V. Monoideism

V. Monoideism.V. Der Monoideismus.

1. Monoideism as the Key to Magical Psychology.1. Der Monoideismus als Schlüssel zur magischen Psychologie.

Our intellectual life comes about only by our giving it direction and goal, and so not through ideas alone, but through attention to particular ideas and the exclusion, or at least the neglect, of the others that lie off the way and the goal. Without this attention our train of ideas would be without connection, like the chance-determined train of images that a mirror throws back; our thinking would be scattered, as in our dreams, where the succession of ideas is determined by involuntary associations that take place mechanically, where every thought at once becomes an image, the friend I think of at once comes in at the door, but then perhaps turns into his mother when the thought of her is wakened by association. The kaleidoscopic quality of our dreams comes from this, that automatism, passivity, lack of will are the marks of sleep. In waking, on the other hand, thinking is active and conscious of its goal. Our will then has the capacity to master the course of thought instead of letting it unwind according to the laws of association, and only so is mental work possible.

Order in our ideas in intellectual work, then, comes about only through attention, and from this it follows that the greater and more sharply pointed the attention, the more order will reign in them; the more, that is, we put ourselves out of the normal state of polyideism into that of monoideism. Every serious worker knows that thinking succeeds the better for him the more he shuts the gates of the senses and wards off outer impressions. That is why it is so tempting to use the stillness of the night for work; for in the morning hours we do indeed bring a rested brain to work, but eyes and ears stand open to the many impressions and the noise of the day. The Church, although as such it was always hostile to the sciences, can nevertheless show a great number of researchers of genius, simply because nowhere can one work less disturbed than in the solitary cell of a remote monastery, from which all cares about daily bread, about family and political events stay far away. The ancients tell that Democritus put out his eyes in order to be able to think better,¹⁾ and I know a blind man who refuses to undergo an operation because he, whose whole existence is taken up in music, fears being drawn away from it when the impressions of the outer world storm in on him. The greatest enemies of monoideism are the eyes and memory.