Our subject who was so very pious for a long time, declaring himself now an atheist and free thinker. He promised his mother, under oath, that he would attend church services regularly on Sundays but he gave this up when he reached the 20th year. At first his mother objected, and was very angry over it, and desisted only after her son convinced her that he had no faith. But she said repeatedly: “I feel certain that the Lord will enlighten you and that some day you will come back to the faith.” He only smiled at that for on his part he felt certain that he would never again be a believer. His greatmother, whom he visited every summer, was even more pious. Two weeks after the dream we analyzed he had the following dream:
I am with my grandmother. She goes early in the morning to church and asks me to go along. I hesitate. Next morning she repeats the request. I have a strong attack of gastric pains and tell her. I will take a sunbath, it is the same thing....
We see that, under the grandmother’s request, the dream portrays the subject’s childhood disposition. We note a connection between the hesitation to go to church and the gastric pains and we hear of sunbaths as a substitute for religion,—a fact which I have repeatedly observed in other cases as well.
Further inquiry reveals that every evening the patient struggles with the impulse to recite “Our Father”; he resents the inclination,—“it is nonsense. I don’t believe any such folly as that.” Nevertheless sometimes he murmurs portions of the prayer, while in a half dreamy state, when he has the illusion of being again a child. He carries around in his pocket, a couple of small “holy mother medallions” which he bought at a fair: “it is really a superstition; I always carry them in my coin purse, because I have an idea it is good luck.” He has presented his prayer book to his younger sister and so the book is always accessible. He goes to churches because he is “interested in the church music.” ...
How does the dream show this? The devil appears to him in the shape of a horse (horse’s hoof is a characteristic sign of the devil) and tries to seduce him. The horse breaks down doors and all obstacles. At one time he believed in a personal devil. He attended once a church where the minister preached considerably about the devil and who said that there were living witnesses to testify that they had seen the devil. His grandfather was angry because the minister told believers such far-fetched stories, and forbade him going to that church. But the fear of a personal devil had been deeply implanted in him at home. If he misbehaved, he was threatened with the evil one. If he refused to pray some one knocked in the next room and he was told that it was the devil that was after him. He was brought up the same way to believe in witches. An ugly old woman once came to his room dressed as a witch to scare him and the other children into better behavior and it affected him so horribly that he remembered the scare for years. In his dream the devil pursues him and he eludes the pursuit. In the second part of the dream he himself is the devil and can do charms. To do magic was his highest ambition in his youth and he would have gladly given himself up to the devil for the privilege of learning magic. He starts the engine by means of a charm. In his childhood his great wish was to build a magic locomotive with which he could travel wherever he wanted.
The servant girl who brings down three bales of paper (play on trinity?), (his love letters?), is a symbol of the Holy Virgin, as it is in all dreams, a fact which I could easily prove. He was a confirmed admirer of the Holy Mother. He must give this up if he is to learn magic. But the dream is a compromise between the two tendencies and expresses a bipolar attitude; he fires the engine with divine fuel, with faith, which upholds his life along the right path and protects it. He wishes me to the devil that he may continue secretly to cling to his religion. But the infantile wish to be a magician comes foremost to the surface. (The dream does not portray one wish, but a number of wishes which criss-cross the soul.) The supplementary portion of the lengthy dream also illustrates the power of magic. The religious meaning of spraying (with holy water ... Perolin cleanses and disinfects the air) is readily obvious and so is also the admixture of religious and sexual motives which play such a tremendous role in the neuroses and the psychoses.[25] He yields to the temptation, a she-devil seduces him. The old woman, after all, is the witch of his childhood, coming to punish him for his sins. (He admits also a strong gerontophilia and once he fell in love with a 60-year-old woman).
The old and the new testament, his prayer books, his confession slips, are in the paper packages which he must burn up to free himself of all religious inhibitions.
The dream thus portrays a prospective tendency,—the overcoming religious inhibitions, subduing the dread of hell and devil as well as the fear of witches so as to give himself up to his cravings. He takes his life in his own hands, fires his own engine,—he will take unto himself any woman who looks like his sister.
The dream expresses clearly also that his homosexual fixation is due to the mother and sister Imago which he finds in all women. Finding himself upon a sexual path which leads away from women and in the direction of man, he wants to leave that path and become a normal man by overcoming all inhibitions. He no longer requires the protection of his neurosis, he is master of himself, scorns the religious imperatives, becoming magician and God in his own right.
Through the history of this subject we obtain a glimpse into the mechanism which eventually leads to homosexuality. This subject might have become a homosexual and would have then presented the usual homosexual life history: Very tender for a time, girl-like, played with dolls at his grandmother’s house, liked to be busy in the kitchen and preferred the company of girls. Such experiences are commonly shared also by the heterosexual persons but the latter forget them. Later, if the course of development favors the outbreak of homosexuality, these recollections, emphasized and fixed through repetition are pointed out as proof that the condition is inborn.