'We have always spoken freely to each other,' said Freud. 'Can we now?'
'I should like nothing more,' said Jung. 'Especially now that I have freed myself from your paternal authority.'
Freud tried not to appear taken aback. 'Good, good. Coffee?'
'No, thank you. Yes. It happened yesterday, when you chose to keep hidden the truth of your Count Thun dream in order to preserve your authority. You see the paradox. You feared losing your authority; as a result, you lost it. You cared more for authority than truth; with me, there can be no authority other than truth. But it is better this way. Your cause will only prosper from my independence.
Indeed, it already is prospering. I have solved the problem of incest!'
Out of this rush of words, Freud fastened on two. 'My cause?'
'What?'
'You said, 'your cause',' Freud repeated.
'I did not.'
'You did. It is the second time.'
'Well, it is yours — is it not? — yours and mine. It will be infinitely stronger now. Didn't you hear me? I have solved the incest problem.'
'What do you mean, 'solved' it?' said Freud. 'What problem?'
'We know the grown son does not actually covet his mother sexually, with her varicose veins and sagging breasts. That is obvious to anyone. Nor does the infant son, who has no inkling of penetration. Why then does the adult's neurosis revolve so frequently around the Oedipal complex, as your cases and my own confirm? The answer came to me in a dream last night. The adult conflict reactivates the infantile material. The neurotic's suppressed libido is forced back into its infantile channels — just as you have always said! — where it finds the mother, who was once of such special value to him. The libido fastens onto her, without the mother ever having actually been desired.'
These remarks caused a curious physical reaction in Sigmund Freud. He suffered a rush of blood to the arteries surrounding his cerebral cortex, which he experienced as a heaviness in his skull. He swallowed and said, 'You are denying the Oedipal complex?'
'Not at all. How could I? I invented the term.'
'The term complex is yours,' said Freud. 'You are retaining the complex but denying the Oedipal.'
'No!' cried Jung. 'I am preserving all your fundamental insights. Neurotics do have an Oedipal complex. Their neurosis causes them to believe that they sexually coveted their mother.'
'You are saying there are no actual incestuous wishes. Not among the healthy.'
'Not even among the neurotic! It is marvelous. The neurotic develops a mother complex because his libido is forced into its infantile channels. Thus the neurotic gives himself a delusive reason to castigate himself. He feels guilty over a wish he never had.'
'I see. What then has caused his neurosis?' asked Freud.
'His present conflict. Whatever desire the neurotic is not admitting to. Whatever life task he can't bring himself to face.'
'Ah, the present conflict,' said Freud. His head was no longer heavy. Instead, a peculiar lightness had come to him. 'So there is no reason to delve into the patient's sexual past. Or, indeed, his childhood at all.'
'Exactly,' said Jung. 'I have never thought so. From a purely clinical perspective, the present conflict is what must be uncovered and worked through. The reactivated sexual material from childhood can be excavated, but it is a lure, a trap. It is the patient's effort to flee from his neurosis. I am writing it all up now. You will see how many more adherents psychoanalysis will gain by reducing the role of sexuality.'
'Oh, eliminate it altogether — then we shall do even better,' said Freud. 'May I ask you a question? If incest is not actually desired, why is it taboo?'
'Taboo?'
'Yes,' said Freud. 'Why would there be an incest prohibition in every human society that has ever existed, if no one has ever wished it?'
'Because — because — many things are taboo that are not actually desired.'
'Name one.'
'Well, many things. There is a long list,' said Jung.
'Name one.'
'So — for example, the prehistoric animal cults, the totems, they — ah — ' Jung was unable to finish his sentence.
'May I ask you one thing more?' said Freud. 'You say this insight came to you through the interpretation of a dream. I wonder what the dream was. Perhaps another interpretation is possible?'
'I did not say through the interpretation of a dream,' Jung replied. 'I said in a dream. Indeed, I was not quite asleep.'
'I don't understand,' said Freud.
'You know the voices one hears at night, just prior to sleep. I have trained myself to attend to them. One of them speaks to me with ancient wisdom. I have seen him. He is an old man, an Egyptian Gnostic — a chimera, really — called Philemon. It was he who revealed the secret to me.'
Freud did not answer.
'I am not cowed by your hints of incredulity,' said Jung. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Herr Professor, than are dreamt in your psychology.'
'I daresay. But to be led by a voice, Jung?'
'Perhaps I am giving you the wrong impression,' Jung replied. 'I do not accept Philemon's word without reasons. He made his case through an exegesis of the primitive mother cults. I assure you, I did not believe it at first. I put several objections, each of which he was able to answer.'
'You converse with him?'
'Obviously you are unhappy with my theoretical innovation.'
'I am concerned about its source,' said Freud.
'No. You are concerned about your theories, your sexual theories,' said Jung, his indignation visibly rising. 'So you change the subject and try to bait me into a conversation about the supernatural. I won't be baited. I have objective reasons.'
'Given to you by a spirit?'
'Just because you have never experienced such phenomena does not mean they don't exist.'
'I grant that,' said Freud, 'but there must be evidence, Jung.'
'I have seen him, I tell you!' Jung cried. 'Why is that not evidence? He wept describing to me how the pharaohs scratched their fathers' names from the monumental stelae a fact I did not even know but which I later confirmed. Who are you to say what is evidence and what is not? You assume your conclusion: he does not exist; therefore what I see and what I hear does not count as evidence.'
'What you hear. It is not evidence, Carl, if only one person can hear it.'
A strange sound began to emanate from behind the sofa on which Freud sat: a creaking or groaning, as if there were something in the wall trying to get out. 'What is that?' asked Freud.
'I don't know,' said Jung.
The creaking grew louder until it filled the room. When it reached what sounded like a breaking point, it gave way to a splintering crack, like a clap of thunder.
'What on earth?' said Freud.
'I know that sound,' said Jung. A triumphant gleam came to his eyes. 'I have heard that sound before. There is your evidence! That was a catalytic exteriorization.'
'A what?'
'A flux within the psyche manifesting itself through an external object,' explained Jung. 'I caused that sound!'
'Oh, come, Jung,' said Freud. 'I think it may have been a gunshot.'
'You are mistaken. And to prove it, I will cause it again this instant!'
The moment Jung uttered this remarkable pronouncement, the groan began anew. In just the same fashion, it rose to an unbearable peak and then erupted with a tremendous report.
