His mother's undisputed darling by Rex Antioch

The following document was discovered among a miscellaneous collection of uncatalogued papers in a pile of dusty boxes in a cupboard in the Psychology Department Library of a major English university.
It appears to be a transcript of extracts from a private journal maintained by Amalie (or Amelia) Freud, mother of that Sigmund Freud who was and is still a towering presence in the field of psychology, and psychoanalysis in particular.

The document bears neither source nor attribution and there is no reference to the existence of such a journal anywhere else in the literature relating to the Freud family. If its contents are genuine it is almost certainly a translation for there is no evidence or reason to believe Amalie Freud knew English. The use of Gregorian dating is interesting as it is more likely Amalie would have followed the Jewish calendar but this, of course, is not certain and anyway may be no more than a further translation by the anonymous transcriber.

The document is adeptly typewritten on yellowing, poor-quality paper suggestive of the period 1940 - 1950 and war-time austerity. Forensic examination while likely to provide more specifics is not going to add anything to the essential question as to whether or not it is based on a genuine document. Only the original, if it exists, could do that. I can find nothing within the document which conflicts with what is known of the Freud family and so establishes it a fake. What its previously unknown contents purport to reveal of Sigmund Freud’s own infant experiences and his relationship with his mother and sisters will of course be of intense interest to scholars in this field but it is obviously for everyone to make up his or her own mind as to whether these revelations fit within their understanding of Freud and his philosophy or are so inimical to them as to render the document unreliable.

In this connection it must be remembered that in 1938 Sigmund Freud fled the Nazi takeover of Austria and consequent rising anti-Jewish sentiment to settle in England and it is not impossible that this document was a forgery concocted by the Nazis to discredit the famous figure. It is equally possibly no more than the work of a bored student. Unless and until further evidence one way or the other is forthcoming it is for each of us to read it with an open mind and decide for ourselves.

Bracketed comments in italics are my own but to avoid the necessity for extensive interpolation or footnotes the Freud family referred to in the manuscript, with their ages (in brackets) as at 1 January 1876 (the purported time of the events related) are: Sigmund’s mother Amalie Malka Freud, nee Nathansohn, b 18.8.1835 (40); his father Kaloman Jakob Freud b. 18.12.1815 (60); Freud's half-brothers by a previous marriage of his father, (Jakob had been married twice previously), Emanuel (b. ? April 1833 (42) and Philipp b. ?.?. 1834 (41) both then resident in Manchester, England; Sigmund Schlomo Freud b. 5.5.1856 (19); his sisters Anna, b. 31.12.1858 (17), Regine Deborah (Rosa) b. 21.3.1860 (15), Marie (Mitzi) b. 22 March 1861 (14), Esther Adolphine (Dolfi) b. 23 July 1862 (13) and Pauline Regine (Paula) b. 3 May 1864 (11). Not mentioned is Sigmund’s little brother Alexander b. 19.4.1866 (9). A photograph of the Freud family taken at around this time exists and can be seen in the Library of Congress Freud Collection as, "Portrait of the Jakob Freud Family ca. 1876,” [http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/freud/images/vc008486.jpg] At the dates this document alludes to the Freud family was resident in Vienna where it had lived for many years.

September (ed: 1875?)

….

My golden Sigi is back from his visit to E(manuel) and P(hilipp), wildly enthusiastic about England. I am sure he is correct that the English have the most accommodating attitude to Jews in all of Europe and that their enthusiasm for all things scientific makes the Viennese academic institutions seem positively antique, but then my Sigi always has been so terribly enthusiastic about whatever it was he has last done and remains so until he does something else. We must be careful, though, not to let him visit America, for then I fear we would never see him again.

…….

J(akob) did at least listen to Sigi’s news of E(manuel) and P(hilipp) in England and all his stories of them but I am sure Sigi quickly became aware of the coldness and lack of interest his father expresses in the doings of his eldest sons. Certainly when Sigi now talks of England in his father’s presence he no longer mentions them, yet he does so at length when talking to me. He has made me aware, too, of the warmth and interest in me that they both displayed yet makes no mention to either J(akob) or I of any of the same shown for their father.

Sigi has grown up with this rift in the family and is far too intelligent not to be aware of it. Yet to my knowledge he has never enquired about the cause of it. Of course in all Vienna today only J(akob) and I can possibly know the cause and J(akob) I know, would never reveal it to anyone, even his dear Sigi. I surely cannot imagine either E(manuel) or P(hilipp) revealing it to Sigi even were he to ask and I fear that, forthright and bold young man that he is, it is quite possible that he did. Is it possible that Sigi did gain some awareness of it at the time, infant though he was, and that now he is a young man those babyish recollections make a sense to him that it never could before? My blood runs cold at the thought, yet dear Sigi is as warm and loving towards me as he always has been and I am sure I worry unnecessarily.

….

October.

….

In England it seems Sigi was introduced to the work of a Dr. Braid (ed: James Braid 1796-1860) who had been studying the phenomenon of mesmerism. Mesmer himself and his ‘animal magnetism’ had been discredited and drummed out of Vienna years before I was born but it seems there was something in it after all, for it now has the respectable Latin (or is it Greek?) name Hypnosis (ed: Greek ‘hupnos’ - make sleep) and is the subject of serious scientific research in several centres. Sigi himself has begun correspondence with a professor Charcot (ed: Jean-Martin Charcot 1825-1893) in Paris regarding the practice. As usual he is throwing himself into the study of things which interest him with enough enthusiasm for two young men but I have some concern that this would not be well received by his professors here in Vienna and I fear it may well interfere with the studies he is supposed to be undertaking. While his academic success has to be a source of pride and satisfaction for us, I do sometimes wonder if he still lacks that maturity which accepts the need for the dull grind of mastering the basics of medicine before galloping off into the newer, wilder and more speculative branches of the discipline!

Sigi also lectures me at length on the proposals of this Mr. Darwin (ed: Charles Robert Darwin 1809-1882 whose theory ‘On the Origin of Species’ had been published sixteen years earlier) which, as far as I can gather, hold that we humans are descended from the apes, and that the apes themselves along with all else are descended from worms. Not a pleasing picture I must admit, although even I am well enough aware of people in whom it is very easy to see the heritage of apes and in some even of worms! More significantly it is not a proposal one can in any way marry to the beliefs of our people, which I am well aware Sigi is distancing himself from, or even those of the Papists to which I know he is attracted. But Sigi is one of the new men to whom, where the beliefs of generations of our fathers run into conflict with the beliefs of science, it is science which must prevail. It pains me as I know it pains J(akob) but we do not fight it for it was a battle lost before we even knew it was to be fought.

Sigi’s belief is that this heritage of the animals from which we are descended is still present in the dark and primitive corners of our minds and are the reason men rape, kill, and if hungry will fight like dogs over a scrap of food. It remains in women, too, although as our role in nature as child-bearers and nurturers is different so are our animal passions, it seems. The veneer of civilisation paints over these ancient monsters in our minds, hiding them even from ourselves to a large extent but, Sigi maintains, if these passions try to surface in an individual who struggles to suppress them the resulting conflict and its consequences can result in mental illness and insanity. Hypnosis it seems, by putting a patient’s conscious mind into a state similar to anaesthesia, allows the physician to probe the proto-conscious mind for the source of these conflicts and once they have been recognized, physician and patient can deal with them.

Such, at least, I believe is the gist of what Sigi has been telling me, and surely these are terrible ideas for such a young man to be grappling with. I do not like them at all, yet I cannot deny that they make a horrible kind of sense and if recognizing such things might alleviate some of the undoubted misery of the world now merely caged away from our eyes in lunatic asylums perhaps such darkness must be braved. Such at least seems to be Sigi’s view and I cannot deny the nobility of such a venture even if I quail from its execution.

More immediately worrying for me is that when referring to these primitive memories which lurk in the dark corners of our minds, Sigi also referred to memories of very young children which although forgotten by the conscious mind still trouble the sub-conscious of adults like, as Sigi described it, ‘faint whispers from a dark, locked-and-barred basement’, and perhaps seek to express themselves in and through dreams. I cannot help thinking that he laid special emphasis on this idea as though he half-expected some response from me. I am troubled by the thought that perhaps he does have ‘whispers’ of his own from those times when we, wrongly perhaps, believe infants have no comprehension of the world around them.

……..

I surprised S(igmund) and A(nna) in the drawing room today and as I entered they mutually stepped away from each other as though I had caught them with their heads together hatching some childish prank, and A(nna) could not prevent a most unbecoming blush. Yet Sigi is far too serious for such things, altogether too serious for his age, and A(nna) is surely too ladylike now to become involved in anything of that nature. Though it was momentary and I cannot be certain, I cannot rid myself of the impression that S(igmund) had his hand pressed to his sister’s fanny though her skirts just as the door opened.

Perhaps I misjudge them both, that my fancies are altogether wrong. Yet if they are not what am I to do? I cannot openly accuse Sigi of molesting his sister for if I am wrong a more horrible falsehood is hard to imagine, and I am sure J(akob) would be devastated at the mere suggestion his beloved Sigi could do such a thing. I have prepared A(nna) for womanhood as thoroughly as any mother should and I am sure she would not countenance any man, let alone her brother, improperly touching her. Yet I cannot deny that at her age I was intensely curious as to the sensations one could find in one’s body, and I did experience an intense, illicit thrill at the accidental brush of a handsome man’s hand against my skirts in the vicinity of that bush between my legs. Had I possessed a fine, handsome, clever brother already a man would I not have been tempted to allow some little latitude within the safety of that relationship? I fear perhaps I would have.
Should I then blame S(igmund) for such an abuse of his sister if indeed it is the case? He must surely be quite familiar with the features of a woman’s body both from his books and from the patients in the wards he is required to examine as part of his study, yet for sure there can be nothing of sexual arousal in that any more than there is in the sex-parts of those wretched worms he is investigating. Too, I am sure Sigi is always perfectly correct and proper with the young ladies he meets socially, and as a Jew his opportunities in that direction are anyway unhappily limited in today’s Vienna, while I am certain he has never resorted to the women of the streets.

No, I will believe it harmless and do nothing, and it will pass.

…….

S(igmund) has asked if he can practice his hypnosis on me. It is a truly terrifying prospect that makes my blood run cold yet I cannot in all conscience deny him. He complains that he has no other subject, for certainly the University would disapprove of any such practice and he is far from being able to practice medicine or any other therapy in his own right so I must accept this, and he assures me that it is safe - that the subject cannot be made to act in any way contra to his or her own will, and it can cause no damage to the intellect. He assures me that it merely removes from the patient’s awareness the superficial constraints of society and what he called ‘inhibitions’ allowing the physician to access and identify the underlying and more honest thoughts and motives of the patient which even the patient himself might be unaware of.

He assured me that he had no desire to ‘strip me bare’ as he put it, which is in itself a troubling image for a mother to receive from her son, but merely to practice and refine the technique necessary to achieve a sufficiently ‘comatose’ state for those artificial inhibitions to be relaxed. Naturally, he told me, it would be necessary for him to test the state by probing my subconscious, whatever that means, but added with a laugh that surely there could be nothing dark or untoward in my animal self that I should feel constrained to reveal to him. However, he assured me perhaps sensing my alarm at any such suggestion, he would not in any case be intent upon probing my secrets to any such level but would limit himself to the most harmless and inconsequential of matters.

Nevertheless it troubles me, and I am ashamed that it troubles me. I really have no grounds to deny his request for to do so would surely be to express mistrust and a lack of faith in one’s own son. I will do it for I must, and must trust him.

…..

When I made known to my Sigi my consent to his practicing his hypnosis on me so great was his joy, and so transparently honest his assurances that no harm at all could come of it, that I was both reassured, and even more deeply ashamed of my doubts.

…..

Today I watched Sigi from my window, in the yard with some of the girls. Little Dolfi was on the swing with S pushing her, higher and higher until she squealed with mock terror and R(osa) and M(itzi) looked on laughing. It should have been a picture to warm any mother’s heart yet I could not help wondering if Sigi’s hands were not lingering for perhaps a moment longer than was necessary on his little sister’s waist and hips as he propelled her, and as he helped her to dismount it was surely unnecessary for his fingers to brush as they did what little bosom she has.

Oh, it is hard to decide if this is harmless and let it pass, or whether I should speak to Sigi, or perhaps even A(nna) about it, for would not Sigi find it easier to accept a rebuke from his eldest sister than from his mother while with the memory of S(igmund) and A(nna) herself in the drawing-room still fresh in my mind, perhaps a word to her to remind Sigi of his duty to his younger sisters would serve to remind her of his duty to his older ones also. Yet it is hard. Perhaps I should just content myself with observing as it may yet, after all, be nothing more than my imagination.
……

Fresh from my appointment with my son the physician and his hypnosis I must recall all that occurred for my own private posterity.

I had not mentioned it to J(akob) for fear he would consider it improper for me to attend upon my own son in his bedroom, which is of course also his study there being no other room available. Moreover I did not wish the girls to be aware of it and so it has been necessary to wait several days until circumstances should conspire to make the opportunity available. Sigi bade me wear clothing as loose and light as modesty permitted and agreed that my night attire would be suitable. Thus it was that in nightdress and gown that I attended him, a costume in keeping with the subterfuge of the head-ache which had forced me to my bed and enabled me to avoid joining J(akob) and the girls on their expedition to H&F G’s soiree.

S(igmund) received me as solemnly as any physician a valued client, greeting me as ‘Frau Freud’, no less, and ushered me in. The drapes were drawn, although it was still early afternoon, and a single lamp turned low produced...