The Unconscious: A Cultural History from Hippocrates to Philip K. Dick and Beyond

A highly original first anthology on the cultural history of the unconscious that is destined to become definitive. 'Know thyself' the injunction that was once inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo became a touchstone for classical and modern philosophers before being embraced as the end game of psychoanalysis by Freud and his followers.The conceptual baggage that Freud took on his armchair journey into the unconscious mind is well-known and so, too, the more recent science on implicit memory, blindsight and automatic processing but the history of the unconscious beyond the consulting room and laboratory has largely been overlooked.From ancient dream theory to hypnosis, somnambulism to psychedelic mind-expansion, The Unconscious by Antonio Melechi traces the wider social and scientific history of the unconscious mind.It brings together a chorus of voices including Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Mary Arnold Foster, Swami Vivekananda, and Philip K.Dick, to name only some to investigate the elus