ON THE PSYCHOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF SO-CALLED OCCULT PHENOMENA
[ 1 . Introduction]
In that wide domain of psychopathic inferiority from which science has marked off the clinical pictures of epilepsy, hysteria, and neurasthenia, we find scattered observations on certain rare states of consciousness as to whose meaning the authors are not yet agreed.
These observations crop up sporadically in the literature on narcolepsy, lethargy, automatisme amhulatoire, periodic amnesia, double consciousness, somnambulism, pathological dreaminess, pathological lying, etc.
The above-mentioned states are sometimes attributed to epilepsy, sometimes to hysteria, sometimes to exhaustion of the nervous system—neurasthenia—and sometimes they may even be accorded the dignity of a disease sui generis.
The patients concerned occasionally go through the whole gamut of diagnoses from epilepsy to hysteria and simulated insanity.
3 It is, in fact, exceedingly difficult, and sometimes impossible, to distinguish these states from the various types of neurosis, but on the other hand certain features point beyond pathological inferiority to something more than a merely analogical relationship with the phenomena of normal psychology, and even with the psychology of the supranormal, that of genius.
4 However varied the individual phenomena may be in themselves, there is certainly no case that cannot be related by means of some intermediate case to others that are typical.
This relationship extends deep into the clinical pictures of hysteria and epilepsy.
Recently it has even been suggested that there is no definite borderline between epilepsy and hysteria, and that a difference becomes apparent only in extreme cases.
Steffens, for example, says:
“We are forced to the conclusion that in essence hysteria and epilepsy are not fundamentally different, that the cause of the disease is the same, only it manifests itself in different forms and in different degrees of intensity and duration.”
5 The delimitation of hysteria and certain borderline forms of epilepsy from congenital or acquired psychopathic inferiority likewise presents great difficulties.
The symptoms overlap at every point, so that violence is done to the facts if they are
regarded separately as belonging to this or that particular group.
To delimit psychopathic inferiority from the normal is an absolutely impossible task, for the difference is always only “more” or “less.” Classification in the field of inferiority itself meets with the same difficulties.
At best, one can only single out certain groups which crystallize round a nucleus with specially marked typical features.
If we disregard the two large groups of intellectual and emotional inferiority, we are left with those which are coloured pre-eminently by hysterical, epileptic (epileptoid), or neurasthenic symptoms, and which are not characterized by an inferiority either of intellect or of emotion.
It is chiefly in this field, insusceptible of any sure classification, that the above-mentioned states are to be found.
As is well known, they can appear as partial manifestations of a typical epilepsy or hysteria, or can exist separately as psychopathic inferiorities, in which case the qualification “epileptic” or “hysterical” is often due to relatively unimportant subsidiary symptoms.
Thus somnambulism is usually classed among the hysterical illnesses because it is sometimes a partial manifestation of severe hysteria, or because it may be accompanied by milder so-called “hysterical” symptoms.
Binet says: “Somnambulism is not one particular and unchanging nervous condition; there are many somnambulisms.”
As a partial manifestation of severe hysteria, somnambulism is not an unknown phenomenon, but as a separate pathological entity, a disease sui generis it must be somewhat rare, to judge by the paucity of German literature on this subject.
So-called spontaneous somnambulism based on a slightly hysterical psychopathic inferiority is not very common, and it is worth while to examine such cases more closely, as they sometimes afford us a wealth of interesting observations.
Case of Miss E., aged 40, single, book-keeper in a large business.
No hereditary taint, except that a brother suffered from “nerves” after a family misfortune and illness.
Good education, of a cheerful disposition, not able to save money; “always had some big idea in my head.”
She was very kind-hearted and gentle, did a great deal for her parents, who were living in modest circumstances, and for strangers.
Nevertheless she was not happy because she felt she was misunderstood.
She had always enjoyed good health till a few years ago, when she said she was treated for dilatation of the stomach and tapeworm.
During this illness her hair turned rapidly white. Later she had typhoid.
An engagement was terminated by the death of her fiance from paralysis. She was in a highly nervous state for a year and a half.
In the summer of 1897 she went away for a change of air and hydrotherapy.
She herself said that for about a year there were moments in her work when her thoughts seemed to stand still, though she did not fall asleep.
She made no mistakes in her accounts, however.
In the street she often went to the wrong place and then suddenly realized that she was not in the right street.
She had no giddiness or fainting-fits.
Formerly menstruation occurred regularly every four weeks with no bother; latterly,
since she was nervous and overworked, every fourteen days.
For a long time she suffered from constant headache. ~Carl Jung, CW 1, Para 1-6
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