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- Herausgeber: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
The Machinery of the Mind Dion Fortune - Contents: Introduction - Chapter 1. The Physical Vehicle Of ConsciousnessChapter 2. The Evolution Of The Nervous SystemChapter 3. How An Idea Enters The MindChapter 4. The Organisation Of The Upper Levels Of The MindChapter 5. The Organization Of The Lower Levels Of The MindChapter 6. ComplexesChapter 7. The InstinctsChapter 8. The Self-Preservation InstinctChapter 9. Diseases Of The Self-Preservation InstinctChapter 10. The Reproductive InstinctChapter 11. Development Of The Reproductive InstinctChapter 12. Diseases Of The Reproductive InstinctChapter 13. SublimationChapter 14. Maladaptation To Environment And PsychopathologyChapter 15. ConflictChapter 16. RepressionChapter 17. DissociationChapter 18. SymbolisationChapter 19. Phantasies, Dreams, And DelusionsChapter 20. PsychotherapyChapter 21. PsychoanalysisChapter 22. Hypnosis, Suggestion, And AutosuggestionChapter 23. The Practical Application Of PsychologyChapter 24. Conclusion
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Foreword
I am very glad to have the opportunity of commending this little volume to those without any -previous knowledge, who desire to gain a clear idea of the way in which modern psychology regards the human mind.
For every time the words “psychology" and “psychological” were used in the newspapers ten years ago, they must be used fifty times today; and though very often some other word would do just as well, or a good deal better, this sudden vogue has a real meaning.
The public has become aware of the existence of psychology. People are beginning to realize that the human mind, the instrument by which we know and think and feel and strive, must itself be studied for its own sake if we are to gain a deeper understanding and a greater control of human life.
A distinct reaction from the rather narrow materialism of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, an increased realization of immaterial, of "spiritual" values, has helped towards giving the mind its rightful place in human interest.
On the one hand, modern academic psychology has, for many years now, been gradually emancipating itself from the chaotic subjectivities of competing philosophies, and developing on really scientific lines, with the aid of accurate observation, comparison and experiment. Its genuinely and increasingly useful applications to education and to industry are evidences of that.
On the other hand, the remarkable results of psychoanalysis have been made widely known, though often with that misleading one-sided emphasis which seems fated to attend the popularisation of any branch of scientific enquiry. And these results have been found not only interesting but exciting (to some morbidly exciting) because they appeal to instincts and emotions which our civilisation represses and often perverts. Psychoanalysis has indeed become a fashionable craze, and as such has doubtless done a certain amount of harm and has met with a good deal of opprobrium from the serious minded.
But psychoanalysis has come to stay, because, however much it may be misused by the ignorant, the unbalanced and the half-educated, it is both a sound technique of research and a sound therapeutic method. And it certainly has a most important contribution to make to the psychology of the future.
This little book, which can be read through at a sitting, succeeds in the difficult task of presenting the rudiments of the modern view of the mind in an easy, lucid and attractive form.
Though I may not agree with every sentence she has written, Miss Firth's development of the subject, and of its very intimate connection with human life and human troubles, seems to me not only substantially sound and accurate, but essentially sane and well balanced. Her explanation of the different levels of the mind and of the censors by the metaphor of the tank and the sieves is particularly ingenious and helpful. The book will certainly succeed, to use the author's words, in "planting certain fundamental concepts in untrained minds so that they may serve as a basis for future studies.”
A.O. TANSLEY.
Introduction
ORIGINALLY given as a popular lecture course, this little book does not pretend to be a contribution to the formidable array of psychological literature. It is intended for those who have neither the time nor the training necessary to assimilate the standard works on the subject, but who want to know its elements and to understand the principles on which our characters are formed and the means by which the process of thought is carried on, not so much from the scholastic point of view, but in relation to the problems of everyday life.
It is hoped that many will find herein the key to things that have puzzled them in their own natures, for only those who hold such unsolved problems in their hearts can know how crippling and tormenting they are.
This book does not aim so much at an orderly setting forth of the elements of psychology as at planting certain fundamental concepts in untrained minds so that they may serve as a basis for future studies. To this end the writer has adopted a pictorial, almost diagrammatic method of presentation in order that a framework of general ideas may be formed into which details may subsequently be fitted, having found this to be the best way to convey novel concepts to minds untrained in web physical subtleties.
The teachings of no special school of psychology are adhered to; the writer is indebted to all, though loyal to none; holding that in the absence of any accepted standard of authority in psychological science each student must review the doctrines offered for his adherence in the light of his own experience.
This book is essentially practical in aim, written in response to a practical need. In her experience of remedial psychology, the writer saw that many cases of mental and nervous trouble would never have developed if their victims had had an elementary knowledge of the workings of the mind. She also found that many patients required nothing but an explanation of these principles to put them on the road to recovery, and that even when more than this was needed to effect a cure, such a knowledge greatly expedited the treatment by enabling the patient to co-operate intelligently.
So far as she is aware, there is no book that deals with psychopathology, not from the point of view of the student, but from that of the patient who needs an elementary knowledge of the laws of the mind in order to enable him to think hygienically. This book is written to fulfil that need. It is not only applicable, however, to those who are sick in mind or state, but to those also who desire to develop their latent capacities by means of the practical application of the laws of thought and character.
Chapter 1. The Physical Vehicle Of Consciousness
In order to arrive at an adequate understanding of mental processes it is necessary to have some idea of the machinery whereby the mind makes contact with the body.
Throughout every inch of our organism is a network of specialised fibres whose function it is to carry nervous impulses from the sense organs to the central nervous system of brain and spinal cord, and from thence out again to the muscles, glands, and other organs of reaction. The sense organs act as receivers of sensation, the nerve fibres as transmitters, the central nervous system as a general telephone exchange, and the muscles, glands and organs as the executers of the impulses of the mind.
Sense organs consist of cells, or sets of cells, specialised for the reception of particular kinds of impressions. That is to say, if the particular kind of stimulus they are fitted to receive is administered to them, a change, probably of a chemical type, takes place in their substance, which, it is thought, gives rise to energy of an electrical nature, which runs along the nerve fibre as along a wire. At the present moment, however, our knowledge of the nature of the nervous impulse is tentative and hypothetical.
Like all other living tissue, the nervous system is built up of millions of specialised cells. These cells consist of a main cell body with prolongations, usually two in number. One of these has a mass of branching fibres like the root of a plant, and is called the DENDRITE. The other consists of a long thread, the end of which is frayed out into strands as the end of a piece of worsted may be unravelled. This process is called the AXON.
The thread-like branches of the axon of one cell interlace with these of the dendrite of another cell and a nervous impulse, running down the nerve fibres, jumps the gap in the same way as the electric current jumps the space between the terminals of an arc lamp.
It will readily be seen that these interlacing fibrils, millions in number, ramifying throughout every portion of the body, form a most wonderful system of communication; the brain and spinal cord acting as a central telephone exchange.
Muscles are composed of long, spindle-shaped cells which are capable of contraction. Chemical changes are constantly going on in their substance. The blood and lymph which bathe them bring food materials and carry away the waste products of their activity.
These food substances, which are highly organised chemical compounds, are stored in the body of the cell. When a nervous impulse is received, these food globules, as it were, explode; that is to say, they break down into their component chemical parts, and the energy which went to build them up is set free in the process and performs the work for which the muscle is designed.
The glands are the chemists of the body, and in the crucibles of their minute cells carry out the living chemistry upon which our vital functions are based. The glands are the regulator of every process of the body.
Chapter 2. The Evolution Of The Nervous System
The easiest way to grasp the organisation of our complex nervous structure is to study its evolution from its humble beginnings in the simplest forms of life.
In single-celled animalcule, the most primitive type of living creature, a single cell performs all the functions of life; it moves, breathes, assimilates, excretes and feels. With the development of multi-cellular organisms, however, different cells are given different work to do, and made to do that and nothing else.
It then becomes necessary that co-ordination should be maintained between the sense organs that perceive the prey and the muscles that move to its capture, and for this purpose other cells are used to specialise in communication.
Thus it will be seen that the functional unit of the nervous system is not the nerve cell, but what is called the SENSORY-MOTOR ARC, consisting of a nerve carrying the incoming sensation from a sense organ and making contact with another nerve which carries the outgoing impulse to a muscle or organ.
