Note 231 — Chapter I · ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO

In Freud’s paper (“Psychoanalytische Bemerkungen über einen Fall von Paranoia usw.,” 1912 Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 68), which appeared simultaneously with the first part of my book, he makes an observation absolutely parallel to the meaning of my remarks concerning the “libido theory” resulting from the phantasies of the insane Schreber: Schreber’s divine rays composed by condensation of sun’s rays, nerve fibres and sperma are really nothing else but the libido fixations projected outside and objectively represented, and lend to his delusion a striking agreement with our theory. That the world must come to an end because the ego of the patient attracts all the rays to himself; that later during the process of reconstruction he must be very anxious lest God sever the connection of the rays with him: these and certain other peculiarities of Schreber’s delusion sound very like the foregoing endopsychic perceptions, on the assumption of which I have based the interpretation of paranoia.