Before and After Science

This chapter addresses the complex web of occlusions and convergences that exemplified relations between Freudian psychoanalysis, telepathy, fin de siècle occultism, psychical research and the Kabbalah. Particular attention is given to the “nightside” of psychoanalysis and the “occulted” relations that pertained between Freud, Jung and Ferenczi (1908–1914). The importance of Freud’s papers on telepathy as a conduit for esoteric “traces” within psychoanalysis is also highlighted. The complex nature of Freud’s conflicted ideas concerning the role of telepathy and the “occult” within psychoanalysis is further illustrated through an account of the circumstances leading up to his rupture with Jung, as well as via an entry from Lou Andreas-Salomé’s Freud Journal regarding Freud’s personal experience of “thought transference” in psychoanalysis.