The Arts in Psychotherapy, Vol. 23, No. I, pp.

77-81, 1996
Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in the USA. All rights reserved

Pergamon

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BRIEF REPORT
DUAL SERENDIPITY:

CREATIVE

ASSOCIATIONS

WRITING AND SELF-ANALYSIS

TO POETRY AND MUSIC

CORA L. DiAZ DE CHUMACEIRO.

is a clinical

psychologist

PhD

serendipity phenomenon in it was the definition he

presented. Underscoring that analysis is unending and
the knowledge of the psychoanalyst
will be incremented with new experiences,
Reik wrote: They
sometimes happen when you least expect them. You
may be looking for something else [desired results]
and accidentally find a fragment of an unknown you
[true serendipity]
(p. 78).

In a first article in The Arts in Psychotherapy, Walpoles (1754) term serendipity was amply discussed,
applied to psychotherapy and the creative arts therapies (Diaz de Chumaceiro,
1995). A second article
proposed the use of the term serendipity analogues,
instead of Roberts (1989) pseudoserendipiv,
applied
to psychotherapy research with music (Diaz de Chumaceiro & Yaber 0, 1995). This paper introduces the
term dual serendipity for cases in which both types of
serendipity occur, to differentiate them from the more
usual ones with only one occurrence<ither
unexpected (true serendipity) or desired (serendipity analogue) results. In addition to playing a role in treatment and research, any combination
of serendipity
may also appear during the writing process to communicate results. Of particular interest to this field are
cases in which associations
to one or several of
the different arts have surfaced during this creative
endeavor.
Reik (194811983), in Listening with the Third Ear,
provided a unique example that merits center stage as
a role model for psychoanalytically-oriented
creative
writers, particularly those with a background in poetry and music. Although Reik did not mention the
term serendipity, he evidently had read Horace Walpoles famous letters to Sir Horace Mann (cited on p.
285), where it originally appeared. What called my
attention to this case and led to recognition of the dual

*Cora L. Diaz de Chumaceiro

Psychotherap?;.

OF

A Case of Dual Serendipity

In a chapter entitled Love and the Dark Despot,
Reik revealed that, 30 years after he had been analyzed, during the process of writing A Psychologist
Looks at Love (1944), he was looking for possible
predecessors of the theory being presented. As he
thought about the origins and development of love
and its psychological characteristics, verses that had
been forgotten or were only half-remembered
slowly
came to mind. They were fragments and lines heard in
his teens, from unknown poets, which he had not
thought about for more than 40 years. Two unrecognizable German lines haunted him while writing:
Denn wo die Liebe erwacht,
Stirbt das Ich, der dunkle Despot.
In English

in Caracas,

71

Venezuela

and a member

of the Editorial

Board of The Arts in

78

CORA L. DiAZ DE CHUMACEIRO

For when true love awakens,
Dies the self, the dark tyrant (p. 79)

The haunting poem remained unidentified yet he

was sure that he had read the lines once as a boy and
that they belonged to the poems middle section. Finally, giving up the search-in
anthologies, asking
friends, acquaintances and poets-he
decided not to
quote them in the book, pretending more indifference
than really felt. However, he remembered an imagery
of the printed paper as being of the old-fashioned type
and vaguely sensed that the question, rather than a
literary one, was a secret personal one. Yet curiously
enough, he did not initially attempt to identify them
with a systematic self-analysis.
In his view, the way
he discovered the data, on an unusual side road, was
as interesting, psychologically,
as the reasons why
they had not been remembered.
Not knowing why, he did know that these lines for
him had a touch of oriental flavor. During one of
many instances when he was being haunted by them
while writing, he recalled, visually, his mothers
small bookcase in her room and a small gilt-edged
volume with yellowish pages (p. 81) and that he had
read the poem in it when young. He then tried to
remember the names of the books in this bookcase,
especially poetry.
Goethes West-Eastern Divan was discarded because he had learned most of these poems by heart
during his college years. The next associations were
to Hammer-Purgstall,
a publisher of translated oriental poems; Friedrich Bodenstedts The Sangs ufkfirza
ShafJ (translated Persian poems); Platens Ghazals;
The Poet Firdusi, from Heines Romancero as well
as his The Hebrew Melodies. Then followed Divan,
the principal work of Jehuda-ha-Levi,
the SpanishHebrew poet, and Omar Khayyams Rubaiyat. Yet he
was certain, for one reason or another, that the lines
in question did not belong to these works.
The poem was either an oriental poets translated
verses or a German writers original verses, with a
cleverly copied style of oriental poetry. His inclination leaned toward the first alternative. Then surfaced
Hans Bethges The Chinese Flute (a poem anthology
from the Far East). However, he had not been acquainted with them until heard in Gustav Mahlers
Song of the Earth, in 1911. By then he was 23 years
old. He then quietly sang Song ofthe Earth, which he
knew by heart. There they were not, of course. At this
point he stopped searching. Again, he had the strange

sensation of being haunted by something that eluded

him when trying to catch it.
A few weeks later, he found the poem. .It is one
of the ghazals of Dali1 al-Din Rumi, the greatest of
the Persian mystical poets. .
He not only is a great
poet but one of the great thinkers and searchers after
truth (p. 83). This is the poem (with his slight modifications of William Hasties English version):
Death ends lifes misery and pain,
Yet life afraid would Death retain.
We only see Deaths threatening hand,
Not that bright cup it offered plain.
So shrinks from love the tender heart
As if from threat of being slain,
For when true love awakens, dies
The self, that despot, dark and vain.
Then let him die in nights black hour
And freely breathe in dawn again!
Reik arrived at the poem and the poets name as
follows. Several weeks after his apparently futile investigation, the name of the poems translator, familiar to him, surfaced in a strange manner. One evening, tired after having practiced psychoanalysis
for
10 hours and in a rather depressive mood, he listened
to some records. First, he heard Mahlers Ninth Symphony, which he specially liked and listened to often.
Suddenly, he remembered Mahlers tragic phrase, uttered a few days shortly before his death: I lived
falsely (p. 83). Then came the remembrance
of
Mahlers regrets of having spent life in an intense
zealousness for work, his ambition having burnt him
up. In his ending days, his wife, child and friends
received many expressions of tenderness mixed with
regrets.
Next, he wanted to hear Mahlers Kindertotenlieder, not knowing if it was thoughts of death or
regrets or a musical passage that had triggered the
wish. When listening to them, he was impressed by
something in addition to the music: Everyday life simple expressions were evident in the way the song was
worded, penned by Friedrich Rueckert, a forgotten
German poet who lived about a hundred years ago. In
that moment I knew at once and with surprising certainty that the poem I had hunted for so long was by
Rueckert. I saw his name printed in golden letters on
one of my mothers books (p. 83). Simultaneously,
he knew that it was one of his translations rather than
an original one. Thus, he left to search for them in the

DUAL SERENDIPITY
public library and immediately found the lost verses.
When reading them, he strangely felt that they had
never been forgotten, although certain that for over 40
years he had not recalled them once.
For him, the intact preservation of these lines for
so many years, like a mummy in an undiscovered
Egyptian tomb, seemed strange (p. 84). [Tlhe
seed of my theory of love was sowed when reading
Rumis poem at 13 years of age. How long it takes
to recognize something you always knew unconsciously. Seven hundred years ago, in faraway Persia, this books central idea had been anticipated by
Rumi. I never thought I owed it to some mysterious
verses I had read as a boy (p. 84).
Reik then explained why he had forgotten the
names of Rueckert and Rumi, and the psychological
implications of the recurrence of the two lines while
writing his book. At the time, worried about Arthur,
his son, and his wife and three-year-old grandson who
he had not met as they were living in Jerusalem, it
appeared (in 1943) that Palestine and Syria would be
attacked by the Germans. He hoped his family could
obtain immigration
visas to the United States and
travel, as he longed to see them. The only possibility
was the Persian route, yet a revolt was brewing there
and thus to travel through Persia and China also
seemed unsafe.
Other thoughts and fears, survivors from the past,
preoccupied him. That the war would be long-lasting
and Reik would die young before reuniting with his
son and family was a hidden fear expressed in the two
lines. (In a note, he admitted that these fears were
unjustified; they all arrived in 1945). As he considered himself the despot dark and vain who would
perish just when awakened by love, there must have
been traces of unconscious regret and repentance of
past possessive behavior with his son. The recurrent
gloomy lines were a reminder of what had been
missed and a threat of punishment
for omissions,
while transcending the personal sphere by expressing
the basic idea that loves triumph is associated with
defeating possessive and selfish trends. In Reiks
view, it was noteworthy that Rueckerts name came to
mind only after re-hearing Mahlers compositions.
They contained hidden the psychic threads that linked
the past with the present and his fears for the future.
Mahler had greatly influenced Reik when he was
in his twenties; his identification with the composer
then had been unconscious.
Mahlers Ninth Symphony had been composed when knowing that he

would soon die and the work expresses this mood.

Reiks desire to hear this symphony was hardly accidental. There was a correspondence
between his
odd feelings that evening when tired and depressed
and the score. Strange how the way led from hearing
the symphony to the name I had been searching for! It
was certainly unconsciously
prepared by thoughts of
the last days of the composer (p. 85).
The Kindertotenlieder led to a past panic Reik and
his wife had experienced when once, Arthur, as a
child, had been very ill, fearing his death. (After two
of his children died, Rueckert wrote the Kindertotenlieder
. Mahler, before a small daughter died, put
some of them to music, always thinking he must have
foreseen her death
. Arthurs favorite composer is
Mahler; in a letter Arthur told him that his three-yearold son already likes Mahlers
music.)
Reiks
thoughts were enveloped in a milieu full of anxiety
and fears of death-that
it would be too late for him
also.
Reik then discontinued his self-analysis, recognizing that these fears were survivors of obsessive ideas
that concerned him when younger-which
recurrence
is the rule rather than an exception in any analysis.
Another connection between Mahler and Reiks earlydeath fear was that the latters first wife (the mother
of Arthur) had died shortly after attending together
a concert of the Song of the Earth. Rueckerts name
had been avoided because it was a reminder of the
fearful days they experienced when their son was so
ill.
How was the problem solved? As said before,
Kindertotenlieders
words allowed him to recall the
name. It was as if an inner suspense became loosened, as if an unconscious question got its answer. It
is clear to me how that happened. The Kindertotenlieder awakened the memory of the illness of my son
consciously where my unconscious fears had blocked
the thought-road before (p. 86). Simultaneously,
the
lyrics appeared to say to him: unjustified are your
fears now, as they were in the past. It is not necessary
to die when beginning to feel a novel tenderness. Fear
not that change signals the nearness of death; only the
old self has to be changed, letting it die so that a new
and improved one can replace it.
The lines, For when true love awakens, Dies
the self, the dark tyrant, formed a somber
omen; but the last lines of Rumis poem say,
Let it die and change; take the risk and dare to

CORA L. DiAZ DE CHUMACEIRO

love. As I thus regained courage, the old shadows evaporated and I was able to remember the
name Rueckert and to find the poem and its
author. The hearing of the Kindertotenlieder
thus marks the psychological turning-point.
(p.
87)
By his own account, the substitute names that
came to mind are all drawn from the sphere linked
with the forgotten poet and his work. Persian poets
led the associative
train (danger of sons travel
through Persia). The speaker in Goethes WestEastern Divan is Hafis. In West-Eastern
Divan,
Goethe translated a ghazal by Rtimi and in his notes
praised his profound thoughts, which had been read
by Reik many times. Rumi also has a collection of
poems entitled Divan. Hammer-Purgstalls
many
translations of Persian poetry into German included
Rtimi. The Persian poet Mirza Shaffy and Platens
ghazals which are copies of this national poetry, are
linked. Firdusi by Heine-another
great Persian poet.
Omar Khayyam-another
Persian.
The associative train leaves behind Persian poetry
with Heines Firdusi, and Jehuda-ha-Levi appears via
Heines Hebrew Melodies; a Divan was also written
by this Spanish-Hebrew
poet. The associations approach the source of not remembering-fear
prohibiting the remembrance
of Rueckert and Rtimis
names. The Spanish-Hebrews
Divan is the connecting bridge to the Persians, yet it is the Hebrew Melodies that led to worry about Arthur. Before he died,
Jehuda-ha-Levi
wanted to see Jerusalem; he saw it
and died. Reiks son was living in Jerusalem with
Jehuda-ha-Levis
family. However, Reik never consciously thought about his son during this searchprocess, even though he was so close. It seemed like
an unconscious thought-avoidance
(p. 88).
His associations turned to translated Chinese poets
collected in Bethges Chinese Flute (sons journey
Persia/China).
Then Mahler and Song of the Earth.
Kindertotenlieder
and Rueckert should have followed. However, the dangerous nearness to themes of
his own death and memories of his sons childhood
illness made him stop the attempt as useless.
When finding the names, his feeling resembled a
re-finding in a drawer a mislaid object, which was all
the time near, yet unknown.
And sometimes, as
here, it is part of yourself that you mislaid many years
ago (italics added, p. 88). The reason for the
thought-avoidance
has become clear: the superstitious fear that either he or his son would die before

reuniting. In consciousness,
however, there was not
even a slight trace of these fears.
In a footnote, he added that he immediately knew
that the two lines in question had anticipated his
books main theme: love. However, he had been totally unaware that he himself was the dark tyrant
or that these lines revealed the clear text to an unconscious fear founded on an old superstition (p. 89)
he had considered resolved in the past.
Reik, with his story of a lost Persian poem, highlighted his personal process of discovery of unknown
or disassociated parts of himself in which the different
art forms (poetry and music) served as the stimulus
for a personal research process that culminated in significant findings for him. His case, then, is an excellent example of dual serendipity due to purely internal accidental events (writing a book and haunting
verses). To his description, You may be looking for
something else and accidentally find a fragment of an
unknown you (p. 78), can be added: in addition to
the finding of the original object. This completed
statement more clearly expresses the duality of findings in his case-Rumi
and Rueckert being serendipity analogues
he had desired to find and his
self-discovery,
the unexpected,
true serendipitous
outcome.
Wallas (1926) stages of the creative process are
evident in Reiks narrative. The initial research question was: To whom am 1 indebted for this book? followed by the unidentified haunting verses. The associations up to when he quit the search process are the
preparation phase, followed by incubation during a
few weeks, illumination on the night he heard Mahlers music and verification in the library.
Conclusions
This paper has introduced the term dual serendipity, highlighting a condensation of a previously published psychoanalytic example heretofore unclassified
in this category. Reiks search for haunting verses is
unique in the early literature on the analysts affective
responses to artworks. His personal experience suggests that, depending on writers background in the
world of art, different combinations of art forms may
haunt us during the creative writing process and that
the process of discovery, although arduous, is necessary for personal growth. To have the courage to publish personal data comes later. The first step is to
engage in the private, self-analytic process.
Many of the artworks cited by Reik may be un-

DUAL SERENDIPITY
known to contemporary audiences, yet the principles
demonstrated
in his case are timeless. It is up to
younger generations of therapists, in different fields,
to explore all the possible combinations of the different artworks that can surface in associations when
attempting to overcome resistances to remembering
during the creative writing of book chapters, dissertations, theses and journal articles.
References
Diaz de Chumaceiro, C. L. (1995). Serendipitys role in psychotherapy: A bridge to the creative arts therapies. The Arts in
Psychotherapy, 22(l), 3948.

Diaz de Chumaceiro, C. L., & YQber 0, G. E. (1995). Serendipity

analogues: Approval of modifications
of the traditional case
study for a psychotherapy
research with music. The Am in
Psychotherapy, 22(2), 155-159.
Reik, T. (1944). A psychoanalyst looks at love. New York: Farrar
and Reinhart.
Reik, T. (1983). Listening with the third ear: The inner experience
of a psychoanalyst.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
(Original work published 1948)
Roberts, R. M. (1989). Serendipity: Accidental discoveries in science. New York: Wiley.
Wallas, G. (1926). The art of thought. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.
Walpole, H. (1754). Letter from Walpole to Mann, January 28,
1754. In W. S. Lewis (Ed.), Walpoles Correspondence (Vol.
20, pp. 407P408). New Haven, CT: The Yale Edition.