From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



pangs of creating. But no! We must give our- 

 selves by small fractions, spend ourselves drop by 

 drop, and endure all the trammels of life. Little by 

 little the whole organism is wearied out in this struggle 

 between the body and the ideal, then the intellect 

 itself is obscured and fails it is a living and suffering 

 flame which flickers in a wind which blows ever 

 more strongly till the vanquished spirit is borne 

 down.' 



The co-existence of neuropathic disturbance, or even 

 of insanity, with the inspiration of genius does not then 

 prove that this latter is derived from the former. It 

 simply proves that the want of equilibrium in the 

 individual grouping which is the first condition of the 

 decentralised manifestations, is at the root of genius. 

 And indeed this psychological decentralisation in a 

 man of genius is sometimes pushed so far that he may 

 behave as a visionary, may exteriorise his inspirations and 

 objectify them till they become hallucinations. 



Another type of neuropath not less curious than 

 the man of genius is the medium. 



The essential characteristic of this type is an excessive 

 tendency to decentralisation in the individual grouping. 

 It is by reason of this tendency that phenomena of 

 exteriorisation, the isolated action of constituent elements, 

 the activity of cryptoid faculties, and the incursions of 

 the supernormal become possible. 



The decentralising tendency is the origin of most 

 neuropathic defects, but in this, more than in other 

 neuropathic types, it withdraws the individual grouping 

 from the directive action of the Self. The medium is 

 not master in his own house; and thence, .from the 

 psychological point of view, three characteristics follow: 



He is extremely impressionable; 



He is very suggestible; 



He is very unstable in his temper and his ideas. 



248 



