Besides the paranoiac, his equally a-social counterpart must also be emphasized. In the expression of the identical fantasy contents, the hysterical individual who has suppressed them, is offset by the pervert, who realizes them, and even so the diseased and passive paranoiac—who needs his delusion for the correction of the actuality, which to him is intolerable—is offset by the active criminal, who endeavors to change the actuality according to his mind. In this special sense, this type is represented by the anarchist. The hero himself, as shown by his detachment from the parents, begins his career in opposition to the older generation; he is at once a rebel, a renovator, and a revolutionary. However, every revolutionary is originally a disobedient son, a rebel against the father. [113] (Compare the suggestion of Freud, in connection with the interpretation of a “revolutionary dream.” Traumdeutung, II edition, p. 153. See English translation by Brill. Macmillan. Annotation.)
But whereas the paranoiac, in conformity with his passive character, has to suffer persecutions and wrongs which ultimately proceed from the father, and which he endeavors to escape by putting himself in the place of the father or the emperor—the anarchist complies more faithfully with the heroic character, by promptly himself becoming the persecutor of kings, and finally killing the king, precisely like the hero. The remarkable similarity between the career of certain anarchistic criminals and the family romance of hero and child has been illustrated by the author, through special instances (Belege zur Rettungsphantasie, Zentralblatt f. Psychoanalyse, I, 1911, p. 331, and Die Rolle des Familienromans in der Psychologie des Attentäters, Internationale Zeitschrift für aerztliche Psychoanalyse, I, 1913). The truly heroic element then consists only in the real justice or even necessity of the act, which is therefore generally endorsed and admired; [114] while the morbid trait, also in criminal cases, is the pathologic transference of the hatred from the father to the real king, or several kings, when more general and still more distorted.
As the hero is commended for the same deed, without asking for its psychic motivation, so the anarchist might claim indulgence from the severest penalties, for the reason that he has killed an entirely different person from the one he really intended to destroy, in spite of an apparently excellent perhaps political motivation of his act. [115]
For the present let us stop at the narrow boundary line where the contents of innocent infantile imaginings, suppressed and unconscious neurotic fantasies, poetical myth structures, and certain forms of mental disease and crime lie close together, although far apart as to their causes and dynamic forces. We resist the temptation to follow one of these divergent paths which lead to altogether different realms, but which are as yet unblazed trails in the wilderness.
INDEX
- Abraham, [15]
- Aleos, [21]
- Alkmene, [45]
- Akrisios, [22]
- Ambivalence, [70]
- Amphion and Zetos, [43]
- Anarchist, [93]
- Animal motives, [88]
- Apollo, [17]
- Artembares, [29]
- Arthurian legends, [55]
- Astyages, [29]
- Attenuation of myth, [78]
- Auge, [22]
- Babylonian myths, [12]
- Beating, [56]
- Beowulf, [60]
- Birth symbols, [69]
- Blancheflure, [38]
- Borrowing theories, [2]
- Box, [69]
- Bride true, [40]
- Brother myths, [87]
- Brothers, hostility of, [88]
- Buddha, [53]
- Child psyche and myth formation, [63]
- Childhood of hero, [81]
- Conflict of younger and older generations, [64]
- Content reversals, [72]
- Criminality and myths, [93]
- Criticism of parents, [64]
- Darab, [19]
- Daughter father, [77]
- Delusion formation, [91]
- Dirke, [46]
- Displacements in myths, [76]
- Dream and myth, [69]
- Dreams of water, [71]
- Dughda, [51]
- Duplication, [87]
- Egotism motives, [92]
- Elsa, [56]
- Erotic factors, [74]
- Exposure myths, [72], [73]
- Family relations, [62]
- Family romance of neurotics, [65]
- Father and hero, [61]
- Father and tyrant, [76]
- Father daughter, [77]
- Father replacement, [67]
- Feridun, [37]
- Flood myths, [25], [34]
- Fool motive, [90]
- Gilgamos, [23], [79]
- Grandfather replacement, [77]
- Hamlet, [76]
- Harpagos, [26], [27], [28]
- Hekabe, [20]
- Hercules, [44]
- Hero and father, [61]
- Hero and mother, [61]
- Hero myth, summary of, [67]
- Herod, [50]
- Horn, [55]
- Hostile brothers, [88]
- Hostility motives, [74]
- Hysteria and myth, [92]
- Hysterical fantasies, [92]
- Incest motive in myth, [83]
- Infantile imagination, [62]
- Infantile psyche and myth, [9], [10]
- Infantile sexual theory, [82]
- Interpretation summary, [79]
- Ion, [17]
- Iranese legends, [19], [36], [37]
- Isaac, [15]
- Isolde, [38], [39]
- Jesus, [47], [48], [49], et seq.
- Judas myth, [19]
- Kaikaus, [36]
- Kaikhosrav, [35]
- Kamleyses, [25]
- Karna, [15]
- Krishna, [47]
- Kyros, [24], [89]
- Kyros myth, versions of, [24], [32], [33]
- Kunti, [16]
- Lohengrin, [55], [58]
- Lunar myths, [5]
- Mandane, [25]
- Migration theories, [2]
- Moses, [13], [79]
- Mother and hero, [61]
- Myth and hysterical fancy, [92]
- Myth and infantile psyche, [9], [10]
- Myths and paranoid mechanisms, [75]
- Myth and race, [11]
- Myth and sex, [65]
- Myth, complications of, [83]
- Myth contents, [4], [6]
- Myth displacements, [76]
- Myth distribution, [4]
- Myth, evolution of, [8]
- Myth formation and child psyche, [63]
- Myth ground plan, [61]
- Myth interpretation, [5]
- Myth of hero, summary of, [67]
- Myth, psychological significance of, [90]
- Myth structure and psychoneuroses, [63]
- Myth, type of, [61]
- Mythological theories, [1], [3]
- Neurotic family romance, [65]
- Neurotics, [64]
- Nightmares, [7]
- Œdipus, [74]
- Œdipus myth, [6], [18]
- Old age and youth, [64]
- Opposites, [70]
- Oriant, [56]
- Paranoid delusions, [91]
- Paranoid mechanism in myths, [75]
- Parental authority, [63]
- Parental criticism, [64]
- Parents, fancied, [73]
- Parents, real, [73]
- Paris, [20]
- Perseus, [22]
- Persian myths, [37]
- Persian war, [32]
- Pharaoh, [80]
- Priamos, [20]
- Pritha, [16]
- Proca, [42]
- Projection, [75]
- Psychological significance of myth, [90]
- Psychoneuroses and myth structure, [63]
- Psychoneurotics, [63]
- Races and myths, [81]
- Real parents, [73]
- Reformer, [93]
- Remus, [40]
- Replacement of father, [67]
- Retaliation and revenge, [66]
- Revenge and retaliation, [66]
- Reversals, [72]
- Revolt of hero, [82]
- Revolutionary, [93]
- River legends, [46]
- Romulus, [40]
- Romulus, modifications of, [42]
- St. Gregory, [19]
- Sam, [21]
- Sargon myth, [12]
- Scëaf, [60]
- Scild Scefing, [60]
- Senechoros, [24]
- Sex and myth, [65]
- Siegfried, [93]
- Split personalities, [84]
- Summary interpretation, [79]
- Symbolic expression, [69]
- Telephos, [21]
- Thebes, [43]
- Theories of myths, [1], [3]
- Tristan, [38], [39]
- True bride, [40]
- Twin myths, [44]
- Types of reversal, [77]
- Typical myth, [61]
- Tyrant and father, [76]
- Water dreams, [71]
- Water in myth, [34]
- Wieland, [55]
- Wolfdietrich, [54]
- Youth and old age, [64]
- Zal, [21]
- Zetos and Amphion, [43]
- Zoroaster, [51]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A short and fairly complete review of the general theories of mythology and its principal advocates is to be found in Wundt’s “Völkerpsychologie,” Vol. II, Myths and Religion. Part I [Leipzig, 1905], p. 527.
[2] “Das Beständige in den Menschenrassen und die Spielweise ihrer Veränderlichkeit.” Berlin, 1868.
[3] “Die Kyros Sage und Verwandtes,” Sitzb. Wien. Akad., 100, 1882, p. 495.