4023

V

THE FURTHER COURSE OF THE NEUROSIS

But if this is so, we should be dealing not with a neurosis but with a deception, and the painter would be a malingerer and forger instead of a sick man suffering from possession. But the transitional stages between neurosis and malingering are, as we know, very fluid. Nor do I see any difficulty in supposing that the painter wrote this paper and the later one, and took them with him, in a peculiar state, similar to the one in which he had his visions. Indeed there was no other course open to him if he wished to carry into effect his phantasy of his pact with the Devil and of his redemption.

On the other hand, the diary written in Vienna, which he gave to the clerics on his second visit to Mariazell, bears the stamp of veracity. It undoubtedly affords us a deep insight into the motivation - or let us rather say, the exploitation - of the neurosis.

The entries extend from the time of the successful exorcism till January 13 of the following year, 1678.

Until October 11 he felt very well in Vienna, where he lived with a married sister; but after that he had fresh attacks, with visions, convulsions, loss of consciousness and painful sensations, and these finally led to his return to Mariazell in May, 1678.

The story of his fresh illness falls into three phases. First, temptation appeared in the form of a finely dressed cavalier, who tried to persuade him to throw away the document attesting his admission to the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary. He resisted this temptation, whereupon the same thing happened next day; only this time the scene was laid in a magnificently decorated hall in which grand gentlemen were dancing with beautiful ladies. The same cavalier who had tempted him before made a proposal to him connected with painting¹ and promised to give him a handsome sum of money in return. After he had made this vision disappear by prayer, it was repeated once more a few days later, in a still more pressing form. This time the cavalier sent one of the most beautiful of the ladies who sat at the banqueting table to him to persuade him to join their company, and he had difficulty in defending himself from the temptress. Most terrifying of all, moreover, was the vision which occurred soon after this. He saw a still more magnificent hall, in which there was a ‘throne built up of gold pieces . Cavaliers were standing about awaiting the arrival of their King. The same person who had so often made proposals to him now approached him and summoned him to ascend the throne, for they ‘wanted to have him for their King and to honour him for ever’. This extravagant phantasy concluded the first, perfectly transparent, phase of the story of his temptation.

¹ This passage is unintelligible to me.