'Occultism and the Origins of Psychoanalysis' and 'Sigmund Freud and The Forsyth Case' (2 Volume Set)

Maria Pierri is a Psychiatrist and Child Neuropsychiatrist, formerly Researcher and Adjunct Professor at the Psychiatric Clinic, Medical School, University of Padua. She is a training analyst of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society and International Psychoanalytical Association and member of the Editorial Board of the Rivista di Psicoanalisi.

Volume 1. "This book gives back to contemporary psychoanalysis the pleasure of exploring really little-known territories, fascinatingly restoring the connection between the past, present and "elsewhere" of communications between human beings, using the Freudian experience as its starting point, in order to reconsider in a reflective way the less visible, sometimes disorienting and mysterious levels of psychoanalytic practice. offers us an especially valuable reflection on the mysterious communicating paths which put individual and group unconsciouses in contact with each other, often bypassing in an apparently disconcerting manner the border controls." - Stefano Bolognini, past President of the IPA and the Italian Psychoanalytic Society"Following the thread of thought-transference, Maria Pierri goes through the events of the Freudian endeavour starting from its roots in hypnosis and occultism, through the dialogue with the masters, the pupils and the great female patients, the leading actresses of the cure. In his disquieting curiosity for telepathy, which he shared intimately with Ferenczi, Freud discovers that fortune-tellers, who do not know the future, can read the unconscious of their clients. But the "golden coin" of occultism, the generative mother-child communication, will be the great discovery of Ferenczi." - Luis J. Martin Cabré, Training analyst, past President Madrid Psychoanalytical Association."Today we know much about the polyphonic complex of contexts, experiences, relationships and ideas which made psychoanalysis possible and still nourish its current debates. We can be very grateful to Maria Pierri for bringing us up to date with the role and meaning of some little-known aspects of Freud’s life and work concerning occultism and the fascinating dialogue of the unconsciouses developed with Ferenczi: what the Author identifies as one of the matrices of the developments of contemporary psychoanalysis." - Marco Conci, MC, IPA Committee on the History of PsychoanalysisVolume 2. "The book by Maria Pierri, a passionate and recognized connoisseur of "coincidences", can be read as an engrossing detective novel of historical reconstruction as it unfolds towards its resolution, elegantly written and full of surprises, and opening up unexpected new fields of thought. Which is not to say that it actually is a novel: rather, it is real History with a capital H, thoroughly documented with a precise investigative method which revisits one of the most mysterious and controversial areas of Freudian research, that of telepathy." - Stefano Bolognini, past President of the IPA and the Italian Psychoanalytic Society."With rigorous documentation, including previously unpublished material, and elegant writing, Maria Pierri conducts a passionate investigation of hypnosis, occultism, suggestion, "coincidences and misunderstandings", studied by Freud, who applied his scientific mentality to them. The secrets and enigmas around the origins of psychoanalysis, the deep ties and conflicts between the pioneers "who made the venture" with Freud will emerge from the courageous search for that "elsewhere" of human thoughts we call unconscious, with which we are confronted daily in clinical practice and theory." - Paola Golinelli Training analyst, Italian Psychoanalytic Society. Author of Psychoanalytic Reflection on Writing, Cinema and the Arts. Routledge, 2021."Maria Pierri’s work is not only an excellent example of historical and archival research into the interest of emergent psychoanalysis in telepathic events, but a radical demonstration – thanks to the "work as a double" performed by thought-transmission – of how unsustainable it is to maintain that Freud was a monist. In this way, through the wealth of phenomena being observed, the author opens up a new direction for study and theoretical enquiry that will send us back to Freud, differently every time, and to his very early intuition of a psychic field that is created in the analytic relationship." - Maurizio Balsamo, Training analyst, Italian Psychoanalytic Society. Maître de Conférences et Directeur de Recherche, UFR Études Psychanalytiques, Université Paris–Diderot

• Volume 1. Introduction by Stefano BologniniPrologue: A result of character: the cocaine, this magical substance1. Vienna, Porta Orientis of the Unconscious The force of suggestion: the "wonderful somnambulists" HypnosisVienna, laboratory of modernity2. The Young FreudA passionate young researcher into NatureFirst love Martha and Bertha: the languages of passion3. The Lesson of Jean Martin Charcot At the SalpêtrièreThe apparatus of language The magic of words4. The lesson of Josef Breuer and the "descent to the Mothers"Studies on HysteriaA difficult separation: not all debts can be paidA foundation myth: a false pregnancy and a cure with a defect.5. Sigmund Freud’s lessonThe discovery of a false connection Irma’s throat and the feminine at the origin of psychoanalysis.Dream as desire 6. Fliess and the invention of psychoanalysis A secret correspondence My Friend in BerlinFreud’s heart trouble7. The discovery of infantile sexualitySelf-analysis and the writing cure Cherchez la femme: the case of Emma Eckstein8. Original thought requires a ruptureThe "reader of thoughts" The accusation of plagiarism A future in the image of the past: predestination and superstition 9. Occultism made in the U.S.A.Spiritualism Medium, Media and "Mental telegraphy"First hypotheses about the unconscious10 Jung, spiritualism and countertransference: the world of the deadJung, Poltergeist phenomena and séances The arrival at Burghölzli First visit to ViennaEaster 1909: Jung’s spiritual complex and Sabina The dangerous fascination of the "beautiful Jewess"11. Ferenczi, the unclassifiableThe sultan and his "clairvoyant" A psychoanalyst ‘of a restless mind’Ferenczi and the hidden treasure of SpiritualismThe encounter with Freud: a postponed transferential appointment12. A Journey to America Three men and an eventful, mutually analytic crossing: the outward journey… … and back again13. The Danaan Gift The clairvoyant who reads Ferenczi’s mindThe patient who reads Ferenczi’s mindThe Palermo incident, or the interpretation of paranoiaThe psychic work of the clairvoyant: two unfulfilled prophecies14. An Epistolary NovelFerenczi and incestuous countertransferential storms. From mother to daughter What is still missing is the fatherly blessing. Fatefulness and Oedipal coincidencesElma Pàlos, fragment of the analysis of a seduction The open wound in Ferenczi’s heart, a source of creativity 15. The Saturday goy: getting to know Dr Jones The Welsh liar Difficult beginnings Freud’s first pupil from BritainDr Jones’s stethoscope: rationalization and censorship of excess countertransferenceA prescribed training analysis in Budapest 16. The Intergenerational Transmission of Psychoanalysis Love and Death: the three women of the three pupils"If you go to women, don't forget the whip"At school with Freud: the transmission of psychoanalysis17. The secret CommitteeThe transformations and the desertion of JungA missed meeting: the "Kreuzlingen gesture" The Committee: the Männerbund and the defence of the "Cause" (Die Sache)Totem and taboo: unconscious intelligence and intergenerational transmission of thought 18. The Year before the WarThe last congress with JungA black tide of Occultism The question of telepathyThe Dialogues of the UnconsciousEpilogue: Epilogue: A fortune-teller visits Freud in BerggasseBibliographyVolume 2. Prologue: Telepathy, superstitions and mushrooms 1. Coincidences of the psychoanalytic setting: a strange home visitM. de Fortgibu and his plum puddingThe maternal in the circumstances of the setting: the psychoanalytic clock."All things are chained, knotted, in love..."Coincidences in analysisNotable examples: From Carl G. Jung; Eugenio Gaddini; José Bleger; Joyce McDougallTelepathy, an enlightening mistake. Freud and the "Forsyth case"2. Forsyth arrives in Vienna to undertake a seven-week analysis with Prof Freud The Decline of the WestIntroduction to Psycho-Analysis: the first twenty-eight LecturesHunger in Vienna Parcels from EnglandA passage to AustriaA moment of forgetfulness by Freud3. Herr P. ends his analysis with Prof. Freud in a rather extraordinary way New introductory Lectures on PsychoanalysisThe "Forsyth case"Solve et coagulaThe Postscript of a Preface 4. The DuellistsMeeting in ZurichThe duellistsThe first training analysis in Budapest Forsyth, the pediatrician "once a friend of mine."5. Nachträglichkeit: Following the traces of a long deferralFreud becomes a heretic: the debate about the "transmission of thought" within the CommitteeA mistake by FreudThe memorable Harzreise 1921, an essay in two halves: Vorbericht-Preface, Nachtrag-Postscript1922, Dreams and Telepathy Perplexities, second thoughts and experiments with Ferenczi and Anna1925, section C: "The Occult Significance of Dreams"Still playing for time1933, Lecture XXX, "Dream and Occultism"The gold coin6. The disappeared-occulted manuscript The posthumous publication of the Vorbericht (1921) in "Psychoanalysis and Telepathy" (1941) and the disappearance of the NachtragHide and seekBack to Freud's secret text: found in translation7. Sigmund Freud: Postscript (1921) 8. Manuscript details, slips and errors Conditions and details Freud’s "errors" and the occulted "dritte Fall" Nachträglichkeit and reconstructions9. During the great warCircumstancesA coming-of-age prematurely interruptedFreud’s forced inactivity: the Metapsychology and the Introductory LecturesImpotence and death anxiety. Towards the uncanny defeatErnest Jones’s warFerenczi's kisses10. Coincidences in Vienna: a week of fireworks in autumn 1919 The new orientation towards the West The heart towards the Est11. The strange case of Dr. Forsyth and Mr. Vorsicht: the build-up The "secret language" The Man of Property Staging: the Preconscious at workCorrespondencesThe Fortsein game: The troublesome individual and a first repression; The missed appointment; The coincidence of the "neighbours"; The joke of the "home visit"; An ambivalent gift12. The strange case of Dr. Forsyth and Mr. Vorsicht: the session Vorsicht, Forsyth, Forsyte The visiting card The Freud-Freund slip The Nightmare and Jones monograph on the "Alptraum" The faulty translations 13. That Forsyte woman Return to the mothers – Telepathy, "distant proximity"Don Giovanni: Zitto, mi pare sentire odor di femmina.... 14. Retrospective: the lost sceneCaritas Romana: "This is the place, this is the source"A destiny and a choice made long ago"Little Freud": a child is being conceivedMe too!15. A hereditary transmission A daughter is being analysed Lou Andreas Salomé: a mother-sister Thought-transmission? A pair of twin papers: The father’s text; The daughter’s text"Lifedeath""Not to be there": the process of separation and the game of FortseinAnna, Antigone16. 1932 "Dreams and Occultism" and the Confusion of tongues17. "Herr Vorsicht", alias Paul Bernfeld"The eldest of a family of eight or nine children"The firm of Paul Bernfeld and Heinrich Rosenberg, B & R: jokes and repetitions by the preconscious18 A secret in the "Premise": about the substitute of the Third Case 19. Dr. David Forsyth leaves the scene and the story. Circumstances of the birth of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis Seven Weeks in ViennaThe Forsyth affaireForsyth leaves the scene20. The Freud’s final orientation towards the West: from Vienna to London"Fortsein": Professor Freud is has "gone" awayFort-Da. The return: story of a Cap21. The importance of being Ernest Jones. The cycle closes Transmission of the tradition and "crypts"Free associations: memories of a psycho-analystEpilogue: A debt to payBibliography