ABSTRACT
Lafcadio Hearn anticipated many of Freud's conclusions. Hearn knew of the existence of the unconscious in the Freudian sense, and also of its influence on authorship. Hearn saw that there was an intimate connection between literature and dreams. Hearn laid emphasis on the unity of the past and present, a fundamental principle of psychoanalysis. Leading Buddhist scholars before Hearn saw the similarity between the theory of heredity as taught by evolution and the doctrine of Karma or transmigration of character. Hearn's essay on Metempsychosis appeared in the New Orleans Item and was included in a collection published called Fantastics and Other Fantasies. Hearn formulated the idea of the Eternal Recurrence in 1880 before Nietzsche did, who wept when he discovered this by no means new theory in August, 1881, at Silas Maria, 6,500 feet above sea.
