Methodological considerations

This chapter begins with an overview of the historical scope of the book and provides an outline of the conceptual methodology it employs to undertake the task of its exposition. It also sets out the “personal equation” of the author that led him to embark upon this line of enquiry. It provides a rationale for the application of ideas developed within the academic study of Western esotericism to provide an enhanced understanding of the role played by the “occult” in the formation of psychoanalysis, the conceptual imbrication of which it captures under the rubric of an “Orphic trajectory,” which it argues has been active within psychoanalysis since its inception. In order to facilitate this task, the book sets out a distinctive theoretical framework for conceptualising how esoteric “traces” became encoded within psychoanalysis throughout the course of psychoanalytic history and concept formation. The hauntological historiographical approach employed throughout this book is additionally described. Brief accounts of the academic study of Western esotericism and the neglected role played by “psychoanalytic parapsychology” within the history of psychoanalysis are also provided.