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It is not possible within the space of an abstract to do justice to this paper. Schreber's delusional construction of the Hereafter is considered from the angle of its psychotic and prepsychotic elements, the latter arising in the earlier part of Schreber's illness through a relatively normal projection in which Flechsig became Schreber's 'narcissistic ego ideal', and having the task of focusing upon Flechsig's masculinity in order to keep Schreber's
own genital excitement under control. The psychotic process through which Schreber projected his masculinity onto the 'back realms of God' has already broken away from reality; his masculinity has become through projection the outer world and no longer exists within the boundaries of the psychotic parts of the personality.
The author puts forward a series of reconstructions of the infantile origins of the non-psychotic elements of the delusion on the basis of the evidence of the Denkwurdigkeiten. Schreber's father carried his disciplinary interference in his son's life to unbearable limits in which the boy's soul was not his own. In this attempt to 'purify' his son, he enlisted the help of Schreber's brother, who may have been seduced into homosexual activity by Schreber himself, an event which became known to his mother and sister who entered into a conspiracy to keep the matter from the father to avoid his tempestuous outbursts.
Schreber's early masturbatory excitement resulted from the exciting manner of his treatment by his father. This phase had not yet come to an end when the interference through his brother's attack occurred. In entering into a conspiracy not to enlighten the father, the mother appeared to Schreber not to protect him from his brother, perhaps conceived as her favourite son. This 'lack of protection' aroused Schreber's anger and weakened his oedipal relation. He could not therefore fall back on this relationship as a defence against the homosexual stimulation exerted by both father and bro