Uploaded August 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Altered States Conference - June 21-23, 2019
Fluid Subjectivities, Extended Minds: Unconscious Communication, Psychoanalysis, and Religion with Marsha Aileen Hewitt
There are two distinct concepts of the unconscious that diverge and intersect within American psychoanalytic traditions. These differences are illustrated by William James’s cosmic consciousness and Freud’s unconscious. Closer to James than Freud, Wilfred Bion and James Grotstein describe an ineffable Ultimate Reality manifesting in individual consciousness. The key intersection of these differing approaches is thought-transference or telepathy. While Freud did not understand the operational details of unconscious communication, he refused to rely on the psi research of his day, or religions, particularly its mystical forms, as offering any viable explanatory insight. Can unconscious communication in psychoanalysis be fully explored without recourse to some form of religiosity?
Altered States Conference - June 21-23, 2019
Fluid Subjectivities, Extended Minds: Unconscious Communication, Psychoanalysis, and Religion with Marsha Aileen Hewitt
There are two distinct concepts of the unconscious that diverge and intersect within American psychoanalytic traditions. These differences are illustrated by William James’s cosmic consciousness and Freud’s unconscious. Closer to James than Freud, Wilfred Bion and James Grotstein describe an ineffable Ultimate Reality manifesting in individual consciousness. The key intersection of these differing approaches is thought-transference or telepathy. While Freud did not understand the operational details of unconscious communication, he refused to rely on the psi research of his day, or religions, particularly its mystical forms, as offering any viable explanatory insight. Can unconscious communication in psychoanalysis be fully explored without recourse to some form of religiosity?
