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Dear Friends:
I am sorry to say that Rivers' attitude is being more hostile and also in a personal way, especially to Professor and myself, so that one can hardly hope for more from him; he will go the way of many others at first interested by Psa and then unable to endure a closer approach to it.2
The Dutch asked me some time ago about the propriety of accepting as member a doctor known to be manifestly homosexual. I advised against it, and now I hear from van Emden3 that the man has been detected and committed to prison. You do think this would be a safe general maxim to act on? On the other hand, they were doubtful about accepting Varendonck and referred his election to me; I spoke of course in his favour.
An Oxford woman has written a very interesting book on witchcraft4, the main point of which is that witches were remnants from pre-Christian fertility cults, definitely organised as a religion. Can anyone suggest a psychological explanation of the belief that the devil, particularly his penis and semen, was always icecold? Can this be a simple reversal?
Bryan had a great success at the British Psychological Society by reading a paper largely based on Abraham's Congress one.5 You see how parasitic we are on the Continental workers, but we are at least honest about it.
Tomorrow I shall finish the last chapter of the Vorlesungen, three quarters of which is already printed. It will relieve the pressure on my time, so I am glad, but I only wish that the Press, not Unwin, were getting the benefit of such a careful translation.