The witchcraft continuum 2

Why say that psychoanalysis has elements of Judeo-Christian metaphysics in it that are logically consistent with a witchcraft continuum?

For a start, when one looks at the structure of psychoanalysis, along with one of Freud's significant cases, one sees that how guilt is always at the source of any psychological tension, not in the sense of the patient having committed a crime in real, tangible reality, but rather that lying and self-deception is considered to make up the fundamental part his/her being.   In this sense, the patient is always the criminal, Oedipus, having killed his father and had sexual intercourse with his mother, and consequently blinded himself.   That this crime is held to be true on a metaphysical level, rather than a real one, doesn't mitigate the logic that one must seek the cause of one's problems in one's own actions. The patient is always the quintessentially guilty party.   Outsiders may be relatively innocent, unless they turn the torchlight on themselves and thus reveal their similar, primeval guilt.

Let us now consider the case of Dora, one of Freud's significant cases and noted therapeutic failure.   Dora's parents were wealthy Austrians.   My understanding is that her father was having an affair with another woman and in order to keep quiet someone who had noticed this, he was attempting to palm his daughter off onto that guy for her to have a sexual relationship with him.   Here's the story from the point of view of a Freud researcher:

In 1898, when she was fifteen, Dora was brought to Freud by her father. Alongside her physical symptoms and general sullenness, she had developed, according to her father, an irrational belief that his close friend Herr K. had made sexual advances toward her. Freud’s initial response to Dora was not at all what her father expected: Freud concluded that her account of Herr K.’s behavior was accurate, and he agreed with her that her father had in effect handed her over to Herr K. as the price for his own affair with Herr K.’s wife. Freud’s response to Dora also seems to surprise Masson, who, in The Assault on Truth, alleged that, having abandoned the seduction theory, Freud routinely attributed his patients’ stories to fantasy, thereby excusing the abusive actions of adults. In this instance, however, Freud initially took the side of reality against fantasy, and of the child against the parent.

But, Masson complains, Freud’s loyalty to Dora was short-lived, his original alliance with her soon giving way to opposition. Instead of accepting that she simply found Herr K.’s attentions unwelcome and was understandably angered by her father’s self-interested betrayal, Freud insisted that Dora’s hostility to Herr K. was unreasonable and her anger against her father excessive. Indeed, Freud regarded both her intense aversion and her anger as manifestations of her hysteria. After all, Freud reasoned, Herr K. was a prepossessing man still in his thirties: Dora should have been aroused, not disgusted, when he embraced and kissed her (at age fourteen), just as she should have been flattered by his serious romantic interest in her. Freud even suggested that the whole matter could have been satisfactorily resolved had Dora married Herr K., which would of course have freed Frau K. to marry Dora’s father.

[Paul Robinson Freud and his Critics  UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley · Los Angeles · London © 1993 The Regents of the University of California]

According to Freud, there is nothing wrong with being sold into patriarchal sex-slavery, whereby one's own views, timing and intentions are overruled by one's father.  Rather, one should welcome it whenever it happens instead of being "hysterical".  Here is more from Robinson, who writes sympathetically on behalf of Freud:

Freud suggests, in particular, that Dora was unconsciously in love with Herr K. and very much desired a romantic relationship with him. Her unconscious attraction explains why she reacted so violently both to Herr K.’s sexual advances and to her father’s contention that she had merely fantasized them. There was in fact an element of fantasy involved in her situation: the advances were real enough, but they were not entirely unwelcome. Dora’s extreme disgust disguised feelings of self-reproach. She had, in effect, gotten what she could not admit she wanted.

Dora had desired to be metaphysically raped by both her father and Herr K (and subsequently by Freud).  Of course this is not a physical rape of the mind, but a psychological one.   When a witch says, "I wasn't cavorting with Satan and I strenuously protest the assertion that I ever wanted a dalliance with the Dark Lord," she is in fact admitting her guilt.   She wouldn't be over-reacting to an honest question by a respectable Christian gentleman concerning her alleged fantasies unless she knew that the assertions made by the Inquisitor were -- quote -- "really true".  Or does that even make any sense?  She no doubt felt guilty about not following the patriarchal mores of her culture.  Freud would have known that that is the nature of Superego -- to induce social conformity and makes us feel badly when we breach it.  But, defying social convention is not the same as lying to oneself.   Dora defied her father because she was true to herself and she nevertheless felt guilty because by being true to herself, she was going against social convention.   In other words, as hard as is for the patriarchal mind to imagine, Dora and her father were two different people.  What's more, Dora had a different idea about social conventions than her father did, even though the weight of public opinion was in line with "father knows best".

Freud is of course no inquisitor of the middle ages as he never professed to read minds nor take the side of rape apologists. If that were so, it would be enough to tip us all over the edge of hysteria*. [joke]

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*It should be noted that I do believe in an unconscious mind.

The fact that many people will not perceive the deep nature of patriarchal hostility toward women, but opt for the easier path of attributing hysteria to those who point it out, is a function of their unconscious minds' displacement and projection.