S.
BRITISH PSYCHO‑ANALYTICAL SOCIETY
5 February 1925 London W1
Dear Professor,
I was very happy to learn in a recent letter from Eitingon the cheerful news of your continued good health and that your working capacity is first‑rate. He says that your tone contradicted auf[s] lebhafteste [most emphatically] your occasional pessimistic remarks.
I am afraid I am not likely to be able to take Daly within the time suitable for his purposes, though it is often very hard to predict one's future vacancies.
By next week we shall have finished correcting the proofs of Vol. iii (Krankengeschichten), so that it should appear at the appointed time. In revising the translation of the Teufelsneurose, I came across the following point and wish to ask you whether you would like to rectify what I imagine could only have been a temporary oversight. On Page 423 («MDUL»Ges. Schr«MDNM». X.) you quote Reik in reference to the original identity of God and Devil; in the essay on «MDUL»Der Teufel«MDNM» in my «MDUL»Alptraum«MDNM», 1912,«FN1.××Jones (1912j), see also Jones (1931b, pp. 154‑189).» I had fully emphasised this original identity on both historical and etymological grounds. On Page 425 you write: "Wenn man sich getraut, die Idee des Teufels als Vaterersatz kulturgeschichtlich zu verwerten, so kann man auch die Hexenprozesse des Mittelalters in einem neuen Licht sehen". «FN1.××"If we are bold enough to apply this idea of the Devil as a father‑substitute to cultural history, we may also be able to see the witch‑trials of the Middle Ages in a new light." See Freud (1923d, p. 87, n. 1).
» It was this point of view, with the Oedipus constellation relating to it, which formed the basis of my chapter on the «MDUL»Hexenprozesse«MDNM» [witch trials] in the same book. «FN1.××Jones (1931b, pp. 190‑236).» Would you like to make any modification or addition to the English translation now being prepared? I need hardly assure you that if you think the matter too unimportant, I shall quite concur.
My wife has quite recovered from her tonsilectomy operation and I from my perforative otitis (the second within a month), and we are hard at work.
With kindest regards, Yours always, Ernest Jones
