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The Machinery of the Mind
The Machinery of the Mind
By Violet Firth
(Dion Fortune)
(version 1.0 draft)
Courtesy of Magical Path < http://www.magicalpath.net/ >
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 bal-
anced. 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.0. TANSLEY.
Courtesy of Magical Path < http://www.magicalpath.net/ >
CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY A. O. TANSLEY
INTRODUCTION
I THE PHYSICAL VEHICLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
II THE EVOLUTION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
III HOW AN IDEA ENTERS THE MIND
IV THE ORGANISATION OF THE UPPER LEVELS OF THE MIND
V THE ORGANISATION OF THE LOWER LEVELS OF THE MIND
VI COMPLEXES
VII THE INSTINCTS
VIII THE SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT
IX DISEASES OF THE SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT
X THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT
XI DEVELOPMENT CF THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT
XII DISEASES OF THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT
XIII SUBLIMATION
XIV MALADAPTATION TO ENVIRONMENT AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
XV CONFLICT
XVI REPRESSION
XVII DISSOCIATION
XVIII SYMBOLISATION
XIX PHANTASIES, DREAM'S, AND DELUSIONS
XX PSYCHOTHERAPY
XXI PSYCHOANALYSIS
XXII HYPNOSIS, SUGGESTION AND AUTO SUGGESTION
XXIII THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY
XXIV CONCLUSION
Courtesy of Magical Path < http://www.magicalpath.net/ >
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.
Courtesy of Magical Path < http://www.magicalpath.net/ >
CHAPTER I
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 II
Courtesy of Magical Path < http://www.magicalpath.net/ >

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