Page:Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology (1916).djvu/101

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PSYCHOLOGY OF OCCULT PHENOMENA
83

automatically. The former teach Ivenes the secrets of the Other Side, they relate all those phantastic tales about the extraordinariness of her personality, they create scenes where Ivenes can appear dramatically with the attributes of power, wisdom and virtue. These are nothing but dramatic dissociations of her dream-self. The latter, the automatic persons, are the ones to be overcome, they must have no part in Ivenes. With the spirit-companions of Ivenes they have only the name in common. A priori it is not to be expected that in a case like ours, where these divisions are never clearly defined, that two such characteristic individualities should disappear entirely from a somnambulic ego-complex having so close a relation with the waking consciousness. And in fact, we do meet them in part in those ecstatic penitential scenes and in part in the romances crammed with more or less banal mischievous gossip.


Course.

It only remains to say a few words about the course of this strange affection. The process reached its maximum in four to eight weeks. The descriptions given of Ivenes and of the unconscious personalities belong generally to this period. Thenceforth a gradual decline was noticeable; the ecstasies grew meaningless, and the influence of Gerbenstein became more powerful The plasticity of the phenomena became increasingly featureless; gradually the characters which were at first well demarcated became inextricably mixed. The psychological contribution grew smaller and smaller until finally the whole story assumed a marked effect of fabrication. Ivenes herself was much concerned about this decline; she became painfully uncertain, spoke carefully, feeling her way, and allowed her character to appear undisguised. The somnambulic attacks decreased in frequency and intensity. All degrees from somnambulism to conscious lying were observable. Thus the curtain fell. The patient