Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

Freud’s ideas were in transition in a new century. It was a rich two days and during one
morning session, AN sat on the vacant chair next to me. He arrived a little late, seemingly
flustered, and kept on playing with his battered leather briefcase until settling in his chair.
He never seemed to sit still for long. I was unsure what to make of him, though he
reminded me of how irritated I get when I sit next to someone in church who never settles
and robs silence of silence. However at the end of the session I engaged him in
conversation about what he was enjoying or finding in the conference to which he offered a
frank opinion. AN asked me what I thought and I told him about my research. AN smiled
and said mischievously ‘I am religious, I believe passionately in atheism’ and agreed to be
interviewed at a later date. I was left feeling irritated and fascinated in equal measure. It
was only once I did some further reading on the cultural engagement of psychoanalysis that
I realized how influential AN was.
My first encounter with AN was rather ordinary, the next and the arrangement of it were
not. I had changed academic location during the summer of 2007 yet AN consistently left
messages and I replied only to find another answering machine. Finally he said it would be
best to ring him at home on the Saturday morning before 1200. It happened that I was
climbing Scafell Pike in the Lake District that day and reception was poor. At a short break
I at last found a mobile signal and was talking to AN arranging an interview, not entirely
concentrating, only to find myself falling down a slope and running at full speed in order to
stop careering over an edge whilst maintaining a normal conversation with AN on the
mobile phone. AN seemed oblivious to this and fortunately I managed to stop, and climbed
back up to where my friends were still standing in amazement, as the last thing they had
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