In examining Freud's mysticism Wallace relates the superstitious elements and unusual experiences in Freud's personal life, his evaluaitons of the occult, and some of his speculative writings to his conflict with his father. Freud explained most superstitions as based on projected thoughts, fears, and wishes. He himself had a preoccupation with his own death. This was part of a fatalistic current that allowed him to project aggression against his father onto others (i.e., Breuer, Fliess, Jung). In these estrangements there occurred a repetitive acting out of the ambivalence and death wishes toward his father. Wallace relates Freud's ideas on telepathy, the supernatural, the primal father, the "double," and fantasies of immortality to his inner struggle with parricidal rage and the problem of the death instinct. Rather than experience the full measure of his ambivalence, Freud projected it into his writings on parapsychology, and it became their primary determinant.