Note 65 — Chapter III · THE HYMN OF CREATION

Here I purposely give preference to the term “Imago” rather than to the expression “Complex,” in order, by the choice of terminology, to invest this psychological condition, which I include under “Imago,” with living independence in the psychical hierarchy, that is to say, with that autonomy which, from a large experience, I have claimed as the essential peculiarity of the emotional complex. (Compare “The Psychology of Dementia Praecox.”) My critics, Isserlin especially, have seen in this view a return to medieval psychology, and they have, therefore, rejected it utterly. This “return” took place on my part consciously and intentionally because the phantastic, projected psychology of ancient and modern superstition, especially demonology, furnishes exhaustive evidence for this point of view. Particularly interesting insight and confirmation is given us by the insane Schreber in an autobiography (“Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken,” Mutze, Leipzig), where he has given complete expression to the doctrine of autonomy.

“Imago” has a significance similar on the one hand to the psychologically conceived creation in Spitteler’s novel “Imago,” and upon the other hand to the ancient religious conception of “imagines et lares.”