Introduction

My thesis is a new development of Freud's account of human origins (1912-13). According to Freud, our species has a collective complex, acquired when a band of brothers killed their father and the unbearable memories of the deed became repressed. The new development retains Freud's conclusion that we have a collective complex and that it originated in a primal event, but replaces the killing of the father with a different event. It is assumed that life has a teleological aspect, that the human psyche perceives the act of giving birth as an attempt to bring forth the telos, and that the upheaval was caused by the recognition that the outcome of human birth is not what had been expected. The distant goal had not been reached.

In this paper, sections 1-3 set out the thesis, 4-5 correlate some earlier psychoanalytic ideas, and 6-10 throw new light on a number of previously unresolved matters. In section 11 it is shown that if the imperfect-birth hypothesis should prove viable, then Marxist theory would have been built on unsound foundations.

Keywords: Autism, Culture, Freud, Jung, Melanie Klein, Postnatal depression, Religion

1) Repression and the teleological perspective

The concept 'repression' forms the corner-stone of Freud's theoretical framework. It evolved in the course of treatments of mental disorders, but Freud also used it in his attempts to throw new light on the origin and evolution of culture, and on the human condition generally. In this paper the concept is used in that wider sense.

Freud's view concerning teleology is set out in his Civilization and its Discontents (1930:75), where he wrote that 'the question of the purpose of human life has been raised countless times; it has never yet received a satisfactory answer and perhaps does not admit of one.' As far as the imperfect-birth hypothesis is concerned, Freud's position vis-à-vis teleology is not important. What matters is how readily psychoanalytic thinking and terminology relate to a teleological perspective, and in that respect there are no problems.

What is the current status of the teleological perspective? In physics there is a minority view known as the anthropic principle. The central idea is that the fundamental constants that describe the structure and dynamics of the universe are so finely balanced (for life to be possible) that something more than chance seems to be involved. One account of the theory has been set out by Barrow and Tipler in their book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986), which includes descriptions of a wide range of design arguments and teleological principles. A work with greater emphasis on molecular biology is Nature's Destiny (1998) by Denton.

In philosophy, major thinkers, including Aristotle (Ackrill: 1981) and Hegel (1977), arrived at teleological world views. Although postmodernism, with its strong bias against meta-narratives, appears incompatible with a teleological world view, deconstruction could be seen as an essential 'clearing of the decks' in anticipation of new constructions. In biology teleological ideas are not well received, but, as explained in section 3.2, certain findings in molecular biology lend additional support to the imperfect-birth hypothesis.

Before considering the animal-to-human transition, one other matter requires clarification. In this paper it is assumed that species other than ours are completely unaware of any distant goals of their existence, and evolve in accordance with Darwinian principles. Only humankind has encountered the truth - the goal-oriented nature of its existence. But because of the traumatic nature of the truth (at least from the point of view of the first humans, with their undeveloped powers of reasoning) it is repressed. In our times, the development of psychoanalysis, where repressed contents of the psyche are unearthed and reappraised in the light of reason, suggests that by now we might be able to take a more objective view of our origins and of ourselves.

What reasons are there for believing that along teleological evolution's route of progress, there could arise a traumatic recognition of failure, that in some sense the human baby might appear imperfect? It is a common feature of aim-oriented processes that if it becomes clear that the goal will not be reached, or a false goal has been pursued, then that particular route is abandoned.

2) Freud's account of the origin of culture

Freud's views on the rise of culture are set out in his Civilization and its Discontents (1930). His final conclusion was that the most important factor in the evolution of civilization has been an unconscious sense of guilt, and that the price we pay for our advance in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of that sense of guilt (1930:134). Its origin Freud understood in terms of psychological complications in the animal-to-human transition (1912-13) and the resulting Oedipus complex (1930:131-3).

In accordance with learned opinion at the beginning of the 20th century, Freud assumed that at the time of the primal event our predecessors lived in 'patriarchal hordes', each ruled by a dominant male who kept all the females for himself. Freud then postulated that this so frustrated the sons that they bandied together and killed the dominant male, but afterwards found that 'none of them was of such over-mastering strength as to be able to take on the father's part with success.' After passing through many dangerous crises, and perhaps after many repeats of the primal event, the sons instituted the law against incest 'by which they all alike renounced the women whom they had desired and who had been their chief motive for dispatching their father.' Memories of the killing were unbearably painful and consequently became repressed, but because repressed material exerts pressure towards the light of consciousness ('the return of the repressed'), the primal event gave rise to its re-enactment in symbolically disguised forms, including myths and religions, and to the evolution of culture generally.

Freud was well aware that his thesis has a number of problems (1912-13:157-61). It assumes the inheritance of acquired characteristics (memories of the primal event), it is difficult to accept that such primitive men would have been willing to be sexually restrained, and it seems unlikely that the human mind would have been inclined to recall disagreeable matters from the distant past without something like a regular refresher of the primal event to prompt it. In addition, it is difficult to see why the killing of the father should have given rise to remorse, since the sons would have descended from a long line of dominant males most of whom would have forcefully supplanted their own fathers - it would have been part of their set of instinctive responses, implemented without hesitation and remorse.

The imperfect-birth hypothesis retains Freud's conclusion that the human species has a collective complex, but does not postulate inherited memories of some traumatic event from the time of the animal-to-human transition. There would have been a traumatic event at the beginning of the human species, but it would be the first in an ongoing series of such events, repeated in successive generations. Therefore myths about human origins could evolve without the need to remember events from the distant past.

3.1) The primal event: the scenario

As stated in the Introduction, it is postulated that the human psyche perceives the act of giving birth as a teleological event, as an attempt to bring forth the telos. The origin of this idea will be explained in a later section, in connection with Jung's work, but for the purpose of understanding the imperfect-birth hypothesis it is sufficient to assume that a pre-human mother, in the act of giving birth or shortly afterwards, perceived that in some way her offspring is not right. It would have been the mother's own imperfection (or even the unfinished state of the life process) that became projected upon the offspring, but she would not have been conscious of the projection mechanism. But whatever the exact projection, the new species would not have originated from some conflict in the external world, but from the coming to consciousness of a teleological life process.

What would have been the mother's reaction? It seems likely that she became disoriented and her offspring died in abandonment. From time to time the same, traumatic, 'recognition of failure' was experienced by other mothers, with the same outcome, until eventually it was encountered by a mother with adequate powers of repression to keep the traumatic truth out of the reach of the ego. More exactly, since the repression mechanism functions automatically, without the conscious ego doing the repressing, the first mother with an adequate repression mechanism could have experienced a temporary disturbance, perhaps a depression and some disorientation, but she would not have been aware of anything seemingly wrong with her baby. But even after the establishment of adequate repression (adequate for the reproduction of the new species) there would have been occasional failures of the repression mechanism, with tragic consequences for the individuals involved.

3.2) The primal event: time and place

According to findings in molecular biology (Cann et al., 1987), there are reasons for believing that the entire human species has descended from a collective mother who lived about 200,000 years ago in Africa. There are two possible explanations of the significance of these findings:

First, it is conceivable that there was a 'population bottleneck' - for some reason the size of the population had shrunk to a very small group of closely related individuals, all of whom had descended from the same mother. In that case it would be very likely that the characteristics of the individuals who lived just before the bottleneck and those who lived immediately after it would have been essentially the same, and the bottleneck would not be associated with the primal event.

Or, one mother in a population was born with an evolutionary advantage and her progeny inherited that advantage. What advantage could there be in having a collective complex? It is conceivable that the striving by the repressed material to return to the light of day (in symbolic expressions) promoted useful inventions, and the rise of civilization generally.

Should the imperfect-birth hypothesis prove viable, then the entire human species would have descended from a collective mother, which agrees with findings from molecular biology. The date ties in well, since the nature of the transition would have required a brain that had advanced sufficiently for the notion of relative imperfection to occur. There is strong evidence that the line of our evolutionary descent diverged from that of our nearest primate relatives several million years ago, when our ancestors would have been too primitive to have the necessary powers of abstract thought. But those who lived 200,000 years ago (in the Late Pleistocene) had undergone major changes, and it is generally agreed that it is better to emphasize their similarities to modern humans rather than the differences.

4) The Oedipus legend

Freud considered the Oedipus legend from Greek mythology the clearest symbolic expression of the complications in the human psyche that resulted from the primal event as he understood it. The imperfect-birth hypothesis can extend Freud's interpretation in the direction of increased depth, and in any case highlights an elementary contradiction in his account.

It is generally understood that the Oedipus legend is about the inevitability of human fate. If something is destined to happen then it will happen no matter what measures human reason might think up in hopeless attempts to alter the course of predestined events. That seems to be what the legend is about. But according to Freud things are very different. Finding that the narrative refers to matters that form a central part of his theories, including incest and death wishes, and observing the emotional impact the legend has, Freud concluded that it expresses in symbolic form repressed features from the depths of the psyche. After decoding the hidden meaning of the Oedipus legend, Freud named the collective complex which in his view each man has, and which has to be resolved, the Oedipus complex. In outline, the variant of the legend considered by Freud is as follows:

Jocasta, queen of Thebes, learns of the prophecy that if she has a son then he will kill his father and marry his mother. When her son, Oedipus, is born, Jocasta decides to escape her destiny by killing the infant. To this end she hands Oedipus to a shepherd with instructions to leave him in the woods, feet tied, so that the infant would die. But the shepherd does not follow his instructions and hands Oedipus to a man who serves the king of Corinth. The king adopts Oedipus and brings him up as his own son. At this point fate knocks at the door once again, and an oracle tells Oedipus that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Deciding to try to avoid such a fate, Oedipus does not return home, but the inevitability of his destiny now begins to be fulfilled. Oedipus becomes involved in a bad-tempered argument with an old man whom he meets at a road junction. He kills the man, not knowing that the man is his real father, and goes on to Thebes, where his real mother is the queen. After performing a heroic deed - ridding the city of Thebes of a sphinx that is devouring young people - Oedipus is made king and given Jocasta, his mother, as wife. When eventually the truth of it all comes out, Oedipus blinds himself and leaves Thebes lamenting his fate.

Freud concentrated on the son's killing of the father and marrying the mother, believing to have found such wishes in all men, and interpreted the Oedipus legend as an outlet for giving the matter symbolic expression.

From the perspective of the imperfect-birth scenario, the most relevant part of the Oedipus legend is the beginning of the tragic sequence of events when Jocasta decided that Oedipus would have to die (and die in abandonment). Freud seems to have overlooked his own requirement that everything emotionally significant must be considered, and seen that part of the legend as a mere technical device for setting up the tragedy. Such a view would, however, contradict Freud's own theory and practice, where even slips of the tongue are interpreted as meaningful occurrences. On the imperfect-birth hypothesis, at the foundation of the Oedipus legend is the fear of abandonment, and not the desire for sexual pleasure.

5) Adler, Jung, Otto Rank, and Melanie Klein

Should the imperfect-birth hypothesis prove viable then Freud's theory would not be sufficiently fundamental. Although the key concept - repression - would be valid, as would be the proposition that a collective complex has goaded the rise of civilization, the teleological component of the life process would have remained unearthed. That oversight would not be accidental, as follows from Freud's own theory, and it could be expected that elements of the 'still submerged' truth would have found expression in one way or another. That appears to have been the case, since three of Freud's one-time close colleagues (Adler, Jung, and Rank) departed from the main body of the psychoanalytic movement for reasons that are readily explainable in terms of the imperfect-birth hypothesis. So is Melanie Klein's emphasis on the infant-mother relationship.

5.1 Adler

Adler was the founder of Individual Psychology which made a noticeable impact in the 1920s and 1930s. The key idea on which he built his psychology (1998) is in good agreement with what could be expected on the basis of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, and therefore Adler's work is particularly relevant.

Adler was attracted by the biological foundations of Freud's theories, and set out to develop an approach of his own that began from a purely biological direction and eventually led to his split with Freud. Observing that in cases of organic damage the body tends to react by extra development of undamaged parts, Adler carried the idea over to the psychological sphere, where similar developments can sometimes occur. For example, a person with a stammer may set about overcoming the condition to the extent of becoming an excellent orator. Such observations led Adler to the conclusion that all members of humankind are inadequate or inferior in some fundamental way, and that much of the specifically human part of our behaviour can be understood in terms of attempts to compensate for the inherent inferiority or deal with the problem in some other way.

From the perspective of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, Adler was right about the universal feeling of inferiority but mistaken in not searching deeper for its origins. The standard of reference giving rise to the sense of inferiority is not the infant's helplessness relative to the strength of the parents, which is what Adler believed, but the goal of the life process.

5.2 Jung

Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who at one time closely collaborated with Freud, but irreconcilable differences arose and they split up. The initial disagreement was about the concept 'libido,' which Freud understood mainly in terms of sexuality while Jung came to see it as 'tension generally' or 'interest in life'. Accordingly, Freud concentrated on the sexual neuroses, hoping to clarify that field sufficiently for it to form a strong base from which to expand in other directions, while Jung took the view that the neuroses cannot be fully understood without first investigating deeper levels.
Jung's encounters with contents from the deeper levels are described in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963). That account makes it clear that instead of Jung taking the initiative, it was pressure from within that led to the encounters. He felt he had to understand the psychic entities behind the pressure and relate them to the human world, but his conclusions did not always link up with the field of consciousness of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, it was a symbolic drawing from a book by one of Jung's colleagues (Jacobi,1973:Plate 6) that led to the formulation of the imperfect-birth hypothesis.

The picture shows one representation of the Jungian 'Great Mother archetype', understood as a 'mother principle' or a drive behind the human mother. In the drawing she is clad in a starry mantle and seated underneath a tree bearing golden fruit. In her arms she holds the body of a young woman who seems unconscious, with blood dripping from her back. Below the suffering figure is a radiant sun, and lower down the outline of a baby. The Jungian interpretation is that the young woman's life is a martyrdom, but that it is indispensable if she is to be reborn in the child and if 'the sun is to shine forth in the unfathomable womb of the world'. The Freudian view might be that picture and interpretation refer to a psychoanalytic complex that has been expressed indirectly, and only partially. That view enabled the formulation of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, where it is assumed that life has a teleological component, and that at a deep level the psyche perceives the act of giving birth as an unsuccessful attempt to bring forth the goal.

Could the content of Plate 6 be an isolated picture that fits the imperfect-birth scenario but does not depict a collective complex? That is unlikely, since its main elements (mother and rebirth) formed an important part of Jung's book Symbols of Transformation (1911-12/1952), which was the work that led to his split with Freud. From the perspective of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, Jung would have sensed the presence of the collective complex and its pressure towards consciousness. Hence the investigation of deeper levels and Jung's shift from work on the neuroses to a certain 'individuation process'. Understood by Jung as 'integration of the personality', on the imperfect-birth hypothesis the Jungian process would attempt to relate the ego to the underlying collective complex, to bring it out into the open. Could 'individuation' reach even deeper than the collective complex? That is conceivable, but the archaic fears associated with the complex would have to be disposed of first - the nature of the complex would have to be understood.

Although interpretations of symbolic pictures reflect the interpreter's personal experiences of life, if teleology is taken seriously then it does appear that human birth would spear-head the process.

5.3 Otto Rank

This early follower of Freud formulated a theory the name of which (The Trauma of Birth, set out in a book with that title and published in the 1920's) suggests similarity with the imperfect-birth hypothesis. It appears that Rank had considered the same area of human experience but had overlooked the mother's psychological role and experience in the act of giving birth.

According to Rank's scheme, at which he had arrived from an earlier observation by Freud that severe attacks of anxiety tend to be accompanied by physiological features similar to those experienced by the baby when being born, such as gasping for breath, human birth is a traumatic experience. Rank believed that the trauma leaves behind it a reservoir of anxiety which the person tries to relive in all kinds of stressful situations. According to Rank (1929), all neuroses are traceable to the trauma of birth, and the Oedipus complex too is merely a secondary theme.

In the light of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, human birth is a traumatic experience, but the trauma is experienced most directly by the mother, although not consciously. But the matter is clearly expressed in religious symbolisms, and in various attempts to put it right.

5.4 Melanie Klein

Melanie Klein felt that Freud had not gone back far enough in his investigations of the early development of mental life, his technique being restricted by the need to use language. This limitation she tried to overcome by means of a play-analysis technique, where infants are given a set of small toys and encouraged to play. The resulting play scenarios would reveal their inner conflicts.

Klein found that severely disturbed infants are frequently afraid of their mothers (1975: 25-42), and to account for it, used Freud's idea that at the foundations of the human psyche there is a struggle between two primary instincts or 'drives' - Eros, the life drive, and Thanatos, the death drive. The concept of the death drive was not well received by Freud's colleagues, but Klein accepted the idea and made extensive use of it.

The odd behaviour of the disturbed infants Klein explained by assuming that they become aware of the death drive, which is working towards their destruction. Unable to come to grips with the internal enemy, the infants would project it upon the nearest person in the external world, who happened to be the mother, in this way attributing to the mother the qualities of the death drive. As a result the mother would appear a threatening figure, which would then cause the infants to phantasize that through greedy sucking they have destroyed the mother's breast and can expect retribution.

The above sketch of Klein's position is oversimplified, and is given here merely to convey the general idea of how she used the death drive concept. According to a closer approximation (Segal,1973)), the death drive is projected primarily upon the mother's breast, there is a good and a bad breast, there is the question of reparation, and there are many other elaborations. There is also extensive use of phantasy (Segal,1973:11-23). In the sense that Klein saw the mother not as a person with drives of her own, but primarily as the bearer of breasts, there is similarity with Otto Rank's position, where the mother is seen as nothing much more than the bearer of a 'birth canal'.

From the perspective of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, the infants would not be bothered by some purely internal 'death drive', but by archaic fears of death because of the mother's disappointment following the teleologically failed birth. That would also explain the infant's concern that the nourishing breast may not be available.
Although some of Klein's colleagues found it difficult to accept that infants could be capable of the complicated mental processes attributed to them, her conclusion that human infants face fundamental complications that have to be resolved would be substantially correct. This is because in the imperfect-birth scenario, the mother's personality includes two contrary components, alluded to by Klein as 'the good and bad breasts', and the infants would have to come to terms with the situation.
Klein's theorising was based on reliable clinical findings, but her explanatory framework would have been handicapped by limitations in Freud's theory (within which it was constructed). As Freud himself admitted, to him the subject of the drives behind the human mother was enigmatic. But his general view of the early girl-mother attachment is very much in line with what could be expected on the basis of the imperfect-birth hypothesis. This is what Freud wrote: 'Everything connected with this first mother-attachment seemed to me so elusive, lost in a past so dim and shadowy, so hard to resuscitate that it seemed as if it had undergone some specially inexorable repression.' (1931: 226)

Was Melanie Klein completely mistaken about the existence of a 'death drive', as argued, inter alia, by Fairbairn in his book Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality (1952: 78-9)? Is libido object-seeking and there are no instincts/drives?

For the purpose of understanding the imperfect-birth hypothesis, it is useful to think in terms of a 'teleological drive'. It would be aim-oriented, directly or indirectly, towards a distant goal.

6) The myth of the Fall

This account of human origins forms part of the cosmologies of the Abrahamic religions. It is about the ability to form value judgements, acquired from a 'tree of knowledge', and the consequent loss of Paradise. How could knowledge of good and evil be associated with a 'tree of knowledge', and its acquisition with the eating of a fruit from that tree? The imperfect-birth hypothesis, in conjunction with some psychoanalytic ideas, offers a new interpretation of the meaning of the myth of the Fall. It makes sense as a symbolically disguised account of the imperfect-birth scenario and its consequences.

Since the pioneers of psychoanalysis interpreted a tree as predominantly a mother-symbol, a fruit-bearing tree could symbolize the child-bearing mother. A fruit-bearing tree of knowledge could then stand for knowledge concerning the symbolic meaning of childbirth, and the eating of its fruit the acquisition of such knowledge. This interpretation is supported by a Jewish legend about the state of Paradise after the Fall, according to which the tree had shrivelled and there was a baby where the fruit had been - the Fall had occurred after the act of giving birth. The woman being the first to eat the fruit, passing it on to the man afterwards, also supports this interpretation, and the need felt by Adam and Eve to cover themselves up suggests that the matter became 'covered up' - the formation of a collective complex.

Because it was the serpent who initiated the sequence of events in the Fall, the identity of this participant must also be considered. As argued in section 12, the paradigm for a teleological life process might be the completion of some process at the micro level, in which case the serpent could symbolize some entity from there.
Following Freud, it is tempting to interpret the 'God the Father' concept as nothing more than a reference to the human father. He would not be directly involved in the trauma of the Fall and therefore might appear as a more reliable support than the mother. His inclination would be to distance himself from the trauma, which could explain God's caution against the eating of the fruit. But because the imperfect-birth hypothesis assumes that the ego is also influenced by unconscious factors from deeper levels than those investigated by Freud, the Freudian interpretation could be too shallow.

When considered in the light of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, the myth of the Fall offers a solution to a central problem in moral philosophy - the foundations of moral judgements. What might those be? According to the myth, it was the acquisition of the new knowledge (of good and evil) that opened the eyes of Adam and Eve. Translated into concepts from the imperfect-birth hypothesis, this means the recognition that life is a teleological process and that desirable conduct is one that advances the process towards its distant goal, or appears to do so. There might be uncertainty and disagreement about the best route to take in any particular case, but the ultimate aim in each case would be to further the process. Thus, at the root of conflicts between religions, and between religions and Marxism, would be the question of the best way forward, and deconstruction of tried and failed pathways.
According to the myth, after the Fall the woman's pain in giving birth increased ('Great will be your pain in childbirth; in sorrow will your children come to birth'). That makes sense, including the 'sorrow' aspect of the increased pain. In addition, as stated in the myth, she became the man's inferior. This would be because the experience of failure would have imparted to her a deep sense of inadequacy, the man remaining only indirectly involved.

Although the myth of the Fall would form a substantially correct symbolic account of the origin of humankind, it does not suggest a solution to the central problem - human imperfection relative to some unspecified perfection. The Christian myth of the life of Christ - one who had been fathered not by mortal man but by a supernatural agency, and thus born perfect - is a purported guide to the solution, to be achieved by following a prescribed code of conduct. As one who had achieved the goal (resurrection), Christ would know the route to be followed. But by now that code has lost much of the credibility it once had.

7) Postnatal depression

This disturbance affects a significant proportion of the population, but although modern drugs provide effective treatment, its cause remains unclear. It is believed to be caused by chemical imbalance after the end of pregnancy, but that explanation is difficult to accept in the light of the fact that placental mammals have been in existence for about one hundred million years, which suggests that a defect in the body's chemical machinery is unlikely. And even if there should be clear correlation between some chemical imbalance and the experienced depression, that would not prove a purely chemical origin, in much the same sense that when people feel that 'the adrenalin is flowing', the associated increase in pulse rate is not initiated by the increased level of the adrenalin hormone. In such cases it would be a fear, or the need to make a special effort, that causes the release of adrenalin and the consequent increase in pulse rate.

On the imperfect-birth hypothesis, postnatal depression is caused by the mother's deep disappointment. Essentially it is the same as the depression that can follow any failed endeavour, especially if undertaken with high hopes.

According to research findings by Natasha S. Mauthner, published in the journal Feminism & Psychology (August 1998, pages 325-55), the entire sample of 18 mothers who felt they were suffering from postnatal depression, were not passive victims of their individual biology nor psychology nor of a hostile sociopolitical context. Rather, they were engaged in an active struggle with themselves (1998:347). They had mixed feelings, and felt unable openly to discuss their feelings, not even with their closest friends.

Mauthner found that there was a conflict between expectations and reality, as has repeatedly been noted in writings on motherhood (1998:347), and concluded that what distinguishes postnatal depression from the feelings of low mood and sadness that many mothers experience after having a baby, is the difficulty the depressed mothers have in accepting their feelings and discussing them with others. Such a picture is very much in line with what could be expected on the basis of the imperfect-birth hypothesis.

8) Detachment behaviour

This type of behaviour is found in human infants but not in the infants of our nearest primate relatives. It formed a central part in John Bowlby's investigations into the mother-infant relationship, and contributed to his conclusion that the emotional link between the human mother and her infant can be precarious and requires sensitivity and understanding.

The fact to be explained is that human infants, after a period of separation from their mothers, show clear reactions of apprehension on reunion. In one account of the reactions of ten young children, between the ages of thirteen to thirty-two months, to reunion with mother after a separation lasting days or weeks (1998:30), every one of the children showed unmistakable signs of detachment. Two seemed not to recognize their mothers, and the other eight either turned away or walked away. Most cried, or came close to tears, and were undoubtedly deeply upset. According to Bowlby, this reaction is extremely common (1998:98).

The imperfect-birth hypothesis offers the following explanation: At the beginning of our species, when the repression mechanism was still establishing itself, there would have been a significant proportion of failures adequately to repress the trauma. As a result, the mothers so affected experienced strong inner turmoil, oscillating between despair and hope. Since the disturbance, in addition to being concentrated on the new-born baby, also affected the relationship between the mother and any other infants she might have, there were difficulties all around. Although it might appear that the infants would be entirely unprotected, there are indications that some defences did evolve.

One of these is the unusually large deposit of subcutaneous fat the human baby has relative to other primates. Why the difference? In the light of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, the fat would have allowed the baby to survive temporary abandonment, until the mother recovered from the disturbance. In the case of older infants, the optimum behaviour pattern under such circumstances might be to become temporarily detached - in the sense of not making any emotional demands, or even ignoring the mother completely.

9) Autism

Autism is another puzzling matter that makes sense when considered in the light of the imperfect-birth hypothesis. It is a rare disorder, usually manifesting itself before the age of three years, and is associated with a range of unusual behaviour patterns. These include qualitative impairment in reciprocal social interaction, in verbal and non-verbal communication, and in imaginative activity. There is also a markedly restricted repertoire of activities and interests.

But although there is agreement concerning the diagnostic criteria, there is no such agreement about the cause and treatment of the disorder. As with the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, Adler, Jung, and Rank, which appeared as partial expressions of a more fundamental truth, so three different views on the nature of autism will now be related to the imperfect-birth hypothesis:

The disorder and some of the psychological methods used in its treatment have been described by Bruno Bettelheim in his book The Empty Fortress (1967). In common with many others, Bettelheim believed that the infant comes into the world with a 'tabula rasa' mind, and consequently any disturbance in the mother-infant bond must be caused by the mother, in one way or another. Accordingly, Bettelheim arranged a particularly pleasant and welcoming environment for his patients. On the imperfect-birth hypothesis, however, more than just the mother's attitude would be involved - because the infant's mind would not be free of innate ideas. Its contents would include archaic response patterns that could be triggered by correctly interpreted danger signals, by oversensitive and unrealistic interpretation of the mother's state of mind, or even by some defect (or combination of defects) in the brain activating the behaviour patterns without an external stimulus. But whatever the trigger, the characteristic behaviour of detachment would be an appropriate response in the archaic imperfect-birth situation, as would be the obsessional resistance to changes in surroundings (in order, in the abandonment situation, to remain in the same location and await mother's return).

Bettelheim's book includes appraisals of three case histories, in one of which the patient recovered. Interestingly, the recovery involved a spontaneous symbol formation, culminating in a symbolic rebirth from an egg. Why the rebirth? One explanation would be that the patient's natural birth was imperfect in some way. In his symbolic rebirth he became 'twice born', as is the custom in some religions.

Frances Tustin was a therapist with extensive experience in psychoanalytic treatment of autistic disorders. According to her findings, 'the mothers of psychogenic autistic children almost invariably report that they were depressed around the time of this particular infant's birth, or prior to autism if this occurs some time after the birth' (1994:60), and also that 'autism is an early developmental deviation which occurs in the service of dealing with unmitigated terror' (1992:10). That is what could be expected on the basis of the imperfect-birth hypothesis.

Tustin proposed an explanation of the nature of psychogenic autism and related disorders headed 'psychological birth and psychological catastrophe' (1992:96-110) - a title that readily relates to the imperfect-birth hypothesis. Tustin assumed that in cases of autism there had been a particularly close relationship between the mother and her infant, the infant continuing to feel as if still part of the mother's protective body. When the infant inevitably becomes aware of bodily separateness, that is perceived as a life-threatening disaster, and the result is a psychological catastrophe (1994:2-3).

On the imperfect-birth hypothesis, all human births are psychologically catastrophic, but normally the truth is repressed. Autism results when defence mechanisms are defective or cannot cope, and the infants are left exposed to archaic fears of death. The fears stun normal development, as was recognized by Tustin.

Although Freud believed that psychoanalysis is most effective in the treatment of the neuroses, where the patient's ego is capable of cooperation, the basic ideas on which psychoanalysis is built can readily explain the modus operandi of a controversial method of treating infantile autism. It was developed by Martha Welch, and is described in her book Holding Time (1989).

In psychoanalysis, analysts strive to locate unconscious complexes, and then help patients to bring the submerged material into the light of day. Should the imperfect-birth hypothesis be substantially correct, there would be no need to analyse autistic patients in order to locate the (collective) complex, since its nature would be already known. This suggests that the reliving (catharsis) of the fears could be effected by the mothers, by repeatedly placing their infants in appropriately simulated life-threatening situations. Eventually the infants, finding themselves still alive, would come to realise that their fears had been groundless. That, on the basis of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, is how the 'holding time' technique works. But since some of the infants might not succeed in dismissing their fears, it is conceivable that sometimes the use of the method, instead of effecting a cure, could lead to a deterioration of the condition.

It remains to note that although it would be the way in which the first human mother's psyche responded to the recognition of imperfection that is at the root of autism, it is difficult to see any other way in which she could have responded. Her response enabled humankind to come into existence at all, and for that she paid by becoming loaded with a heavy burden.

10) The incest taboo

This characteristic of human behaviour can be readily understood in terms of the imperfect-birth hypothesis, although the precise mechanism is not entirely clear. A clue is provided by the fact that in the past some 'perfect individuals' have been exempt from the taboo. For example, Inca rulers married their sisters. Why the exemption? On the imperfect-birth hypothesis, it is their 'perfection' status that exempted them. In the case of ordinary individuals, the taboo does not apply to marriages outside the immediate family because the unconscious mind does not have the power to infer that members of other families are equally imperfect. This could also form the basis of the Aboriginee 'marriage classes' institution.

11) The foundations of Marxism re-examined

Marxism is presented as a scientific discipline, based on the seemingly irrefutable proposition that humankind's first requirements are food, drink, and shelter, and therefore the evolution of society is determined by economic forces. It includes other, earlier, ideas, such as a classless society, but, as explained by Engels in a funeral address he delivered at the burial of Marx, Marxism is based on a materialist interpretation of history. This is what Engels said:

'Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, and have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means of subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.'

According to the imperfect-birth hypothesis, however, the Marxist picture of human needs is mistaken. This is because from a teleological perspective it is not the physical means of existence that comes first, but rather the right to exist at all. For example, in a farming business that is oriented towards the rearing of cattle (the goal), a new-born calf requires an adequate supply of milk, but that is not its most basic need. The first requirement is that it should not be seriously malformed - that it should have the appearance of 'promising material'. Essentially the same consideration applies to any aim-oriented activity. Similarly, in the case of humans within a teleological life process, it is their right to exist that comes first (a proposition supported by the fact that in the 20th century millions of people lost their lives because that right was denied to them). To a large extent that problem would have been solved by repression, but because of 'the return of the repressed', human imperfection would remain a problem.

12) The evolution of culture

The ongoing existence of the collective complex would require (depend on) the genetically inherited perception of the failure aspect of human birth and the repression of that knowledge, and a set of responses for coping with the pressure from the repressed. Some of these would be instinctive responses, refined by natural selection, and some passed on through cultural inheritance. But because of the traumatic nature of the complex, its surfacing would take the form of a series of ever-closer approximations to the truth - the evolution of myths, religions, and philosophical ideas.

What might be the goal of a teleological life process? As outlined in section 6, in Christianity it would be the perfection of Christ. But by now the Christian myth has become incompatible with the scientific world view.

The collective psychic development in the Christian era was considered by Jung in his penultimate major work called Aion (1951/1968). In the chapter 'Christ, a Symbol of the Self' (36-71), Jung argued that Christ symbolizes a 'Self archetype', understood as a central part of the psyche and concerned with inner orientation.

Basing his conclusions mainly on religious symbolisms, Jung associated the Self with a number of structural and dynamic characteristics (222-65). He surmised that the Self has a snake-like structure consisting of pairs of opposites, where four basic units form two pairs of complementary units and the whole functions by the separation and synthesis of the opposites. That suggests that the Self is closely associated with the DNA molecule. Jung likened the functioning of the Self to the carbon-nitrogen cycle in the sun (1951/1968:260), which is also at the micro level, but the DNA molecule would be closer to human existence.

Considering that the growth of the human body begins at the micro level, it would not be surprising if the completion of some process there should serve as a paradigm for a teleological life process. That would conflict with the Cartesian picture of the micro world as senseless matter, but because Descartes could not explain how his 'thinking substance' can interact with inanimate matter, Cartesian dualism is not entirely satisfactory.

What, then, might be the goal of a teleological life process? For the judgement of imperfection to be possible, there would have to be a standard of reference, conceivably the completion of some process at the micro level. In the picture in Jacobi's book (1973) referred to in section 5.2, it looks as if it might correspond to the emission of sunlight (radiation), and that a formation of pairs (in the picture, pairs of fruit) is involved. What could that mean? If, for example, the photon should consist of a pair of suitably matched subunits, then the process might consist of the separation and synthesis of the subunits until a correctly matched pair is formed. How could the human psyche possibly sense events and processes at the atomic level? Could it somehow 'attune to' the micro level, bridging the gap between the micro and macro levels? Should the ego be located at the micro level, existing there from the moment of conception, then it would not have to 'bridge a gap'. In that case such religious motifs as the Incarnation and Resurrection, celebrated in religious festivals but once a year, could be external projections of inner processes occurring every day, and every moment too.

In the final analysis at present, the imperfect-birth hypothesis proposes merely that life has a teleological component, and that at a deep level the psyche perceives the act of giving birth as an unsuccessful attempt to bring forth the telos. Although the reference standard for the judgement of failure seems to be the completion of some process at the micro level, the nature of that process is not clear. Religious figures of perfection, such as Christ and Buddha, would remain the closest symbols of the mysterious goal.

In this paper I have argued that life has a teleological component which has led to the rise of humankind - a species with a collective complex. Although there is nothing that could be done to alter the teleological aspect of our existence, explicit recognition of the complex would at least lessen the stresses and strains experienced by the human mother - would enable her openly to share her burden with others.

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George Berzins : GeorgeBerzins7@aol.com