. If the image c a n incarnate being, then so may the u t e r u s of the worshipper. A stretching-out a n d embracing underlies the h u n g e r for thought. In some cultures, p e r h a p s more t h a n in others, a dream lives out the life of the group a n d h a s the power to determine its thinking. In Plato's definition, material things "partake of" the intelligible, a s though m a t t e r were mind yearning to be a t one with God. In Byzantium, the Hellenic interest in similitude fed into a long-standing Mediterranean debate on the n a t u r e of creationist inspiration, relating to the presentation of the t h e m e of resemblance in Genesis (Ladner, 1958). Let us make man in our image (Genesis, 1:26). As agent for a primal power, the king becomes the power a n d is able to reproduce it b y techniques analogous to the way in which facing mirrors create a n u n e n d i n g series of reflections. "In early times the solar n a t u r e of the king was very real" (Hocart. 1927, p. 19): a n equivalent solar appropriation seems to occur in works of a r t of a n Isness kind. The king derives from the sky kingdom, a s allegedly do twins in certain p a r t s of Africa. In fact, the king is persona geminata: his person embodies the s e p a r a t e p r e s e n c e s of the sacred a n d the mortal twin. Both bodies have a metaphysical dimension: the mortal body, for instance, is a martyr's body a n d m a r k e d down for a violent death.

In mediaeval Europe the two-bodied n a t u r e of the king is a n aspect of christology, though the idea of persona geminata is wider a n d older t h a n the Christian influence. In central Africapart pagan, p a r t Islamicthe institutionalizing of a n identical doctrine concerning the conjoining of a divine a n d mortal twin in the sacrality of the king h a s been long-standing (Adler, 1982; Kantorowicz, 1957). For the psychotic the fusion of concept a n d existent results in t h e thought: this occurs because I think it. In religion, a n y thought, insofar a s it h a s plenitude, allies itself, a n d indeed is fundamentally at one with, the creationist existent. Spinoza: "By C a u s e of Itself (causa sui) I u n d e r s t a n d t h a t whose essence involves existence; or, t h a t whose n a t u r e cannot be conceived except a s existing" (Ethics; first definition). No question here of a sign equation. The first definition stipulates something t h a t reality h a s to s h a p e u p to: it resembles a preconception concerning the t r u t h of the good objects. [Let m e raise a m y t h / h y p o t h e s i s a t this point concerning the n a t u r e of "primitive man". He is someone who lays claim to the creative powers of God a s a m a t t e r of fact. He does not expect to be labelled hubristic or megalomaniacal. He believes in the possibility of h u m a n consecration a s a fact. And h e believes also in deconsecration. As the ideology of the king's two bodies shows, a body transformed into divinity is related a s a twin to a mortal body t h a t is denied a n a t u r a l death a n d h a s to suffer the extreme violence of a martyr's death, in compensation p e r h a p s for its twin's divine a s s u m p t i o n . On a cosmic level, a "primitive" m a n who identifies with the idea of a first fiat, the m a k i n g of a totality within the m i n i m u m of time, is liable to believe in conditions of absolute destruction, a cosmos destroyed by fire or flood. In general, though, "primitive m a n " tends to b e unselfconscious in his claims to be creative; h e is able to defer ideas of destruction, p e r h a p s b e c a u s e h e allows his m i n d to b e captivated by the brilliance of the fetish. To this extent Picasso, in spite of h i s alleged terror of death, is a "primitive m a n " able to u s e m a t t e r to create a n imaginative

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world t h a t is comparable in its scope to a creationist fiat. Alternative manyou a n d me in a "scientific", civilized guise may find any h u m a n a s s u m p t i o n of divine creativity appalling; a n d yet the ways in which alternative m a n allows the wonders of technology to insulate him from the implications of mortality a n d to insist on God's non-existence h a s the quality of a similar declaration.]

son, Crispus. Constantine had both offenders put to death. . . . [Grant, 1983, p. XI. 9-10] A h a u n t i n g , if subsidiary, aspect to the theme of murder, conversion, a n d vision is the role played by the seemingly impartial Constantine in having the council of Christian bishops a t Nicaea anathemize the heresy of Arianism, which h a d originated in the Hellenic climate of Alexandria, a n d which w a s anti-iconic a n d in effect denied the twin n a t u r e of Christ, h i s being b o t h sacred a n d mortal. Arius a n d his followers h a d claimed that the Logos a n d the Son were n o t co-generated with the father, a n d t h a t the Logos a n d the Son were created ex nihilo. In effect, they proposed t h a t the c h u r c h should t u r n to idolism; a n d they were excommunicated for attempting to refute the doctrine of consubstantiality, on which eventually the intellectual foundation of the cult of icon w a s to be constructed. Cultures speak to each other, often in little more t h a n a n echo of feeling, or h i n t of s h a p e or m e a s u r e . In ancient Egypt a n d Greece, in Byzantium a n d in the art of western Africa, the curve of a smile or a b r e a s t or a cheek in a nativity gave way to the angularity of a pietd. A tendency towards Byzantine symbolist thinking in the France of the late nineteenth century helped to a w a k e n the capacity to u n d e r s t a n d the tribal a r t of Africa a n d the Oceanic kingdoms. Isness, in the disquieting guise of the fetish, revived the aesthetic intuitions of u r b a n man.

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In legend, at least, the vision of the alleged l u m i n o u s cross in the sky that Constantine a n d his troops saw on their m a r c h to battle with Maxentius, precipitated the cult of the icon in Byzantium. The dynamic of the "conversion", similar to the experience on the road to D a m a s c u s , m a y have induced Constantine's conversion to Christianity; though it h a s b e e n doubted whether Constantine was ever converted to anything, even on h i s death-bed. The Life of Constantine (at one time attributed to Eusebius) a s s e r t s t h a t the luminous cross appeared to the emperor in the evening sky. Its a p p e a r a n c e was accompanied by t h e words, "By This Conquer!" It was situated above the setting s u n . On the night following the vision, or p e r h a p s on the s a m e night, Constantine h a d a dream in which the figure of Christ c a m e to him, bearing the s a m e sign, a n d bidding him to m a k e a liken e s s of the cross, a n d with it to m a r c h against his enemies. At the coming of dawn, b u t not before, the emperor c o m m u n i c a t e d the dream to h i s friends a n d ordered some of h i s craftsmen to m a k e the labarum, which was adopted a s the official s t a n d a r d of t h e Byzantine empire (Vasiliev, 1952, p. 50). Vision, or dream image, inspired the relic-power of the labarum, a n d the cross a s vision gave authority to the empire. Reputedly, Helena discovered the a c t u a l Holy Cross w h e n on a visit to the n e a r East. She thought to perceive, in fact, something t h a t Constantine could only know by way of vision. Other pilgrims were reputed to have found fragments of the actual cross; a n d these were p a s s e d a b o u t the empire. Constantine, like Paul, connived in a m u r d e r . Apparently it was his mother, Helena, who informed him that his wife, Fausta, had been living in sin with his oldest

CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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Group dreams (sometimes in the form of determine perception. Ingesting them may interminable tracts of space and centuries

ideologies) take of time.

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IU* > ii i i rculfus, a French bishop, went on a pilgrimage to the Near E a s t r o u n d a b o u t the year 670 AD. On the way home, his ship went off course somewhere between Rome a n d France, a n d h e found himself w a s h e d u p on the island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland. It is n o t known why this h a p p e n e d . People perceive a s their d r e a m s allow t h e m to perceive: a n d to a n u n u s u a l extent in Arculfus's time a certain dream was so influential t h a t it utterly modified temporal a n d spatial configurations. A d a m n a n , the abbot of the monastery of Hy on Iona, w a s deeply stirred by Arculfus's description of the holy places. He took the account down in dictation a n d h a d it m a d e u p into a book, De Loctis Sanctis. A mythic event h a d possessed Arculfus. It was like a d r e a m t h a t so compels the dreamer that h e h a s to reach out a n d grasp it in the actual world. Arculfus visited the Holy Sepulchre in J e r u s a l e m u n d e r the compulsion to articulate some spiritual crisis t h a t h a d long perturbed him. 198

In J e r u s a l e m h e found a specific representation in a certain tomb which provided the essential dimension to his passion. A d a m n a n writes of Arculfus m e a s u r i n g out with the palms of his hands the sides of J e s u s ' s tomb in the Holy Sepulchre, "the length of which Arculfus . . . found to be seven feet" (Arculfus, 1889, p. 7). Kneeling before the tomb, the pilgrimusing n u m b e r s in the service of emotionmeasures out lengths, a s though fused with a bereft mother, who in grief no longer inhabits space a n d time, a n d whose sense of m e a s u r e is a disembodied pulsationin-feeling. Touching a n d grasping can be rite-of-passage activities, ways of bridging some poignant gap. Hopefully they might b e t h o u g h t to bring alive the dead infant of dream, the s u p e r n a t u r a l m u r d e r e d twin within t h e mother. One day Arculfus w a s allowed to see the n a p k i n t h a t h a d b e e n placed a b o u t the face of the dead m a n . It w a s taken out of its casket, and amid the multitude of people that kissed it, he himself kissed it in an assembly of the church; it measured about eight feet in length He is told t h a t the n a p k i n h a d b e e n thrown on a fire, but the fire in no way could touch it, for rising whole and untouchedfrom the fire, it began to fly on high, like a bird with outspread wings. Although some cultures are more determined by their d r e a m s t h a n others, at all times someone who h a s hungered for the u n k n o w n t h e u n k n o w n being, let u s say, a baby to cherish or destroywill experience sense verification differently from someone a t a distance from s u c h a desire. The existent, perceived as a desired future, may be so powerful psychically t h a t any representation of it will yield to its power. The ideology of the relic is based on s u c h a consideration. A relic is not a n indifferent bit of matter; it is matter transfused by the idea of a god (the god being the baby or the dream). T h e idea is u n i q u e in every aspectmany faces, yet always the s a m e u n i q u e face. Although cut from the s a m e cloth, each relic instantly acquires u n i q u e n e s s a s a life t h a t is s e p a r a t e from the whole; it is a s though it were the first of its kind. It is, a s Plotinus suggests, like a drop of water taken from the sea, t h a t in itself m a y contain all the particulars t h a t m a k e u p a n ocean. It is a microcosm with a creativity a n d ontology.

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20 1

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a s well a s a n epistemic structure, t h a t is identical to the macrocosm. A relic is n o t i n s t r u m e n t a l n o r is it replicatory, a s concepts or m a n - m a d e things can be. If someone m a k e s a copy of a relic, the copy in the process of being m a d e loses its epistemic likeness to the prototype a n d becomes unique, the first a n d only one of its kind, through its s p o n t a n e o u s fusion with a u n i q u e existent t h a t is the ground to all being. In the ideology of creationism. every particular is uniquely p r e s e n t at the first a n d only m o m e n t of creation. Relics are heightened forms of the particular in creationism; they are to b e found everywhere in daily life. They a r o u s e wonder b e c a u s e they derive from the first fiat a n d are aspects of the godhead. The t r a n s m u t a t i o n of a n ordinary piece of cloth into r a d i a n t relic is analogous to the process of m u t a t i o n in Laius's m i n d b y which the m u r d e r e d Oedipus becomes the s u p e r n a t u r a l portent who can b r e a k taboo with impunity. A hypothesis a b o u t a mysterious t r a n s m u t a t i o n in t h e realm of the mother's mind becomes, in the mind of the outside baby at the b r e a s t (or at least of the baby in Arculfus), a certainty a b o u t the physical n a t u r e of things. When Arculfus m e a s u r e s the dimension of the tomb, which carries with it the meaning of the manger, or life source, the resulting m e a s u r e is neither i n s t r u m e n t a l nor conceptual; the sacred radiance of the tomb, a n emanation of God's u n mediated radiance, in t u r n e m a n a t e s into the m e a s u r e , so t h a t it is t r a n s m u t e d into the godhead a n d h a s the miraculous powers of a deity. Its t r a n s m u t a t i o n is not a renewal, since each time a relic comes into being, it always provides a first beginning. If Arculfus were to give the m e a s u r e m e n t to someone who was ill, it would be thought to have the relic power to heal this person. A transfer of measurements was enough to ensure a transfer of the divine powers believed to reside in the original building. [Kitzinger, 1954, p. 105] Matisse believed (in one p a r t of his mind at least) t h a t his pictures h a d the power to help a n a c q u a i n t a n c e recover from a n illness (Flam, 1973, p. 85).

Pilgrims who visited the Holy Land revered the column against which J e s u s h a d been alleged to have been flagellated. One pilgrim, Theodosius, claimed that not only Christ's arms and hands but also His face were impressed on the column. The object evidently was a borderline case between simple relic and miraculously produced image, a phenomenon characteristic of the period of incipient intensification of the cult of images. . . . persons suffering from disease took from the reproductions of Christ's body the measurements of the appropriate limb. They m u s t have done this either by means of a string, a strip of papyrus, or similar material, which they then tied around their necks with salutary effects, or by means of a ruler, in which case they must then have transcribed the numerical value of a small tablet suitable for suspension as an amulet. [Kitzinger, 1954, p. 105] If the n u m b e r eight is identified with the resurrection, then a n y allusion to eightness in a holy building equates it to the m o m e n t of the resurrection. The h u n g e r for resurrection pulls together the two forms of eightness. If the meaning of the resurrection is lost, then the two forms of eightness will no longer b e fused with it. In d r e a m thinking, too, a m e a s u r e m e n t may occur not as a fact a b o u t space b u t a s a symbolic attraction between two otherwise dissimilar constellations of perception a n d feeling. In a group dream, a s in certain myths, a n u m b e r a s a group transference object sets u p a range of similar associations in different people. It would b e possible to define the group in terms of the tacit restrictions it imposes on the range of association in thought; the tacit restrictions would be a version of the inhibition imposed on incest. If the act of b a p t i s m in Christian mythology entails some identification with the death a n d rebirth of Christ, then architects will design baptistries a n d mausolea to resemble each otherwhich, in fact, was the case. Relic theory m a k e s s e n s e of a practice, common in the Middle Ages, of building architectural "copies" of the venerated

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places t h a t b o r e n o outward resemblance to the prototype. The buildings vary surprisingly . . . they are astonishingly different from the prototype which they are meant to follow. [Krautheimer, 1942, p. 3] The parts which have been selected in these "copies" stand in a relation to one another which in no way recalls their former association in the model. . . . The original unity h a s been disintegrated and the elements have been reshuffled, [ibid., p. 13] Relic theory offers a n u n u s u a l definition of the concepts of resemblance a n d similarity. The intensity of a d r e a m h a s dissimilarities discover a likeness to each other. The idea in Genesis t h a t "God m a d e m a n in his own likeness a n d image" invites m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g if resemblance loses its relationship to its ground in d r e a m a n d is limited to the relationship of prototype a n d copy. Resemblance may indicate some h u n g e r for division in the essence by which it yet retains the m e a n i n g of its original identity. There seems to be a deep-rooted tendency in the h u m a n mind to seek what is identical, in the sense of something that persists through change. Consequently, the desire for explanation seems to be satisfied only by the discovery that what appears to be new and different was there all the time. Hence the search for an underlying identity, a persistent stuff, a substance that is conserved in spite of qualitative changes and in terms of which these changes can be explained. The group in medieval belief h a d to live out the joy a n d agony of the holy child's birth, death, a n d resurrection. The sacred provides a transference situation, in which space a n d time, a s temple a n d feast-day. are transfigured into experiences of spacelessness a n d timelessness. The psychic task was to ingest miraculous events b y m e a n s of repetition: acts of ritual that, however often repeated, were indistinguishable from the first fiat. The dynamic of the ritual is the obverse of the dynamic of the relic; all actions, however different, are always the s a m e action a n d m u s t rigorously follow the s a m e procedures.

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Corporate awe of this kind t r a n s m u t e s t h e m e a n i n g of symbolism. Passion will identify two buildings on evidence t h a t is minimal or non-existent from a n empirical point of view. The fact t h a t a certain m e a s u r e m e n t or dimension occurs in two buildings will b e enough to establish their identicality. To someone in a s t a t e of mourning, similarly, a n echo is enough to establish t h e conviction of a link with the one who h a s died. Cultures can t r i u m p h over each other or even destroy each other; b u t they can also consciously (or unconsciously) m o u r n each other's losses. To a mind u n d e r the passionate impression of the unknowable, the touch a n d s h a p e of a west African fetish will indicate dimensions of experience that are the equivalents of discovering a new continent. "All I needed to know of Africa was there", said Picasso of h i s visits to the Trocadero Ethnology Museum. The unknowability of Christian passion required a b o u t fifteen h u n d r e d years of group d r e a m ingestion before the unknowability could b e refracted through other forms of culture. The experience of the Cross for a long time determined m a n y forms of symbolization, including the type of symbolization required in discovering resemblances: the act of recognition itself. It was so impassioned t h a t it did not take into a c c o u n t details t h a t the modern architect would think import a n t in a n y description of a building. To medieval eyes anything which had more than four sides was approximately a circle. Nor are semicircle, square and rectangle clearly differentiated. . . . An approximate similarity of the geometric pattern evidenUy satisfied the minds of medieval man as to the identity of two forms. [Krautheimer, 1942, p. 6] [Gebert, a n "outstanding authority on geometry, is quite imprecise so far as the description of geometrical s h a p e s is concerned. On the other h a n d the n u m b e r of p a r t s that m a k e u p a geometrical p a t t e r n is always strongly stressed. A square, for instance, is described a s being contained within four straight lines; the n u m b e r four is decisive while the relation of the four lines to one another . . . is simply omitted. The geometrical form is, a s it were, translated into arithmetical figures" (Krautheimer, 1942, p. 8.)]

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It is impossible to u n d e r s t a n d the resemblances a n d s p a c e s in the d r e a m s of other people if the observer does not feel the passion t h a t may pulse through t h e m a n d whoseexistence they m a y devote their waking lives to denying. A psychotic, it h a s been said, is someone estranged from his psychic s t o m a c h a n d who lives out, r a t h e r t h a n ingests, by way of dream: a n d yet to this extent, the psychotic lives s o m e t h i n g in his acting out. There is n o m e a n s of recognizing m e a n i n g s in cultures where people fail to acknowledge a ruling passion. They lose sight of the full significance of resemblance a n d recognition. The possible life in the concepts fades away. Resemblance t u r n s into a m a n n e r of deadened replication a n d r e s u l t s in a recognition so inert that it might be no more t h a n a n irritable s p a s m in consciousness. nil!!/ < ' i * i ISllW From the 15th century on . . . a gradual process of draining the edifice of its "content" seems to begin . . . it reaches its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Architectural patterns are then used regardless of their original significance, a Greek temple for a customs house, a Gothic cathedral for an office building, a thermal room for a railway station. [Krautheimer, 1942, p. 20] The Holy Sepulchre is hallowed a s a relic; a s the u n m e d i ated presence of the godhead itself, a n d not a s a site for the events t h a t once occurred there, nor a s a n object s i t u a t e d in history. Antoninus Martyr, a pilgrim, perceived it a s a glittering chaos, the vision of conversion itself: a disintegrating r a d i a n t presence in the sky. The m o m e n t invokes the p a s s i n g t h r o u g h a pinhole of the Levi-Strauss (1973) "bundle of light-rays". In metaphysical passion, a n observer of the cosmos finds its centre in a celestial multi-angled lens, from which is refracted the light of all reality. From the tomb to Golgotha is eighty paces. On one side the ascent is by steps where our Lord ascended to be crucified. In the place where He was crucified marks of blood appear in the rock itself. On the side of the rock is Abraham's altar where he was going to offer up Isaac. There also Melchisedec offered sacrifice when Abraham was returning with victory from the slaughter of Amalek; and there, too, Abraham gave to him a tenth of the spoil for the purpose of

sacrifice. Near the altar is a fissure, where if you place your ear, you will hear the sound of running water; and if you throw in an apple or a pear . . . and go down to the Pool of Siloam, you will find it again. [Bernard, 1891, p. 28] All representations of the sacred object become the object. It is a s t h o u g h the object were to devour any claim the representation might have to b e conceptual. Adjectives disappear into the n u m i n o u s strength of n o u n s ; a n d n o u n s of every kind reveal themselves to b e the s a m e nounwhich, in turn, discloses itself a s u n n a m e a b l e : so t h a t all representations disa p p e a r in the face of the primary all-radiant unknowable existent. Spatial conceptions of a n idea that exists nowhere will obviously r e s u l t in a n incoherent topography. [Aristotle describes one of Plato's formulations of the ideas a s existing nowhere. ' T h e Forms a r e not outside b e c a u s e they are nowhere" (Physics, III, 4, 203a.7).]

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Walter J a c k s o n Bate h a s observed that m a n y readers of Coleridge's dream poem Kubla Khan are convinced after they have read the poem t h a t they have acquired a precise sense of the architecture a n d m e a s u r e m e n t s of X a n a d u a n d its surr o u n d i n g landscape: a n d yet they feel a t a loss when asked to give s h a p e on paper to their topographical sense. Their spatial intuitions have a n authority t h a t is not borne out by the facts. Is the s e n s e of thinking precisely to know a dream place a delusion, or is it something else? Readers of the poem have supplied a n amazing range of possible settings for it. Many of them are undismayed when they a r e informed of the divergences in description. Unable to depict t h e setting, they are still impressed by a n experience of having h a d a precise s e n s e of somethingbut of what, they c a n n o t b e sure.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN

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Mania and terror: modern technology, and a switch of roles between the triumphant twin and the twin who is destroyed. The importance of recognition as an experience that can occur on the threshold of the depressive position.

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traveller a t London airport, while waiting for the flight call to Paris, becomes aware of t h o u g h t s so fleeting t h a t they p a s s by him almost unnoticed. Engines roar; light crosses the fuselage; the proximity of power elates him, a n d h e h a s a s e n s e of being taken out of himself into a m a n i c state. At which point a thought occurs to him t h a t h e does not relishone that, h e realizes, is related to the m a n i c state. In some clearly demarcated area in his mind, the aeroplane t u r n s into a fireball. Falling meteors are r e p u t e d to have the power of burning with inner fire and shining in the night-time (Evans, 1901, p. 21). Terror almost brings the traveller to his knees; reasonably so, in the light of the c r a s h he nearly u n d e r w e n t s o m e years before, w h e n Mont Blanc rode u p to the aeroplane window. And yet something else: these are psychotic anxieties awaiting to be re-awoken at any moment. They are reminiscent of the sensation h e sometimes h a s when entering a swimming poolof a body violently fragmenting; a failure in the 206

power to symbolize: a failure to r e t u r n from a rite-of-passage death. Anxieties occur t h a t are a s primal a s any, a surfacing in n o w n e s s of the first disintegration, which sets in reversal the m e a n i n g of the first integration p e r h a p s , some God in the o u t b a c k s u m m o n i n g u p the world on the first horizon: light a n d dark, water a n d air, animals a n d trees. Imagine God's creation t h r o u g h t h e first six days moving backwards through time. It becomes the swirl t h a t devours, the vortex within a b a d breast, the s u b s t r a t e to nightmare a n d dream, which t u r n s out to be physicality itself. It would seem t h a t beta elements, a n indigestible physicality, underlies all thought, a n d t h a t Democritus's materialismatoms in a voiddescribes a psychotic state. If the glistening aeroplane is a s potent a s a fetish god, t h e n the aeroplane in negation is a maelstrom. Separated from mother earth, whether in elation or terror, the traveller no longer inhabits his own skin. Previously, he h a d felt t h a t magical energies were seeping into him through a n imagined fusion with the aeroplane as fetish; in the explosion, the robbed a n d vengeful fetish annihilates security. The midair disintegration is a n object that p u l s e s power. For early m a n , s u c h a n object could take the form of a stone in which a god dwelt, whether impacted into m a t t e r or explosive with charisma. An a b r u p t sensationalism of this kind h a s authority in the modernist aesthetic a n d in the aesthetics of daily city life. Personalities a n d things are granted a n unexamined meaning on the b a s i s t h a t they have a n i n s t a n t charisma; billboard posters are a s s u m e d to b e tokens for the imaginative life. A medieval a n d primitive philosophy of revelation r e t u r n s t h r o u g h the b a c k door in the form of the aesthetic intuitionism t h a t informs modernist art. The fascination with sacred intensities, with the idea of a god who asserts "I am what I am", re-locates its rituals in the u s e s of technology a n d in the fascinating movements of lights a n d colours in the city at night. H e r m a n Melville, in Moby Dick, a n d m u c h at the s a m e time Edgar Allan Poe grasped the first formings of the primitive aesthetic of modernism. In A Descent into the Maelstrom Poe describes a vortex t h a t might be a relic t u r n e d inside out, the site o u t of which originates dream a n d nightmare. The traveller

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is s u c k e d into minus-space, a negation of t h e space created b y Plato's demiurge. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfect smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, b u t for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around. . . . The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on account of a thick mist in which everything was enveloped, and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway between Time and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of the funnel, as they met together at the bottom. . . . Round and round we sweptnot in any uniform movementbut in dizzying swings and jerks that sent us sometimes only a few hundred feetsometimes nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. . . . Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we were borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture, broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our company. I m u s t have been deliriousfor I even sought amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of their several descents towards the foam below. [Poe, 1967, p. 239] Primitive m a n reforms the debris of destroyed c u l t u r e s with a n indifference to the possibility that the debris might have some meaning within the context of time a s history. The comfortable furnishings of the ship in Poe's story enter into a process of transformation; it is as though the god of Genesis h a d raised a violent storm to disintegrate a bourgeois home, a

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form of Isness in violent reverse, which discovers a n aesthetic coherence in the debris. The s t r a n d e d flotsam acquires the value of art. In the psychotic metaphysic, zones in space are indistinguishable from s t a t e s of being, a n d to a greater or lesser extent s t a t e s of being are vital with the condition of s a c r e d n e s s . At the time of the Renaissance it was thought t h a t the self was able to m a s t e r experience a n d textually to translate the world into m a p s , instructions, the formulation of laws: mind could look onto the world. In the Poe story, journeying a n d space are n o longer t h e attributes of a mathematical functionalism; they move t h r o u g h degrees of being. Poe's traveller experiences space m u c h a s Parmenides h a d done when h e h a d risen in his chariot above t h e gates of day a n d night. Parmenides spatializes being as the centre a n d circumference of a sphere, whose movement is centrifugal; h e considers n o t h i n g n e s s to b e a misapprehension. Taking a n anti-Platonic stance, Poe describes n o t h i n g n e s s a s a reality in which movement, if it exists, is centripetal. Presumably, a foetus-infant begins to relate a n experience of s p a c e to s t a t e s of being during the birth process. Space is the one c o m m o n factor as the architecture a b o u t it is transformed. At one m o m e n t it is a t the centre of its s u p p o r t system (and without a n y m e a n s to distinguish its wishes from actuality); in the next m o m e n t it is separated from all surrounding, a q u e o u s space giving way to space a s actual air, a s lungs inflate in the setting of the wide world. When Parmenides imagined himself a s carried by "wise h o r s e s " through the gates of day a n d night, beyond s u n a n d moon a n d the "avenging J u s t i c e " of n a t u r a l law, h e did not merely ride u p into brighter air, as the modern traveller hopes to do. His j o u r n e y w a s a n ascent into wisdom. The different kinds of space t h a t h e travelled through signified s p h e r e s of being of a n ever-increasing purity. The higher h e rose, the more significant, or divine-imbued, was the state of being that he p a s s e d through. His culture is the culture of the type of art t h a t s t e m s from Picasso's experience before the fetishes. A modern s c u l p t u r e is not a b o u t something, nor does it displace anything; it moves in a n emotional space in which abouts dissolve into forms of

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Isness. Like a n aeroplane in flight or explosion, it is admired when it is emanatory a n d seems to hold the air a b o u t it in a s u s t a i n e d ball of chaos. Common s e n s e indicates t h a t a piece of stone h a s no ascertainable power; symbolic displacement in the mind of the observer gives resonance to the s u r r o u n d i n g air. B u t mind is a t t u n e d to m a n y types of space, a n d only certain k i n d s of ability in sculpting can release the satisfaction of symbolic displacement. In the psychotic metaphysic, the explosion of the plane implies a space t h a t h a s the power to disintegrate a s well a s to bring things together. There is no idea of a selfmerely a p r e s s u r e of existence, varying in intensity, sometimes given to symbolic representation a n d to indications of u s a b l e twodimensional meaning, sometimes not. There is n o question of subject a n d object, no question of anyone being able to separate r e s p o n s e from experience.

masterful, h e contemplates the rise a n d fall of planets beyond the extending horizon. In Peru, in a place t h a t I expect never to visit, there is a plateau between the Palpa a n d Ingenio rivers. Aerial photog r a p h s disclose t h a t if you look down from a considerable height, you can see something t h a t would otherwise be invisible to you. Above Nazca, which is the n a m e of the plateau, you c a n perceive . . . an immense network of lines, stripes, spirals and effigies, all executed on a colossal scale upon the barren table-lands above the Palpa and Ingenio rivers, in an area about 60 miles long and several miles wide. The weatherworn surface of small stones is dark, b u t the sand and gravel j u s t underneath are much lighter in colour. The lines and stripes were formed by piling the dark surface stones along the sides of the exposure. Many straight lines strike across the plateau and rise without lateral deflection up precipitous slopes to vanish inexplicably, going between points of no particular distinction without any pretence of serving as paths or roads. Certain modular measurements recur . . . some mark solstitial and equinoctial points upon the horizon. Others may point to the rising and setting of certain stars. [Kubler, 1962b, p. 286] A self high in sky, remote from its origins a n d in brilliant fire, looks down a n d sees the primitive idea a s markings, myths, or sculptures, tokens of a forgotten intimacy t h a t elude present understanding.

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Elation a n d terror at leaving the ground give way to a s e n s e of disinterested tedium; Icarus, looking through the aeroplane window, observes a distant l a n d s c a p e far below, a n unfolding scroll whose markings h e does not u n d e r s t a n d . It is a s t h o u g h this calligraphy needed, a s a key to its u n d e r s t a n d i n g , the presence in mind of some love affair h e h a d long forgotten about. 1 He notices the markings, a n d b e c a u s e h e c a n n o t u n d e r s t a n d them, h e barely a t t e n d s to them. Any m e a n i n g they might have for him is faint. Enjoying air a n d fire a n d water, h e ignores the articulation of some ancient message on the elephant skin beneath: scratchings, carvings a n d other indecipherabilities. In the thin air, h e forgets the m e a n i n g of stone: graveyards where life once more might come into being. Feeling

'Plotinus, in writing about happiness, describes the soul's persistent relationship throughout life with the One. Since the soul suffers pain, and can feel estranged from the object of its love, Plotinus supposes that its loving and happy relationship to the One is basically unconscious and only hinted at in conscious thought. The hints can be misunderstood or ignored.

It is unlikely that a dreamer can start or stop the generation of dream. He confronts, if only fitfully, an u n c e a s i n g process a s fundamental to the life of the mind as breathing is to the life of the body. There is no possibility of the self being able to t u r n dream on a n d off while continuing to have being. Donald Meltzer, in discussion, h a s described a situation in which a n observer is able to suggest to a boy drawing a patternpresumably a s m u c h from the boy's feelings in m a k i n g the drawing a s from the n a t u r e of the patternthat the p a t t e r n is a conjecture a b o u t his mother's expedition to the s h o p s a t

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the time of the sessiona tracing of her movements, either h a u n t e d by the thought of missing her or intentionally of controlling her. One of these meanings, the wistful, would be a developmental activity, a n act of love. His m a r k i n g out of her possible movements would indicate his wish to b e at one with her; a n d yet in m a k i n g the p a t t e r n , h e is a u t h o r to a n aspiration, not the m a k e r of a fact. The observer's sympathy with the boy's loneliness invites him to u n d e r s t a n d the representation within a culture of sympathetic attraction, in which loved ones naturally gravitate towards each other. Love is not magic. The drawing will n o t bring the boy's mother b a c k to him before the agreed time of remeeting; and, perhaps, however convincingly h e draws, s h e will never r e t u r n . Making the drawing is like the need to kiss the photograph of someone dead, while realizing a t the s a m e time t h a t t h e one who is dead will n o t r e t u r n : "we act in this way a n d t h e n feel satisfied" (Wittgenstein, 1979, p. 4e). H u m a n beings m o u r n not only the dead; a n d the boy, in making his drawing of the conjectured movements of a living mother, is involved in a n aspect of m o u r n i n g t h a t entails the recognition of a n otherness, whose life in t h o u g h t depends on acknowledging a certain death in the self. If a game or rite is a representation, a n d the dynamic presence of the mother in the mind of observer, a n d possibly of the child, is a source of the representation, then it might b e asked w h e t h e r source a n d representation r e m a i n a t a fixed distance from each other; or whether they sometimes come closer to each other a n d sometimes move a p a r t . In a n y climate of feeling, the distance between source a n d representation is constantly variable; as in the Platonic a n d Stoic conceptions of the cosmos, where t h e impersonal m e a s u r e s of m a t h e m a t i c s were a s s u m e d to speak the language of the soul, a n d the attractions a n d revulsions of feeling to have a n effect on the mind comparable to the physicist's u n d e r s t a n d i n g of movem e n t in the n a t u r a l world. Another example, which t r a n s p o s e s this theme to a more generalized level, is that of a Mexican potter who says (on television, in a programme a b o u t the work of C. G. J u n g ) t h a t the p a t t e r n on her j u g r e p r e s e n t s the journeyings of h e r ancestors through the desert. S h e points to certain markings

as meaningful: here are the r a i n s t o r m s through which the ancestors travelled, a n d here, s h e says, pointing to a n o t h e r mark, is the s u n . Imagination h u n g e r s to s u r m o u n t any distance t h a t m a y exist between itself a n d those it loves; inclining to the sacred, it wishes to t u r n time on its tracks a n d to r e t u r n to the first creationist instance, a s though to its home. Tradition, or the renewal of p a s t meanings, is implicit in the recognition of a n impulse to reach the one. It is a s though the p a t t e r n on the j u g yearned to move in the s a m e direction and. in being so gravitated to the sacred, is entered into by the power it y e a r n s for; in its authority, it would seem to emanate circlings of light. The boy who pined for his a b s e n t mother a n d drew a p a t t e r n created a topography of nowhere, a geometry of the soul. His activity w a s different from those who seek in malice, fear, a n d delight to trap t h e god in the stoneperhaps to steal its power from others. In a r t feelings have the capacity to draw things close over distances whose alienatory condition is noticeable. The l a n d s c a p e is not a mirror: it tells someone else's story. Pilgrims discover a holy land interfused with the presence of a child, a twin, who in dying a n d rebirth describes the n a t u r e of change. A god enters or leaves a stone. A mother holds within her the inseparabilities of joy a n d grief, a n d the pilgrims are a t one with her. If Arculfus a s a pilgrim writes of leaves on trees, h e writes of trees whose m e a n i n g h a s b e e n transfigured by the t h o u g h t t h a t once a certain child associated with divinity "might have touched them. The ancestors of the Australian aborigine do not release a potential in the landscape; they b e a r witness to a n actuality that is always thereIsness. the r e d n e s s in red, the h a r d n e s s in rock, the god in the stone. The dead, who include the absent, are always there, alive in perception, waiting to be noticed. Resemblance is not likeness, if likeness concerns entities that are indistinguishable (clones, copies, identicals). It is b o u n d u p with recognition; it acknowledges the difference in similarity; a n d it allows itself to feel wonder a n d puzzlement. The experience can be intensely persecutory if the capacity to evoke is lost. A w o m a n patient, hearing a child singing upstairs, says t h a t the singing voice s o u n d s like her mother, who h a s been long

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dead. The "like" or resemblance of the singing voice to h e r mother's voice uncovers her yearning t h a t they should b e the same; a n d t h e yearning for t h e possibility is inclined to h a r d e n into the conviction t h a t they are the same. By stopping h e r from going into the next room, I a m stopping her from stepping b a c k forty years, into a room where her m o t h e r is alive at this moment. The voice exists in space into which s h e c a n n o t enter. Her mother exists in a space into which s h e c a n n o t enter.

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What h a p p e n s to the p a t t e r n when the meaning h a s been lost a n d the communication of love been forgotten? A patient who h a d existed in a state of s u s t a i n e d intrusion into her objects began to b e able to puzzle in wonderment over drawings of m o u n t a i n sections in her son's homework. S h e w a s in quest for some lost communication. It seemed mysterious t h a t the flat m o u n t a i n symbols on his map might be re-drawn a s vertical cross-sections of m o u n t a i n height. The puzzle w a s more t h a n one of topography, geometry, or of transformations in convention. It concerned the fact that something so mysteriously wonderful a s transformation might exist. She could see why the world might contain transformation. Symbolism exists in a n imaginary space governed by sympathies a n d repulsions, in which a life of the p a s s i o n s projects a cosmology. The fact was beginning to dawn on h e r t h a t the transformation of one thing into a n o t h e r could b e a n activity beautiful in its economy, even in a son's homework. As one who tended to think with "the fixities a n d definites" t h a t Coleridge saw a s characteristic of the fancy, s h e w a s u n a c c u s t o m e d to witness the economy a n d power by which the imagination brings a b o u t transformations. She continued to find ways of thinking a b o u t the n a t u r e of the imagination. She was not s u r e what to m a k e of the worm c a s t s a n d shells a n d wrinkles that m a r k the s a n d after the tide h a s pulled out. She believed that the markings on the s a n d resembled the texture of the wallpaper in the therapy room, a n d s h e wondered whether the foetus in utero might "see" a similar texturing through water. She recalled a film in which the heroine h a d looked at images projected onto the table of a camera oscura a n d then

walked into a courtyard wreathed in wisteria a n d blazing with sunlight. She seemed to b e conjecturing a b o u t a mother during the time of a mother's a b s e n c e a n d to see the b e a u t y of a mother's inwardness as though through baptismal water, a n d t h e n to find conjecture swept away by the m o m e n t of remeeting. Discovering resemblances is a n act of kinship: it is to visit the c o u n t r y from which your ancestors came a n d to see a b o u t you the faces of childhood. It is hedged in with a pain. The w o m a n who thought the singing in the next room was the s o u n d of her mother h a d to learn that it w a s not her mother a n d consciously h a d to come to the belief t h a t someone w a s stopping h e r from being united once more with a loved one. W h e n fragile, m i n d is liable to experience a world in which the loved object is lost a s a series of tormenting metaphors. Forced by the pain of isolation to s e p a r a t e the possibilities of the imagination from the actuality of facts, it m a y t u r n against the imagination, a n d collapse the similar p a r t s of a cosmos m a d e u p of m e t a p h o r into identicalities, so t h a t states of mind become events t h a t replicate throughout the universe a n d can b e entered into freely. A patient may postulate that his h o u s e is identical in its interior to the interior of his therapist's h o u s e (of which h e h a s no knowledge), so t h a t what h e does in one space magically s h a p e s events in the other space. A m a n describes a certain room visited in a dream. He thinks of it a s a room in h i s house. He keeps describing the room a s this room, this room, this roomwith s u c h a n emphasis on the indicatory t h a t it dawns on me that the room in the dream, though ostensibly a room in his house, is, in fact, the room t h a t h e a n d I are at p r e s e n t sharing. The room h e takes over is n o t j u s t the room I work inhe consciously admits h e would like to take over the building a n d develop the property b u t some room t h a t h e thinks I d r e a m about. In dreaming, h e u s e s his d r e a m s to get inside my d r e a m s a n d to take over whatever it is t h a t I d r e a m a b o u t . We might b e twins living within the m e m b r a n e of a mirror, in a p h a n t o m struggle to p o s s e s s the s a m e object.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

217

Fears of difference: changes in initiation liminal iconography Occasions on which concept is confused

in relation to other cultures, to rites, and to the eruption of on the depressive threshold. otherness as an inner-world with annihilation.

Mr,,ill. )S....'H W ni 1 '" ijIIW'lljl' I. .'. fyturlill

The child, scratching a dry p a t h in a London park, might b e someone from a different culture. It h a s a n u n u s u a l s e n s e of o t h e r n e s s a b o u t it, a s though it h a d a gravity or centre to its being t h a t is very distant from any centre in the observer; it might b e someone who h a d prematurely learnt to survive on its own. The observer, feeling irritated, cannot u n d e r s t a n d the n a t u r e of the communication in the scratching, if there is a communication. He wonders whether the point of the communication might b e to project s t a t e s of exclusion; b u t h e feels disinclined to give the child the space in himself in which the m e a n i n g of the m a r k s m a d e on the ground c a n gestate. In t h e country, some weeks later, h e watches t h e s a m e child m a k e m a r k s on a chalk b a n k by the roadside. He is not irritated, a n d yet h e is without any u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the m a r k s . He c a n n o t b e s u r e whether he is there a s the child's caretaker, a s a n alien of some kind, or a s someone intended to s h a r e the experience. He experiences the scratchings a s liminal phen o m e n a . It is a s though one p a r t of himself were projecting opacities of meaning into another p a r t of the self, as a way of dealing with some failure to u n d e r s t a n d depressive meaning.

pes* [Willi, bm l I IP

ougainville, the mathematician, travelled to Tahiti with a slide rule in his pocket: "a real F r e n c h m a n , ballasted on the port side with a treatise on integral a n d differential calculus, a n d to starboard with a voyage a r o u n d the world" (Diderot, 1956, p. 188). He wanted the natives to see things his way, a n d yet probably h e hoped t h a t they would "liberate" him: a m a t h e m a t i c s of reason would yield to a m a t h e m a t i c s of the passions. Diderot was one of the first of the intellectuals to u n d e r s t a n d the appeal of the primitive aesthetic to the E u r o p e a n mind. The different cultures of the m a t h e m a t i c i a n a n d the Tahitians reflected each other. Both sides approached each other with a concealed talisman. Savages carry a m u l e t s t h a t are like the sticky boiled sweets, copper coins, a n d bits of string in a schoolboy's pocket. The m a n of the Enlightenment h a s a slide-rule in his pocket. Both hope t h a t the other will free them from the irritability that liminal p h e n o m e n a a r o u s e in anyone in a paranoid-schizoid state of mind. 216

A pattern

drawn

in

sand

The Malekulan Islanders of the New Hebrides a t one time held to a certain belief a b o u t the afterlife. They believed t h a t when they died, they h a d to p a s s along a road to the land of the dead, which w a s s u r r o u n d e d by a high fence a n d "situated vaguely" in wooded open ground. Before the land of the dead stood a rock on which s a t a female ghost called Temes Savsap (Temes m e a n s "ghost"). Drawn on the ground before Temes Savsap lay a geometric design known a s Nahal or "the Path". The newly dead person was expected to walk between the two symmetrical halves of the geometric p a t t e r n . As each ghost comes along the road the guardian ghost Temes Savsap hurriedly rubs out one half of the figure.

218

DISAPPEARING INTO LIGHT

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219

The ghost now comes up, but loses its track and cannot find it. He wanders about searching for a way to get past the Temes of the rock, but in vain. Only a knowledge of the completed geometric figure can release him from this impasse. If he knows the figure, he at once completes the half which Temes Savsap rubbed out; and passes down the track through the middle of the figure. If, however, he does not know the figure, the Temes, seeing he will never find the road, eats him, and he never reaches the abode of the dead. [Deacon, 1934, p. 130] The making of intricate p a t t e r n s on a flat surface is a striking characteristic of Oceanic art; a n d drawing geometric p a t t e r n s of the Nahal kind was a thriving culture a m o n g the Malekulans. At one time, women h a d m a d e the designs, b u t now only the male was allowed to do so. The artist h a d to b e able to r e m e m b e r a great n u m b e r of the geometric forms t h a t h a d been t r a n s m i t t e d over the generations, a n d h e h a d to b e u n u s u a l l y adept at design. He would begin by drawing a framework on the s a n d . With his forefinger he traces around the framework curves, circles and ellipses. In theory the whole should be done in a single, continuous line which ends where it began; the finger should never be lifted from the ground, nor should any part of the line be traversed twice. In a veiy great number of the drawings this was actually achieved, [ibid., p. 133] The content of the myth throws light on the meaning of the pattern-making, if I a s s u m e that it is like m a n y m y t h s a n d does not acknowledge n a t u r a l death, only symbolic death, a n d is less a b o u t dying t h a n a b o u t birth or rebirth. The motif of geometric patterning is analogous to the liminal p h e n o m e n a of the initiation rite or to transference imagery on the verge of the depressive position. [Positing the depressive position changes the relationship of psychoanalysis to myth. Myths are no longer t h o u g h t to illuminate some unknowability a b o u t the past, a s in the case of Oedipus's relationship to his p a r e n t s . They illumin a t e some unknowability a b o u t the futurespecifically, the future a s a b a b y t h a t is not the self, a s in Oedipus's meeting

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with the Sphinx, a n object t h a t is bizarre b e c a u s e it is liminal, existing on the threshold of the depressive position a n d representing a future t h a t is cryptic a n d persecuting b e c a u s e it contains a n otherness t h a t excludes the self.] The geometric s h a p e s of the Nahal drawing evoke a n image of the primal couple in conjunction. In other drawings, the conjoined primal couple contains a n idea of a baby. A patient on the threshold of the depressive position will experience the b r e a s t a s containing a chamber in which the primal couple are linked by the presence of a baby. The couple embody the inscrutability of a future, which the patient may think of a s indicating a symbolic death for the self. The drawings might be a challenge to foetal omnipotence at the time of birth, presented in terms of a myth a b o u t a rebirth into the land of the dead. A robbed a n d bereft motherwhether Temes Savsap or the Medusasignals to the foetus that it h a s b e e n deluded in thinking t h a t it could p o s s e s s the communication of its good objects, the patternings of music a n d m a t h ematics. Patterning is always touched by the inscrutable: as a liminal p h e n o m e n o n , it is always on the verge of oscillating into paranoid-schizoid s t a t e s of confusion in sensation or into the type of space in which a depressive symbolization can manifest itself. In retrieving the rights of the primal couple, the mother recovers her beauty, a n d the foetus realizes t h a t the p a t t e r n s it h a d t h o u g h t to p o s s e s s have been transformed into cryptic a n d persecutory liminal p h e n o m e n a . J o h n Layard (1936) associated the geometric patternings of the New Hebrides with the fact that Malekula w a s a megalithic culture, in which m o r t u a r y ritual w a s represented b y stone m o n u m e n t s . He marshalled evidence to suggest that Malekulan culture may have derived from the megalithic labyr i n t h cultures of ancient Egypt and ancient Crete. Layard (1937) considers how a similar patterning on s a n d occurs in India, usually by the threshold of actual doors. The lovers who m a k e u p the couple in the breast, while being at one with each other, differ by way of gender a n d parental function. The temptation is to retreat from the isomorp h i s m of the couple into the belief that all mating resembles the replication of images in reflecting mirrors.

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22 1

Temes Savsap p u t s this type of belief u n d e r t h r e a t w h e n s h e r u b s out p a r t of the pattern. As certain anthropologists have observed, the rubbing-out can b e associated with r e n u n ciatory vows that assert "I will not marry" or "I will not eat meat" (Deacon, 1934, p. 144). However the r u b b e d - o u t p a r t is identical to the p a r t t h a t remains, a n d the threat is n o t too formidable; the s h a p e of one can be inferred from the s h a p e of the other, if the ghost is able to acknowledge the principle of similarity. Temes's "rubbing out" is a liminal p h e n o m e n o n , a signsymbol on the verge of depressive insight t h a t paranoid-schizoid perception m i s u n d e r s t a n d s a n d feels threatened by. A mother possessed by the "ghost" foetus within her insists on "rubbing in" (rather t h a n r u b b i n g out) a n uncomfortable innerworld link between herself a s a good object in the infant's m i n d a n d certain part-object satellites of the good object.

seem impersonal in dynamica geometry without feelings, in which a source in love cannot be known.

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c ii

A m a n , who lives out his life a s though h e were a priest committed to the ceremonies of ritualbut a priest hollowed out by the life in ritualreports t h a t h e h a s h a d two d r e a m s . "I think they were similar. I do not r e m e m b e r them, except t h a t they h a d a geometric shape." He allows me access to two objects, which yield little in the way of meaning; p e r h a p s h e wants to tantalize me. He h a s something (possibly two objects that feed him), which h e c a n only grant me a h i n t of. He is preoccupied b y the failure of his younger brother's career. He later describes the two geometric objects a s trumpet-like a n d m a d e of stone. He w a n t s m e to carry his sense of dismay a t being so distanced from depressive u n d e r s t a n d i n g . He p u t s into m e that p a r t of himself t h a t is identified with a brother thought to be a failure, who c a n n o t u n d e r s t a n d the meaning of the two objects. It is probable that he experiences the two b r e a s t objects a s transformed into some r u d i m e n t a r y configuration of v a g i n a r e c t u m . He fears impingement a n d concedes little to meaning. Lyell describes a geological world that does not need h u m a n motive or divine charisma to be transformed; likewise, to someone in paranoid-schizoid states of mind liminal p h e n o m e n a c a n

A m a n begins a session in a state of great volubility. What he says h a s little meaning; it s o u n d s a s though h e were recapitulating the content of previous sessions in a scrambled way. He talks a s though h e were the c h a i r m a n of a meeting listing the agenda. He h a s difficulty in breathing during the outpouring, a n d the difficulty in breathing s o u n d s sincere (in its infantile dependence), in contrast to the outpouring (in which the infant s e e m s to be in someone else). When asked a b o u t his b r e a t h i n g difficulty, h e says that h e h a s some phlegm in his throat. I have a n intuition, which I think was b a s e d on a preverbal communication from him, of a n armadillo p u s h i n g a t a ball of something with its s n o u t . When I asked him if h e knew of a n animal t h a t p u s h e d things a r o u n d , h e answered, with delight a n d a m u s e m e n t in his voice: the d u n g beetle. It conceals eggs in cow d u n g a n d rolls t h e m r o u n d to keep t h e m from its enemies. A s h a r e d preverbal intuition releases him a little from the s t a t e of having a m o u t h full of empty sensations that could not be t u r n e d into experiences. Space in a paranoid-schizoid m o u t h is an emptiness in which things are p u t that do not securely fit. Sensations on the verge of significance are interpreted a s fillersbasically, as r u b b i s h . Another patient, for instance, gives the impression (especially when talking a b o u t food) t h a t the articulations of language are empty spaces where concepts should be, have been (sense a n d meaning locking together, like a nipple a n d a mouth); b u t the spaces were loosely a n d provisionally filled with something that might have been faeces or a baby t h a t waited to b e eaten. It was a m a t t e r of course for him t h a t if h e talked a b o u t food, h e was talking equally a b o u t faeces or babies. He a s s u m e d without question t h a t people who said you should n o t eat babies were hypocrites. A similar identification occurs with the m a n who h a s a ball of phlegm in h i s throat. An empty space is filled with a n overflow of filler t h a t is m o s t probably a n equivalent of faeces: interchangeably, the empty space is m o u t h or a n appropriation

222

DISAPPEARING INTO LIGHT

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

223

jjii**11* Shf lap s? i m

of a mother's u t e r u s degraded into a r e c t u m . The s p a c e is n o t without value: one p a r t of him is in a state of projective identification with a p r e g n a n t mother a n d wishes to protect the b a b y within: h e is a s solicitous of the phlegm in h i s throat a s t h o u g h it were the eggs of a d u n g beetle. Another p a r t of him, more in touch with depressive anxiety, is afflicted by difficulties in breathing, b e c a u s e it knows t h a t it is n o t the p r e g n a n t m o t h e r a n d m u s t somatize its distress a t meeting u p with the liminal p h e n o m e n a t h a t exist in conceptual space. He describes looking at a poster on a n u n d e r g r o u n d station which advertises a film a b o u t identical twins, brothers, dangerous criminals, whom he thinks of as face-slashers. He dreams of two objects (possibly representations of nipples), each one of which contains one of the brothers. Some time before he saw the poster, h e h a d said t h a t when h e h a d b e e n four a n d a half, his mother h a d taken him to Bertram Mills' circus. Up to t h a t timeaccording to h i s mother, a t leasthe h a d been a m u t e child. The family h a d taken ringside seats. Coco, the "king of the clowns", h a d come u p a n d spoken to the boy personally. He h a d been so shocked by the m o u t h t h a t h a d spoken to him out of the painted mask-like face t h a t from t h a t time on h e h a d b e g u n to speak volubly (or so his m o t h e r was to claim). The mask-like face conveys a liminal shock comparable to the rubbings-out of Temes Savsap. The living eyes in a painted face that resembles a m a s k heightens any c o n t r a s t between eye sockets a n d face a n d invites a comparison with the nippleb r e a s t contrast, the eye or nipple having been p r e s u m e d to be invaded by a dangerous rival. The clown's voice would b e a rival's m a n n e r of attack, razor-sharp, which the boy could only fend off by continuing to release speech, as a m a s k - s h i e l d , over the m a n y s u b s e q u e n t years. The patient retreated into silence a n d a pitiful helplessness when h i s way of using talk was linked to the experience of the clown: his collapse was startling. He said that on one occasion his wife h a d wanted to know what his train of thought h a d been, a n d h e h a d tried to discourage w h a t h e felt to b e h e r intrusive interest. He associated this memory to Wagner's opera Lohengrin, in which the hero cannot tell his beloved his

n a m e , becausethe patient thoughtthe hero feared t h a t if h e did s p e a k h i s n a m e , he would lose something.

Names are givings t h a t (like semen) contain the ancestors, the kins, t h e t r u e resemblances, the genius in sap. They are m a r k ings in the landscape, cues to meaning, like m a s k s ; they indicate, r a t h e r t h a n represent, a fullness of significance t h a t might b e good or b a d . . . . a name and a title is like a mask defining us in a certain way and implying a lineage of an ancestral kind. In ancient Rome, the cognomen, or "super-name" one might bear, was finally confused with the imago, the wax deathmask of the face of the dead ancestors kept in the wings of the entrance-hall of the family house. [Mauss, 1938, pp. 352-353] The ancient Romans distinguished between the lares or good ancestors a n d the larvae or terrifying ancestral ghosts whose bodies take the form of m a s k s that torment the living. Fustel de Coulanges (1901), who t a u g h t Mauss, recalls t h a t 'The soul without a tomb . . . m u s t wander forever u n d e r the form of a larua or p h a n t o m without ever stopping" (p. 18). "Our ancestors believed t h a t the dead when they were malignant were to b e called larvae; they called them lares when they were benevolent a n d propitious" (p. 28). M a u s s possibly h a d in mind Linnaeus's distinction between the imago a n d the larva of the insect, the larva being the insect cloaked or unrecognizable a n d therefore indefinable in terms of its species. Linnaeus took the term "larva" from a Latin word u s e d interchangeably for a ghost or m a s k . A ghost, like the god without a stone or the twin b a n i s h e d to the underworld or a n empty space in which sensations cannot be translated into concepts, m u s t be held in check by some continuity of line or s u s t a i n e d series of correctly conducted rites. Respect to the deceased can be paid in p a r t by tending a flame on the h e a r t h , which may on no account be allowed to go out without disastrous consequences. Any b r e a k in continuity is liable to a r o u s e misapprehension, since it indicates habitations t h a t exist with or without a

224

DISAPPEARING INTO LIGHT CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

god in them. A m a s k is s u c h a broken surface. Its a p e r t u r e s may draw into themselves the violent expulsions a n d impulsions of infancy (projectile vomiting, diarrhoea, severe b r e a t h i n g difficulties, skin complaints, etc.), a s though the infant were confused with the u n s e c u r e d presence of a love a s uncontained as a ghost. The proto-symbolic s t r u c t u r e s that continue beyond the state of symbolic dying in the rite-of-passage, typified b y the h u m a n face as a p u n c t u r e d , distended m a s k , excite violent projection into the initiate, which the homeopathic rites of m a s k e d tribal dance are intended to contain. When the m a s k like face of the clown is related to acts of violent impulsion, the eye spaces in the mask-like face are identified with razorslashing nipples, whose intrusion into t h e patient's m i n d w a s to have him erupt verbiage continuously. )itiJH'( H ln*.>t| ti*Pl Sahi'h As our soul, being air holds us together and controls us, so does wind [or breath] and air enclosed the whole world. [Remark attributed to Anaximenes, floruit, 540] As against eruption, there is steady breathingthe h a r m o n i o u s breathing of the cosmos, a transaction between inward a n d outward, comparable in its gentleness to the iconic radia n c e of a mother's face, authentic in bearing witness to a n inner state that is r a d i a n t b e c a u s e it is integrated by t r u t h . An icon enfolds within itself the content of a thought t h a t a n idol, in contrast, would project into someone other.

On being at the point of a perspectival contraction. Clinical material concerning the victim in sacrifice. In paranoid-schizoid understanding, the site of the victimthe altarmarks the spot where the crossing is made. In terms of the inner world, the site is the space between the feeding mother's breasts.

llltiisOl

The process begins with a theophanythe appearance of a god to some favoured worshipper at some special spot. To this place the constant presence of the deity can be secured only by slaying and eating of the sacred totem animal and pouring blood on a pile of stones, a primitive altar which is replaced by a pillar to mark the holiness of the spot. In time the primitive monolith is replaced by a representation of the god. [Crooke, 1897, p. 325]

t w a s necessary to begin the dismembering of the sacrificial victim a t the first h i n t of dawn a n d to have devoured the body before the rays of the s u n h a d spread across the sky. The camel chosen as the victim is bound upon a rude altar of stone piled together, and when the leader of the band has thrice led the worshippers around the altar in a

225

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DISAPPEARING INTO LIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

227

solemn procession accompanied with chants, he inflicts the first wound while the last words of the hymn are still upon the lips of the congregation, and in all haste drinks of the blood that gushes forth. Forthwith the whole company fall on the victim with their swords, hacking off bits of the quivering flesh and devouring them raw with such wild haste, that in the short interval between the rise of the day star which marked the hour for the service to begin, and the disappearance of its rays before the rising sun, the entire camel, body and bones, skin, blood and entrails, is wholly devoured. The plain meaning of this is that the victim was devoured before its life had left the still warm blood and fleshraw flesh is called "living" flesh in Hebrew and Syriacand that thus in the most literal way all those who shared in the ceremony absorbed part of the victim's life into themselves. [Robertson Smith, 1894, p. 338] Something h a d to disappear absolutely in order t h a t something else might appear; so m u c h so, t h a t the worshippers seemed to have been u n a b l e to perceive t h a t bones in reality are n o t digestible. Levi-Strauss (1964), in his s t u d y on totemism, h a s pointed out the links in a n Objibwa legend between: sight a n d the glance t h a t kills, the loss of a god, a n d the beginnings of metaphor. The rigidly exact comparison of the disappearing of the victim in desert sacrifice with the complete a p p e a r a n c e of the s u n allows for the inference that the ceremony practised a n alternation analogous to the changes of night a n d day. If first light were identified with the re-makings of day, a time of potentiality w h e n illumination was hinted at r a t h e r t h a n seen, then the actual beginning of the s u n r i s e would have suggested a likeness to a n infant in the throes of being born. Devourings h a d to be contained. The rites of disappearance were n o t permitted to overlap the rites of a p p e a r a n c e . It was essential to deny, in the m o m e n t of sacrifice, the kinship of the one a b o u t to be m u r d e r e d with the one a b o u t to be born, m u c h a s a m u r d e r e r might deny t h a t the victim h e kills will include some aspect of himself. The sacred n a t u r e of the s u n ' s rising, t h o u g h t to b e synonym o u s to a divine birth or to the birth of the sacred, h a d to b e validated by t h e "disappearance" of a profanity, a kin (whether

animal or h u m a n ) , whose total vanishing w a s identified with the d i s a p p e a r a n c e of d a r k n e s s .

II

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An intense, watery winter's s u n begins to set over the sea by Abbotsbury on the first day in 1990 when I a m thinking a b o u t the c o n t e n t s of this book. It enters dark rooms through small windows, sickly orange, u n t r a n s l a t a b l e into painterly experience, t h o u g h why it is u n t r a n s l a t a b l e I do n o t know. And yet it is a n extraordinary sight to end this drizzly New Year's day: a n d it plays some p a r t in my thinking about w h a t I now see to b e a n important rite-of-passage theme in Descartes's Meditations; how the undergoing of identity loss, consequent on extreme s t a t e s of doubt, is crucial to a n education of the u n d e r s t a n d i n g a n d to the emergence of a belief in a non-empirical type of knowledge. Eclipsed by symbolic darkness, mind is m a d e aware of r e s o u r c e s t h a t it h a d not been able to recognize by day. Through intuition it perceives the world to reform hesitantly u n d e r the influence of a charismatic that techniques forged in the world c a n n o t test out. Light, like feeling, changes the world of things. Surfaces are s a t u r a t e d in colour a n d texture or become drained of h u e . Meanings advance a n d retreat. 'The b e a u t y of colour [derives] from the conquest of the d a r k n e s s inherent in m a t t e r by the p o u r i n g in of unembodied light" (Plotinus. Ennead, 1.6.3). ['The aesthetics of Plotinus provide the formulae which r e n d e r all periods of Byzantine a r t intelligible. M. Andre Grabar h a s suggested t h a t they contain the Byzantine techniques of the s u p p r e s s i o n of space dimensions for the dematerialization of reality; the foreshortening of figures; reversed perspective; a n d the u s e of the horizon line" [italics added]. But this might apply j u s t a s well to Picasso's "conversion" at the Trocadero. 'The characteristic Byzantine conception of the relation between colour a n d light . . . are already explicit in the first Ennead" (Mathews, 1963. both quotations p. 19).] The fact that night a n d day s h a r e one space, a s though Castor a n d Pollux h a d h a d to tolerate a state of individuality in fusion, stimulates t h o u g h t a b o u t the socio-cultural symbol of

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the rite of passage. The self in a state of symbolic death t h i n k s to lose the perceivable world with the onset of eclipse a n d to recover outwardness through a radiance often represented, a s at Eleusis, by the presence of a newborn. In Manichee belief, d a r k n e s s invokes evil a n d the powers of the b a d womb. A woman who actually dreamt of being suffocated by soot might have thought to have perceived the soot a s a negation of the light of insight. The idea of twins having to s h a r e one space is clear in m y t h s a b o u t the cataclysmic interruption of worlds, in which one view of the world is taken over by its twin, a s night takes over day. CENSORINUS: [There is a <Great> Year . . . whose winter is a great flood (cataclysmos) and whose summer is ekpyrosis, that is a world conflagration. For it is thought that in these alternating periods the world is now going up in flames, now turning to water. Heraclitus and Linus <believed this cycle to consist> of 10,800 years] [Kahn, 1979, p. 156] Scientists of the ancient world observed t h a t spatio-temporal s p a n s were irregular. At times, all tokens of stability vanished. Cosmic sympathy was lost; there was no longer a n y iconic validity to the belief t h a t spirit might infuse matter. Fire a n d water were without m e a s u r e , agents for flood a n d ekpyrosis.1 A patient recalls t h a t s h e h a d met a m a n , a n d h a d t h o u g h t t h a t their relationship w a s "coming to the boil"; s h e then h a d h a d a breakdown. S h e h a d been convinced that a t the time when s h e h a d fallen illher lungs were enflamed a n d full of b a d stuffsomeone h a d been trying to p u n i s h h e r for h e r wish

y& M l<t>Ml III Wert *9 ||jiUt*l) UtjaHil hjtiBylil

''The usual translation of ekpyrosis as conflagration is misleading, because it suggests a sudden catastrophe. In fact, ekpyrosis originally denoted the period of the cosmic cycle where the preponderance of the fiery element reaches its maximum" (Sambursky, 1959, p. 106/h.). Of the cyclical, Sambursky writes: " . . . no doubt the Stoics would have agreed with Whitehead's statement that 'there is time because there are happenings and apart from happenings there is nothing'. More specifically, the character of these happenings and therefore that of time on a macroscopic scale reveals itself as essentially cyclic and periodic" (p. 106).

to get married. If s h e or the m a n s h e was attracted to were to approach each other too closely, or cross some line that was not perceptible to the senses, though known to intuition, they would fall ill a n d die. It w a s a s though drawing close to the line marked a n intensification of ontological reality, a n d a drastic limit being imposed on the scope of possibility. It was like the altar on which the sacrifice h a s to occur. Some people live out their lives in a disembodied way b e c a u s e they fear t h a t if they allow themselves to have experiences, they will b e devoured by them. A patient r e a d s a story a b o u t a w o m a n who is sacrificed by some Indians. S h e associates the m o m e n t of sacrifice to the m o m e n t in time when her final session would come to a n end. S h e is u n a b l e to have experiences without being overwhelmed by them. She recalls a weekend visit to the Natural Science M u s e u m to see the dinos a u r s . Most of t h e m h a d been removed; the place w a s being modernized. S h e h a s to u n d e r s t a n d experience a s p a r e n t s t u r n e d into dinosaurs, the terror taken out of their teeth by their being relegated to the timelessness of pre-history. In a state of persecution, s h e thinks of time itself a s devouring. Another p a t i e n t was temporarily reconciled to the prospect of weaning by a d r e a m in which s h e was ceremonially eaten b y her m o t h e r a n d sister-in-law. She w a s almost consoled by the thought t h a t in death a n d its variants s h e might be taken into others (cf. Abraham. 1916, pp. 248-279). Crossing the b o u n d a r y can be experienced a s a cataclysm or conversion. A m a n dreams of a woman who fills him with dread. She h a s a squint. He describes the squint by saying that one of h e r eyes "looks outward". Presumably, the other eye looks inward a n d feeds the outward eye. The two eyes are like a conjunction of the good a n d b a d twins. The glances of the two eyes, when p u t together, become one line t h a t travels both inward a n d outward at the s a m e time. The line is like a n arrow t h a t is able to extend in opposing directions. The eye-look crosses a b o u n d a r y in moving from inward to outward, a n d the b o u n d a r y contains some notion of a flat surface through which the arrow travels without disturbing the calm of the surface.

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23 1

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The tribal artists of Oceania a n d Africa s h a r e a fascination with the existence of flat surfacesas in certain beautiful Grebo m a s k s . The ancient Greek mythologists are fascinated by the surface of lakes a n d mirrors. Mysterious energies c a n t r a n s a c t from inward to outward a n d outward to inward, usually through the two presences known a s eyes. The empiricist defines the flat aspect of features through touch; b u t the energies that move inward-outward, largely t h r o u g h someone's eyes, are elusive of definition a n d similar to the ocular occultism of psychic projection. An infant might conceive of its mother's face a s emerging or indenting into a flat surface. The eye t h a t looks outward a n d the eye t h a t looks inward together m a k e a n arrow-telescope for insight. But if you h a t e the idea of this telescope, a s the patient didbecause it implies a mother in touch with a n intuition t h a t the infant c a n n o t manipulate by predictionthen the eye t h a t looks outward, w h e n linked to the eye that looks inward, will become the evil eye, which induces a universal panic. His mother h a s the power to communicate love; h e travesties her power by communicating death. He would prefer to live in the underworld of signs. But his u n c o n s c i o u s keeps giving him a dreadful gift: the dimension of the symbol re-appears, though in a discouraging form. He s e n s e s t h a t symbols take the form of sacred zones with dangerous b o u n d a r i e s in-between themor, rather, h e becomes aware of b o u n d a r i e s to be crossed; a n d h e is frightened. He tries to diminish the s t r u c t u r i n g of symbolic energies by reconverting symbol into a code language. He does this, a s a n infant, by m e a n s of his m o u t h . As his mother lifts him to the breast, h e thinks to convert a m o u t h capable of loving feeling into a n a n u s that soils. The act of soiling the nipple, to which the m o u t h is clamped, h a s the magical effect b o t h of pivoting his relationship to the object, so t h a t he is no longer outside it b u t inside it, sucking a t a n inside nipple. At times when h e h a s met me. I have thought to see his face a s a skull. He h a s always then b e g u n the session by talking a b o u t deathusually a b o u t the dread of death, which, h e thinks, he s h a r e s in common with his colleagues a t his workplace. His power to project a n image of death travesties a n y

u n c o n s c i o u s belief he might have h a d a b o u t a mother who is able to communicate love to her infant, a n d who in emanating a s t a t e of love is able to traject a n inward condition outward, t h r o u g h the expression on her facein particular by way of her eyes. On this point. Bion's concept of reversal in perspective discloses a kinship to his concept of catastrophic change. One day t h e patient said with some venom: last night I dreamt of youand you looked m u c h younger t h a n you do now. We were in a border town; a n d we discussed whether you should leave this place for a place over the border. I w a s not s u r e w h a t we decided. . . . He w a s trying to get me across the border a s the b a d son intruder. He would stay in the border town, reversing our roles a n d our ages a n d taking over the dreaming a n d the primal scene, b u t in doing so denying the possibility to the couple of having conceived him. He h a d seen me at a public gathering on the S a t u r d a y night before this session, a n d though I h a d told him previously that I would b e staying only for a short while a t the gathering, he h a d been p e r t u r b e d when, after seeing me there (I h a d not seen him), h e h a d thought that I h a d "disappeared". He h a d lost any sense of boundaries. On his way to the session, h e h a d fallen asleep at the wheel of his car, while waiting a t the traffic lights. He now sought to discount the fact t h a t h e might have killed a pedestrian, though there h a d been dream material to suggest that this h a d been possible. By entering my space, h e h a d also entered my disappearance. At the s a m e time, he h a d taken over the enviable expressive powers of his mother's face a n d h a d projected h a t e by way of a face t h a t projected a n image of a skull. Much later, the n a t u r e of the b o u n d a r y h e feared to cross b e c a m e clear in a dream in which h e h a d a blackout (representing the b o u n d a r y crossing). He was anally m a s t u r b a t i n g a young woman, a n d h i s brother was with him; he thought they were in some sort of collusion. He then h a d the blackout, a n d when h e r e t u r n e d to consciousness, h e found himself at home, his wife a n d the young woman being with him. He wondered whether his brother h a d brought him there.

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He associated the blackout to having been c o n c u s s e d a s a young m a n w h e n playing baseball. He h a d lost c o n s c i o u s n e s s for a m i n u t e or two, during which time he h a d picked himself off t h e ground a n d blindly continued to take p a r t in the game. The fact t h a t h e continued to be operational while u n c o n s c i o u s reflected on the n a t u r e of the blackout a n d on his anxieties earlier in the session concerning h i s rage a t a work colleague who h a p p e n e d to be a young woman. It is conceivable t h a t h e experienced h i s brother during the blackout a s becoming his h a n d s in m a s t u r b a t i o n a s they m u r d e r e d the y o u n g woman. His persistent attempt omnipotently to control the object (by manipulation) w a s a defence against the helplessness of a blackout. He h a d suffered a frightening s p a s m the night before while watching television with his wife after a n agreeable fish dinner. To his horror on every channel h e h a d discovered nothing b u t sexual intercourse. (It is as though h e were now t h e y o u n g woman, getting four of h e r bodily c h a n n e l s enflamed by m a s turbation.) Had h e ever suffered from epilepsy, I wondered. No. h e said, b u t h i s wife did call him the epileptic b e c a u s e of his u n r e a s o n a b l e vehemence. He appeared to b e a n epileptic in temperament, if not in disposition, who h a d never u n d e r g o n e a fit. His "epilepsy", a s a n unrealized u n c o n s c i o u s deposit, a p h a n t o m that cannot be experienced, limits any ability to conceptualize depressive recognition to frightening p a r a n o i d schizoid types of "conversion" of the S a u l / P a u l kind. [Another m a n dreams of a single mother who w a n t s to p u t out her infant for adoption. He advises her to have it adopted by "two homosexuals". He meets u p with a n o t h e r single mother, who is witch-like a n d frightening. By denying to the first b r e a s t he feeds from (the first single mother) a n internal presence, which is probably a father represented by a part-object, the infant in the dreamer exposes himself to the p h a n t a s y of a n entry of a finger into his r e c t u m a s h e moves to the second b r e a s t (this would b e "the two homosexuals"). He then projects the attack m a d e on the first b r e a s t onto the second one. In the ideology of the king's two bodies, the two bodies of which the king consists are in fact created out of intrusive

identifications with the two breasts, each of which contains one of the twinseither Pollux (the immortal one) or Castor (the violently murdered one). In terms of the inner world, the king is a n infant travelling through the space between the two b r e a s t s , who feels possessed by the two intrusive identifications, so that h e feels taken over either by the fate of Pollux, or of Castor. Having denied rights of demarcation to his father, who disappears in his m o m e n t of agony, h e is liable to confuse his father with a m u r d e r o u s finger in his rectum.]

The spectator a s artist n o longer finds himself looking down the perspectival track into the infinite (an emblem of Renaissance desire), b u t , on the contrary, finds himself at the point where the tracks of Renaissance perspective condense into one point. The arrow h e shoots t u r n s a b o u t on its track a n d ends its flight in the eyes of the one who h a s shot it. He is n o longer conquistador; n o r is h e really a n Inca. He h a s become the sacrificial victim of the Inca. Discouraging beliefs of this kind hinder u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the depressive fact t h a t an infant, in thinking a b o u t its pregn a n t mother, m a y feel nowhere in granting t h a t the centre of interest h a s moved from its own feeding relationship with its m o t h e r to a n area of disembodied conjecture: its generous wonderings a b o u t its mother's relationship to the foetus within her. In aesthetics, importance no longer lies in the observer's relationship to the representation; it lies in the relationship of the representation to the object it represents. The observer is nowhereor, r a t h e r , h e is in the process of "disappearing", a s the perspectival arrow t u r n s on its tracks a n d enters his eyes. The ontological intensity of a n icon depends on its being inseparable from its source in meaning. Similarly, the probity of a mother's expression is indicative of its relationship to her private inner world. The infant, in looking at the breast, h a s a sense of its mother, her foetus a n d its father being a t one in consubstantiality. The authority of the symbol a s icon among the Byzantines of the late sixth century pointed to "an increasing preoccupation

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DISAPPEARING INTO LIGHT CHAPTER NINETEEN

with the relationship of the image to its prototype (rather t h a n to its beholder) a n d a n increasingly strong belief in the potentialities of the image a s a vehicle of divine power" (Kitzinger, 1954, p. 149). The self t h a t h a s entered into a s t a t e of symbolic death no longer h a s authority over the m e a n i n g of the representation before it. It may experience the representation a s a n annihilatory "conversion" or as the beginning of a symbolization. An agnostic may have a n analogous experience when faced by a newborn baby. An overpowering s e n s e of a s t o n i s h m e n t b a n i s h e s all questions of authority a n d legitimacy. S u c h m o m e n t s are not delusional. Adoration exists on a different plane from doubt: either you accept it a s opening the door on symbolization, or you reject it. Adoration does not b a r t e r with the sensible world. vtt\ (

Galileo and Descartes, and the modification in meaning of liminal symbolism. The relationship of the loss of the aesthetic of primitivism to the machineworld view. Tokens of catastrophic change in the writings of Descartes.

be:

lato t h o u g h t of psychology a s a s t u d y of the soul. He saw m a t h e m a t i c s a s a b r a n c h of psychology; a n d h e h a s the philosopher Timaeus describe the creation of the world soul in mathematical terms. The c h a r i s m a by which the demiurge transfigures space a n d its vestiges is the source of the integrating power in m a t h e m a t i c s a n d m u s i c a s languages of the soul. In his psychogony Plato describes (in a highly baffling manner) the constitution of the world soul, using profusely mathematical terms (numbers, relations, circles). In other words, the soul itself looks like a mathematical entity. Certainly this was not overlooked by Iamblichus and Proclus. [Merlan, 1953, pp. 10-11] Proclus states, Plato was right when he constructed the soul of mathematics and divided it numerically and bound it by proportions and harmonical ratios and placed the erstwhile principles 235

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of figures in it . . . and made the circles in it move in an intellectual motion. All mathematicals exist primarily in the soul . . . and the soul is the fullness of all mathematicals. [ibid., p. 18] In Galileo's writings the valuation of n u m b e r a s soul-symbolization is subordinated to a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g of n u m b e r a s concept. Galileo's antagonists thought of concepts a s signs; a n d since they believed signs to be idolic, they t h o u g h t they saw r e a s o n to charge Galileo with idolatry. Yet Galileo was a Platonist, a n d h e h a d little place in his science for the perceptions of common sense. The Galilean scholar Alexander Koyre quotes Galileo a s writing in the Dialogue on the Two Systems that "St" 4V-AI lit) H.,| iHnrtC I,--** ill \ioMil l . jlifltfM Plato believed that (the human intellect) participates in divinity solely because it is able to understand the nature of numbers, and I am inclined to make the same judgment. [Koyre. 1966, p. 192] Drained of soul, n u m b e r s are no longer a n i m a t e s of divinity. They are signs in a text in which a divine a u t h o r , who h a s possibly ceased to exist, h a s m a d e a m b i g u o u s assertions. The codes of the Galilean universe consists of vestiges t h a t are sufficient u n t o themselves. Galileo wrote that Philosophy (i.e. natural philosophy or physics) is written in a very large book, which is always open before our eyes. (By this I mean the universe.) You cannot understand the book if you do not first learn to read the language and to know the characters in which it is written. . . . It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without which it is impossible to understand its speech. [Koyre, 1966, p. 186Jh.] A primitive thinker might claim that the sacred c a n n o t be replicated; it is always specific: it occurs here a n d not there, now a n d n o t then; a n d it tends to b e devastating in its effect. Galileo reports on events that can be replicated t h r o u g h o u t the universe: a n d the universe in which these event occur c a n be replicated indefinitely. Galileo's conceptualism h a d the s a m e

effect a s h a d Arius's criticisms of consubstantiality: it denied the validity of the iconic conception of truth. The Inquisition challenged Galileo-on the grounds that his conceptualism w a s a crypto-sign language intended to deny authority to the Eucharist, in whose mystery the power of the symbol to convert tragedy into redemption w a s thought to be most completely realized. Galileo, though, did not think of physical knowledge as tragicas belonging to a theatre of cataclysm t h a t transforms its participants by way of the devices of reversal in perspective a n d recognition. Galileo describes functions that belong to the practical, even mercantile world. The world of physics is no longer the world of psychology, of the anima mundi, a n d Galileo works in a r e a s of t h o u g h t t h a t are dissociated from the t h e m e of symbolic death a n d the ideology of the psychotic metaphysic. The destruction of the cosmos . . . and its replacement by an indefinite and even infinite universe . . . implies the discarding by scientific thought of all considerations based upon value concepts, such as perfection, harmony, meaning and aim, and finally the utter devalorization of being, the divorce of the world of value and the world of facts. [Koyre, 1957, p. 2] Only b y exercising imagination is it possible to realize how disturbing Galileo's contemporaries m u s t have found his dissociation of fact from value. Galileo calculates not in terms of dream, a n d , overtly at least, does not travel through some underworld of the mind to arrive at evidence of t r u t h . Measuring facts t h a t apply equally to replicas a n d relics, h e is concerned with a science of movement, parochial in application a n d generalized in meaning. His definition of physics a s a reading of the world as text implies a definition of sanity in which questions concerning the primitive or psychotic aspects of experience h a d no bearing.

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Descartes, who is virtually Galileo's contemporary, is also inclined to consider n a t u r a l p h e n o m e n a in terms of a mechanical model, while emphasizing the usefulness of a Platonist a n d mathematical conception of reality. Taking Platonism a stage

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further t h a n Galileo does, h e c o m m u n i c a t e s the plangency of mind's estrangement in n a t u r e from the reality of the forms with the talent of a Virgil in exile, grieving over the loss of his native land. In the second of his Meditations ("Meditationum de Prima Philosophia", 1647. in: Haldane & Ross, 1911. pp. 154-155), h e describes the effect of fire on a piece of wax, so a s to illustrate a n a r g u m e n t t h a t would seem a p t in describing a machine-world view. But the poignancy of his writing is more suited to the theme of spiritual exile t h a n to changes in physical states, a n d it conveys the impression of being a m e t a p h o r for some psychological crisis. His writing implies t h a t loss in the physical world a n d loss in mind are akin to losses of the world a n d self in m o m e n t s of religious conversion. It translates a n observation of physical transformation into a n idiom s u i t e d to describing states of mind during the stage in rites of p a s s a g e in which the initiate undergoes symbolic death. . . . it has been taken quite freshly from the hive, and it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey which it contains; it still retains somewhat of the odour of the flowers from which it has been culled; its colour, its figure, its size are apparent; it is hard, cold, easily handled, and if you tap it with a finger, it will emit a sound. Finally all the things which are requisite to cause us distinctly to recognize a body are met with in it. But notice that while I speak and approach the fire what remained of the taste is exhaled, the smell evaporates, the colour alters, the figure is destroyed, the size increases, it becomes liquid, it heats, scarcely can one handle it, and when one taps it, no sound is emitted. [Descartes, "Meditationum de Prima Philosophia", 1641, in: Haldane & Ross, 1911, p. 154] Wax derives from some original or creativist place in which it h a d been at one with its s u r r o u n d i n g s . It enters into processes of transformation t h a t are h a r m o n i o u s ; a n d then it meets with a mutation t h a t would be traumatic if wax were thought to be mind. Before fire h a d cut off its sentient relationship to originality, the wax h a d been evocative of its former condition a s honey in the hive; a n d by way of its fragrance, to reveal how earlier it h a d been n e c t a r in the flower. Descartes does n o t draw the reader's

attention to the fact that the transforming of nectar into honey requires the agency of bees, nor that the fragrance of flowers is only slightly evident in the odour of honey. He is concerned with the a b r u p t consequences of fire's influence, in which the wax is dissociated from its history a n d its association with food. [The anxiety a b o u t the transformation of the wax may include some anxiety a b o u t the way cooking can change food a n d m a y a r o u s e doubt a s to why a cook would wish to disguise the food's former state. Someone might similarly wonder why familiar things in the setting of a foreign country should seem so alien.] The change is so like a Pauline conversion t h a t the subject before a n d after the change are unrecognizable to each other; they m a y be thought to have fused in the act of symbolic death. So serious are the doubts into which I have been thrown . . . that I can neither put them out of my mind nor see any way of resolving them. I feel as if I had fallen unexpectedly into a deep whirlpool which so spins me around that I can neither stand nor swim up. ["Meditationum de Prima Philosophia",-1641, in: Haldane & Ross, 1911, p. 154] The effect of a whirlpool, a s a m e t a p h o r for a n effect on mind, is like the effect of fire on wax. Subject a n d object lose differentiation in a baptismal state of death-in-life. As a practising anatomist, Descartes thought of his dissecting room a s h i s library. He conceives of body a s a behaviourist might, a s a m a c h i n e in which sensation, insofar a s it h a s meaning, t e n d s to b e misleading. The quality of his description of the wax a s melting suggests t h a t his behaviourism is n o t matter-of-fact; it is troubled by some conception of how things h a d been before the machine-world view, conceived of a s a fire, h a d touched the wax of the h u m a n soul.

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i CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY

241

An Asmat canoe exemplifies the kind of phantasies about space that underlie the modernist discovery of catastrophic change as a factor in the primitive aesthetic.

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t the ethnographic m u s e u m of the Trocadero, a New Guinea pirogue of the Asmat people, acquired by the m u s e u m in 1950. is tilted onto its s t e m so t h a t it s t a n d s bolt upright like a totem-pole. It r e a c h e s to the ceiling of a high room, while remaining the very image of gravity. Its prow, which is carved, seems to be longer t h a n its body, a n d is m a d e u p of three figures: a m a n , first, who sits, legs apart, on the tip of the canoe, a n d who wears a n object like a top-hat on h i s head, out of which would seem to m u s h r o o m a woman, in m u c h the s a m e m a n n e r a s Athena allegedly arose from Zeus's head. The m a n ' s top-hat s u p p o r t s the woman, as though it were a s q u a t log on which s h e sits; it might be a b o u t to enter her birth passage. If the canoe were horizontal, the m a n would b e seen to b e entering, or emerging in breech birth, from the woman. He is not alone by the birth passage, for concurrently s h e a p p e a r s to be giving birth to a child, whom s h e holds before her. 240

u p s i d e down, its h e a d pointing away from her. The father a n d the n e o n a t e seem either to depart from her or to r e t u r n to her. The genitals of the child, or at least its umbilical cord, give issue alsoto a cloud-like formation, or pattern, consisting of curling s h a p e s , a little like a handwriting. These s h a p e s p r e s s forward in the s h a p e of a triangle t h a t narrows to a beak-like point. If this description of unexpected angles hewn out of the relationship of three h u m a n bodies invokes, a t least a s a n idea, the proto-cubist modernity of Cezanne's Montagne SainteVictoire or of his Baigneuses series (as in the Baigneuses once owned by Picasso), it does so with intention, for this is b u t one a m o n g m a n y possible examples of the congruence between primitive a n d modernist sensibilities. The figure of the mother, which is so central to the carving, is by n a t u r e of its centrality less perceivable t h a n are the other two figures. The total carving h a s the aspect of being h e r t h o u g h t s . The m a n m a k e s the woman, who m a k e s t h e baby, who m a k e s the future a s a cloud or pattern, which, in t u r n , is transformed into a bird. The c l o u d - p a t t e m - b i r d configuration is primarily a space t h a t provides hope, in origin akin to the sky. Mythological thought is analogous to foetal thought, which is inseparable from the thinking of the mother's m i n d in which it exists a s t h o u g h her m i n d were the anima mundi. Thought in the foetus is not a n aspect of individuality. It does n o t know the distinctions of inner a n d outer, nor of self a n d other. Foetal t h o u g h t exists.as a something t h a t the mother of the foetus might thinkan analogous doctrine in theology would be t h a t all t h o u g h t is thought in the mind of the creator. If t h e m o t h e r in the carving is granted t h e idea of a n inner space, t h e n the cloud-pattern-bird configuration takes on the m e a n i n g of a n area in her mind in which s h e creates a world of movement, so t h a t the child may have a place in which to thrive. If the mother did not provide the child with air in which to fly. s h e (and it) would never recognize it to be a bird. And its emotional development requires it to be so recognized. Its bird n a t u r e is other t h a n a m a t t e r of metaphor; it is the totemic intermediary through which a symbolism can come into being.

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God a n d animal are interfused with h u m a n i t y in the primitive u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the sacred. All is one (by way of the fact t h a t all have mouths). When m a n is estranged from his animal n a t u r e , h e is estranged from his source in divinity. He is like wax before the solar-fire of a god, or edibility in the devouring m o u t h of a n animal. He is unable to retain definition. In the prow carving, the father holds a shallow feeding bowl before him. It shields his genitals, a n d it associates his genitals to the t h e m e of feeding. The bowl's position parallels t h e presence above it of the child emerging from the w o m a n ' s body. The h u n g r y father reasonably might wish to project into his b i r d son h i s s e n s e of being estranged from the sacred, a s occurs in a n o t h e r legend concerning a bird son, the legend of Icarus. The son m u s t know a fate from which the father is saved. Vast wings, like abstracted maternal h a n d s , insecurely attached to his shoulders by wax, lift Icarus too close to the s u n , so t h a t the wings detach from h i s shoulders, a n d h e falls to his death in the sea. The father m u s t come to know the devouring m o u t h a n d to wish t h a t his b i r d - s o n s h o u l d carry t h e m o u t h - p a i n (perhaps abdominally, like Prometheus) in being weaned. \]P" Uui>i

Primitive thinking depends on intuitions that modern m a n h a s largely lost. The m e a n i n g of the intuitions depends on two equations: m a n + animal = m a n + god = m a n + vegetable or: t h e sacred = m a n + animal + god + vegetable. If these equations b r e a k down, a n intermediate s t a t e comes into being, which is neither thought nor action, a n d is given s h a p e to a s a sign language. Scripts a n d calligraphies have evolved u n d e r the p r e s s u r e of the emerging sign languages. The cloud p a t t e r n in the Asmat carving is a n instance of this. The newborn in the carving becomes a bird through the process of a calligraphy-making intrinsic to the cloud p a t t e r n . Through the agency of its mother, it discovers its bird self, a n d t h r o u g h its bird self it discovers a n idea of the future.

The mother's imaginative identification with the newborn's aspirations aligns her to the depressive position. Indeed, all depressive s t a t e s of mind are ones committed to a m a t e r n a l depth in dimensionality of thought of this kind. The father's relationship to the mother a n d newborn inclines to a p a r a n o i d schizoid competitiveness. It indicates how the inclination to commit incest (to m u r d e r a n d possess, to possess a n d so to murder) is inseparable from a paranoid-schizoid type of perception. The mother's restraint on h e r greed concerning so desirable a n object a s h e r newborn, her realization that it m u s t be allowed to b e a s free a s a bird, involves a turning away from i n c e s t u o u s compulsion. And yet the dynamic of a work of art, like t h e dynamic of the h u m a n psyche, entails having (on the one hand) the incestuous confusions of the paranoid-schizoid position a n d (on the other hand) the renunciation of incestuous desire t h a t the depressive position entails. Without the presence of the father, as agent for paranoid-schizoid desires a n d confusions, the carving would fall apart. Coming to know a bird self is b o u n d u p in the imagination of the depressive position with the infant's need to reach out for a calligraphy. On the s a r c o p h a g u s of Rameses III, in the Egyptian d e p a r t m e n t of the Louvre, hieroglyphs carved in marble reveal a procession of h u m a n figures, changing into a procession of animals. Under the p r e s s u r e of the sacred, hieroglyphs come to acknowledge some essential connection between m a n a n d animal. The psyche h a s to be able to revert to the animal confusion of paranoid-schizoid states, in which the figure of a n eagle c a n n o t be isolated from the chained figure of Prometheus, in order to set in motion the capacity to symbolize. Man h a s to register his difference from the animals, b u t first he h a s to reaffirm the equation of m a n + animal = the sacred. Once the concept of a n inner world h a s been granted, it is possible to evoke the animal in the equation of animal + god = m a n (for example, Prometheus)

as a n important factor in the need to be able to project.

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\;p tail

Sacredness is a s u n t h a t melts wax, a m o u t h t h a t devours, a psychosomatic pain or p a n g of grief. Virgil's Aeneas, for instance, knows the sacred flame a s a form of sorrow. The promptings of his dead father compel him on reaching the Italian shore to seek out the sibyl to a s k her how h e might descend into the underworld in order to meet with h i s father once more. The solar temple a t Cumae, close to which the sibyl exists, is like a n Aesclepian dream s a n a t o r i u m a n d h a s a role in the rite of p a s s a g e of Aeneas's descent into the underworld. Daedalus built the temple in p a r t to placate, in p a r t to t h a n k Apollo, for having brought him safely in flight from Crete to Italy. Aeneas studies the friezes carved by Daedalus on the gates of the temple. They recall m o m e n t s from Daedalus's time in Crete. There is no reference to the death of Icarus. Daedalus's guilt concerning h i s son's d e a t h h a s paralysed his creative powers. And Icarus, his share of the picture would have been great indeed. Hands of an artist twice had tried to mould out his fall in the gold; hands of a father twice had fallen from the trying. . . . (Aeneid VI. 9-44.) The father's h a n d s h a d fallen in despair, in the s a m e way as the two feather wings h a d fallen from h i s son's shoulders: a n essential loss in mind of the poetic symbol t h a t could, if found, lead mind b a c k to the radiance of its objects. D a e d a l u s builds a temple to the god who h a s destroyed his son; his grief is genuine, a n d yet h e is identified with a power from which he is estranged, the sacrality he reveres. The earlier fragmented legend of P r o m e t h e u s is informative of this mysterious compulsion. Consider how Daedalus a n d Prometheus hold together similar motifs: 1. a solar-bull in the Minoan labyrinth eats the sacrificial victimsDaedalusthe b i r d - s o n Icarus who dies; 2. the solar fire stolen from ZeusPrometheusthe eagle who pecks a t Prometheus's liver by day.

It is a s though Daedalus were the father in the Asmat carving, who is forced to enter the depressive position a n d to lose the

p r e m a t u r e idea of paranoid-schizoid integrity, which the carving embodies a n d from which it seeks to escape by m e a n s of its bird-like aspiration. The Asmat father (and Prometheus) would a p p e a r to b e in a s t a t e of projective identification with a w o m a n in childbirth, whose pain is unbearable: it may b e that identifications of this type a d d to the difficulties t h a t face a n y m i n d in its a t t e m p t s to move out of the paranoid-schizoid position. P r o m e t h e u s (and Daedalus) have a double-bind identification with the sacred. They venerate it a s the source of being, while tormentedly having to give way to a n impulse t h a t would have t h e m u s u r p its power (which is associated with the transforming powers of fire). The double-bind identification in certain Greek legends takes the form of a cannibalistic rivalry between father a n d son, who resemble mythic twins, forever attempting to devour each other. ' T h e e s t r a n g e m e n t of the gods a n d m a n is sometimes ascribed to Prometheus . . . the inventor of fire a n d of animal sacrifice" (Robertson Smith, 1897, p. 308n). But Prometheus discovered cooking by fire, not fire itself; he was the first priest to preside over the ceremony of animal sacrifice a n d its first victim, the cook a n d the cooked, which saved the tribe from perennial paranoid-schizoid profanity. The crime of stealing the fire contains the greater crime of having joined with his brothers to murder, cook, a n d eat the sacred child. The father in the Asmat carving holds a feeding-bowl b e n e a t h the emerging presence of his newborn son, a s though wishing for a similar n o u r i s h m e n t . Prometheus's situation is reminiscent of Phaeton, who bullied his father, the sun-god Apollo, into allowing him to steer the s u n chariot. (Phaeton is a n Icarus seen in a n unfavourable light.) Phaeton argued t h a t if he were allowed to steer the chariot h e would have "proof t h a t Apollo actually was his fathera claim to legality t h a t m a k e s sense in terms of the belief t h a t kings have divine right to exercise absolute power. Phaeton is u n a b l e to hold the chariot to its course: h e scorches the earth, a n d , alternately, h e freezes it. His father strikes him down, a n d , like Icarus, h e falls from the sky into water a n d drowns. The father embodies a fearand, indeed, the fate that m u s t face a n y h u m a n being who wishes to m a k e things: which is t h a t the h u m a n being should acquire a sacrality or

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pljfwlli 'IBJI'.

flash of lightning that he cannot keep in check (whether this takes the form of solar or nuclear power). Heraclitus, a s the poet of fire, observes t h a t the s u n m u s t be kept to its course"or the Furies will find it out". The gods, a n d n o t m a n , regulate its course. Scientific law, a n d the aesthetics of primitivism. originates in a s e n s e of primitive j u s t i c e a s a love of m e a s u r e in otherness; it is inexorable. The s u n t h a t rises over the sacrifice is a king at the m o m e n t of coronation, on whom no mortal eye may look. Marking out the p a s s a g e of time b e a r s witness to the psychosomatic j u s t i c e of the consubstantial, a s does the eagle that pecks out Prometheus's liver by day, though not by night. A father who would inhibit the birth of the bird-child m u s t suffer t h e fate of being identified with a mother a n d b a b y to whom h e h a s denied celestial space a n d so h a s trapped in the travails of birth forever. In s u c h a n identification, the father knows t h a t the s u n that begins the day is trapped within him, a n d h e m u s t keep the world forever in night. Prometheus b o u n d to a rock in the C a u c a s u s m o u n t a i n s is a Prometheus who thinks to control his mother, a s U r a n u s did Gaia, by m e a n s of a u s u r p a t i o n of her body in childbirth. The eagle that pecks a t Prometheus's liver by day, a n d not by night, is the u n b o r n s u n or son within a mother's body, whom the father h a s stolen. The son within the body n e e d s to get out a n d rule the world, if only for a day.

The revulsion and fascination of certain European travellers in west Africa echo the feelings that the triumphant self has concerning the twin it has banished. The paranoid-schizoid fear of otherness annihilation.

as

lthough science in its positivistic aspect is dismissive of magical thinking, its discoveries in technology often have the awesome effect of magical powers. Industrial and domestic electricity would seem to have u n l e a s h e d Zeus's thunderbolt, while the movement of a single switch can plunge a city into d a r k n e s s . Similarly, the magnification of optical lenses, by which Galileo a n d his followers explored the night skies, c a n result in a p h a n t a s y t h a t might be either psychotic or revelatory. I had been struck at the distance by certain attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now I had suddenly a nearer view, and its first result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and I saw my mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental b u t symbolic; they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbingfood for thought and also for the vultures, if there had been any looking down from the 247

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sky; b u t a t all events for such ants a s were industrious enough to ascend the pole. They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house. [Conrad, 1946, p. 130] The vista disappears, a s the binocular image leaps forward into the eye, so t h a t the perceiver is aware of some impacting residue, the s h r u n k e n severed h e a d s , a n d not of a symbolization. The binocular zoom is analogous in its effect to a tribal m a s k t h a t expels a s t a t e of impact at the expense of a diminution in meaning. The bewildering effect of the impact recalls Descartes's perplexity when considering a pool of melted wax. Any s u r e n e s s in comprehension lies with the a n t s a n d vultures, who do not ingest objects so m u c h a s m a k e them disappear, a s though eyes a n d m o u t h s could be interchangeable in their tendency to devour. We can discover this effect in another, earlier example, which ties a perception of the primitive aesthetic to the tradition of Byzantine iconism. All her life [she] continued to see the vastness of St. Peter's, the huge bronze canopy, the excited intention in the attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in the mosaics above, and the red drapery which was being h u n g for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina. [Eliot, 1872; 1950 ed., pp. 188-189] Eliot's heroine literally cannot believe her eyes when faced by the alien, for in metaphor, at least, her eyes are diseased: a n d yet it is w h a t h e r eyes see. a n d n o t their organic state, t h a t p u t s her in mind of the disease analogy. The hypothetical deterioration in the organ of sight is so confused with a flamboyance in the visible that s h e cannot be s u r e how far the experience is a consequence of ascertainable t r u t h . The Dutch Protestant m e r c h a n t William Bosnian visited west Africa in the late seventeenth century a n d observed the similarity between the religious c u s t o m s of the natives a n d the practices of the C h u r c h of Rome. His finding Rome in Africa is n o t surprising. The Portuguese navigators a n d missionaries h a d colonized the coast for over three h u n d r e d years, a n d (as

earlier c h a p t e r s in this book have indicated) cultural links with Europe a n d the Middle East extend b a c k even further in time. Alien Africa evoked the familiar lost cultures of the Medit e r r a n e a n b a s i n . Bosman saw in the fetish cults a n affinity to the religious rites of ancient Greece a n d Egypt. He dwelt on the fact t h a t the E u r o p e a n s in Africa lived in forts a n d experienced themselves as besieged. They were there to get gold a n d slaves, t h o u g h B o s m a n only mentions inter-tribal slave trading. Some of them expected to convert the local i n h a b i t a n t s to Christianity. Bosnian's account of African culture is affectionate. He describes the golden o r n a m e n t s worn in the hair of women as fetishes; h e sees t h e fetish a s a n a d o r n m e n t t h a t increases attraction, one of the first informed definitions of the term. The gold which is brought us by the Dinkirans is very pure, except only that it is too much mixed with Fetiches, which are a sort of artificial gold, composed of several ingredients. . . . There are also Fetiches cast of unalloyed mountain gold, which very seldom come to our hand. . . . [Pinkerton, 1814a, pp. 369-370] Later definitions of fetish a s commodity or a s device by which sexuality is displaced would seem to begin here. Some wear very long hair curled and platted together, and tied up to the crown of the head; others turn their hair into very small curls, moistening them with oil and a sort of dye, and then adjust them to the shape of roses; between which they wear gold Fetiches, or a sort of coral here called Conte de Terra, which is sometimes of a quadruple value to gold, as also a sort of blue coral, which we call Agrie, and the Negroes Accorri. . . [cf. p. 168 and Griaule's allusion to the pierres aigris). They are very fond of our hats, never thinking they pay too much for them. . . . [ibid., p. 387] Another traveller at this time. Father J e r o m e Merolla, is u n a w a r e of how the rites that h e condemns in the local peoples resemble the Christian rites h e would encourage in them; yet he s e e m s drawn protestingly into the primal c u r r e n t of emerging life in a way that Bosman is not.

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. . . while their children are young, these people bind them about with certain superstitious cords made by the wizards; who likewise teach them to utter a kind of spell while they are binding them. They also at the same time hang about them bones and teeth of divers animals, being preservatives, as they say, against the power of any disease. Likewise there are some mothers so foolish that they will hang Agnus-Deis, medals and relics to the aforesaid cords. . . . A woman came to me to have her son baptised, and who at the same time had the magic cord about his waist; I immediately ordered the mother to be whipped. . . . [ibid., v. 16b, pp. 236-237] Merolla's severe account of the fetish cults does n o t anticip a t e t h e later high aesthetic valuation of primitive intuition. He is u n a b l e to see a conception of the Christian relics h e loves in the fetish objects; h e c a n n o t see how the native mothers' anxieties a b o u t the fate of their babies is little different from the anxieties a n d u n d e r s t a n d a b l y magical beliefs of m o t h e r s on the other side of the Mediterranean basin. He writes a b o u t the fetishes with a n obscure s e n s e of rage. |p|inil I H J W t U , ifhmit* \}P'< BKJI il|liJjl|:(. When the women are with child, they clothe themselves from the loins to the knees, after the country fashion, with a sort of rind taken off a tree, which is like a coarse cloth, and is so neatly interwoven, that it seems the work of the loom rather than the product of the earth. This tree is called Mirrone, the wood whereof is very hard, the leaves like those of the orange tree, and every bough sends down an abundance of roots to the ground. It is generally planted near the houses, as if it were the tutelar god of the dwelling, the Gentiles adoring it as one of their idols; and in some places they leave calabashes full of wine of the palm tree at the foot of them, for them to drink When they are thirsty; nor would they dare tread upon the leaves, any more than we would on the holy cross. But if they perceive any branch broke, they no longer worship it, but presently take off the bark or rind whereof the women with child make those garments, receiving them at the hands of wizards, who tell them to ease the burden of the great belly and cause them to be easily delivered. It is not to be imagined how careful the women are of this tree, believing it

delivers them from all the dangers that attend child bearing. Nevertheless, understanding there was one in the liberty of our mission, I went, well attended, and cut it down. The woman it belonged to asked why it was cut down; I told her I wanted it to cut into planks; and she went into her house without speaking one word more, [ibid., pp. 236-237] In considering religion, we should not be obsessed by the idea of its necessary goodness. This is a dangerous delusion. . . . It may be very evil. [Whitehead, 1926, pp. 17-18]

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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The rediscovery of the primitive Baudelaire, Cezanne, Picasso.

aesthetic.

|BJll! liedi'H 110 audelaire's writings on art, dating from a b o u t 1850, are a m o n g the first recorded intuitions concerning the importance of the primitive aesthetic (Shapiro, 1978, pp. 47-85). Comparable intuitions occur in Baudelaire's contemporaries, Herman Melville a n d Edgar Allan Poe. Poe describes a maelstrom in which pieces of furniture cling to the ebony walls of water. The furniture is poised against a seemingly still surface, a s though it h a d been a b s t r a c t e d from time. The vortex revolves with vast efficiency, drawing the pieces of furniture into the point where the perspective closes together. The significance of the maelstrom a s a black hole of the mind is at least a s old a s the Platonic cosmology, which a s s u m e s that planetary movement in one direction is divinely inspired a n d results in universal creation a n d t h a t planetary movement in the contrary direction is synonymous with universal destruction. The fact that the movement in one direction is touched by divinity indicates t h a t it is a form of t h o u g h t 252

jmami! KB!'J

available to symbolization a n d aesthetic u n d e r s t a n d i n g ; the movement of the planets translates naturally into the m u s i c of the spheres. The fact that the contrary movement of the planets is able to destroy the cosmos indicates that this is no movem e n t in n a t u r a l philosophy, in which the movement of a body in space a n d time is u n a b l e to change the context in meaning of the movement; it is a n idea of movement in the anima mundi, in which some negation of demiurgic power is able to u s e a reversal in direction to deny the significance of the cosmos a s a container of meaning. On this model, a magician, operating the microcosmic-macrocosmic model, claims to b e able universally to change the meaning of a context by m a k i n g some small change in the disposition of particular things. Arguably, t h e cosmos t h a t r e s u l t s from t h e reversal in direction of planetary movement is a black-hole cosmos of m i n u s - s p a c e a n d minus-time, which s t a n d s in counterpoise to the m e a n i n g of b e a u t y in primitive aesthetics. The r a d i a n t rationality of a universe that moves forward in space a n d time contains anti-reason in the form of a catastrophic black hole, which draws dream into nightmare a n d nightmare into a void. The void c a n n o t b e distinguished from a n absolute condensation of m a s s . If m o d e r n i s m rediscovers the m e a n i n g of the relic t h r o u g h a n idealization of things t h a t have been separated from their function, it does so b e c a u s e the idea of a black hole in its dynamic i m b u e s it with terror. The over-upholstered nineteenth-century sitting room contains a death-swirl, whose authority is less endorsed by the Old Testament t h a n by the latest configurations in technology, the paddle-wheel a n d the turbine (later the turbine-engine). The bits of furniture that have been swept out of it a n d h a n g on the walls of the maelstrom, a s t h o u g h they were works of art on the walls of a m u s e u m , are, in fact, a b o u t to be obliterated. Their a p p a r e n t stability a s "timeless" works of a r t is untrustworthy: the black hole, whose proximity transforms them into sacred objects, is the god of sacrifice in a new guise, Descartes's antagonist, whose power over the u n d e r s t a n d i n g increases a s psychosis takes over t h e mind. Insofar a s the modernist movement in the a r t s derives from primitive aesthetics, it both concedes authority to the idea of

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the black hole, while asserting against it the contrary movem e n t into beauty. Primitivism i n s t r u c t s modernism in the need to resist the appetite of the Occidental city: a g a r g a n t u a n stomach, a species of Don J u a n i s m , t h a t devours everything. It gives debris a temporary dignity a n d m a i n t a i n s t h a t the career of the bohemian or tramp-like artist, w h e n p o s t h u m o u s l y idealized, absolves metropolitan greed. Bits of waste-land on the periphery of cities, the incidentalall these fragments m u s t be r e t u r n e d to the first deluge a n d the first radiance, water a n d light, the turbine revolutions of light a n d shadow in certain of the s e a paintings of J . M. W. Turner.

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Night citiesParis in particularhave a Homeric e n c h a n t m e n t a b o u t them. Points of light emerge out of a n ocean of darkness. Theatres, fairgrounds, luminous shop-windows, the diorama (a three-dimensional precursor of the r a d i a n t engulfments of the cinema), posters, prints, the s c u l p t u r e of streets. Gates of ivory or gates of horn: the spectator looks into, or at, or a r o u n d . But w h a t is it that the spectator looks into, or at, or a r o u n d ? Baudelaire, writing a b o u t art in the Paris of t h e mid1840s, knows how to read the text; b u t h e realizes t h a t something is wrong a b o u t his way of reading: certain s c u l p t u r e s in particulartribal s c u l p t u r e s a n d fetishes obviously, b u t even Gothic sculpturehave a way of eluding his u n d e r s t a n d i n g . [The Louvre in Baudelaire's time kept its collection of Gothic sculpture in storage. If Baudelaire h a d been aware of this deprivation, h e would probably have been u n a b l e to recognize it a s serious. ' T h e resuscitation of Gothic sculpture, like t h a t of Egyptian sculpture, came nearly a century later; never did Baudelaire refer to Chartres" (Malraux, 1960, p. 2). In fact, Baudelaire does j u x t a p o s e the ideas of primitive s c u l p t u r e and cathedral, only to deny any link between them (Mayne, 1955, p. 120). This does not invalidate Malraux's point t h a t the recognition of value in tribal a r t is connected to the rediscovery of Gothic sculpture.] A noble savage walks through a city a s though h e h a d entered someone else's dream. Baudelaire might b e the mirror reflection of the savage: h e meets primitive artefacts with the eye of a n alert somnambulist. He m i s u n d e r s t a n d s pictures by

"reading" t h e m a s t h o u g h they were pages in a book; a n d yet h e leads his contemporaries in the verve of his sensing the counter-culture significance of tribal art, a s w h e n h e den o u n c e s with the vigour of a savage certain types of fashionable art a s le chic, a concept new in his time, a n d by which h e m e a n t m a n n e r s of replication, empty stereotypes, often subtle in their mimicry of feeling (Mayne, 1955. p. 98. "Somewhere or other Balzac spells it 'chique'"Baudelaire) He anticipates the fact that the new aesthetic is indifferent to t h e vanity or greed of the spectator a n d m a r k s a r e t u r n from c o n s u m e r i s m to the religious viewpoint. Cezanne gives the s a m e attention to a slipper, a n apple, or a h u m a n head. Art n o longer merely represents a subject. It h a s become the subject: It is because it is. It rejects illusionism a s insincere. It h a s only a qualified interest in the benignity of perspective, which flatters m a n b y conferring on him the belief that h e can be m a s t e r of his s u r r o u n d i n g s . In a n ecology of the high seas, artists think to create ideal habitations in which minutiae can survive. The fragment of newspaper in a Cubist collage is a spirited survivor in a world in which n e w s p a p e r s are produced a n d destroyed within the s p a n of twenty-four hours. Certain fetishes c u t out of cardboard in the Trocadero M u s e u m of Ethnology recall the p a t h o s in fragility of the collageforms of construction that arrive a t the m o s t sonorous projection in the 1912 cardboard-and-string guitar c o n s t r u c t s of Picasso. By minimal means, the craft of bricolage invokes s p a c e s a s awesome a s the nave a t Chartres.

Two of Baudelaire's descriptions can be p u t together in the form of a comparison, which, in fact, h e does not make, though the n a t u r e of his a r g u m e n t suggests t h a t h e might have done so. In the first description, a primitive person (the unacknowledged alter ego of the civilized spectator) looks at a painting; a n d Baudelaire compares this m a n n e r of using sight to monkeys who climb all over a painting, back a n d front, a n d fail to u n d e r s t a n d w h a t the object m e a n s . The monkeys seem able to read the picture b u t are unable to fathom why the painted representation of a landscape h a s no existence b e h i n d the canvas.

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. . . The painter Catlin was all b u t embroiled in a very dangerous quarrel between two of his native chiefs; after he had painted a profile-portrait of one of them, some of the others started to tease and reprove the sitter for allowing himself to be robbed of half his face! In the same way monkeys have been known to be deceived by some magical painting of nature and to go round behind the picture in order to find the other side. [Baudelaire, fourth of four instalments of the Salon of 1859, published between 10 J u n e and 20 July, 1859, in the Revue Francaise. Mayne, 1955, pp. 286-287] The monkeys are baffled, b e c a u s e they c a n n o t u n d e r s t a n d why a n existent does not represent itself a s three-dimensional. Terrible things, s u c h a s mirror reflections, m a s k s , a n d ghosts, emerge from the collapse of three-dimensionality into the flat. An existent t h a t is compressed into the flat is feared to be annihilatory a s p a r t of the black-hole process t h a t distils everything into the essence of nightmare. Monkeys r e p r e s e n t the primitive element in everyone's mind t h a t knows t h a t flat representationstexts, codes, a n y literate communicationare collapsed from some three-dimensional s t a t e a n d are already far travelled down the vortex of destruction. The monkeys look behind the picture, a s t h o u g h peering into a n object to see w h a t is going on inside it. Looking behind is the s a m e for them a s looking inside or getting into something. The picture is a box with a non-existent inside to ita tricky, falsely r e a s s u r i n g piece of furniture on the maelstrom wall. In the age of Darwinian evolution, monkeys are no longer the captive figures of Rococo art: personifications of le chic. They are charged, accusingand visible in a n y p a s s i n g mirror. They existed in mythic time, a n d they anticipate the genius of primitive transformation, Picasso himself, whom Baudelaire obviously never knew b u t whose intentions h e possibly foresaw.

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validity to social conventions, or j u s t refuses to u n d e r s t a n d them. He holds the book the wrong way u p , partly in ignorance, partly b e c a u s e h e h a t e s the losses t h a t literacy inflicts on his powers of intuition. He is the m a n who is determined n o t to read t h e images a t the first Lumiere film show a n d is derided w h e n h e d u c k s a s the shadow train enters a station. The culture of cities flatters its i n h a b i t a n t s into thinking t h a t they have a synthetic immortality. Everything is replaceable, like a plastic cup. Technology is a n ineffective opiate t h a t only intermittently can split off primitive a w a r e n e s s from the conscious self, with the result that the primitive is liable to r e t u r n with renewed force. H u m a n beings know, in some preverbal, non-contextual monkey p a r t of their minds, t h a t their culture, sooner r a t h e r t h a n later, m u s t b e swallowed u p in some black-hole representation of a sadism t h a t is seldom more t h a n partly defused. In h i s literalism a n d disregard of the social lie, the artist a s monkey opens u p new techniques.

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For Baudelaire, the "peasant, the savage a n d the primitive man" are u p s e t by painting"because of its immense pretensions a n d its paradoxical a n d abstractive n a t u r e " (Mayne, 1955, p. 287). They feel no disquiet w h e n faced by "a r o u n d , three-dimensional object a b o u t which one can move freely" (ibid., p. 286), a n d which envelops the spectator in a certain a t m o s p h e r e like a n y n a t u r a l object. Sculpture comes much closer to nature [than painting does], and that is why even today our peasants, who are enchanted by the sight of an ingeniously turned fragment of wood or stone, will nevertheless remain unmoved in front of the most beautiful painting. We have a singular mystery here which is quite beyond human solving. . . . Though as brutal and positive as nature itself, [sculpture] has at the same time a certain vagueness and ambiguity, because it exhibits too many surfaces at once. It is in vain that the sculptor forces himself to take up a unique point of view, for the spectator who moves around the figure can choose a hundred different points of view, except for the right one [italics added]. . . . A picture, however, is only what it wants to be; it can only be looked at on its own

All writing for the monkey is indecipherable hieroglyphsomething to be wandered over a n d woven about, b u t n o t to be understood. The artist a s monkey is someone who denies any

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terms. Painting has but one point of view; it is exclusive and absolute, and therefore the painter's expression is much more forceful. [Baudelaire, The Salon of 1857, in Mayne, 1955, pp. 119-120] Baudelaire, a s a literate m a n , is perplexed by elements in the world that are not p a r t of some code system. The origin of sculpture is lost in the mists of time; thus it is a Carib art. We find, in fact, that all races bring real skill to the carving of fetishes long before they embark upon the art of painting, which is an art involving profound thought and one whose enjoyment demands a particular initiation. [Baudelaire, The Salon of 1846, in Mayne, 1955, p. 119] Who could doubt that a powerful imagination is needed to fulfil such a magnificent programme? It is indeed a strange art, whose roots disappear into the darkness of time and which already, in primitive ages, was producing works which cause the civilised mind to marvel! [Revue Frangaise, 1859, Fourth instalment, in Mayne, 1955, p. 286] Three-dimensionality is retrievable from the black-hole void. A girl aged fifteen weeks communicates the idea of a link between the idea of the three-dimensional a n d a nowhere place w h e n s h e mimes the comings a n d goings of a friendly adult (who is visiting her) by moving her tongue in a n d o u t of her m o u t h . The place where her tongue goes w h e n s h e pulls it back into h e r m o u t h is a nowhere place similar to the one t h a t adults go to when they leave her. She c o m m u n i c a t e s with h e r visitor by co-ordinating the idea of tongue movement with the idea of adult feet in movement. The void out of which three-dimensionality arises consists of two types of nowhere places. One is a n a b s e n c e of a possible concept of history. The other is the a b s e n c e of a possible concept to elucidate prehistory, which the concept of myth a t t e m p t s to do justice for. Baudelaire is a s puzzled as the anthropologists of his age were by the idea of the mythic imagination, which presented itself a s a n alternative to historical u n d e r s t a n d i n g . He sees Carib a r t as looming out of the mists of time, t h e m i s t s being a s h o r t h a n d for unknowability. He is

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without a poetic symbol or transference object to m a k e sense of the experience, a n d h e is u n a b l e to formulate a secular interpretation of a religious phenomenon. Lyell h a d shown u p the falsity of a world picture whose meaning d e p e n d s on the dating of some first m o m e n t of creation; h e h a d u n d e r m i n e d belief in time a s originating in timeless revelation, whose reification in the p r e s e n t takes the form of t h e relic. An art arising from the m i s t s of time is structurally comparable to Lyell's u n d e r s t a n d i n g of geology, whose changes in formation require the concept of deep time to m a k e s e n s e of ita time beyond the common-sense understanding of clock-time. If time is the mind of Platonic space, then Lyell's unknowable deep time converts space into a universal d u m b n e s s . Worshippers of the sacred, who thought the reification of time to b e idolic, found t h a t Lyell h a d denied them the concept of the sacred. Believing t h a t the world of things h a d e m a n a t e d from the first moment, they h a d revered relics a s creationist things t h a t s w a m in the timeless a n d spaceless mind of God with the a q u e o u s depth of dream images. Now they h a d to account for the mysterious originality of things a s foundlings left on doorsteps, out of nowhere a n d no-time, astral perhaps, like the fossils found in m o u n t a i n s that Leonardo thought to b e the b u r n t - o u t r e m a i n s of fallen stars. The new things were found objects, owing nothing to dream states, perturbingly alien, flotsam a n d j e t s a m , often replicates, incongruous in juxtaposition a n d hard-edged, meaningful only in having a chic, surrealist absence of resonance. S t u d e n t s of myth in the nineteenth century looked for inspiration to genres whose appeal depends on their being found objects: the fairy-tale, ballads, folk art. The notion of prehistory challenged the great nineteenthcentury institution of history; b u t prehistory did not present itself a s a form of anti-history, or of history a s a special dispensation; it presented itself a s a n u m i n o u s a n d preverbal aestheticism. "The first example of Palaeolithic artan engraving of h i n d s o n a fragment of bonewas discovered a b o u t 1834 in the cave of Chaffaud (Vienne)" (Laming, 1959. p. 15). Mary Anning's earlier careful chiselling of a n i c h y s a u r u s out of the blue lyas stone a t Lyme Regis h a d a n effect on h e r contem-

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poraries similar to the discovery of a tribal fetish. Presumably, b o t h b o n e fragment a n d fossil were perturbing b e c a u s e they h a d n o known history. The language in which the text w a s written could not be deciphered. . . . the spectator who moves around the figure can choose a hundred different points of view, except for the right one, and it often happens that a chance trick of the light, an effect of the lamp, may discover a beauty which is not at all the one the artist had in mindand this is a humiliating thing for him. [Baudelaire, The Salon of 1846, Mayne, 1955, p. 120] Baudelaire discovers in the relationship of the fortuitous b e a u t y of city lights a n d the impactings of tribal s c u l p t u r e a programme for future art, which in effect h a s been realized. The contingent, fleeting qualities of city experience, which the cinema in particular h a s been so adept at recording (glimpses of a face in a rain-swept street, the c h a n c e effects of p a s s i n g light) are characteristic of u r b a n intimacy a n d the speed with which u r b a n people intuit female a n d male a s p e c t s of each other, a s facets to omniscient reverie, r a t h e r t h a n a s u n d e r s t a n d i n g s grounded in the dream-genealogy of p a s s i n g generations. Of certain of h i s mid-nineteenth contemporaries, Baudelaire writes (though he might have been writing a b o u t any modernist artist since the time of Picasso), They are as learned as academiciansor as vaudevillians; they make free with all periods and all genres; they have plumbed the depth of all the schools. They would be happy to convert even the tombs of St. Denis into cigar- or shawlboxes, and all Florentine bronzes into threepenny bits. [Baudelaire, The Salon of 1846, Mayne, 1955, p. 121] Since the time of Baudelaire, m a n y artists have s o u g h t to join r a t h e r t h a n to fight the monkeys, in an a r t t h a t raises s t r u c t u r e s from the a b a n d o n e d debris of the cities. The power to salvage can exhilarate the spectator, a s when Picasso t r a n s figures bits of a bicycle into a formidable Bull's Head (1942). Objects denied their one-time function begin to proliferate meanings t h a t are useful only in feeding the mind. T h r o u g h the luxuriance of n a t u r e , the r u s t i n g m a c h i n e in the j u n g l e be-

comes a temple to the monkey god. The found object is entered into by a deity who exacts a sacrifice.

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No one w a s more aware of the meaning of the maelstrom t h a n w a s Cezanne. The m a k i n g of art was like J a c o b ' s wrestling with the angel; it involved a struggle with imponderable forces. Distrusting replication, a n d the autonomy in making t h a t acts of replication imply, he confided to J o a c h i m Gasquet t h a t before the Mont Sainte-Victoire he did not think to copy a likeness (Gasquet, 1991, p. 153); h e experienced a condition in which h e a n d t h e m o u n t a i n seemed to disintegrate in perception, a s t h o u g h they b o t h h a d been drawn into a vortex (analogous, p e r h a p s , to the Platonic vortex in which music a n d the movem e n t of the s p h e r e s became de-synchronized). He a n d the fragments of the m o u n t a i n h a d to r e t u r n to the origins of the worlda condition of psychic eclipse, in which processes of n u r t u r e were inaccessible. Actively a n d quite physically h e disintegrated among m o u n t a i n bits. The articulation of m e a n i n g h a d n o t ceased: it was only when the confusion h a d ceased t h a t h e found himself in a context without meaning, without signs, a n d without any s e n s e of selfhood. Without reason, a n d out of chaos, strange markings emerged on the canvas, onto which h e could hold, a s though to save himself from drowning. A constructivist impulse h a d been mobilized somewhere beyond the capacity to u n d e r s t a n d ; something minimally was being m a d e anew. To Gasquet (1991), Cezanne said: When I think of the first men who recorded their dreams as hunters beneath cavern vaults, or of those good Christians who painted their paradise as frescoes on the walls of catacombs, I realize how they must have had to remake, as though for the first time, their craft, their souls, their capacity to mark down their sensations [p. 155] The delicate calligraphy of Palaeolithic cave painting gave courage to the h e s i t a n t constructivist impulse t h a t h a d now come into being. It was necessary to rebuild out of debris. "What I try to translate is mysterious", h e said to Gasquet (1991), "I tangle with the roots of being." He would lock the

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fingers on either h a n d together a n d sayyou latch together in this way or you lose everything. "It seems a s if no real change in the h u m a n mode of being can be achieved without dying to the previous condition." While facing the Mont Sainte-Victoire, h e would think to die to his previous condition. He would lose the distinction of inside a n d outside a n d discover s t a t e s of mind not unlike those of certain infants or savages: h e was, h e admitted to Gasquet, attempting to reverie a b o u t the existence of primal creationthe essential condition, in Coleridge's view, for acts of the imagination. He would experience s e n s a t i o n to transform into volume a n d value a s though a t the m o m e n t of the first fiat. He recognized a Platonic order in which m a t h ematics m e a s u r e d out the soul (Gasquet, 1991): Geometry measures out the earth, and a feeling of tenderness emerges in me. Out of the roots of this tenderness, the sap, the colours rise up, as a kind of deliverance. An airy, coloured logic suddenly replaces dull, obstinate geometry. Everything organizes itself: fields, trees, houses. . . . I see! [p. 154] In thought h e travelled far from the m o u n t a i n while remaining dependent on its actual otherness. It continued to exist before him u n c h a n g e d , though h e saw it t u r n into a geological o s s a t u r e before his eyes, a scanty a n d provisional assemblage, not unlike a tribal m a s k . Something ate the object away, devouring first its bloom a n d s e n s u o u s appeal, leaving only the skeletal a n d the geometric. It w a s as though time h a d r e t u r n e d to the timelessness of prehistory, a n d in doing so h a d uncovered the anxiety of catastrophic change, which occurs on the threshold to t h e depressive position. Mind either r e n o u n c e s its own expectations to those of the object, or it retreats into s t a t e s of deterioration t h a t may lead to its being psychotic; either it identifies with the music of the spheres, or it finds itself taken over b y the negation of positive planetary movement, the m i n u s - s p a c e a n d m i n u s - t i m e of the maelstrom, which t r a n s m u t e s the fragments of a destroyed environment into a s h r i n e to the god of destruction.

A characteristic of the j o u r n e y through the underworld of death a n d psychosis is the separating of sense experiences into isolated sensations. The authorities at the M u s e u m of Mankind in London, p e r h a p s without conscious intention, place a series of o r n a m e n t e d skulls close to their display of tribal m a s k s . The skulls are factures on which a sculpting h a s been built. One of t h e m h a s h a d added to it a c a n e jaw, a wooden nose, a n d cowrie-shell eyes. The m a s k , a s a variation on the skull (which is a h a r d n e s s b e n e a t h softness), is a h a r d n e s s outside the softness of flesh. Initiates to the African rites of p a s s a g e are submitted to elements, s u c h a s h a r d a n d soft, which have been isolated from each other in order to m a k e the initiates "vividly a n d rapidly aware of w h a t may be called the 'factors' of their culture" (Turner, 1967, p. 105) ". . . to enlarge or diminish or discolour is a primordial mode of abstraction" (p. 103). Skull a n d m a s k personify the distinction of outside a n d inside a s entities t h a t are so dissimilar t h a t they might be opposed. To a n infant, a split between outside a n d inside might dissociate a mother's face from the feelings t h a t inform the face; it obliterates the scope of meaning a n d opens u p the prospect of two forms of a n t i - h u m a n i s t invention: 1. gleeful idol metamorphoses, in which physiognomies are pulled a n d squeezed into a n u n e n d i n g variety of shapes, similar to t h e psychotic b u s t s of the eighteen-century sculptor F. X. Messerschmidt (Kris); 2. strange celebrations of the substantial, which demonstrate the s u b s t a n t i a l to be hollow.

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The skull in the first case is a framework on which clay can be worked. In the second case, the idea of the mask, a s a malign surface t h a t takes s h a p e out of emptiness, stirs a benign constructivist yearning to assemble s t r u c t u r e s a b o u t a void. Bits a n d pieces, p l a n k s nailed or glued, conjoin a b o u t a n emptiness like shanty-town h u t s . It is a s though s t a t e m e n t s consisted of predicates with only the void a s subject. In primitive thought, dead ancestors lose their individualities; they are r e d u c e d to being potentialities (Levy-Bruhl, 1936, p. 139). Space in the tribal m a s k condenses into surfaces in

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which skin a n d bone are fused a b o u t a n emptiness. The semblance of a n individual face contracts into a black-hole m a s s so intense t h a t it a s s u m e s the gravity of death; it pulls everything into its nowhere. Sometimes a m a s k comes to r e p r e s e n t a feared mother's body by acquiring a h u g e muzzle c r a m m e d with a p a n t h e o n of teeth-babies. Tribal m a s k s depend on scoopings out a n d swellingsas though someone were twisting intensities of feeling into a n enemy's head. Constructivism challenges the propositional logic of Renaiss a n c e a r t in which predicates m u s t depend on the existence of a subject. Renaissance a r t begins with a m a s s , a h u m a n body or a p a r t of a h u m a n body, redolent of intimacy, o u t of which definitions come into being. Things germinate from some centre. Committed to the iconic state in which m a t t e r incarn a t e s spirit a n d the spirit is unity, the artist continues to t r u s t in the capacity of the subject to reveal m e a n i n g a n d passion, even w h e n h e a t t a c k s the idea of the subject violently. He underplays the idea of the void. He sees the lines of perspective, a s they contract into a distant point, a s roots extending from the root system of his eyes.

Cezanne, a n d later Picasso, m a k e u n u s u a l communications a b o u t the capacities of space to modify its i n h a b i t a n t s : b o t h of them intuit the existence of the black hole a n d realize t h a t space in mind is dangerously gravitational. Picasso is fascin a t e d by the possibilities of caricature, a s h a d been Baudelaire before him, a n d h e knew how in tribal a r t the need to expel the terror of death s e t s off the compulsion to deform the appeara n c e of things. All alone in that awful museum, with the masks and the fetishes, I understood why I was a painter. Les demoiselles d'Avignon must have come into being that very day, b u t not because of the forms. It was my first attempt to exorcise by painting. Spirits, the unconscious (people weren't talking about that very much), emotionthey're all the same thing. He h a d been working on the Demoiselles for two m o n t h s . The visits to the Trocadero stimulated radical revisions to the

two figures on the right of the canvas; women, b o t h of whose faces are mask-like (Rubin, 1984, p. 250). The compulsion to realize the existence of the m i n u s s p a c e a n d m i n u s - t i m e of the black hole within the movements of s p a c e a n d time precedes the discoveries of spatial deformation in optics, a s in Malraux's fascination (in The Voices of Silence, 1956) with the aesthetic meaning of magnification in photography, to which the conversation with Picasso possibly contributed. Physical a n d mental abnormalities are tokens of the sacred. A savage who looks a t a stone a n d acknowledges a n indwelling god in it, a psychotic who s q u i n t s a t the glare of a light-bulb a n d thinks it a demon, a n infant who discovers a twin in the reflection of itself in its mother's eyes, from the viewpoint of the sacred are signs of the theophanic. They have the artist b r e a k away "from the dialogue implicit in m a n y forms of art; far more coherently t h a n the work of children, they destroy . . . the conventional relationships between the artist a n d the outside world . . ." (Malraux, 1956, p. 562). During his early years, a s a deliberate imitator of Goya, a n d drawn to cruelty, Picasso h a d recorded t h e sight of diseased prostitutes a n d blind beggars. [Rubin (1984) reminds u s t h a t among the events t h a t b r o u g h t a b o u t a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the fetishes a t the Trocadero were Picasso's visit during the previous year to an exhibition of archaic Iberian reliefs a t the Louvre, his long-standing interest in the work of Gauguin, a n d his visits, in 1902. to the Hopital Saint-Lazare, where h e h a d m a d e drawings of prostitutes afflicted by syphilis.] The confident craftsmanship of the Renaissance disappears into nomadic h i n t s t h a t appeal by the fact of their being fleeting. Demons, u n n a m e d powers, wild animals a n d u n s e c u r e d spiritual energies, t h a t "have certain mysterious powers of appearing a n d disappearing" (Robertson Smith, 1894, p. 120) h a u n t a n empty site. The constructivist object exists at the point where things appear a n d disappear. It is to be found in the late water-colours of Cezanne, or in the tentative markings on the cave walls of Altamira, which have, in fact, lasted for millennia. The dead a s ghosts, bodiless a n d t r a n s p a r e n t , devour solidity.

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Intuition in primitive aesthetics discovers the motive for inspiration in landscape. The ancestors of the Australian aborigines dream into existence the meaning of the landscape, a n d in so doing they give it contour. J a c o b in the Old T e s t a m e n t falls asleep in a nondescript place a n d through two d r e a m s comes to realize t h a t h e h a s been sleeping close to the gates of paradise. Cezanne s t a r t s from a setting that h e knows to be far from nondescript a n d then discovers the meaning of the t u r b u l e n t dream, which unconsciously h a s informed him, through a n act of integration that he thinks of a s a grasping of a motif. He does not think to bring a painting into being b y willpower. He enters into reveries a b o u t the Roman civilization t h a t h a d existed a b o u t the m o u n t a i n a n d a b o u t the conditions of prehistory t h a t h a d preceded the founding of Rome. He becomes a n agent for a thought, or potentiality, in the mind of his ancestors. "Before u s is a being of light a n d love, a universe t h a t fluctuatesthe hesitation of things" (Gasquet, 1991). Mind on the verge of depressive insight moves into the dimensionality of symbolism, or it is forced into a retreat that, if u n a r r e s t e d , ends in psychosis. Cezanne's achievement in crossing the threshold into symbolization is to have his intuition of the m o u n t a i n , as realized by m a r k i n g s on canvas, contain the history of its making a s art. It h a s gravity b e c a u s e its m a s s contains the meanings of Cezanne's own struggle with the disintegrating powers of death. The meaning of the skull within the m o u n t a i n , a n d the meaning of Cezanne's struggle, informs Picasso's u n d e r s t a n d ing of the Trocadero fetishes, which homeopathically p u t him in touch with a religion devoted to the obliteration of the black hole. He h a d no need to r e t u r n to the beginnings of the world; his intuitions were a-historical. It was necessary to trap a god in a stone. He told Malraux: "Give spirits a form a n d we become free from them. Fetishes are intended to free people." A notation of a specifically geometric kind compelled him to challenge conventional descriptions of space. Things related to each other, if a t all, mysteriously; subject was a pretext to give s h a p e to a n underworld of minusTspace a n d m i n u s - t i m e t h a t welled u p a s a p r e s s u r e in mind. The notion t h a t a chair-maker m u s t have a blueprint of the chair in mind (something to hold on to) when h e c o n s t r u c t s a

chair is foreign to the anti-replicatory n a t u r e of fetish thinking. Neither Picasso n o r Cezanne know the provenance of the object. In the neoplatonic universe, the power of love transfigures the cosmos. In Picasso's universe the transfiguring power is d e a t h conceived of a s a psychosis that destroys the b o u n d a r i e s of otherness. Experiences of his a r t fuse with t h o u g h t s a b o u t h i s intimate life, a s though t h o u g h t s in his mind or t h o u g h t s in the m i n d of the spectator could n o t b e differentiated. A painting of one of his wives is liable to become a painting of a n y of his wives, or of some t h o u g h t concerning a possible wife in Picasso's mind, or, even more far-fetchedly, of the wife's spirit as indwelling in various canvases, transforming a s it transforms in Picasso's mind. So far a s the content of his a r t is concerned, Picasso is a s tribal a s any of the great African sculptors. Byzantine iconism underlies the aesthetic of any art t h a t h e would have observed in the S p a n i s h a n d French c h u r c h e s of his early environment. He rejects itor, rather, h e t r a n s m u t e s it into a n idolic a r t of hollows a n d voids. The geometry of spatial compression a n d surface-flattening, derived from the tribal m a s k , t e n d s to b e more extreme in him t h a n the Poussinesque low-relief perspective that Cezanne was drawn to. An intensity of increasing compression closes in on the spectator: elements c u t into each other to the point of disintegration. The Demoiselles, as I have observed, is not the first Cubist painting. Indeed, while marking the final stages of Picasso's transition from a perceptual to a conceptual way of working, and suggesting something of the shallow relief space that would characterize Cubism, this great and radical work pointed mostly in directions opposite to Cubism's character and structurealthough it cleared the path for its development. The Demoiselles obliterated the vestiges of nineteenth-century painting. . . . [Rubin, 1984, p. 253] He discovers in the maelstrom a geometry t h a t is beautiful. The collages h e a n d Braque created have the power to release a n architectonic space into a room: a stereoscope creates a similar effect w h e n it h a s two identical photographs (twins) spring forward a s a single perception before the spectator's eyes. He takes a n unpropitious flatness and, vaunting over it, plays a

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variation on the idea of a text's two-dimensionality. He compresses space into a condensation of improbable intensity and, by some improbable flair, h a s it leap outwards. He reverses the s u c k t h a t draws all meaning into the black hole, a n d o u t of flatness gives birth to the three-dimensional.

The relationship of Victor Turner's conception of the rite of passage to Melanie Klein's two positions and to spatial intuition in the writings ofW. R. Bion and Esther Bick. The idea of the imaginary twin: W. R. Bion and R. E. Money-Kyrle. Clinical material concerning the nature of the psychosomatic. Donald Meltzer and the good objects.

iiitii that elanie Klein's threshold to the depressive position a n d the liminal p h a s e of the Ndembu initiation rite (Turner, 1967) are stages in transition a n d transformation. The depressive threshold is a n interim state to be worked t h r o u g h r a t h e r t h a n to remain entrenched in. It m a r k s the beginning, or the failure in beginning, of a n adult willingn e s s to take on responsibility for thought; a n d it a s s u m e s the existence of a n u c l e u s capable of either good or b a d identifications a n d able to r e s p o n d to assistance. When faced by a n invitation to align itself with its good objects, the n u c l e u s is vulnerable. Internal persecutors threaten it with death if it accepts the invitation. Guilt at former collusions against the objects may overwhelm it, a n d it may b e compelled to take p a r t in acts t h a t represent m u r d e r or suicide and actually m a y entail m u r d e r or suicide. Although suicide directs a n attack on b a d objects, it "always aims at saving its loved objects, internal a n d external" (Klein, 1935, p. 276).

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In the liminal phase, the tribe b i n d s novitiates to it b y projecting s t a t e s of annihilation into them. Possibilities are dramatized within a restricted field. In the case of b o t h rite a n d Kleinian therapy, the experience of annihilation is given a setting t h a t can potentially symbolize the experience. B u t the capacity to symbolize is deficient in initiate a n d patient. Former models for thought have collapsed a n d have n o t b e e n replaced; signs link to each other in ways t h a t are unrelated to the function of t r u t h . In the liminal p h a s e , the t e r m "symbolic death" describes s t a t e s of annihilation in a conscious mind, more in identification with a dead child (often the dead twin), t h a n in any likeness to n a t u r a l death. In the depressive transition, the theme of annihilation can b e lost in a n onset of confusion.

jAail

In the post-Kleinian writings of E s t h e r Bick a n d W. R. Bion, the concept of the self undergoing experiential transformation almost disappears. Both Esther Bick a n d Bion describe a foundation to the capacity to m a k e decisions in which the capacity is still rudimentary. Feelings remain latched to sensation, a n d the self h a s little relationship to internal figures. The children Melanie Klein describes incipiently exist within the holding space of a good world, in which people a n d things have insides a n d outsides t h a t lock into each other a n d are dynamic in their interchanges; that enter into splits t h a t depend on spaces that are substantive, a n d across which projections leap like a n electric flash between two points. In her papers, at least, Esther Bick concentrates on aspects of infancy in which there is a falling-apart or a leaking or a provisional holding-together. The infants exist a s actions in a nowhere t h a t is everywhere: in birth, they are a s t r o n a u t s who have lost contact with their space capsules a n d drift in weightless space. Their feelings derive from sensations: they have little s e n s e of internal figures to whom they might relate. The foundation to the depressive transition t u r n s out to b e very close to the content of the liminal p h a s e . Thinking in this archaic dimension occurs before the emergence of personality; a n d in it mental topographies might be views from nowhere.

According to Bion (1962), the observing mind oscillates between the paranoid-schizoid a n d the depressive positions u n d e r the p r e s s u r e of emotionality. The mysterious arrival of a "selected fact" retrieves it from incoherence a n d g r a n t s it the temporary holding power of a n insight. Mind in this aspect might b e a Ndembu novitiate committed to helplessness a n d psychic annihilation a s a m e a n s of arriving at a revelation. In their s e p a r a t e ways, E s t h e r Bick a n d Bion create a phenomenological space comparable to the one of the liminal rite in which beings are conceived of a s m a s k s , s h a p e s containing a void, actors whose gestures embody a n emptiness. The b a s i s to being is a n annihilation that is impersonal, a form of the sacred. The blow that kills the foetus may create a n emptin e s s t h a t n e e d s to be filled. The dance with m a s k s is not mindless; there is t h o u g h t a n d the makings of art in it; b u t mind within this setting c a n n o t receive the powers of symbolization that allow for it to enter into, a n d retain, allegiances. It, too, is identified with a n u n s e c u r e d foetus. Bion's reaching o u t for t h e earlier situation is evident in his paper, 'The Imaginary Twin" (1950), in which h e brings forward the theme of the twin, a n d in R. E. Money-Kyrle's structurally comparable A Note on Migraine (1963).

Both p a p e r s describe cases in which the idea of a dead sibling (experienced a s a twin, though in Bion the "imaginary twin' is somebody else) disables t h e mind of the patient. An actual sibling death or miscarriage in the family h a s intensified the significance of the dead twin as a presence buried in the mind t h a t insists on being released. Bion implies, r a t h e r t h a n states, t h a t a sister who died in infancy took over the mind of his patient; a n d that the patient projects the life that he would have led, if h e h a d been free from possession, into the imaginary space of the non-existent twinwho is, by the fact of being imaginary (in the non-Coleridgean sense of being not real), denied any actual life. My belief is that the sister's possession of h e r b r o t h e r ' s mind m u s t have occurred a t the time of the illness in infancy in which both children had diarrhoea, a n d the sister died.

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Money-Kyrle's (1963) patient h a s a sibling who h a d died in miscarriage (revealed in a d r e a m by a sight of vomit and blood, not unlike the diarrhoea of the other case). The idea of the sibling materializes in one of h e r d r e a m s a s a n imaginary brother with m a d eyes, who h a s been involved in a car crash, a n d who s m a s h e s u p the headlights of the patient's car. The headlights represent (as variables in meaning) the function of actual eyes, a s well a s of eyes a s the organs of psychic perception. Bion a n d Money-Kyrle are concerned with t h o u g h t disorder a s a consequence of sadism. Following Melanie Klein, they believe t h a t the self should b e held responsible for its catastrop h e s . The m a d brother is a guise of the patient, by which she s m a s h e s u p h e r own a p p a r a t u s . Money-Kyrle (1978) informs h e r ". . . t h a t s h e felt her migraine to be analogous to the blinding light St Paul saw on his way to persecute the Christians a n d t h a t it w a s therefore related to h e r own u n c o n s c i o u s sadistic phantasies" (p. 361). The migraine is n o revelation. It is dissociated from knowledge, a n d from any of the m e a n s by which knowledge is arrived at. It is attended by memory losses, which the analyst believes the patient is able to p u t into him, though within the context of migraine the patient did not experience failures in memory as losses; s h e perceived them as p a t c h e s without significance; empty spaces without a history. [This is a n issue a b o u t neither recalling n o r memory. It is a b o u t a failure in communication between t h e self a n d its good objects.] In one dream, the patient takes over the analyst's place, and someone shows a book of paintings to three women "one who could h e a r b u t not see, one who could see b u t n o t hear, a n d one who could not r e m e m b e r . . ." (Money-Kyrle. 1978, p. 364). In order to equate seeing, hearing, a n d failing to rememberif this is w h a t the bringing together of the three women indicates p r e s u m a b l y it is necessary to reduce perception a n d memory function to sensation, which may occur. But thought then originates in a dream in which the patient m e e t s with a bizarre object. It h a s torn electric wires, which Money-Kyrle associates to damaged optic nerves. The patient h a s other d r e a m s that p r e s e n t the bizarre object in less agglomerated forms a s related to the theme of miscarriage.

The twin intercedes between mind a n d the good objects in s u c h a way t h a t the good objects are able to convert sensation a n d sign d a t a into t h e language of symbolization. If the twin is buried in the underworld of thought, from which s t e m s psychosis a s well a s death, it will no longer continue to b e the essential link to knowledge; it will be transformed into a n anti-knowledge or -K link, a dreaded ghost with the power to reverse trends in development; a n d another intermediary will have to be found to exorcise it. Bion a n d Money-Kyrle recognize t h a t the other intermediary lies with the power that discloses buried truth, or models for thought, by way of dreams. The t r u t h disclosure of dreams functions in the s a m e way a s the ceremonies that face the Ndembu novitiate in the liminal rite of passage. In h e r 1935 paper, Melanie Klein describes two p a t i e n t s in whom a persistent collapse of sensation into the sign language of auto-erotism h a d t h e m falter at the depressive threshold. One patient was afflicted by diarrhoea a n d vomiting a n d thought himself poisoned. The other patient was confused by extreme s e n s a t i o n s of a conflicting n a t u r e . "In a friend's flat, he h a d repeatedly mixed u p the refrigerator door with the oven door. He wonders whether h e a t a n d cold are, in a way, the s a m e thing for him" (Klein, 1935, p. 280) If s e n s a t i o n related to feeling is inhibited in finding a n intermediary to its objects, it will recoil in distaste at a n y goodness introjected into it, b e c a u s e it will be u n a b l e to a s s e s s it. It lives by sensation, a n d by feelings centred on sensation. Signs t h a t verge on the state of a n intercession by which they might become thought, are discovered to be too r u n n y or too lumpy (as tormented children might think of food) or reveal themselves a s distasteful liquids (blood, diarrhoea, vomit) or as hieroglyphic indigestible "bits". Anxieties a b o u t introjection, of the body taking in a n d p u t t i n g out bad s u b s t a n c e s in the form of contaminated food or vomit a n d diarrhoea, convey a n equation of food a n d miscarriage. All incorporation, whether of food or thought, h a s to be disavowed, like the dead twin, because it is too threatening. Unable to consolidate itself a s symbol, sign m u s t r e t u r n e d , defeated, to s t a t e s of disordered sensation, in which there is nothing to stop the slide into hallucination.

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IllU tail it

The patient, who h a d alluded to the state of the dead carp in his father's pond (uidep. 31 a n d pp. 72 ff.), on one occasion mentioned the scene in Joyce's Ulysses in which Bloom grilled kidneys a n d t h o u g h t t h a t h e could smell u r i n e in them kidney-kidlets, the patient pointed out, a n d h e alluded to the organic relationship of urine a n d kidneys. He talked a b o u t food a s t h o u g h h e were putting out empty containers for thought which, if they were filled, would be filled with the ideas of either m u r d e r e d babies or of faeces. It is possible to infer from the n a t u r e of his p h a n t a s y t h a t for other people a n u n m u r d e r e d twin may b e the essential link, or intercessor, by which the good objects are able to fill the empty c o u n t e r s with meaning. The second of Melanie Klein's two p a t i e n t s (Klein. 1935, pp. 279-280) h a s a dream in which sign bits are j a m m e d together, creating a n object that confuses the functions of a wash-basin, a lavatory, a n d a gas-mantle. It is the kind of object t h a t Bion was later to call bizarrea reversal of the idea of the black-hole maelstrom, similar in function a n d agglomeration to the Sphinx t h a t faces Oedipus. In mythology there are m a n y examples of a twin whose burial in the underworld h a s him t u r n into a representative of the -K link of a black-hole kind: the reflection in the mirror who s u c k s the life out of a n y mortal who looks at it, the Medusa, a s well a s the Sphinx. The significance of the dead twin a s intercessor in Ndembu initiation rites is unavoidable, however buried the knowledge of its fate might be, since the novitiates (who are in puberty) are compelled to a s s u m e its fate. Summarily equated with corpses, they are "buried, or forced to lie motionless in the p o s t u r e a n d direction of c u s t o m a r y burial, stained black, or forced to live for a while in the company of m a s k e d a n d m o n s t r o u s m u m m e r s representing inter alia, the dead, or worse still, the u n - d e a d . . ." (Turner, 1967, p. 96). The tribe projects annihilation into them, a n d they are denied a n y form of social identity or classification. They become the living agents of a knowledge t h a t mind cannot openly tolerate. The fact "that they were n o t yet classified is often expressed in symbols modelled on processes of gestation a n d parturition. They are likened to or treated a s embryos, newborn infants, or sucklings b y symbolic m e a n s which varied from culture to

culture" (ibid., p. 96). "Stobaeus. quoting from a lost work of Plutarch, a s s e r t s t h a t initiation and death correspond word for word and thing for thing" (ibid., p. 96). The rites bring together food poisoning, miscarriage, a n d t h e sign language of African artthe m a s k in particularas m e a n s "drawn from the biology of death, decomposition, catabolism a n d other physical processes t h a t have a negative tinge, s u c h a s m e n s t r u a t i o n (frequentiy regarded a s the absence or loss of a foetus)" (ibid., p. 96). Newly circumcised boys are placed in the s a m e category a s m e n s t r u a t i n g women (bloodthe antithetical miscarriage/ thriving foetus conjunction).

The migraine from which Money-Kyrle's (1963) patient suffered was meaningless a n d strident in pain; the extreme n a t u r e of the lack of m e a n i n g a n d of the stridency were probably related. It implied the vehemence of a life denied b e c a u s e unsymbolized, a beating a t a door by a twin caught in a bombed-out empty space. E m p t i n e s s fills with sensations that are unintelligible since they a r e u n a n c h o r e d in space a n d time. Unsecured, they t u r n into extreme a n d often unlocalized forms of pain. The emptin e s s m a y b e related to the a b d o m e n / u t e r u s or to the inside of the head, or it may be duplicated, becoming the eyes of the dead or the empty eye-sockets of a m a s k . It indicates a voiding out of pain. The fact t h a t migraines can alternate between the h e a d or abdomenplaces in which distress occurs, if mental or physical digestion should malfunctionis reminiscent of the clay Babylonian m a s k of H u m b a b a , the labyrinthine markings of whose features resemble a brain or entrails in dissection. The externalizing of a hypochondriasis in the form of a m a s k would a p p e a r to be the motive by which inside the head a n d inside the abdomen become interchangeable a s representatives of the u t e r u s , b o t h brain a n d entrails indistinguishably being taken a s sites for futurity a n d prophetic insight. The ancients contemplated entrails to l e a m whether their ancestors a u g u r e d t h e m a good future. The sites for pain p r e s e n t themselves a s empty, since the intensity of the pain cannot be tolerated enough to b e translated into meaning.

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Umil

The two gates t h a t Homer's Penelope tells Ulysses a b o u t might be imagined, when opened, to contain identical empty spaces t h a t look out over a n identical empty vista. When p u t together, the two empty spaces begin to m a k e a p a t t e r n that is replicated without limitation, like reflections in two opposing mirrors. The gates, a s ways out of the underworld, are outlets for a buried knowledge. Virgil indicates that the spirits of the dead communicate true dreams by one gate a n d false d r e a m s by the other, which implies t h a t plus- or minus-knowledge, r e a s o n a n d antireason, have one source. By implication, the s u b s t a n c e s that the gates are m a d e of (horn a n d ivory) determine their function a s communicators of t r u t h a n d falsity, in the s a m e way as Australian aborigines once believed t h a t their a n c e s t o r s h a d dreams t h a t actually m a d e the contours of the landscape. The gates exist within a similar u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the cosmos: they are n o t gates in somebody's mind. The spirits who c o m m u n i c a t e false d r e a m s by way of the ivory gates are a denied future r a t h e r t h a n a denied past; they are the children Ouranos s u p p r e s s e s in Gaia by pressing down on her during a n u n e n d i n g sexual act. The gates are "pure" thoughts waiting to be filled by content: they might b e two aspects of the s a m e u t e r u s , one of which will be filled with babies, a n d the other of which will lose the foetus in miscarriage. The foetus first comes to know of its twin by way of t h o u g h t s its mother projects into it. "I have lost one baby, I may lose another. There is an empty space, better keep it empty rather than fill it with a life that will be lost." In later years, the a d u l t will know two kinds of space: one is the s p a c e that contains mindless pain, which is the screaming of a life denied; the other is the space where the a d u l t c a n n o t be, without stealing spatial properties that t u r n out to be attributes of the good objects.

Wittgenstein (1979) thought that s t r u c t u r e s parable to the gently modulated evolution a n o t h e r in a geometric series; h e saw no t h e m a n d the machine-world view of c a u s e

in myth were comof one s h a p e into similarity between a n d effect, a n d yet

there is a likeness. In the heavens of Plato's Timaeus, the planets travel in gradually modulated ellipses, a n d their movem e n t s embody intelligence; on earth, priest-kings go "round the city in the direction of the h a n d s of a clock" a n d promulgate "rules of conduct" (Hocart, 1927, p. 82). S u c h semblances of t h o u g h t are drastically circumscribed a s m e a n s to thinking. Like the p h a r a o h ' s worship of placenta a n d umbilical cord, they are devices intended to keep the good twin in the underworld a n d m a k e emptiness meaningful. They hold together s t a t e s of sensation, disengaged from good-object relations. They are a s m u c h m a n i c defences against t r u t h a s is the machine-world ideology which t h i n k s in terms of c a u s e a n d effect. They are not secure; the furious twin e r u p t s into t h e m a s a -K p o r t e n t filled with the power of underworld psychosis a n d death. Invasion destroys the series, t u r n s the planets on their tracks, a n d reveals t h e m to be, in their a p p a r e n t stillness, moving into the annihilation of a cosmic maelstrom. When Marlow, the n a r r a t o r of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, perceives two images though his binoculars, h e seems to think t h a t the m e a n i n g of the two images, which is a function of his u n d e r s t a n d i n g , was conditioned by the remarkable optics of the binoculars, a s though the optics h a d the magical powers of ivory a n d horn. He sees a nondescript scene through them a n d then, b y a lens zoom, h e sees a horrific truth. The effect of the zoom is intrinsic to the meaning h e discovers in the scene: it is as t h o u g h the zoom were a n extension of his thought processes. The two images h e perceives are like the s p a c e s in the opening of two sets of gates, one the space t h a t contains the screaming of a life denied, the other the space where the self cannot be, without clandestine appropriation. This was the case of a w o m a n whose looking in adoration at her child t u r n e d out in the transference to be a stealing of someone else's adoration. The event s h e described w a s crucial to a n u n d e r standing of her psychopathology. S h e was looking out of a window a n d s h e saw her beloved twelve-year-old son standing by a lit bonfire; h e w a s holding a canister of petrol in h i s h a n d s . At this point, s h e h a d a migraine attackacute pain in her head, scintilla a n d b l a n k p a t c h e s in her field of vision. S h e was on t h e threshold of the depressive position, a n d sensation was in the process of converting into sign a n d then into symbol.

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In t h e event, it t u r n e d out impossible to travel further with her: the image of the child by the bonfire m a r k e d the m o s t advanced point of h e r therapy journey. The premonition of her son being in danger a s he s t a n d s b y the bonfire a n d the awareness of pain a n d of a disturbed visual field were two events like empty spaces t h a t h a d b e e n temporarily filled. Within the terms of the machine-world view, the two events relate in terms of c a u s e a n d effect a n d in terms of a subject a n d a n o b j e c t ^ t h a t is, it is possible to see the possible m e a n i n g s of perception beloved child + bonfire + canister of petrol a s "causing" the onset of the migraine; or to perceive the observer a n d observed a s subject a n d object, a n d to have t h e m influence each other a s c a u s e a n d effect. But, in fact, the beloved child by the bonfire a n d the disturbed field of vision lie side by side isomorphically like snow crystals. "As one might illustrate the internal relation of a circle to a n ellipse . . . to s h a r p e n our eye for a formal connection" (Wittgenstein, 1979, pp. 8e-9e). To cross between one empty space a n d the other entails a rite of passage. Cataclysm is the point to s t a r t fromthe b u r d e n t h a t the priest-king insists its twin m u s t carry. The state of blank patches, scintilla, a n d meaningless pain takes logical priority over the perception of beloved child + canister of petrol + bonfire a constellation of sensations denying meaning t h a t h i n d e r s a n y movement into development. S h e appeared to b e undergoing a psychic g r e e n h o u s e effect. At one time I h a d thought of her migraine experiences a s representing a pre-verbal form of possessive love; b u t t h r o u g h the transference I came to learn that the adoration s h e felt for the child h a d been stolen from the therapist a s m o t h e r a n d was a n adoration that her internal mother h a d intended for a n imaginary twin. (Her actual mother h a d m a d e a meal of the fact t h a t s h e h a d never given birth to a boy.) S h e cherished the child so long a s s h e was able to think of it a s belonging to her, "my baby"; a n d s h e attacked it a s soon a s

illUli

s h e felt threatened by the unconscious postulate that it might b e someone else's child. In terms of h e r infantile experiences in the transference, s h e saw the bonfire a n d cherished child a s images within h e r m o t h e r ' s b r e a s t s or eyes, m u c h a s Coleridge (pp. 130-131) saw the fire b u r n i n g in the grate in h i s room, a n d the s t a r s in the sky above the garden outside h i s room, a s images s u s p e n d e d in t h e m e m b r a n e of his study window. As images within the breast, the child w a s the brother s h e h a d never had, a n d the bonfire ambiguously represented two threats: of her own jealous rage a t the existence of this child and, more mysteriously a n d frighteningly, the dangerous possessive p a s s i o n s t h a t u n consciously s h e accredited to her mother a n d which her mother h a d been u n a b l e to insulate her from. (Consciously, s h e h a d experienced h e r mother a s unfeeling a n d a bit strange.) As w a s the case with Money-Kyrle's patient, s h e dealt with h e r inability to transform sensation into symbol by attacking the therapist's capacity to reverie: s h e tried to p u t the -K migraine s e n s a t i o n s into him. At some level s h e m u s t have intuited t h a t a capacity for reverie depended on some intuition of t h e good objects' gift of innate proportionality, out of which symbols come into being. S h e a t t a c k e d the therapist's capacity for reverie, a s though it were a loved infant t h a t s h e wanted to m a k e h e r own. Since s h e could not appropriate the foetus of thought within the culture of the mind in which it lived, s h e h a d to appropriate it a s a dead ripped-out thing. S h e would begin sessions with some out-of-the-way anecdote a n d have the therapist chase after the point of the anecdote, h i s ability to think being seemingly at her c o m m a n d . Eventually, a s a clue to her behaviour, s h e reported a n incident concerning a m a n who h a d phoned her to say that h e intended to leave off a child with her. With a touch of whimsical cruelty, the m a n proposed t h a t they should meet for the hand-over at various remote a n d inconvenient spots. S h e w a s committed to manipulating the transference so a s to avoid experiencing its depressive potentiality to transform meaning. S h e attacked the space in the therapist's mind in which meanings could arise. In the transference s h e represented this space a s a space in her own body, a confusion of

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h e a d a n d a b d o m e n / w o m b characteristic of the classical definition of hysteria a s a wandering womb with mental attributes a n d typical of the h e a d / s t o m a c h oscillations of migraine. S h e equated the contents of the therapist's mind with the contents of h e r a b d o m e n / w o m b . A year before s h e h a d entered therapy, s h e h a d a r r a n g e d for a surgeon to b u r n out her fallopian tubes. S h e h a d been u n d e r sedation, so that s h e h a d been able to undergo the terror of the bonfire (the migraine pain) without feeling any sensation. S h e was fascinated by people who arranged to get themselves surgically operated on for n o genuine reason, a n d s h e knew of this activity a s a well-documented perversion. S h e spoke admiringly of a n u n who travelled the world to have u n n e c e s s a r y operations a n d who allegedly kept hypodermic needles in a locker. S h e believed, with good reason, t h a t her m o t h e r h a d b e e n c u t off from herpossibly cut off in reveries a b o u t needles a n d lockers: a n d s h e h a d to project sensations in order to activate a b r e a s t that outwardly was insensate a n d t h a t inwardly b u r n t a s a bonfire. She presented a condition of both anaesthetized r e s p o n s e a n d strident sensation. She drew a distinction between colonialists a n d emigrants at a time when s h e was beginning to hold less rigidly to the belief t h a t the therapist's mind was co-extensive with hers. She said t h a t a colonialist is a predator who takes over a n object a n d destroys it, while a n emigrant is someone in exile who feels helpless a n d is able to be grateful when given a haven. She thought of the therapist m u c h a s the early navigators h a d thought of Africaas a culture that becomes cryptic, opaque, a n d dangerous when it cannot be controlled. The therapist did not exist, except a t m o m e n t s w h e n h e acted against her wishes; a n d he then irritated her. He w a s the native who failed to remain in the background. S h e continued to insist that his mind was a n extension of hers. She m a d e the distinction between colonialists a n d emig r a n t s when talking a b o u t a m a n who h a d taken u p too m u c h of her time. The colonialist in her account was the client, n o t she. And yet the fact that the distinction h a d occurred to h e r a t this m o m e n t implied that it h a d some bearing on a change in the circumstances of the therapy. She was giving u p a little h e r

colonial claims on the therapist's mind a n d beginning to establish a relationship to it a s a possible emigrant (though this w a s never to be realized). S h e began to refer to people who were damaged. S h e talked of a meeting in her counselling practice with a woman whom s h e described a s having h a d half her b r a i n s scooped out. Actually this w a s how the therapist's mind sometimes felt after a meeting with her. The h u s b a n d of the woman who a t t e n d e d the meeting (he brings the woman; they are a couple) kept moving the chairs about, on the pretext that the counsellor would n o t then have to move her head from side to side a s s h e talks to them. (He is a version of the m a n who suggested remote a n d inaccessible places to h a n d over a child to her.) S h e tells the m a n sharply t h a t s h e can move her neck. She reported events in the session in a way a s to have the therapist swivel the eyes of h i s m i n d a s though watching a tennis m a t c h . S h e w a s invaded by images of devastation when faced by the possibility either of two similar objects becoming identical with each other or of two identical objects (thought of a s inseparably one) beginning to s e p a r a t e from each other a n d to reveal their differences. The model in t h o u g h t w a s of a m o t h e r in reverie being able to allow twins a comfortable space in the womb. S h e w a s threatened by the presence of the therapist a s soon a s the relationship began to cross the threshold of the depressive position, a n d this was where the migraine p h a n t a s y of t h e cherished child a n d the bonfire h a d appeared. S h e h a d to re-establish her control over his mind, as though it were a p a r t of herself available for a b u s e . Her strategy was no different from the conquistadors who destroyed the Incas or the traders who looted Africa.

Conclusion He who knows the power of the dance dwells in god; for he has learnt that love can slay. [Rohde, 1897, p. 263, quoting Jelaleddin Rumi] A m a n talks of light falling on windows a n d then of explaining the theological doctrine of three in one to h i s daughter. It was

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possible to think of the windows a s his three s e s s i o n s a week, which caught a n d reflected the light of the one (the light of his combined good objects), a n d of the fiery light from the windows a s a source of illumination that h a d to be angled into obscure areas of his mind. The light came from within him, t h o u g h neither h e n o r anyone else could perceive its source. In terms of the theory of the sacred, his twin knows the light which h e knows by intimation; a n d the twin m u s t b e destroyed by the light. A t r a u m a , which possibly occurs in pre-birth, liberates one p a r t of the mind from the prison of the self, which a n o t h e r p a r t (the priest-king) embraces eagerly, without realizing t h a t the twin who "dies" at the time of birth is the source of grace a n d renewal. Coleridge describes mind's e s t r a n g e m e n t from its twin in terms of two types of learning. Knowledge by understanding h a s mind constitute the world of experience a n d of science by m e a n s of the s e n s e s a n d the intellect. It interrogates n a t u r e . Knowledge by reason u s e s knowledge by u n d e r s t a n d i n g to record the perceptions of the mind's eye. It operates without reference to space a n d time a n d is indistinguishable from the objects it perceives. The objects of r e a s o n "are themselves reason" (Rooke, 1969. p. 156). For Coleridge, knowledge by u n d e r s t a n d i n g is like steel, which h a s "hardness, brittleness, high polish a n d the capability of forming a mirror"; b u t knowledge by r e a s o n is like plate glass, which h a s the qualities of steel. In addition, it invokes, by its "transparency or power of transmitting a s well a s of reflecting the rays of light", aspects of the n a t u r e of r e a s o n (Rooke, 1969, p. 157). Knowledge by u n d e r s t a n d i n g reached maturity in Newton's n a t u r a l philosophy, which a s s u m e s a s a postulate t h a t certain quantities should be universally determined. Dissociated from any ground in unknowable being, u n d e r s t a n d i n g can only perceive fixities a n d definites. A ruler of a certain length in one place h a s the s a m e meaning in a n o t h e r place a n d a n o t h e r time. S u c h a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g searches for poetic symbols to m a k e s e n s e of its estrangement, b u t it is without t h e m e a n s to achieve this end. An idolic conception of the world c a n n o t comprehend the iconic. Poetic symbols are not objects of u n -

derstanding: they are not fixed quantities in the world; a n d this is why the u n d e r s t a n d i n g is u n a b l e to know them. The idea of a universally fixed quantity is a misconception of internalized probity, of justice a n d truth, a s ideas that Epimenides d r e a m t of in h i s mind's eye while asleep in the Asclepian cave. In s u c h d r e a m s ideas a r e facts; they exist in the landscape of mind like m o u n t a i n ranges. To meet one's good objects face to face is to walk into .the fireball. Donald Meltzer, in discussion, h a s suggested t h a t the light of the combined good objects would be blinding if it were to b e seen directly. Conceivably foetal s e n s a t i o n s can b e so intense t h a t they inhibit the emergence of definition or embodimentone source for a theory of the sacred a s a cataclysm in which n a m i n g a n d continuity a s the b a s e s of prediction are inaccessible. As soon a s the notion of anything begins to form, a n energy enters in a n d destroys it. Sensations are intensities of pain, often disguised a s extreme sense impressions (absolute hot or cold, for instance). An intolerance to the pain may lead to a loss of t r u s t in the s e n s e s as having meaning. S u c h s e n s a t i o n s destroy embodiment a n d so c a n n o t b e located. Sometimes they a p p e a r a s somatic distresses t h a t cannot be related to a n y p a r t of t h e body, sometimes a s feelings t h a t are isolated from h u m a n relationships. Sensations so intense can take the form of a black hole. They can drive mind into a n over-estimation of the need for embodiment a n d into a belief in facts a s obdurate or u n t r a n s l a t a b l e actualities. In s u c h states the thought is distressing t h a t disembodied t r u t h s might exist.

We begin a s t h o u g h t s in our mother's mind, inseparable perh a p s from visionary wonder, a n d to a n extent some of u s never become anything else. We embody the emptiness of a womb t h a t waits for someone else. And to some extent we contain the empty u t e r u s . A m a n on the threshold of the depressive position u n d e r s t a n d s himself in infancy to have been intruded into b y h i s mother: h e h a s since retreated. He was n o t a n incubator baby: b u t if distressing incidents occur, h e experiences t h e m a s t h o u g h from behind a p a n e of glass.

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He h a s a b l a n k n e s s in him where lively exchanges should be; a n d h e seems u n a b l e to talk freely with himself. He says he is timid, a n d this is why h e is reclusive. His t h o u g h t s translate into transference meanings a n d then when r e t u r n e d to h i m enter a n atmosphere without resonance; they fall dead. The question of ending therapy is raised. It is a s though h e h a d been looking at the world through the wrong end of a telescope, a n d the telescope, in being turned about, t h r u s t s its image of the world into him. He experiences t h e idea of an ending, a s he h a d experienced the distant accidents, a s a fact in the world, a n d not a s a n event in his mind. Unable to have feelings a b o u t the possible ending, he h a s strident s e n s a tions insteadas though pain could only speak to him in this way. In the night there is a frightening c r a s h b e h i n d his head, a n d h e wakes from sleep with a start. He thinks loosened bricks in the chimney stack in the wall at the b a c k of his bed have fallen down inside the stack. His way of turning psychic events into obdurate facts h a s him experience the pain of thinking a b o u t a n ending a s a violent auditory sensation. His m u t e d distress conveys a sense of alienation from a n y ground to being. Nothing can be exactly n a m e d : s e n s a t i o n s cannot b e denoted. His anxiety is like a m e m b r a n e containing violent s e n s a . Possibly the cutting of the umbilical cord played some p a r t in restricting h i s attention to the anti-reason of prebirth. His belief in the obduracy of facts is enforced by p r e s s u r e from the split-off m e m b r a n e containing violent s e n s a .

The sacred a s cataclysm precedes the coming into existence of the capacity to split the content of perceptions into the good a n d the b a d . Its value a n d its meaning are uncertain. An embryonic mind realizes its source in the engulfing radiance of the combined good objects a n d s h r i n k s away devastated. Those who believe that the concept of evil is b a s e d on a m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the good conceive of cataclysm a s a misapprehension of eternity a n d think of anchorage in s p a c e a n d time a s false. But though cataclysm a n d eternity h a v e outward characteristics in commonthey are u n b o u n d e d a n d predefinitory a n d draw attention to a disconnection between

s e n s a t i o n a n d referencethe meaning of a cataclysmic state before the split into good a n d b a d objects is unlike the meaning of a s t a t e of cataclysm after the split h a s been resolved. In one there is n o relationship to eternity, in the other cataclysm is conceived to b e a n aspect of eternity, while evil is to b e seen a s a m i s a p p r e h e n s i o n of the good. In the light of a n eternity that is theologized a s a true god, all types of quantification are false idols or fetishes. The idea of cataclysm is a m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g of a religious mystery. Descartes faced by the pool of melted wax knew a representation of a mind t h a t h a d been destroyed by cataclysm. It h a s n o n e of t h e definitions by which it formerly knew itself. He relegates the cataclysmic state of mind to his twin, who rea p p e a r s a s -K, the antagonist h e m u s t propitiate, by h a n d i n g over to him the ability to verify t r u t h by way of the senses. He seeks t r u t h by reasoning towards it a s a n innate presence in the mind. Yet it is here, in the inner world, r a t h e r t h a n in the a c t u a l world, t h a t h e m u s t first meet with the antagonist, for the experience of cataclysm a s well a s the idea of reasoning derives from foetal intuition. Anti-reasoning, cataclysm, the black hole, the sacred, give rise to t h e epistemology of hysteria (which includes the epiphen o m e n o n of the migraine): a n incoherent environment, by m e a n s of which the s h a d e s a n d the "bad" ancestors, the dead in their malicious guise, p o s s e s s the mind, a n d in which no one c a n discover a meaningful link between symptom a n d disease, n a m e a n d identity, or the various stages in the history of a n identity. In Descartes, anxieties concerning the epistemology of hysteria are translated into modes of perception characteristic of witchcraft. Neurology s u b s t i t u t e s -K links with K links, though of s u c h a m u t e d kind that they do not do justice to the p h e n o m e n a ; the cause-and-effect links of the machine-view of the world m a k e no s e n s e of mythology or of its ideology, the epistemology of hysteria. It relies on verisimilitude a n d not on recognition as the mainspring to truth, a n d it a b a n d o n s the idea of true reason as a proportionality, a music, or a m a t h ematics arising out of the u n k n o w n of the innate good objects. It places its confidence in the fact that objects in space a n d time c a n be mirrored, a n d it a s s u m e s mirrors to b e the servant to its wishes.

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In birth, one twin m u s t disappear into Kronos's t h r o a t in order t h a t the other may a s s u m e the power of the s u n . Priestkings (like Prometheus) contrive the slaying of the victim a n d the act of ritual cannibalism a n d then find ways to disperse responsibility for their crime (Vernant, 1991, pp. 299-300). The psychotic metaphysic comes into being: the growing child comes to realize t h a t what is most far from it (Le. the fireball) is most within it and probably will destroy it. Adult life will overlay this insight; it will raise a belief in the universality of the fixed quantity a s a talisman for sanity. In space or time w h a t is far cannot be w h a t is near. The notion that something absolutely outside is also something absolutely within will b e rejected a s incoherent. But only when it is faced by incoherences of this kind will mind seek to liberate itself from a tyrannical belief in the obduracy of fact by seeking out symbols t h a t b e a r witness to the unknown.

The fetish

as inhibitor

of

thought.

h e culture of psychotherapy exists on a n intersection between history a n d myth. When history a n d m y t h are isolated from each other, one of them, or p e r h a p s both of t h e m , is liable to b e degraded into a type of fetish. By a fetish I m e a n a n embodiment that h a s the power to inhibit thinking. This is to a s s e r t a paradox, a s something that belongs to m a t t e r should have no capacity to disable ideas. In fact, fetishes are beguiling delusions t h a t would seem to bridge the different conditions of m a t t e r a n d ideas: they are assemblages, like t h e collage, in which actual bits of t h e world a n d representations (or ideas) of the world lie side by side. A fetish is a physical fragment lodged in the translucency of an idea. A patient, whose mother h a d carried a stillbirth within h e r for m o n t h s when h e was young, was in touch with this possibility when h e alluded to a piece of shrapnel in a friend's eye, which might n o longer disable perception if it were removed. The shrapnel in his thought functioned a s a fetish,

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blocking perception b e c a u s e it embodied the t r a u m a of a foetal death that h a d not been thought about. The existence of fetishism, a n d possibly of assemblage, implies some unacknowledged breakdown (i.e. a n unacknowledged stillbirth), which may take on a social a n d / o r m e t a p h y s ical dimension. For instance, embodiments in Platonism "participate in" ideas without being lost in them; the stability of the universe in which they exist allows for a s e c u r e bridging system to arise between them; the embodiments are courtiers in a hierarchy in which the king actually is the idea. Governed by the principle of sufficient reason, everything h a s its right place. At times of disorder, sometimes creative disorder, a s when conceptions of a n infinite universe replace conceptions of a cosmos, the fetish is liable to b e s u m m o n e d u p a s a substitute for the notion of "participation", so that a charismatic materiality, evoking s t a t e s of mindless reverence, blocks the way to a n y perception of the idea. A fetish is of the s a m e order a s a psychosomatic transformation of a n idea into a mindless bodily pain; it exists on the depressive threshold a s a n idol that distracts attention from the need to u s e mind in the service of symbolization. It is a transcultural object, a n essentially political object of b a r t e r a n d negotiation, which is fundamentally meaningless, like the "gift" Mauss writes about (1923-1924), a n d it distracts people in different ways. It inhibits thought b e c a u s e its physicality t e n d s towards the non-representational, a n d thought needs to represent something if it is to articulate itself. It symbolizes little, if anything. Any representational power it may have is directed towards itself, to e n h a n c e the presence of its own being. It p u t s over a mindless physical charmin the way t h a t certain narcissistic people do. At the s a m e time, it provides a model for a central doctrine in modernist aestheticsthe doctrine of Isness, in which a work of art is admired b e c a u s e it is able to b e charismatic of itself. Unlike the icon or the idol, whose authority depends on their being emanations of group reverie, the fetish depends for its appeal on a n isolated communicant: it sets u p a narrow intimacy, which someone outside the intimacy may disapprove

of or fail to u n d e r s t a n d . The fetish posits a double consciousn e s s "of absorbed credulity a n d degraded or distanced incredulity" (Pietz, 1985). Without the fetish, there would probably b e no erotic reverie. Its existence depends on a n act of misappropriation. Its c h a r i s m a is a delusion that arises from the conviction t h a t the self c a n endow its own faeces with a radiance t h a t it h a s robbed from its good objects. The site of the theft is of a specifically m a t e r n a l kind. The weapons of Perseus (the root of whose n a m e , persu, is probably one of the sources of the word personality)his s a n d a l s , sword, sack, a n d mirroring shieldare tokens of a n inwardness (i.e. baby) taken from a beautiful mother, who by this theft is t u r n e d into a n outraged Medusa, a formidable g u a r d i a n of the underworld. The M e d u s a is a version of the Oedipus sphinx: a fetish of the mother-foetus, which defends against the p h a n t a s y of miscarriage.

The

intersection

Imagine a h a n d drawing a straight horizontal line, which crosses a vertical line t h a t lies at right angles to the horizontal. The meeting of the two lines is the only contact either h a s with the other, or with anything else. The intersection is a module; it could evolve into a geometric form, or into the site of a cross-roads, or into the black-andwhite s q u a r e s of a chessboard. It is the setting for possible identifications, a n d to this extent it is a mythic representation. You might think of the lines a s a r m s extending from a skeletal s t r u c t u r e a backbone, p e r h a p s . If you identify with the point of intersection, you might be a mother or a foetus in the act of birth, or you might be a mother adhering to a foetus that is either dead or alive. Frances Tustin h a s observed how the drawing of two lines t h a t cross each other at right angles can a u g u r a movement into integration a m o n g autistic children. Sometimes a child will r e p r e s e n t the crossing of the two lines in other ways: by holding two pencils together, or by pointing to the c r o s s b a r s in a window. Frances Tustin (1981) believes that when the right-

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angle crossing of lines occurs, the child h a s b e g u n to ". . . hold good things inside the body" (p. 158). Up to t h a t point the child h a s related to surfaces without any notion of a n inside, which m e a n s t h a t the surfaces cannot integrate into three-dimensional objects; they can only be known as isolated sensations: of h o t a n d cold, say, or smooth a n d rough. With the drawing of the intersecting lines, some notion of a n object with a n inside comes into being, a n d with this notion a p p e a r s the intuition of mind being able to retain thoughts. The point where the two lines cross is potentially a n inside space, a container in which a pregnancy might take occur. Often difficulties in accepting this realization depend on some a s s u m p t i o n t h a t the spot is the site of miscarriage a n d suicide. S u c h a n a s s u m p t i o n belongs to the class of t r a u m a t i c or fetish thoughts, which have the charisma to a r r e s t any capacity for thinking a b o u t the subject. They are able to m a k e disappear all evidence of the p h a n t a s y of pregnancy, including the m a r k ing of the site by the two intersecting lines. If they c a n be deterred, the self a s agent to the drawing of the intersection will b e able to locate depressive sorrow in space a n d time.

From the historian's point of view, the entry of myth into history resembles a meteor entering the field of gravity. From the mythologist's point of view, the entry of the meteor into the field of gravity resembles the fall of a Lucifer, whose b r i g h t n e s s reveals the spot where a murdereither psychic or realhas t a k e n place. If the light of a falling angel is attributed to the meteor, t h e n the meteor becomes a fetish, a charismatic object with t h e power to disable thought. A strange distortion then occurs to the sense of space a n d time. P a u s a n i a s , who wrote a Guide to Greece in the second century AD, informs the reader that the cross-roads where Oedipus killed the stranger, whom h e later l e a m s to b e his actual father, h a p p e n s to be a n actual place. An exotic myth, which m a y have m e a n i n g for foreigners, strangers, people from other planets p e r h a p s , suddenly t u r n s out to be a b o u t a n intimate relationship to a n actual father a n d to the roots of a n actual history; events t h a t one h a d not thought about, b e c a u s e they did not seem to represent anything, or in a n y way to be thinkable, suddenly come into sight, as though someone h a d focused a pair of binoculars. The baby a t the b r e a s t realizes t h a t the milk it s u c k s into its m o u t h provides insight concerning a world within the b r e a s t a s well a s being a s u b s t a n c e p l e a s a n t to taste. Pausanias writes: "Further along the road you come to the SPLIT as they call it; on this road Oedipus murdered his father." A recent commentator on Pausanias adds: "the SPUT [is named] after the ancient cross-roads, which were still plainly visible in the summer of 1963." [Levi, 1971, p. 414] In history the negation of space-time narrative is the oblivion of t r a u m a or the oblivion of automatic replication. In myth the negation of free-floating oceanic s t a t e s of metamorphosis is the labyrinthine a n d prohibited compulsion of incest. The stranger you meet always t u r n s out to be a brother or sister, if n o t a mother or father. On the other h a n d , if history a n d myth are isolated from each other, thought finds itself u n a b l e to be mobilized.

Psychotherapy realizes itself in the world a s sessions, s u p e r visions, lectures: events in space a n d time. In sessions, patients often s p e a k in a meaningful way a b o u t the p a s t a s a receding object, or a s a n object determined by some biological conception of process. In a historical way, therapists often write u p their recollection of sessions in sequence a n d with a sense of events a s unfolding in space a n d time. To this extent, psychotherapy h a s a n Aristotelian conception of history as b a s e d on biological organisms t h a t s p o n t a n e ously evolve towards self-fulfilment. But from its beginning, psychoanalysis knew t h a t its site w a s the intersection between history a n d myth, a n d not history alone. Freud attended to the disjunctions a n d displacements of dreams, whose s y n t a x belongs more to the codings of myth, d r a m a , a n d rite, a n d to a theory of psychic cataclysm, t h a n to history or n a t u r a l evolution.

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In R. C. Sherriff's play. Home at Seven, the central character, a commuter, r e a c h e s home from work a s regular a s clockwork a t seven o'clock every weekday evening. He holds onto seven o'clock a s though it were a talisman. One evening h e r e t u r n s h o m e to discover that though his sense of time a s replication is unaffected, h e h a s h a d a memory loss, a n d his internal clock h a s missed out on twenty-four h o u r s . Within the context of history, his memory loss is meaningless; it depends on some description in terms of t r a u m a a n d automatic replication, which are ways of describing the m e a n ingless. His obsessionality depends on h i s u s i n g seven o'clocks a s though they were identicals, which they are not: they are similarities; a n d h e u s e s the idea of identicality a s a fetish to ward off any intimation of catastrophic change. In terms of myth, though, his memory loss begins to disclose meaning. The people a r o u n d him seem to b e aware of the lost twenty-four h o u r s a s having a content that is prejudicial to his well-being. Some of them begin to think t h a t h e w a s responsible for a certain act of embezzlement, a n d for a m u r d e r , which occurred during the lost time. He resembles the Oedipus of Sophocles, who is cast in the role of the scapegoat b e c a u s e h e h a s a gap in his a w a r e n e s s where a gap should not be. The gap is a version of the stillbirth t h a t cannot be thought about. In this context, memories are alibis. If you lose t h e m a n d lose your delusional s e n s e of control, then other m e m b e r s of the group may project into you the evidence of a c a t a s t r o p h e that you have s p e n t a lifetime in avoiding. In this case, the c a t a s t r o p h e is defined a s a "crime". In terms of history, the lost twenty-four h o u r s is a n absence t h a t resonates, like a void in which a h e a d a c h e begins. It is a s though the c o m m u t e r h a d been p u s h e d out of his rightful place in. space a n d time b y some u s u r p i n g presence, which t u r n s out to be related to insight, a n d h e knows of nowhere else to go. In order to survive, h e h a s to wipe out the u s u r p i n g presence, a n d since the presence is the organ for psychic u n d e r s t a n d i n g , his act of wiping it out increases his state of b l a n k n e s s .

As a n epigraph to her s t u d y of gnosticism called Le Dieu Separe (1984), Simone Petrement conflates two quotations from Pascal's Pensees (The Project of June 1658, "Order", p. 165; The Dossiers of June 1658, "Miracles", p. 336): "And can't you even admit that the sky and the birds prove the existence of God?" "No. The only evidence for any belief in God is the cross." Worlds created out of sensory perception, fetish worlds, c a n n o t tolerate insight; a n d if insight enters them, it m u s t be destroyed. Only the intersection, the site where the insight w a s destroyed, the altar on which a sacrifice h a s taken place, the site of the stillbirth (between the two breasts) remains a s a trace of the fact that a mythic insight h a d once entered history there. A patient, Mrs J , is frequently twenty m i n u t e s late for h e r sessions. S h e insists t h a t her lateness is a historical fact: the ever-recurring traffic j a m on one of the bridges crossing the T h a m e s delays her arrival at the session. The fact t h a t other p a t i e n t s might cross this bridge to reach their sessions on time is excluded from consideration by the m a n n e r with which s h e p u t s over this dogmatic belief. She p r e s e n t s the a s s u m p t i o n that the facts are obdurate in s u c h a way as to block a n y thinking t h a t would challenge the authority of her belief. The belief that there is a concrete a n d unassailable something out therethe actuality of events on the bridgeis b o u n d to her unconscious capacity to stop my being able to think a r o u n d the issue. It was a fact that the bridge w a s traffic-jammed. It was a fact t h a t when s h e reported this situation, the trafficking of my thoughts j a m m e d also. S h e brings the image of the traffic-jammed bridge into the room, a s though it were a fragment of actuality transformed into a fetish. It seems to have the power to swallow any shift into the symbolizing mode. In a footnote added in 1920 to his Three Essays on Sexuality (1905d), Freud proposed that the fetish functions m u c h a s a screen memory does: it conceals evidence of t r a u m a . The blanking-out of events intolerable to thought, characteristic of t r a u m a , a d d s to the thought-inhibiting c h a r i s m a of the fetish. B u t the m o m e n t u m of sessions t h a t begin in history often moves t h e m into the mythic dimension, in spite of themselves.

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We k e p t working over situations t h a t were versions of the traffic-jam on the bridge. The s e n s e of obstruction b e c a m e t r a n s l u c e n t a n d released a n o t h e r meaning: somehow m y t h h a d entered into history without being m u r d e r e d on the spot. Actual events transformed into reports t h a t h e r family h a d given h e r y e a r s before concerning h e r own birth: h e r m o t h e r ' s protracted labour, the impatience of the relatives waiting for the birth, the r e a d i n e s s with which they h a d dismissed h e r on arrival a s a piece of r u b b i s h . It was conceivable t h a t in keeping m e waiting, s h e wanted m e to carry the intolerance of t h e relatives. The jammed-bridge material, which entered m e a s a projection, p u t me into the position of being p u s h e d out, like Oedipus a t the cross-roadsa position t h a t invites one to m u r d e r insight. It w a s the s a m e position a s her relatives h a d occupied a t the time of h e r birth. Inferably, they h a d p u s h e d her out in order n o t to feel themselves p u s h e d out. Inferably, s h e t h o u g h t of t h e relatives a s jealously having h a d p h a n t a s i e s a b o u t the n a t u r e of the mother-foetus relationship, thinking of it a s a n idealized adhesion, p e r h a p s ; the foetus did n o t w a n t to b e born, surely, b e c a u s e it so liked being inside. They might have wished to project feelings of worthlessness into her a s a defence against any anxieties they might have h a d a b o u t a b a b y dying during the act of being born.

A m a n whose wife was expected to give birth to their first b a b y a m o n t h later began a session with two representations of pregnancy. One representation concerned a s t r u c t u r e t h a t w a s impacted. He talked of a woman with w h o m h e h a d once b e e n in love. S h e h a s multiple sclerosis now, a n d h e did n o t k n o w how to relate to this circumstance in h i s mind. He said t h a t t h e p r e s e n t lover of t h e w o m a n h a d said to h i m : "I have just had my last supper with her." Speaking with the w o m a n on the telephone, feeling awful, h e could n o t forbear from letting h e r k n o w w h a t the p r e s e n t lover h a d said: h e h a d then felt treacherous. Although the allusion to a last s u p p e r a n d the feelings of treachery carry the overtones of myth, this is not the point I w a n t to touch on at present. I w a n t to look a t t h e idea of t h e collapsed mother-foetus, represented by the disease, which is

a version of the j a m m e d bridge ideaa fetish that communicates a c h a r i s m a of being or Isness t h a t is u n t h i n k a b l e about. Any distinction between the baby a n d the s u p p o r t system of the mother's spine is lost; it is a s though the intersection of the two lines at right angles to each other h a d transformed into a malign fusion, the cross on which the foetus is crucified. The function of the fetish is to defend against a w a r e n e s s of the m u r d e r of insight a s some victim in the act of sacrifice. At the time of birth, the b o u n d a r i e s t h a t differentiate m o t h e r a n d foetus would seem to have almost disappeared. It is a s though their sensations belonged to the s a m e neurological system. One s o u r c e for the scholastic idea t h a t accidents inhere in a s u b s t a n c e might b e a belief t h a t a foetus adheres in its mother: source of t h e p h a n t a s y t h a t the two lose form b y being s m a s h e d together. (This is to destroy a Platonic type of s t r u c t u r e in which embodiments "participate" in a n idea.) T h e p a t i e n t was aware, in s t a t e s of half-sleep, t h a t h e ground together h i s teeth or clenched t h e m too tightly. He feared to grind away h i s teeth, the teeth at this m o m e n t taking on the signific a n c e of t h e mother-foetus relationship in his mouth, which h e w a n t e d to reduce to pap: one meaning of the last s u p p e r . As against the image of c r u s h i n g a n d grinding, the impaction of a couple, the patient gave another representation of pregnancy, in which space a n d time seemed too loosely related to each other. He reported a dream in which h e was eating while seated a t a table. One of his h a n d s touched a stair banister, which h e associated to a b a n i s t e r in his p a r e n t s ' h o u s e ; r a i n fell on h i s h a n d . This was the first p a r t of his dream, a n d h e associated to it a memory of having s h a r e d a b a t h with his wife the night before, a n d of lying in bed later a n d listening with enjoyment to the s o u n d of rain falling outside the house. Bathing with his wife p r e s e n t s the couple a s free-floating in waterin a n amniotic liquid, perhapsa release of the s p a c e time impaction of the c r u s h e d couple. Any threat in the water is projected into the rain outside his bedroom, which falls on s o m e u n b o r n , defenceless rival, not he, though h e m u s t know t h a t the s t a t e of being out in the rain will b e his state w h e n the newborn appears; the dream rain t h a t falls on his h a n d , though n o t on t h e r e s t of him. in p a r t acknowledges this possibility.

Ill-

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m.

The b a n i s t e r r e p r e s e n t s the spine t h a t the foetus in himself needs to find. It transforms the idea of the fetish into a talisman t h a t can b e held on to at the onset of catastrophic change. As h e sat eating a t the table in the dream, h e b e c a m e conscious t h a t three custom officers were looking at himin a n accusatory way, h e thought. (He a t t e n d s three sessions a week in therapy.) In a free association, h e compared the officers to a young woman h e h a d met. who h a d come from Chinafrom Peking, to b e exactwhich related the look of t h e c u s t o m s officers to peeking, a p u n , the baby in the b r e a s t experienced a s a n alien looking out at him, a stranger at the cross-roads, a Laius. He told the woman from China how m u c h h e admired her country. S h e said, in turn, a s though s h e thought him patronizing, t h a t foreigners travelled through h e r country thinking they understood the life of its peoples, b u t of course they did not. China r e p r e s e n t s the mysterious n a t u r e of the inner world, a s well a s the culture of life within the breast; it r e p r e s e n t s the realm beyond conscious u n d e r s t a n d i n g that p s y c h o t h e r a p y hopes to explore. It invites the opinion t h a t if this is the world of the baby inside the wife or mother, then the b a b y inside is the organ for psychic perception, t h e Laius whose d e a t h destroys any u n d e r s t a n d i n g Oedipus might have of boundaries, so t h a t h e fuses with his mother in a version of stillbirth. The two representations plausibly describe how the foetus might feel a s it p a s s e s through s t a t e s of m u s c u l a r contraction a n d release during its j o u r n e y down the birth passage. In the first representation, in which mother a n d foetus are impacted, space a n d time contract into a loss of form. In the second representation, the contraction is released, a n d space a n d time spread out immensely, as might space a n d time to a n infant who s u c k s at the b r e a s t and realizes t h a t it h a s been released into insight. Something t h a t is both n e a r a n d yet as far away a s China exists within the breast. Thought, u n a n c h o r e d from the substantial, moves into mythic insubstantiality.

The collapse in s t r u c t u r e that occurs in catastrophic c h a n g e is a n essential function of mind. It is embodied on m a n y occa-

sions during life, a s at the time of travail during which mother a n d foetus enter the process of the birth labour. The newborn, like the idea of the godhead itself, is agent for the power of the good objects to bring a b o u t a semantic transformation, which history cannot account for a n d which requires t h e dimension of myth if it is to b e described. S e m a n tic transformation is the creative turbulence t h a t the Romantic philosophers thought of a s the dissolution of subject a n d ^ u , >ct. s u c h circumstances, the g r a m m a r s of history a n d of m y t h b r e a k down in ways that expose the degree to which they are different. History is liable to deteriorate into fetishization; while myth discloses itself to be a p h a n t o m representation of the act of m a k i n g sacrifice. In history, there is always the need to find a s u b s t r a t e or a u t h o r or origin out of which the things arise, a n d on which they depend. In comparison, myth is insubstantial, the realm in which adjectival ideas can s t a n d freely without the assista n c e of n o u n s . In fact, m a n y m y t h s disclose a split between notions of persistence a n d dismemberment, sometimes represented by the notion of the god who is torn a p a r t a n d on a t r a n s c e n d e n t level re-integrated: the god divided into the mortal twin of Pentheus, who is eaten by his mother after being driven m a d (a persecutory p h a n t a s y a b o u t birth or initiation) a n d into t h e immortal twin Dionysus. Plutarch thought of m y t h a s governed by two principles: those of disguise a n d of dismemberment. It is a type of skin or surface thinking, s u c h as Frances Tustin described. In disguise, you p u t on skins: in dismemberment, you translate a body into skeins. In m y t h the n e a r is the far a n d the far is near; p a t h s lead in unpredictable directions; secrets are whispered to strangers a n d withheld from intimates. The g r a m m a r of myth d e p e n d s on a state of c o n s t a n t metamorphosis a n d incipient cataclysm. The initiate thinks to lose all sense of s u b s t a n c e in the waters of b a p t i s m a n d to be drowned into a new life. Myth is the state of the a b s e n t matrix, the absence of matter, the a b s e n t mother. It shadows forth hope, in the form of a n intersection of lines at right angles to each other, waveringly related to space a n d time.

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Imagine, pinned to t h e ground, a shadowy figuresometimes of h u m a n size, like Vitruvius's celebrated image of h u m a n proportion; sometimes a s a giant, a Gulliver a m o n g the Lilliputians; sometimes as no more t h a n a n a b s e n t presence, insecurely related to space a n d time, oscillating between being the microcosm of a macrocosm a n d the macrocosm of a microcosm. All t h a t is alien exists on the edge of the body, a s t h o u g h it h a d streamed out of the end of outstretched a r m s a n d feet. In acts of sacrificial murder, the altar on which the victim is placed faces the rising of the s u n . The dismembering of the victim recreates the world anew, represented by the s u n ' s rising. In Pauline theology. Christian c h u r c h e s a r e described a s the body of Christ, a n d the various p a r t s of the c h u r c h are associated to the m e m b e r s of Christ's body. In their s t u d y of primitive classification, D u r k h e i m a n d Mauss (1903) have described culturesthey give, a m o n g other examples, the early Chinese a n d the Zuni people of New Mexicothat categorize animals, colours, clans, planets, plants, a n d familial relationships in terms of the extremities of the four points of the compass, a s though s u c h facts m u s t exist on the edge of a n outstretched body, a s s t r a n g e r s do, who live on the border to the tribe. The ability to classify arises from the intersection of two lines crossing a t right angles. The Zuni a r r a n g e m e n t of the world into four compass quarters, a s F r a n k Hamilton Cushing (1896) evokes it, recalls the geometric conception of creation of the first chapter in Genesis: . . . not only the ceremonial life of the people, b u t all their governmental arrangements as well, are completely systematised . . . each region is given its appropriate colour and number. . . . Again each region . . . is home or centre of a special element, as well as one of the four seasons each elements produces. The north is the place of wind, breath, or air, the west of water, the south of fire, and the east of earth or the seeds of earth. . . . In strict accordance [with this] are classified the four fundamental activities of primitive life, to the north . . . war and destruction, to the west war cure and hunting, to the south husbandry and medicine, the east magic and religion, [pp. 369-371] This classification is intrinsic to all tribal a n d kinship divisions. [Numbering possibly originates in the "quatern" con-

cept"four billets radiating from a fetishistic middle towards the east, north, west a n d s o u t h " (p. 840)a concept "so strong a s to enthral thought a n d enchain action beyond all realistic motives" (McGee, 1900). The "fetishistic middle" s u p p o s e s a b l a n k n e s s or thought-inhibiting defence where a m o t h e r in childbirth or miscarriage might be, out of whom radiates all symbolism a n d anti-symbolism, K a n d -K.]

Conclusion The act of feeding at the b r e a s t can invoke the p h a n t a s y of a healthy foetus within the breast, whose form embodies the fact t h a t it exists in t h e fullness of a mother's space a n d time; or, in contrast, it invokes the p h a n t a s y of a foetus a n d m o t h e r reduced to a lumpy flow of blood/faeces. Descartes, whose m o t h e r died in childbirth w h e n h e w a s aged one, writes a b o u t the embodiment of a piece of wax a s t h o u g h it were a foetus t h a t forms within the fullness of s p a c e a n d time (1641: 1911, pp. 154-155). The piece of wax h a s a history, in which it enjoys the fullness of sensory experience: it is "taken from the honeycomb . . . it retains some of the s c e n t of t h e flowers from which it w a s gathered, etc.". B u t when touched by a flame, the wax loses it appearance; it is no longer a continuent in history. It h a s become a n entity in the primitive aesthetic a n d h a s been evacuated from the idea of history. It is a s t h o u g h space a n d time, a s they collapse into themselves, c o n d e n s e all the a t t r i b u t e s of the wax into the latent s t a t e t h a t is characteristic of all undeciphered codes. The wax a s a pool of liquid n o longer exists a s a s u s t a i n e d s e n s u o u s identity: it h a s become a fetish. In Freud's u n d e r s t a n d i n g , the material authority of the fetish is a delusion; basically, the fetish is a function a n d n o more; it defends against t r a u m a . As a n entity in history, the piece of wax is a fetish t h a t b r e a k s down when submitted to the catastrophic influence of fire. The primary object in t r a u m a is one's own excrements concretely identified with a s m a s h e d u p mother-foetus couple. As a pool of liquid, the wax represents the first stage in u n d e r s t a n d i n g the traumatized experience b e h i n d the fetish.

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The fact that the melted wax h a s no sensory likeness to its former s t a t e does not d i s s u a d e Descartes from affirming t h a t it persists a s a s u b s t a n c e ; b u t in order to m a k e this affirmation, h e h a s to admit to a n u n u s u a l theory concerning the n a t u r e of the senses. In a letter (Descartes, letter to Mesland, 9 February. 1645, in Cottingham, 1984), in which h e associates the accidents t h a t inhere in the s u b s t a n c e of wax to the accidents of the E u c h a r i s t [cf. Cottingham, 1984, p. 173], Descartes relates b o t h surfaces a n d modalities to Aristotle's theory in De Anima that all s e n s e information is a form of tactility information. One knows the b r e a d a n d wine of the E u c h a r i s t by touch alone, a n d touch is impoverished a s a source of information. Descartes describes the b r e a d a n d wine of the holy s a c r a m e n t a s "surfaces", a s h e does the outward a p p e a r a n c e of the unmelted wax. Before they are able to draw the intersection of two lines at right angles, the children Frances Tustin (1981) h a s described think of the world in the s a m e way, a s a series of disconnected surfaces. The E u c h a r i s t is a metamorphic idea of a mythic type t h a t translates uncomfortably into history. Descartes argues for its reality in history by arguing t h a t if a m o u t h can only know "surfaces" w h e n it tastes b r e a d a n d wine, it c a n n o t know the s u b s t a n c e inherent in the surface a p p e a r a n c e of its food, a n d p r e s u m a b l y it h a s to approach all tasting in a s t a t e of absolute credulity ("the s u b s t a n c e m u s t persist") or u t t e r suspicion ("all sense information h a s to be distrusted"). Knowledge b y way of "surfaces" veers towards extreme opinions. Mouth contact is u n a b l e to prove or disprove the Cartesian assertion t h a t the s u b s t a n c e s of bread a n d wine c a n be t r a n s u b s t a n t i a t e d into another s u b s t a n c e .

unfolding in space a n d time), provides a m e a n s for u n d e r s t a n d ing mind's need to contain the buffeting of catastrophic states. History provides no advocacy for this need, nor is it able to underwrite it, since history tends to function a s a fetish a n d to inhibit a n y thinking a b o u t itself. [The idea t h a t the p a s t exists c a n only be s u s t a i n e d if one r e s p o n d s to the p a s t a s a fetish a n d avoids thinking a b o u t its ontological s t a t u s . B u t the p a s t is a n empty concept, like the concept of memory. All t h a t exists is s h a r d s a n d fragments, sometimes transformed by the historian into relics: diary entries, photographs, etc.] Spinoza realized t h a t mind a n d body require some mythic u n d e r p i n n i n g (namely, some conception of the godhead) to retain their authority a s a binary relationship. Otherwise history t e n d s to favour body a t the expense of m i n d a n d to incline towards behaviourismas was the later fate of Cartesianism.

Fetishes draw attention to themselves a s inhibitors of t h o u g h t at times when the m a p s of u n d e r s t a n d i n g are being re-drawn, a s when, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Galileo defined objects in terms of primary a n d secondary qualities a n d Descartes formulated a distinction between body a n d mind. Neither of these definitions, in a s s u m i n g the primacy of the reality of history over other forms of reality (the reality of events

The m a n who a b a n d o n e d the woman with multiple sclerosis, in describing their last meeting a s a "last supper", concretely experienced the woman's illness a s a b a d n e s s t h a t stopped him from eating with her. In the most uncompromising version of the Christian communion, the celebrant ingests bread a n d wine t h a t h a s t r a n s u b s t a n t i a t e d into the actual flesh a n d blood of a m u r d e r e d a n d resurrected god, who r e p r e s e n t s two of the representations in p h a n t a s y of pregnancy: stillbirth a s multiple sclerosis, or a n effective birth into life. To some degree, all feeding invites reverie, in the s e n s e t h a t the infant within the self h a s a n interaction in t h o u g h t with its m o t h e r concerning the imaginary objects that exist between the two b r e a s t s : b u t this c a n be abruptly arrested by some awaren e s s of a tragedy within the breast, a stillbirth, which only in p a r t c a n b e ascribed to the feeder's own aggression. If the breast, in feeding milk and insight into the infant, conveys some experience of stillbirth that die infant cannot tolerate, then the infant will be inclined to experience the information as a provocation to cannibalism. It will think that breast is feeding it on uncooked bits of baby flesh not on milk and insight. The materiality of the baby flesh in the milk indicates that the feed has taken on the function of a fetish, whose presence inhibits any awareness of miscarriage and grief.

302

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The feeder may then retreat further from experience b y conceiving of the food a s a series of surfaces, disconnected from a n y s e n s e of inwardness or meaning. When a patient t u r n s u p late for a session a n d claims to have been held u p on a bridge t h a t is traffic-jammed, the therapist is liable to feed on fare t h a t consists of a disquieting emptiness followed by a fetish fact t h a t inhibits thought. The traffic-jammed bridge, a n u n p l e a s a n t lump in a n intermittent food flow, is like the package of gristle a n d b o n e t h a t Prometheus tricked Zeus into taking, a n d which s u b s e q u e n t l y h e h a d to pay for in terms of a chronic pain inside himself.

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INDEX

aborigine: dream-time, 266, 276 myth, 123, 125, 127, 213 rites, initiation, 104, 121-122, 127 Abraham, 147, 204 Abraham, K., 229, 303 Adamnan, 198 Adler, A., 195, 303 Aeneas. 244 aesthetic, primitive: and catastrophic change, 240-246 loss of. 235-239 rediscovery of, 252-268 aesthetic intuition, 187-197 Ainesidemos, 102 Alexander, H. G.. 184, 303 alpha: function, 83, 111 thinking, 85 Amalek. 204 Anaxagoras, 104

Anaximenes, 224 annihilation, 2, 4, 38, 46, 53, 60, 72, 101, 112, 155, 162, 179, 188, 270, 271, 274, 277 double, myth of, 77-98, 112 vs. otherness, 216-224, 247251 Anning, M., 259 anti-space, 183 Apollo, 244, 245 Arculfus, 198, 199, 200, 213, 303 Aristotle, 16, 103, 104, 105. 106. 116. 118, 142, 172, 205, 300 Arius. 197, 237 Asclepius, 127, 165, 244 Asmat (New Guinea) symbolism, 240-246 Athena, 96. 122, 155, 240 Auerbach. E., 303 Augustine, 106, 107, 184 315

316

INDEX Burkert, W., 87, 98, 304 Burnet, J., 102, 304 Byzantine iconism, 248, 267 Caesar, 46 Castor, 41. 52, 61, 63, 82, 88. 142, 227, 233 cataclysm, 290. 297 as aspect of eternity, 285 conversion as. 86, 190. 229 as sacred, 283, 284. 285 transformation as, 237 catastrophic change, 1, 2, 262, 292. 296 and phantasies of being devoured at birth, 77-98 and primitive aesthetic, 240246 and reversal in perspective, 231 in writings of Descartes, 235239 Catlin, G., 256 Cave, T . 304 Censorinus, 228 Cezanne, P., 147, 241, 252268 change, anti-developmental "dramatic" conceptions of, 99-109 Chaos, 99-109 and Cosmos, 103 Christ, 196, 197, 201, 298 Chronos, 41, 88, 103, 104, 146 Churchill, W., 136 Cicero, 191 circularity, 52 Clark, S. L. R., 304 claustrum, 134 Coburn, K., 171, 304 Coleridge. S. T., 8, 9, 131. 171, 172, 205, 214, 262, 279, 282, 304 concrete equation, 10, 11, 109 Congo Free State, burial customs in, 167 Conrad, J., 248, 277, 305 Constantine, 196. 197 consubstantiality, doctrine of, 197 conversion, paranoid-schizoid, 187-197 Cook, A. B.. 41, 81, 105, 119, 305 Cornford, F. M., 23, 87, 305 Cosmos: and Chaos, 103 Platonic and Stoic conceptions of, 212 Cottingham, J., 300, 305 Coulanges, F. de, 223, 305 Crispus, 197 Critias, 164 Crooke, W.. 189. 225. 305 Croon. J . H., 148, 305 cubism, 179, 181, 241, 255, 267 cultural cross-fertilization, 187197 Cushing, F. H., 298, 305 Daedalus, 244, 245 Darwin, C . 34 Deacon. B., 218, 220, 305 death: symbolic, 45, 70, 121, 126, 139, 169, 179, 218, 219, 228, 234, 237, 238, 239, 270 and liturgical symbols, 110118 natural concepts as liturgical in, 110-118 transmission of into twin, 130 deep time, 80, 111, 143, 163, 174, 259 delusional jealousy, 46, 142, 144 De Martino, E., 133, 305 Demeter, 80 Democritus, 207 depressive position (passim):

INDEX

317

Autolycus, 149 Avebury, 50, 51, 105 Aztec myth, 189 Babbit, F. C , 80, 101, 303 Bach, J . S., 176 Baganda (East Africa) fetish. 39 Balzac, H. de, 255 Baronga (Portuguese East Africa) myth, 40, 100 Barthes, R., 20, 303 Bate, W. J., 205 Battel, A., 181 Baudelaire, C , 252-268, 303 Bernard, J. H., 205, 303 beta: elements, 84, 150, 207 knowledge, 95 -thinking, 80. 83, 84 Bevan, E., 184. 304 Bick, E., 92, 269-286 binary division in sky, Chaos as, 99-109 binary split, of umbilical cord and placenta, 24-41 Bion, W. R., 1, 2, 4, 5, 24, 33, 108, 128, 131, 164. 179, 231, 269-286, 304 birth: caesura of, 25 myth, 39, 79, 80, 87, 88, 101 phantasies of "being devoured", 77-98 bizarre object, 74, 128. 184, 272 black hole, 31, 72, 82, 85, 86, 89, 94, 95, 97, 105, 252, 253, 254, 264, 265, 266, 268. 283, 285 Blake, W., 185, 304 Boas, F., 161, 304 Bosman, W., 248, 249, 304 Bougainville, L. A. de, 216 Braque, G., 267 Browne, T., 33, 34, 304 burial customs, 167

and mental pain, 3, 4 and paranoid-schizoid position, relationship between, 1-11, 24, 45. 75 threshold to, 5, 41, 45, 75, 77 catastrophic change as, 2 depressive threshold (passim): emergence of symbol on, 161177 importance of recognition on, 206-216 liminal iconography on, 216224 Descartes, R., 8. 86, 173, 227, 235-239, 248, 253, 285, 299. 300, 305 De Selincourt. E.. 32, 305 Detienne, M., 64, 306 Diana, 145 Diderot, D.. 237, 306 difference, fear of, 216-224 Dinka rituals, 167 Dionysus, 11, 76, 79, 88. 89. 90. 96, 97, 98. 100. 101, 104. 112. 116, 122, 127, 142, 149, 155. 165, 166, 183, 297 disguise, 100. 106, 121, 153, 183, 297 conceptions of change as, 99109 dismemberment, 100, 112, 153, 183, 297 conceptions of change as, 99109 Dorsey, G. A., 85, 306 Dorsey, J. O., 129, 306 double annihilation, myth of, 77 dream: analysis, 165 group-, 198-205 ideogram, 8 image, 26, 111, 128, 152, 156, 170, 196, 259 locus of, 129

318

INDEX of pharaoh, 63-76 as inhibitor of thought, 287302 Maramba, 181 Trocadero, 177, 178, 190, 209, 255 effect of on Picasso, 177178, 265, 266 West African, 203 fetishistic middle, 299 fire, stolen, meaning of, 126-129 Flam. J . D.. 200. 306 Focillon. H., 175, 176, 306 foetal preconception, 4 foetal thinking, 6, 7, 8, 26, 316 and mythological thought, 8, 241 Fontenrose, J., 100. 306 food, inedible, meaning of, 124126 Forde, D., 306 forms, evolving, as substrate to mythic thought, 99-109 Fortes, M., 74, 306 Franco, 54 Frankfort, H., 39, 40. 306 Frazer. J. G., 25, 26, 63, 96, 108, 173, 307 Freud, S.. 6. 52, 77, 161, 163, 292. 295, 301, 307 Furies, 246 Gadd, C. J., 307 Gaia, 88. 89. 103. 246, 276 Galileo, 235-239. 247, 300 gap, 110, 140, 142, 153, 199, 292 Chaos as, 99-109 gaping mouth as, 119 ginunga-, 103 between separated twins, 7798 Gasquet, J., 147, 261, 262, 266, 307 Gaster.T. H., 112, 307 Gauguin, E. H. P., 265 Gebert, 203 Gennep, A., 166, 307 geometric patterning, 217-224 geometry, 40, 41, 173, 203, 221, 267 of soul, 213 underlying impersonal, 161177 Gibbon, E.. 163 Gillen, F. J., 121, 122, 312 Gillon, W., 181, 307 good objects: see object, good Gorgon, 97, 98, 170, 182 Gowers, W., 10 Goya, F., 265 Grabar, M. A., 227 Granet, M., 8, 307 Grant, R. M., 197, 307 Grebo masks, 230 Griaule, M., 166, 167, 168, 171, 177, 249, 307 Grimm brothers, 148 Guthrie, W. K. C , 104, 307 Haag, M., 92, 307 Haldane, E. S.. 238, 239, 307 Harris. R., 38, 40, 100, 307 Harrison, J., 307 Hecate, 145, 148 Helena. 196 Heraclitus, 102, 111, 228, 246 Herford, C. H., 35, 307 Hermione, 96, 117, 132, 142, 147 Hesiod, 36, 103, 104, 119, 122 Hippocrates, 106 Hocart, A. M., 11, 13, 16, 92, 155, 194, 277, 307 Homer, 276 Hooke, S. H.. 307 Hubert, H., 307 Humbaba, 170, 171, 275 Hume, J., 33, 79 Icarus, 95, 159, 210, 242, 244, 245

INDEX

319

dream (continued) patient's, 28, 30, 36-37, 45, 49, 54-56, 60-61, 66-68, 71, 89-91,94-95, 100, 113-115. 119-120. 134, 138, 140-144, 146, 150, 154-157, 169. 180, 191194, 215, 220, 222, 228-229, 231-232, 272, 274, 295-296 all plain dreams are, 28 screen, 129, 151-152, 156 membrane as, 130-149 therapy, 165 Duhem, P., 107, 306 Dumezil, G., 85, 122, 155, 306 DunsScotus, 107 Durkheim, E, 26, 298. 306 Earthmaker, 47 eightness, 201 Einstein, A., 15 Eleusian initiation rites, 166 Eliade, M.. 105. 166, 306 Eliot, G., 248, 306 Epimenides, 122, 176, 283 Epimetheus, 85 equation: concrete, 10, 11, 109 sign, 195 symbolic, 4 Esau, 52 Etruscan myth, 148 Eurypylus, 96 Eusebius, 196 Evans, A., 206, 306 Evans. W., 20 Evelyn-White, H. G.. 103, 306 father, role of, 190-191 Fausta, 196 fetish (passing: aeroplane as, 207 -cult: of umbilical cord and placenta, 24-41

icon, vs. idol, 177-186 iconography, liminal, on depressive threshold, 216-224 idol, 96, 188, 189, 191. 197. 224, 236, 259, 263, 282, 285, 288 vs. Icon, 177-186 imagination, primary, 9, 30, 49, 138, 172 Inca, 173, 174. 233. 281 incest, 140, 141, 151, 156, 243, 291 taboo, 11, 175, 201 initiation. 29, 89. 107, 168, 258, 275, 297 mask, African, 128 pain of, 75 rite, 121-123, 125, 127, 216, 218, 269, 274 intrusive identification, 133, 140. 169, 232, 233 conversion as, 188 intuition: primitive, equations of, 242 of underlying impersonal geometric, 161-177 Iowa Indian myth, 129 Isaac, 147, 204 Isakower, O., 128, 152, 308 Isis, 70, 76, 79. 80, 88 Isness, 191-192, 194, 197, 209210, 213, 295 doctrine of, 288 Isodaetes, 100 Jackson Knight, W. F., 308 Jacob, 52, 261, 266 Jaeger, W.. 103, 111, 308 jealousy, 147 delusional, 46, 142, 144 Jevons, F. B., 183, 308 Joshua, 107 Jouannet, C , 95 Joyce, J., 274 Jung, C. G., 212

320

INDEX Lewis. I. M., 133, 310 liminal symbolism, meaning of, 235-239 Linnaeus, C , 223 Linus, 228 Lowie, R. H., 18 Lucifer. 11. 105. 291 Lycurgus, 101 Lyell, C , 116, 117, 118, 163, 220, 259, 310 Macha myth, 127 machine-world view, and loss of aesthetic of primitivism, 235-239 macrocosm, vs. microcosm, 119-129 Mahasudassana, 13 Malekulan Island (New Hebrides) myth, 217-219 Malraux, A., 177, 254, 265, 266, 310 Mamillius, 142. 145. 147, 149 mania, and terror, 206-216 Manichee myth, 228 Marion, J^L., 173, 310 Mark Twain, 174 Martyr, A.. 204 mask vs. face. 177-186 mathematics, 108, 125, 151. 163-164. 176, 212, 236, 262, 285 as branch of psychology, 235 as language of soul, 235 patterning of, 219 of reason and of passions, 216 transcendental aspect of, 9, 10 Mathews, G., 227. 310 Matisse, H., 200 Mauss, M., 26, 119. 162, 188, 223, 288, 298. 306. 307, 310 Maxentius, 196 Mayne, J., 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260, 310 McGee, W. J., 299, 310 Medusa, 80, 96, 97, 98, 105, 170, 178, 219, 274, 289 Melanesian kamo, 153, 154 Melchisedec, 204 Meltzer, D., 1, 6, 12, 28, 120, 211, 269-286, 311 Melville, H., 207, 252 membrane, 215 as basis for processes of recognition, 132 as dream screen, 130-149, 150-159 pivot for reversals of perspective, 132 mental pain, and depressive position, 3 Merlan, P., 235. 311 Merolla. J., 249, 250 Mersenne, M., 173 Mesland, 300 Messerschmidt, F. X., 263 Michelangelo, 190, 191 microcosm, vs. macrocosm, 119-129 Midas, 98 migraine, 10. 27, 86, 187, 272, 275, 277-281, 285 Milner, M., 13, 311 Milton, J., 32 mind: and confusion, 104 powers of, 6 minus-space, 86, 180, 208, 253, 262, 266 minus-time, 180, 253, 262, 265, 266 mirror symmetry, 126, 276 Money-Kyrle, R. E.. 187, 269286, 311 Moore, H., 21, 22 mother: -foetus couple: dead, and the unborn, 4248

INDEX

321

Kann, C. H., 102, 228, 308 kamo, 153, 154 Kant, I., 52 Kantorowicz, E., 195. 308 Kazwini, M.. 118 Keats, J., 24 Khondmyth, 112 Kingsley, M., 38 Kitzinger, E., 200, 201, 234, 308 Klein, M., 1, 2, 4, 7, 25, 38, 41, 77, 78. 113, 128, 181, 186, 269-286, 308 knowledge: by reason, 282 by understanding, 282 Koyre, A, 236, 237, 308 Krautheimer. R.. 202, 203, 204. 308 Kris, E., 264, 308 Kronos, 61, 140, 146, 147, 148, 149. 286 Kubler, G., 108, 173, 174, 175, 211, 308 Kuper, H., 69. 309 La Barre, W., 126, 309 Ladner, G. B., 184, 194. 309 Laius, 200, 296 Laming, A., 259, 309 Lang, A., 149 Layard, J., 148. 219, 309 Leenhardt, M., 153, 154, 309 Leibniz, G. W., 181, 184, 309 Leonardo da Vinci, 117, 259 Leon-Portilla, M., 309 Leontes, 96, 116. 132, 142-149 Leroi-Gourhan, A.. 25, 309 Levi. P.. 291, 309 Levy-Bruhl, L., 153, 263, 309 Levi-Strauss. C , 5, 6, 10, 24, 124, 125, 126, 127, 151, 152, 161, 162, 180, 184, 190, 204, 226, 309 Lewin. B., 130. 151, 152, 156, 310 Lewis, D., 45, 310

lost, in West-African culture, 177-186 separated, 49-62 mythic ideal, 21 spine of, as support, 24-41 mourning, 96, 115, 137, 179, 203, 212 mouth: as dream-site, 120, 122, 123, 127, 129 as gap, 119 infant's, space in, 119-129 uterus-, 120 womb-, 126 Mozart. W. A.. 74. 148 Murdoch, D., 305 Murray, G., 101, 311 music, 74, 87, 89, 98, 106. 108109. 132-133, 143, 148-149, 153, 157-159, 161, 163-164, 169, 182, 225, 241, 258, 266, 269, 292 as language of soul, 235 patterning of, 219 transcendental aspect of, 9, 10 myth (passing: aborigine, 123, 125, 127, 213 Aztec, 189 Baronga (Portuguese East Africa), 40, 100 birth, 39, 79, 80. 87, 88, 101 double annihilation, 77 Etruscan, 148 Iowa Indian, 129 Khond. 112 Macha, 127 Malekulan Island (New Hebrides), 217-219 Manichee, 228 Objibwa Indian (North America). 10, 124. 226 Pacific island, 148 Pawnee Indian (North America), 101

322

INDEX as inner-world concept, vs. annihilation, 216-224 Ouranos, 41, 88, 103, 276 Pacific island myth, 148 Pallas Athene, 98 Pandora, 85, 152 paranoid-schizoid, position, 24, 25, 28, 30, 38, 40, 70. 72, 74. 75, 76, 92, 128, 163, 165, 181, 225, 243, 245, 271 and depressive position, relationship between, 111. 25, 45, 75 Parmenides, 209 Pascal, B., 293, 311 past and future, as mythic motifs, 34 patterning, geometric, 217-224 Paul, St.. 86, 187, 188. 190, 193, 196, 232, 239, 272, 298 Pausanias. 63, 291 Pawnee Indian (North America) myth, 101 Pegasus, 97 Penelope, 276 Pentheus. 101, 142. 297 Perdita, 142 Perry, W. J., 101, 311 Perse, 148 Persephone, 80, 96, 97, 98, 148, 170 Perseus, 80, 97, 98, 148, 170, 178, 289 Persian myth, 117 Perso, 148 perspectival contraction, 225234 perspective, reversals in, 132 Petrement, S., 293, 311 Phaeton, 245 pharaohs, fetish-cult of, 24-41, 63-76, 277 Philo, 41 Piaget. J.. 119, 120 Picasso, P., 188, 190, 195, 203, 209. 241, 252-268 and Trocadero fetish art, 177186, 227, 265 Pickard-Cambridge, A., 311 Pietz, W., 180, 289, 311 Pindar, 98, 127 Pinkerton, J., 249, 311 Piranesi, 163 placenta. 8, 67, 70, 82, 83, 84, 86, 89, 90, 91, 97, 98, 113, 126, 127, 131, 152. 154 fetish-cult of, 24-41, 277 as lost twin, 24-41 sky-, liberation from, 99-109 Plato, 19, 41, 97, 106, 109, 111, 143, 144. 164. 165, 172, 175, 188, 196, 207, 209, 235, 237. 238, 279 Platonic cosmology, 252 Platonic space, 173, 259 Piatt, T., 126 Plotinus, 199, 210. 227 Plutarch. 79. 100, 153, 183, 275, 297, 312 Poe, E. A , 207. 208, 209, 252, 312 poetic symbol, 7, 9, 11, 34, 244, 259. 282 points of reference, twins as, 82, 100 Polixenes, 142 Pollux, 41, 52, 61, 63, 82, 88, 142, 227. 233 Pope, A., 36 positions, Klein's (passim): potential, basic to development, 106 primitive aesthetic: and catastrophic change, 240-246 rediscovery of. 252-268 primitive man, nature of, 195196

INDEX

323

myth (continued) Persian, 117 space, 153 Tikopla, 124 twinship, 38-40 Uitoto Indian (Colombia, South America), 111, 131 Wichita Indian (North America), 85 Winnebago Indian (North America), 47, 112, 113 Zuni Indian (New Mexico), 298 Napier, A. D.. 165, 170, 311 narcissistic organizations, dead twin as murderous avenger in, 77-98 Nash, P., 33,35, 311 Ndembu (Africa) initiation rites, 168, 269, 271, 273. 274 Needham, R., 169, 311 negative capability, 24 Newton, I., 184, 185, 282 Nilotic Sudan, burial customs in, 167 Nilsson, M. P., 311 Nilus, St., 124 Nuer rituals, 167 Nyctelius, 100 object: bizarre, 74, 128, 184. 272 good, passinv and parenting, 15-24 theory of, 6-11 sustaining maternal, 92 Objibwa Indian (North America) myth, 10, 124, 226 Oedipus, 5, 200, 218, 274, 289, 291, 292, 294, 296 Orpheus, 98, 149 Orphic legend. 96, 101, 104, 127, 149 Osiris, 70, 76, 79, 80, 96, 191 otherness: as annihilation, 2 fear of, 247-251

primitive representation, 11 principle of sufficient reason, 181 Proclus, 235 projective identification, 8, 58, 64. 106, 131, 140, 158, 222, 245 Prometheus, 11, 17, 80. 85, 86, 122. 123, 124, 127. 183, 184, 189, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 286, 302 Proust, M., 129 psychosis, at service of depressive understanding, 78 psychosomatic, nature of, 269286 psychotic metaphysic, central working model of, 24-41 psychotic space. 102 Purcell, H., 75 Ra, 112 Radin, P., 18, 47, 111,112, 312 Rameses III, 243 reason: active, 172 and anti-reason, 10 definition, 9 recognition: depressive, 187-197 historical knowledge as, 9 importance of, on threshold of depressive position, 206216 vs. recollection, 117 reincarnation, 52 and rebirth, doctrines of, 39 relic, 191, 196. 199-207, 250, 253. 259 ideology of, 199 theory. 201, 202 Renaissance, 209, 233, 265 art, 22, 108, 178, 179, 264 representation, 15-24 in transference, 24-41

324

INDEX screen memory, 293 Segal, H., 4, 11, 312 Seligman, C. G., 167, 312 Semele, 10, 88, 89. 90, 97, 98, 127 Seminole Indian, 171 Set. 79 Sextus Empiricus, 102 Shakespeare, W., 81, 82, 96, 132, 142, 195 Shapiro, M., 252, 312 Sherriff, R. C , 292 sign equation, 195 Siva, 96 skeletal structures in mythology, 24-41 sky: binary division in. Chaos as, 99-109 mother of twins as, 99-109 /placenta, liberation from, 99109 Socrates, 11, 35 solid world, 33-35 Solon, 164 "soma" inhibitor of the feeding couple, dead twin foetus as, 77-98 Sophocles, 292 space (passim): anti-, 183 conceptual. 170, 222 disintegration of, 210 empty, Chaos as, 99-109 between feeding mother's breasts, 119-129, 225234 minus-, 208, 253, 262, 265 as black hole, 86 conversion of space into, 180 in mouth of infant, 119-129 myth, 153 phenomenological, 271 psychic, 52, 97 and time (passim) transformational, 77, 99, 100 zones in, 209 Spencer, B., 121, 122, 312 Spenser, E., 79 Sphinx, 5. 219, 274, 289 Spinoza, B., 172, 173, 195, 301 Stephen, St., 188 Stephen of Bostra, 184 Stobaeus, 275 Stokes, A.. 191, 312 stolen goods, 187-197 stone clocks, 50-52 stone constructs, bridging earth and sky, 24-41 Stonehenge, 33, 35, 36, 37, 50. 51, 105 Stoothoff, R., 305 sufficient reason, principle of, 181 superego, punitive, 148 sustaining maternal object, 92 Swazi transfiguration rituals, 69 symbol: emergence of, on depressive threshold, 161-177 language of, 4 poetic, 7, 9, 11, 34, 244, 259, 282 symbolic death. 45. 70, 121, 126, 139, 169, 179, 218, 219, 228, 234, 237-239, 270 and liturgical symbols, 110118 symbolic equation, 4 symbolism, liminal, meaning of, 235-239 Tahitian aesthetic, 216 technology, modem, and switch of roles, between triumphant and destroyed twin, 206-216 Teit, J., 312 Temes Savsap, 217, 218, 219, 220, 222

INDEX

325

reverie, 87, 92, 102. 104, 106, 131, 182, 260, 279, 281, 288 infant. 34, 182 uninterrupted, myth of, 7798, 101, 111, 112, 125 reversal in perspective, 5-6, 52, 132, 156, 178, 180, 188, 237 and catastrophic change, 231 psychopathological uses of, 56 Rhea, 146, 147 rite African, 263 cross-cultural fertilization as, 177-186 initiation, 121-123, 125. 127, 216. 218 aborigine, 104, 121-122, 127 Eleusian, 166 Ndembu (Africa), 168, 269, 271, 273, 274 of passage, 25, 29, 95, 128, 142, 149, 174, 188, 228, 238, 244, 269-286, 278 in psychoanalysis, 161-177 Robertson Smith, W., 124, 226, 245, 265, 312 Rohde, E., 281, 312 Rooke, B. E., 131. 282, 312 Ross, G. R. T.. 238, 239, 307 Roth, P., 15 Rouget, G., 312 Rubin, W., 177, 265, 267, 312 Rumi, J., 281 Rurutu Island carving of Tangaroa, 154 Sachs, O. W., 312 sacred, representation of, 63-76 Sambursky, S., 228, 312 Saul/Paul, St., 86, 188, 193, 232 Schreber, D. P., 80, 161, 162

terror, and mania, 206-216 Thales, 110, 111 Theodoret ofCyrrus, 185 Theodosius, 200 Thompson Indians, 161 thought: foetal: see foetal thought inhibited by fetish, 287-302 Tikopia myth, 124 Timaeus, 106, 235 time: deep, 80, 111, 143, 163. 174, 259 minus-, 253, 262, 265 conversion of time into, 180 moving in opposing directions, 49-62 Titans, 11, 76, 88, 96, 104, 122, 127, 155 transference, 1-3. 8, 11, 16, 45, 48, 75, 77, 78-79, 82, 84, 87, 90-95, 100, 102, 141, 155, 201-202, 218, 259, 277-279, 284 nature of, 2 representation in, 24-41 Trocadero fetishes, 177-178, 265, 266 Turner, J. M. W., 254 Tumer.V., 128, 169, 263. 269286, 313 Tustin. F.. 31, 289, 297, 300, 313 twins (passim): alter ego, 64 dead, as murderous avenger, 77-98 imaginary, 269-286 mother of, as sky, 99-109 pharaoh's, 39, 82 stillborn, 39 as points of reference, 82, 100 separated, gap between, 7798 sharing twin wombs, 119-129

326

INDEX west African culture, 167, 188, 197, 203, 247-251 and lost mother-foetus couple, 177-186 Whitehead. A. N., 80. 162. 175, 228, 251, 313 Wichita Indian (North America) myth, 85 Winnebago Indian (North America) myth, 47, 112, 113 Wittgenstein, L., 25, 81. 108. 173. 174. 212. 276, 278, 313 Woolf, V.. 313 Wordsworth, W., 32. 313 Xenophanes, 104, 105 Yakout, 168 Zagreus, 100 Zeus, 10, 17, 41, 76, 80, 88, 89, 97, 101. 103. 104. 107, 117, 122-128, 146-147, 149, 155, 164, 180, 184, 189, 240, 244, 247. 302 totemic significance of, 123124 Zuni Indian (New Mexico) myth, 298 Zuntz, G., 96, 313

twins (continued) transmission of death and madness into, 130-149 triumphant and destroyed, 63-76, 206-216, 247251 unborn, 42 twinship, myths concerning, 3940 Uitoto Indian (Colombia, South America) myth, 111, 131 Ulysses, 97, 170, 276 umbilical cord: fetish-cult of, 24-41 as lost twin, 24, 277 unborn, 13-159 uninterrupted reverie: see reverie, uninterrupted Uranus, 246 Vasiliev, A. A, 196. 313 Vernant, J.-P., 96, 98, 286, 313 Verne, J., 169 Virgil. 238. 244, 276 Vitruvius, 298 Wagner, R , 222 water, liturgical idea of, 110118 Watson, G.. 9, 313 Watts, W., 107. 313