L.9/ Be.8, Bp.8, W.7 (statt 8).                    March 21. 1921.

Dear Friends:

It was good to hear from Abraham that things are going well with him in
Meran and I warmly hope that news will follow of his complete restoration.

No legal action can be taken about the Dream Psychology, as there is no
American copyright, the two dream books having been printed in England. But 
Unwin, Heinemann, Eder, and I are bombarding McCann, Tridon, and their agents 
with protests, in the hope of compelling them to withdraw the book, a thing 
that happens sometimes in these circumstances. It is possible that they were 
victimised by Tridon, whose idea the whole thing was. I enclose one of my 
letters, and trust that Professor will make a personal protest, which would 
of course have the most effect.

Now more serious trouble has arisen. The Catholics in England (I did not
know there were any!) are making themselves felt on all sides, and have in-
stigated one of their number to take the following action. It is Lord Alfred
Douglas, who may be remembered as the lover of Oscar Wilde whose father ex-
posed and ruined Wilde in 1894. Since then Douglas has developed a violent
reaction against all sexuality, is the leader of the “Purity League” etc.,
and seems to be a querulant paranoic who spends half his time in the courts.
He has denounced the book that Kegan Paul sent to Professor, “Autobiography
 

of a Child“, an anonymous book written by a prominent theosophist who says he
has visited Professor Freud (the leading theosophists here are Leadbeater, de
Croley, King, and Wedgewood). Douglas swears he will uproot Ps-A in England
and will make all publication impossible. If he gains the action with this
book he says he will next take the Tagebuch and then others. The Lord Mayor
sent police to seize all the copies of the book, and the case is going to be
tried at the Mansion House on the 24th (indecent publication). We have been
in a conflict about what to do in the matter. On the one hand, the book bears
the sub-title, and is advertised, as a ps-a book and will certainly be called
that in court and in the public press. If it is condemned, all the public will
know is that a ps-a book has been condemned for indecency in spite of expert
evidence of its being a scientific book. Then, as legal precedents count for
so much in England, it is almost certain that if it is condemned the Tagebuch
will be so also, for no distinction will be drawn between them, and no one
could say where this would end. For both these reasons we naturally want the
action to fail. On the other hand the book is really very bad. It is worthless,
being only the conscious memories of a man of forty, unanalysed. It is very
tedious and tasteless. Its numerous references to Ps-A are grotesquely ill-
informed and mixed up with all sorts of occultism, theosophy, Yogi-ism, etc.
The only writer he quotes is a charlatan called Bousfield, whose book I have
vigorously criticised in Nr 3 of the Journal. I therefore have a strong feelin
against identifying Ps-A openly and officially with such a book, as would
happen if we were to defend it. When Kegan Paul asked me to give evidence in
his support I interviewed him, made a big Krach over his numerous instances
of indiscriminate advertisements of bad books purporting to be analytical,
 

and asked him to send me a legal statement of what evidence was required. I
enclose his reply, with my answer to this, and hope the latter will receive
the approval of the Committee. Please return it after circulating it. Bp., B,
London. The chances are that the action will fail. There have been only two
prosecutions for indecent publications in the last 40 years and the Lord
Mayor has said privately that he does not consider the book indecent.

Berlin. Do not show too much animus against Shand, my dear Hanns, but of
course lay stress on his ignorance of the Psa work on characterology and of
German work altogether.

Budapest. I am in complete agreement with your clear statement, my dear Fer-
enczi, about the relations of the committee internally and externally, and
hope you did not think I held any other views. I am no defender of parlia-
mentary formalities in any sense, my only point being that they might occas-
ionally be made the excuse of dealing with difficult diplomatic questions.

Vienna. I was relieved to hear that Professor has decided not to let his hol-
iday be interfered with. Now Oberndorf will be properly tested.

One of our new associate members, Dr Bowen, wishes to accept the Philadel-
phia offer. He has the advantage of being unmarried, young, and a Welshman
(there is a large Welsh and Irish colony in Philadelphia and Englishmen would
be less welcome there). But unfortunately I cannot recommend his knowledge
 

of Psa, which is rudimentary, especially for such a difficult case. As a com-
promise I suggested that perhaps Professor would find out from Harris if
the offer would hold good next autumn, which would give Bowen a chance of
being analysed for six months be-
fore going out.

Professor has not yet answered my inquiry about Mrs Eder, but it is no longer
necessary, for this week circumstances have arisen which make it urgently
necessary for her to return at once to Palestine, at least until the autumn,
and I think her decision was right and unavoidable. At the same time she is
seriously desirous of being analysed by Professor as soon as the opportunity
presents itself.

I was very pleased to hear that you have accepted my old plan as to the
relations between the Verlag and Press, and fully agree with all you say.
You will not forget, however, that legally the Press has to function as a
British firm, so that it may be necessary at any time to prepare a ficti-
tious balance sheet (income tax, etc). It was also good to hear of Hiller’s
progress, but do not over-estimate him, my dear Otto, as people say I do.
He has definite limitations, including marked self-overestimation; he is
excellent in little things, but not so reliable in bigger ones.

We held a meeting of the editorial committee to discuss the various five
possibilities in regard to the Jenseits and I have written at length to Hiller
on the matter, asking him also to come to a decision with Rank on tech-
nical points.

I should be glad of any comments from Professor or Ferenczi on my re-
marks concerning the relation of secondary narcissism to absence of free associat-
ion.                    With cordial greetings to all

                           Ernest Jones.