From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



The centralising direction is imperfect; there is no 

 harmonious fusion between the Self and the mentality, 

 between the mentality and the vital dynamism, and 

 between this last and the organism. 



This state of unstable equilibrium allows of momen- 

 tary and partial decentralisations which are indeed 

 sources of disorder, but are also conditions in which the 

 lessened limitations imposed by the body, allow of the 

 possibility of bringing to light everything which in the 

 normal psychic being is cryptoid or occult, whether of 

 the nature of faculty or of knowledge. But this mani- 

 festation is never regular; the intellectual output is 

 occasional and sporadic; it requires a collaboration of 

 the conscious and the subconscious; and the modalities 

 and difficulties of this collaboration are well known. 

 Persons so constituted are, like the well-balanced, at 

 very various levels of evolution. 



There are among them mediocrities, in whom, 

 however, a tinge of originality corrects psychological 

 monotony. 



There are inferior neuropaths who drag out a morbid 

 existence of semi-insanity or semi-imbecility, showing 

 the mental and physical defects which are now called 

 degeneracy. 



There are also superior neuropaths whose talents or 

 genius are inseparable from similar defects. These 

 defects cause great suffering; the superior neuropath 

 finds it hard to govern his grouping, to direct his body 

 and even his mentality. Often this mentality escapes 

 more or less from his control and he then skirts the 

 edge of total disequilibrium or insanity. Over and 

 above his psycho-physiological defects, he feels dimly 

 the limitations imposed on him by his nerves and brain, 

 and thence arise his greatest sufferings, even though he 

 is not fully aware of their cause. 



How much suffering is involved in these limitations, 

 in the intuitive perceptions of genuine intuitive faculty 



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