Psychasthenia - Revision history

Caseorganic at 00:33, 19 December 2011

2011-12-19T00:33:32Z

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Caseorganic at 20:57, 15 May 2011

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	===Definition===		===Definition===
	<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety. The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".<ref>[http://paulaitken.com/2008/03/09/cool-essay-myspace-and-legendary-psychasthenia/ ~~Source~~]</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety. The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".<ref>[http://paulaitken.com/2008/03/09/cool-essay-myspace-and-legendary-psychasthenia/ Aitken, Paul. MySpace and Legendary Psychasthenia]</ref></blockquote>

	<blockquote>"The psychasthenic has insufficient control over their conscious thinking and memory, sometimes wandering aimlessly and/or forgetting what they were doing. Thoughts can be scattered and take significant effort to organize, often resulting in sentences that don't come out as intended, therefore making little sense to others. The constant mental effort and characteristic insomnia induces fatigue, which worsens the condition. Symptoms can possibly be greatly reduced with concentration exercises and therapy, depending on whether the condition is psychological or biological".<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia]</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"The psychasthenic has insufficient control over their conscious thinking and memory, sometimes wandering aimlessly and/or forgetting what they were doing. Thoughts can be scattered and take significant effort to organize, often resulting in sentences that don't come out as intended, therefore making little sense to others. The constant mental effort and characteristic insomnia induces fatigue, which worsens the condition. Symptoms can possibly be greatly reduced with concentration exercises and therapy, depending on whether the condition is psychological or biological".<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia]</ref></blockquote>

Caseorganic at 20:57, 15 May 2011

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	===Definition===		===Definition===
	<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety. The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".<ref>[http://paulaitken.com/2008/03/09/cool-essay-myspace-and-legendary-psychasthenia/ Source]</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety. The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".<ref>[http://paulaitken.com/2008/03/09/cool-essay-myspace-and-legendary-psychasthenia/ Source]</ref></blockquote>
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Caseorganic at 20:56, 15 May 2011

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	===Definition===		===Definition===
	<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety.~~[1]~~ The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".<ref>[http://paulaitken.com/2008/03/09/cool-essay-myspace-and-legendary-psychasthenia/ Source]</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety. The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".<ref>[http://paulaitken.com/2008/03/09/cool-essay-myspace-and-legendary-psychasthenia/ Source]</ref></blockquote>

	<blockquote>"The psychasthenic has insufficient control over their conscious thinking and memory, sometimes wandering aimlessly and/or forgetting what they were doing. Thoughts can be scattered and take significant effort to organize, often resulting in sentences that don't come out as intended, therefore making little sense to others. The constant mental effort and characteristic insomnia induces fatigue, which worsens the condition. Symptoms can possibly be greatly reduced with concentration exercises and therapy, depending on whether the condition is psychological or biological".<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia]</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"The psychasthenic has insufficient control over their conscious thinking and memory, sometimes wandering aimlessly and/or forgetting what they were doing. Thoughts can be scattered and take significant effort to organize, often resulting in sentences that don't come out as intended, therefore making little sense to others. The constant mental effort and characteristic insomnia induces fatigue, which worsens the condition. Symptoms can possibly be greatly reduced with concentration exercises and therapy, depending on whether the condition is psychological or biological".<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia]</ref></blockquote>

			===Psychasthenia and Technological Connectivity===
			Connectivity on the internet often leads people into a cognitive state that resembles psychasthenia. During a period of flow characterized by multi-tabbing and multitasking online, users often have "insufficient control over their conscious thinking and memory, sometimes wandering aimlessly and/or forgetting what they were doing". In order to create collected thoughts, the mind must put together the various pieces and memories that are being simultaneously accessed in order to achieve action of cognitive consistency ("thoughts can be scattered and take significant effort to organize") This "constant mental effort and characteristic insomnia induces fatigue, which worsens the condition", and when combined with the constant mental stimulation that the Internet provides, leads to less sleep and less time for mental defragmentation.

			Because the materiality of the Internet is invisible to its users, actions that might be considered as mild psychosis can easily occur with Internet users because there is often no material evidence to them. Many people hoard information, compulsively check their Email, and browse many fragmented subjects at once. In reality, these actions would manifest as compusively checking one's physiccal mailbox or P.O. box hundreds of times a day, hoarding non-useful information into rooms, taking millions of pictures and storing them in a back room, and having 200 books open to various pages all at once (multiple browser tabs). Mobile computing has allowed for the mobilization of these obsessions and actions, to where one can check E-mail in line, filling moments of non-action into sites of obsession.

	===Related Reading===		===Related Reading===
	*[[Panic Architecture]]		*[[Panic Architecture]]
	*[[Surface Tension]]		*[[Surface Tension]]
	*[[The Templated Self]]]		*[[The Templated Self]]
			*[[Simultaneous Time]]
			*[[Mental Fragmentation]]

	==References==		==References==

Caseorganic at 20:44, 15 May 2011

2011-05-15T20:44:33Z

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Caseorganic at 20:58, 12 February 2011

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Caseorganic at 20:59, 22 January 2011

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	*Originally published in Minatoure, 7, 1935 (N.B the demarcation of paragraphs in this text is not as it occurs in the original).		*Originally published in Minatoure, 7, 1935 (N.B the demarcation of paragraphs in this text is not as it occurs in the original).

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Caseorganic at 16:51, 18 October 2010

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			===Definition===

	<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety.[1] The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".</blockquote>		<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety.[1] The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".</blockquote>
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	Also see: [[Panic Architecture]], [[Surface Tension]] and [[The Templated Self]]]		Also see: [[Panic Architecture]], [[Surface Tension]] and [[The Templated Self]]]

	~~----~~		===Notes on MySpace and Legendary Psychasthenia===

	<blockquote>"Will Merrin posted a fascinating essay at Media Studies 2.o back in September, which I have only just now got around to reading. He addresses the social networking user through Roger Caillois’s 1935 essay “Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia“. Merrin critiques the social networking profile and points out a beef I’ve had for a while with the proliferation of Facebook and its boring, blue and white layout used for every person on the site:		<blockquote>"Will Merrin posted a fascinating essay at Media Studies 2.o back in September, which I have only just now got around to reading. He addresses the social networking user through Roger Caillois’s 1935 essay “Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia“. Merrin critiques the social networking profile and points out a beef I’ve had for a while with the proliferation of Facebook and its boring, blue and white layout used for every person on the site:
	Once the construction of a personal webpage required some degree of programming expertise. Today the social networking user merely interacts with, manipulates and fills-in pre-programmed templates and applications".		Once the construction of a personal webpage required some degree of programming expertise. Today the social networking user merely interacts with, manipulates and fills-in pre-programmed templates and applications".
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	Although Caillois’s essay has attracted its own form of fascination upon generations of readers, few have yet recognised its significance for understanding our contemporary electronic media. Perhaps the closest media theory has come is Jean’s Baudrillard’s prescient analysis of our wired and networked lives first put forward in his 1983 book, Fatal Strategies and appearing also in his 1987 text, The Ecstasy of Communication (3). Baudrillard’s entire theory is built upon a critique of contemporary mediated relations as merely simulations of human communication (or what he calls ‘symbolic exchange’) (4) and this is expanded in this text as he describes the implosion of the private and public spheres and its implications.		Although Caillois’s essay has attracted its own form of fascination upon generations of readers, few have yet recognised its significance for understanding our contemporary electronic media. Perhaps the closest media theory has come is Jean’s Baudrillard’s prescient analysis of our wired and networked lives first put forward in his 1983 book, Fatal Strategies and appearing also in his 1987 text, The Ecstasy of Communication (3). Baudrillard’s entire theory is built upon a critique of contemporary mediated relations as merely simulations of human communication (or what he calls ‘symbolic exchange’) (4) and this is expanded in this text as he describes the implosion of the private and public spheres and its implications.

	We simultaneously suffer, Baudrillard says, a ~~‘forced~~ extraversion of all interiority’, as everything once private unfolds upon the screens of the world and a ‘forced ~~introjection~~ of all exteriority’ as the world’s events and people and places penetrate the private realm. Writing years before the rise of the internet as a public medium Baudrillard describes the development of a ‘private telematics’ in which the individual is ‘promoted to the controls of a hypothetical machine, isolated in a position of personal sovereignty … in the same position as the astronaut in his bubble’. Electronic technologies, therefore, transform our habitat ‘into a kind of archaic closed-off cell, into a vestige of human relations’ whilst we interact by remote control. Interior space ceases to be the stage of the self and its drama but instead becomes ‘a receiving and operating area’ and we are reduced to being merely ‘terminals of multiple networks’.		We simultaneously suffer, Baudrillard says, a ‘[[forced extraversion]] of all interiority’, as everything once private unfolds upon the screens of the world and a ‘forced introversion of all exteriority’ as the world’s events and people and places penetrate the private realm. Writing years before the rise of the internet as a public medium Baudrillard describes the development of a ‘private telematics’ in which the individual is ‘promoted to the controls of a hypothetical machine, isolated in a position of personal sovereignty … in the same position as the astronaut in his bubble’. Electronic technologies, therefore, transform our habitat ‘into a kind of archaic closed-off cell, into a vestige of human relations’ whilst we interact by remote control. Interior space ceases to be the stage of the self and its drama but instead becomes ‘a receiving and operating area’ and we are reduced to being merely ‘terminals of multiple networks’.

	Baudrillard admits that this is close to ‘science fiction’. It is perhaps closer than he realised: E.M. Forster had already suggested this in his 1909 short story, ‘The Machine Stops’ which depicted a world of individuals closed off in their rooms away from all real contact, all connected by a web-like communicational machine (5). The rise of the internet as a popular, everyday medium, however, casts a new light on these ideas. Baudrillard’s 1980s vision of the path of a society where ‘everything becomes immediately transparent, visible, exposed in the raw and inexorable light of information and communication’; where a ‘pornography’ of the real dominates is now all too easy to recognise. Like Caillois Baudrillard also draws upon the figure of the schizophrenic to explain the impact of all this. Ours is ‘a new form of schizophrenia’, he says. The emergence of ‘an immanent promiscuity and the perpetual interconnection of all information and communication networks’ leads to ‘a state of terror which is characteristic of the schizophrenic’, that of ‘an over-proximity of all things’: 'In spite of himself the schizophrenic is open to everything and lives in the most extreme confusion. He is the obscene victim of the world’s obscenity. The schizophrenic is not, as generally claimed, characterised by his loss of touch with reality, but by the absolute proximity to and total instantaneousness with things, this overexposure to the transparency of the world'. Stripped of a stage, Baudrillard concludes, the schizophrenic ‘cannot produce the limits of his very being’: ‘he becomes a pure screen, a pure absorption and resorption surface of the influent networks’. In Baudrillard we find, therefore, an electronic fulfilment of Caillois’s psychasthenia. Integrated and assimilated into the networks of communication and crossed by their content and output the individual self physically and mentally disappears.		Baudrillard admits that this is close to ‘science fiction’. It is perhaps closer than he realised: E.M. Forster had already suggested this in his 1909 short story, ‘The Machine Stops’ which depicted a world of individuals closed off in their rooms away from all real contact, all connected by a web-like communicational machine (5). The rise of the internet as a popular, everyday medium, however, casts a new light on these ideas. Baudrillard’s 1980s vision of the path of a society where ‘everything becomes immediately transparent, visible, exposed in the raw and inexorable light of information and communication’; where a ‘pornography’ of the real dominates is now all too easy to recognise. Like Caillois Baudrillard also draws upon the figure of the schizophrenic to explain the impact of all this. Ours is ‘a new form of schizophrenia’, he says. The emergence of ‘an immanent promiscuity and the perpetual interconnection of all information and communication networks’ leads to ‘a state of terror which is characteristic of the schizophrenic’, that of ‘an over-proximity of all things’: 'In spite of himself the schizophrenic is open to everything and lives in the most extreme confusion. He is the obscene victim of the world’s obscenity. The schizophrenic is not, as generally claimed, characterised by his loss of touch with reality, but by the absolute proximity to and total instantaneousness with things, this overexposure to the transparency of the world'. Stripped of a stage, Baudrillard concludes, the schizophrenic ‘cannot produce the limits of his very being’: ‘he becomes a pure screen, a pure absorption and resorption surface of the influent networks’. In Baudrillard we find, therefore, an electronic fulfilment of Caillois’s psychasthenia. Integrated and assimilated into the networks of communication and crossed by their content and output the individual self physically and mentally disappears.
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	*Originally published in Minatoure, 7, 1935 (N.B the demarcation of paragraphs in this text is not as it occurs in the original).		*Originally published in Minatoure, 7, 1935 (N.B the demarcation of paragraphs in this text is not as it occurs in the original).
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Caseorganic at 19:36, 18 August 2010

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	<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety.[1] The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".</blockquote>		<blockquote>"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety.[1] The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI-I and MMPI-II".</blockquote>

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	*Originally published in Minatoure, 7, 1935 (N.B the demarcation of paragraphs in this text is not as it occurs in the original).		*Originally published in Minatoure, 7, 1935 (N.B the demarcation of paragraphs in this text is not as it occurs in the original).
			'''Bold text'''

Caseorganic at 19:06, 18 August 2010

2010-08-18T19:06:28Z

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	<blockquote>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia]</blockquote>		<blockquote>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychasthenia]</blockquote>

			Also see: [[Panic Architecture]], [[Surface Tension]] and [[The Templated Self]]]

	----		----

	~~Also see~~: ~~[[Panic Architecture]]~~, ~~[[Surface Tension]]~~ and ~~[[The Templated Self]]]~~		<blockquote>"Will Merrin posted a fascinating essay at Media Studies 2.o back in September, which I have only just now got around to reading. He addresses the social networking user through Roger Caillois’s 1935 essay “Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia“. Merrin critiques the social networking profile and points out a beef I’ve had for a while with the proliferation of Facebook and its boring, blue and white layout used for every person on the site:
			Once the construction of a personal webpage required some degree of programming expertise. Today the social networking user merely interacts with, manipulates and fills-in pre-programmed templates and applications".

	~~3 Comments~~		<blockquote>In an interesting twist, especially with the references to Baudrillard, who often points to the importance of symbolic exchange in pre-industrial society in his work, it seems that the personally designed webpage now takes on the aura of artisanship. In effect, opportunities for difference and “individuality” are better able to be expressed through the freedom of basic html design than the restricted and similar nature of the Facebook profile page, which looks the same for everyone and the content of which is dictated by that which is made available to Facebook users.</blockquote>
	~~Will Merrin posted a fascinating essay at Media Studies 2.o back in September~~, ~~which I have only just now got around~~ to ~~reading. He addresses~~ the ~~social networking user through Roger Caillois’s 1935 essay “Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia“. Merrin critiques~~ the ~~social networking profile and points out a beef I’ve had for a while with~~ the ~~proliferation~~ of ~~Facebook and its boring~~, ~~blue~~ and ~~white layout used for every person on~~ the ~~site:~~
	~~Once~~ the ~~construction of a personal webpage required some degree~~ of ~~programming expertise. Today~~ the ~~social networking user merely interacts with~~, ~~manipulates~~ and ~~fills-in pre-programmed templates and applications~~.

	~~In an interesting twist, especially with the references~~ to ~~Baudrillard, who often points~~ to ~~the importance~~ of ~~symbolic exchange in pre-industrial society in his work, it seems that the personally designed webpage now takes~~ on ~~the aura~~ of ~~artisanship~~. ~~In effect~~, ~~opportunities for difference and “individuality” are better able to be expressed through~~ the ~~freedom~~ of ~~basic html design than~~ the ~~restricted and similar nature~~ of the ~~Facebook profile page, which looks the same for everyone and the content~~ of ~~which is dictated by that which is made available to Facebook users~~.		<blockquote>What one hopes will add to one’s distinction only adds to ones depersonalisation: how many images of friends posing with drinks are there already on Facebook? And there is no hope here of resistance. Even the refusal to post a photo, the use of alternative images or attempts at an artistic subversion of the form merely take their place within a pre-coded representational system as part of the normal range of allowed responses.</blockquote>

	~~What one hopes will add to one’s distinction only adds to ones depersonalisation: how~~ many ~~images of friends posing with drinks are there already on Facebook? And there is no hope here of resistance. Even the refusal to post a photo~~, the ~~use of alternative images or attempts at an artistic subversion of the form merely take their place within a pre-coded representational system as part of~~ the ~~normal range of allowed responses~~.		<blockquote>Indeed, while many view social networking as liberatory, this essay points out some fairly important reasons why it can also been seen as further disconnecting and “depersonalising” the self from the world.</blockquote>

	~~Indeed, while many view social networking as liberatory, this~~ essay ~~points out some fairly important reasons why it can also been seen as further disconnecting~~ and ~~“depersonalising” the self from the world~~.		<blockquote>Source: [http://paulaitken.com/2008/03/09/cool-essay-myspace-and-legendary-psychasthenia/ http://paulaitken.com/2008/03/09/cool-essay-myspace-and-legendary-psychasthenia/]</blockquote>

	'''Paul Aitken - March 23, 2008 at 13:27'''		'''Paul Aitken - March 23, 2008 at 13:27'''
	@Kishore – I certainly agree that even using Frontpage or Dreamweaver is yet another level of the “template” in action. What I found interesting was Merrin’s conflation of the hardcoded HTML page with a greater level of individuality. In that analysis, the old-school personal homepage seemingly occupies the position of synthesis in the dialectic of older presentations of the self through print media, and newer presentations through the web. The individual’s labour in coding a page becomes seen as somehow more authentic than the less labour-intensive act of creating a Facebook, Myspace, etc. profile. Of course, this proposition touches on the elitism of actually knowing the coding language and suggests then that the authenticity of one’s web-self is linked to the ability to understand and deploy the technical possibilities of code. Recourse to discourses of technical mastery in this case does indicate that despite the so-called liberatory aspects of online participation, we are still led to deal with perennial issues of power and control.		<blockquote>@Kishore – I certainly agree that even using Frontpage or Dreamweaver is yet another level of the “template” in action. What I found interesting was Merrin’s conflation of the hardcoded HTML page with a greater level of individuality. In that analysis, the old-school personal homepage seemingly occupies the position of synthesis in the dialectic of older presentations of the self through print media, and newer presentations through the web. The individual’s labour in coding a page becomes seen as somehow more authentic than the less labour-intensive act of creating a Facebook, Myspace, etc. profile. Of course, this proposition touches on the elitism of actually knowing the coding language and suggests then that the authenticity of one’s web-self is linked to the ability to understand and deploy the technical possibilities of code. Recourse to discourses of technical mastery in this case does indicate that despite the so-called liberatory aspects of online participation, we are still led to deal with perennial issues of power and control.</blockquote>

	Which speaks to your point about the “big Other” corporations. Indeed there has been great debate over the involvement of Facebook in surveillance and data mining, most of which raise flags over the sheer amount of personal information users voluntarily put on their profiles and how this can be used for target advertising and the like. It seems to me that there are two related issues here, and that the notion of depersonalisation inheres in both. One is that there is a distinct financial benefit in attracting a great number of users to a social networking site and requiring them to “flatten” our themselves in order to fit with the aesthetics of the site – the limited options make the processes of data gathering for advertising purposes much simpler. Secondly, perhaps the similarity of profiles can lead to an overall user mentality of “We’re all the same here” which greatly assists the advertisers on the site who rely on the sense of belonging that the site espouses to suggest that if one of your “friends” is buying a product, then you might like it too.		<blockquote>Which speaks to your point about the “big Other” corporations. Indeed there has been great debate over the involvement of Facebook in surveillance and data mining, most of which raise flags over the sheer amount of personal information users voluntarily put on their profiles and how this can be used for target advertising and the like. It seems to me that there are two related issues here, and that the notion of depersonalisation inheres in both. One is that there is a distinct financial benefit in attracting a great number of users to a social networking site and requiring them to “flatten” our themselves in order to fit with the aesthetics of the site – the limited options make the processes of data gathering for advertising purposes much simpler. Secondly, perhaps the similarity of profiles can lead to an overall user mentality of “We’re all the same here” which greatly assists the advertisers on the site who rely on the sense of belonging that the site espouses to suggest that if one of your “friends” is buying a product, then you might like it too.</blockquote>

	'''@caseorganic'''		'''@caseorganic'''
	This sort of identity production (the idea of templated identity vs. the hardcoded identity on a personal website is especially relevant today, and is being discussed by people such as Chris Messina and Tantek Celik, who push for owning one's identity and using one's personal website as an identity broker vs. connecting and signing in to websites through free-ad based identity providers such as Facebook.		<blockquote>This sort of identity production (the idea of templated identity vs. the hardcoded identity on a personal website is especially relevant today, and is being discussed by people such as Chris Messina and Tantek Celik, who push for owning one's identity and using one's personal website as an identity broker vs. connecting and signing in to websites through free-ad based identity providers such as Facebook.</blockquote>

	===Myspace and Legendary Psychasthenia===		===Myspace and Legendary Psychasthenia===
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	Beyond doubt some of the above developments are far from offering any guarantee from the standpoint of certainty. It may even seem questionable to compare such diverse realities as homomorphy and the external morphology of certain insects, sympathetic magic and the concrete behaviour of people of a certain type of civilization and perhaps a certain type of thought, and finally psychasthenia and the psychological postulations of people belonging, from these points of view, to opposite types. Such comparisons, however, seem to me not only legitimate (just as it is impossible to condemn comparative biology) but even indispensable as soon as we approach the obscure realm of unconscious determinations. Besides, the solution proposed contains nothing that should give rise to suspicions of dogmatism: it merely suggests that alongside the instinct of self-preservation, which in some way orients the creature toward life, there is generally speaking a sort of instinct of renunciation that orients it toward a mode of reduced existence, which in the end would no longer know either consciousness or feeling--the inertia of the élan vital, so to speak. It is on this level that it can be gratifying to give a common root to phenomena of mimicry both biological and magical and to psychasthenic experience, since the facts seem so well to impose one on them: this attraction by space, as elementary and mechanical as are tropisms, and by the effect of which life seems to lose ground, blurring in its retreat the frontier between the organism and the milieu and expanding to the same degree the limits within which, according to Pythagoras, we are allowed to know, as we should, that nature is everywhere the same.		Beyond doubt some of the above developments are far from offering any guarantee from the standpoint of certainty. It may even seem questionable to compare such diverse realities as homomorphy and the external morphology of certain insects, sympathetic magic and the concrete behaviour of people of a certain type of civilization and perhaps a certain type of thought, and finally psychasthenia and the psychological postulations of people belonging, from these points of view, to opposite types. Such comparisons, however, seem to me not only legitimate (just as it is impossible to condemn comparative biology) but even indispensable as soon as we approach the obscure realm of unconscious determinations. Besides, the solution proposed contains nothing that should give rise to suspicions of dogmatism: it merely suggests that alongside the instinct of self-preservation, which in some way orients the creature toward life, there is generally speaking a sort of instinct of renunciation that orients it toward a mode of reduced existence, which in the end would no longer know either consciousness or feeling--the inertia of the élan vital, so to speak. It is on this level that it can be gratifying to give a common root to phenomena of mimicry both biological and magical and to psychasthenic experience, since the facts seem so well to impose one on them: this attraction by space, as elementary and mechanical as are tropisms, and by the effect of which life seems to lose ground, blurring in its retreat the frontier between the organism and the milieu and expanding to the same degree the limits within which, according to Pythagoras, we are allowed to know, as we should, that nature is everywhere the same.

	*~~originally~~ published in Minatoure, 7, 1935 (N.B the demarcation of paragraphs in this text is not as it occurs in the original).		*Originally published in Minatoure, 7, 1935 (N.B the demarcation of paragraphs in this text is not as it occurs in the original).