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This essay by the late Michel Gressot compares the questions concerning the future of psychoanalysis with similar questions which have been raised about literature, culture, and even the human species. Although Gressot is optimistic about the future of psychoanalysis, he is troubled by its expansion by false friends. He sees a degenerative effect on psychoanalysis as its effect on the cultural sphere increases. Psychoanalytic information available to the public is only approximate, and there is a levelling aspect in the teaching of psychoanalysis in the universities. Psychoanalysis serves as a target for vague but persistent needs previously satisfied by mantic elements in society, by the shaman or the priest. When it is tolerated, it runs the risk of being lumped together with astrology and parapsychology. Psychoanalysis can retain its inventiveness only by respecting its integrity despite pressures coming from within. It cannot be communicated through the simple transmission of theoretical concepts. The need to experience an analysis oneself separates psychoanalysis from the experimental objectivity of the natural sciences. This epistemological character preserves its specific empirical character. Even this has been misconstrued as magical, mysterious, or fantastical. Such a misconstrual results from an anti-intellectual and magical interpretation of affective knowledge.