ABSTRACT
Although Freud’s fascination with archaeology and his extensive use of its metaphors as a means of legitimating his new theory have been explored, the use of archaeological metaphor by once significant rival psychological discourses has not. This chapter argues that J. F. Herbart, Pierre Janet, Frederic Myers and Henri Bergson made abstract ideas vivid using archaeological metaphor in developing their dynamic psychologies, beginning in the early nineteenth century with Herbart’s threshold model of unconscious and conscious processes. Pierre Janet’s highly influential psychotherapy involved treating fixed ideas as artifacts buried among stratified layers to be brought to the surface of a patient’s mind. Psychical researcher Frederic Myers drew on Greek for his terminology, notably “subliminal,” and his method of analyzing paranormal phenomena resembled the archaeologist’s. His examination of clairvoyance and prevision led him to conclude that the future as well as the past could be excavated in the fluid strata of the subliminal. Henri Bergson argued that the whole of one’s past contributed to the present. Both canonical and obscure contemporary creative writers assimilated the discourses of all four dynamic psychologist pioneers.
