The Discovery of the Budapest Writings

“It's pure gold” said Freud about Sándor Ferenczi's articles (Freud, 1933). He was referring most certainly to the dense, original writings that the Hungarian psychoanalyst had been lovingly preparing for discovery since their first meeting in 1908. I had read Ferenczi's psychoanalytic works and felt that he had a different concept—one that came from a forgotten lineage that needed to be restored to history. Thus, with this great dream overshadowing my small passion, I decided to leave for Hungary in August 1976. I was encouraged by my own analyst in this spiritual migration to discover the unpublished writings. In Paris, rumor had it that they had been broken up and might no longer exist. Therefore, with neither a specific assignment nor any other great illusion, I left to explore the Budapest writings. What irritated me profoundly was that the destiny of these writings, about which we knew so little, could be of so little interest to some.

So, first to Budapest via Vienna (where Sándor had practiced medicine) and then Vác and Esztergom, where I met Györgyi Kurcz. She was delighted to hear a little “talk about France.” On to Bakony with its wild forest in which I lost my way, left me with rough memories of roving shadows that leaned toward me and make strange noises in the clear blue evening. Permeated with my studies of Novalis, Shelling, and Goethe at Nanterre, I imagined the King of the Aulnis. In the region of the Balaton Lake, I could feel the presence of spirits which increased my understanding of Ferenczi's interest in “spiritism.”