Essay on the theory of metasexuality, what if Freud had not said its last word ?

This short work takes a fresh approach to psychoanalysis, challenging Freud’s definition of the ultimate purpose of the two sexual functions: reproduction and pleasure. According to the author, an instinct does not have pleasure as its ultimate goal; pleasure merely accompanies it as a driving force for learning. It logically follows that most sexual drives (known as polymorphous drives) must be attributed a specific purpose independent of reproduction. This “metasexual” function would be a supply of metapsychic energy (“numinous energy” in Jungian terms, or “orgone” in Reich’s), necessary for the development of extrasensory faculties. The castration complex thus appears as the deprivation not of an organ, but of the energy of which that organ is the unconscious archetype (the “sacred phallus”). The author reinterprets all the main psychoanalytic concepts, including neurosis and paranoia, in the same way. He also takes into consideration the consequences of food stimulants on the psychic state. He complements the Freudian topography by adding an instance of metapsychic essence, the “Surissa.” From this, he derives a new psychotherapy called “transpulsional analysis,” based on the diversion of instinctual energies specific to the metasexual function onto reproductive drives, making it possible to explain many characteristics specific to our form of culture (endemic neurosis, overinvestment of the ego, disenchantment, depression, aggressiveness, flight into materialism, etc.) and to access, by a new path, the sources of psychopathological disorders.

Introduction

Why refer our explanatory model to psychoanalysis, an approach now being challenged by many brilliant minds?

For a very simple reason: the psychoanalytic approach, even if considered unscientific and riddled with flaws, is the only one that takes into account the phenomena we are trying to explain here. These phenomena, drawn from empirical observation, involve the entire psyche, both its unconscious aspects, considered by Freudian psychoanalysis, and its metapsychic potentialities, explored by Carl Gustav Jung.

The more scientific approaches currently recognized are unfortunately ineffective. Cognitive psychology focuses on the conscious aspects of the psyche and the underlying brain processes, only marginally addressing emotional aspects and not at all sexuality and its metapsychic dimension. Clinical psychology is interested in personality structures and behavioral disorders, but remains very incomplete when it comes to sexual and extrasensory realities. Psychiatry is based on a distinction between normal and pathological, the normative nature of which became clearly apparent during its shift in position regarding homosexuality; it is difficult to reconcile with an objective approach.

Using the psychoanalytic model does not imply attributing to it an unassailable truth value. We will simply attempt to compare our own approach with a theoretical framework wiih the merit of existing and responding to a certain logic. This is all done while remaining aware that any explanatory system is merely a model projected onto observed facts, the relevance of which is then judged by testing it against reality. We will retain from the psychoanalytic model what appears compatible with the phenomena that interest us, even if it means pointing out its gaps and contradictions, in order to fill or overcome them in accordance with the empirical and theoretical material at our disposal.

But be warned: the aim is not to start from psychoanalysis to create a new theory. The theory of metasexuality was developed independently, initially without reference to Freud or any of his followers. This was done in a rudimentary language that subsequently had to be updated. Psychoanalytic language was best suited to this task.

The theorizing developed very spontaneously, through observations made in a novel dietary context we could call a “pre-culinary framework”. The radical change in eating habits and the elimination of all stimulants present in common foods—gluten in grains, exorphins in milk, caffeine, theobromine, alcohol, AGEs, etc.—made possible observations that would have been difficult within the culinary framework. Those who participated in this unusual experiment saw their sexual arousal completely transformed. This allowed for the emergence of what might be called “the natural laws of human sexuality” and highlighted previously unknown—or generally concealed—connections between amorous behavior and the development of extrasensory abilities. I describe these observations in detail in the second part of my book on the Garden of Earthly Delights, The Mystery of Hieronymus Bosch Solved!.

In mathematics, in physics, as in all sciences, changing an axiom or introducing a new fundamental quantity can lead to a reassessment of an entire theory. The logical process must be restarted, and the conclusions are often very different from, or even opposed to, those that could be drawn from the previous basis of reasoning. The (re)discovery of the fundamental link between love and the metapsychic calls all of psychoanalysis into question. The postulates upon which Freud’s approach rests exclude any reference to a relationship between sex and the sacred, a relationship that has nonetheless been recognized for millennia.

Numerous disagreements have arisen between the master’s views and those of his disciples. If the paths we propose are relevant, they should clarify the origin of these divergences and reconcile the opposing positions. This should also lead to a greater convergence with the data of Antiquity, particularly with Plato’s philosophy concerning Eros (wonderfully described in the Phaedrus) or with the data of mythology (for example, the complete myth of Oedipus).

An approach more in line with universal realities could reconcile the proponents and detractors of psychoanalysis. Beyond an argumentative discourse that would readily land him behind bars, the accusations levelled against Freud, portrayed as a fabulist, a liar, an opportunist, and an exploiter, could reflect a difficult-to-articulate unease surrounding certain fundamental errors of Freudianism. The recent shift in morality toward a denial of infantile sexuality, initiated by American psychiatry, certainly plays a role, although the WHO’s very recent recommendations on sex education seem to herald a paradigm shift.

Revisiting the Freudian approach remains relevant. It still underpins our entire culture and our understanding of sex. If we want to rediscover the natural laws of love, we must re-examine not only traditional morality, but also the morality and beliefs established by psychoanalysis, and equally so the morality championed by its detractors. I fear that Freud’s eminent detractors will plunge us from twilight into utter darkness.

Some will be surprised by the presentation of this work. Authors are normally required to cite their sources to substantiate their arguments. Here, however, it is something quite different: starting from a tabula rasa, from a zero as absolute as possible, so as to allow a new vision to emerge, far removed from the influences of the dominant paradigm.

The efforts made to date by researchers to reform what prevents us from finding happiness in our culture all seem to have come to nothing. In order to avoid the biases and pitfalls that have led to this impasse, we have chosen more than a return to the land: a return to the mundane. Herriot said: Culture is what remains when everything else is forgotten. Here, it would be a matter of forgetting culture. Hence, an uncompromising maieutic approach, a systematic and ongoing questioning aimed at daring to confront the realities of human nature as they are, not as we are taught to see them. Similarities with other approaches, including psychoanalysis, should then stem not from a lineage of thought, but from the invariance of the facts.

Contributing to the advancement of human knowledge, while drawing from a metapsychoanalytic approach the keys to greater harmony—both internal within the individual and interdisciplinary among specialists—is the wish we express, while remaining aware of the magnitude of the task and the limitations of our resources.

Two Sexual Functions

Why does sexuality occupy such a central and enduring place in human concerns, when it represents only a sporadic activity in animals, limited to periods of rutting? Freud answers this question by stating that there are two independent sexual functions in humans: one ensuring reproduction, associated with maturity; the other established from birth and consisting of “obtaining pleasure from different parts of the body.”

He bases this assertion on three observations that are difficult to dispute:

• the first sexual drives manifest themselves well before maturity;
• they are independent of female fertility, whereas they depend on rutting in animals;
• they often have a homosexual orientation.

However, it seems unconvincing to us to consider the gain of pleasure as constituting the intrinsic goal of a natural drive. Freud admits that sexual drives derive from an instinct; however, all instinctual behavior possesses, beyond the sensation of satisfaction associated with its fulfillment, a purpose useful to the species or the individual.

This is evident when it comes to the reproductive function: pleasure accompanies coitus, while the physiological and instinctual organization is clearly aimed at fertilization, and therefore at the survival of the species. Paradoxically, the other function, so-called infantile sexuality (which is found in adults in the form of “polymorphic drives”), would be limited to a simple gain of pleasure.

Moreover, and still according to Freud, the two functions are far from converging harmoniously. This argues in favor of their independence, without, however, excluding certain genetically predetermined convergences. It should be noted that the functions of eating and speaking can also converge while remaining independent: speech allows us to ask for food, to refuse it, to share it, to thank the one who feeds us; but we can eat without speaking, and speak about subjects unrelated to food, even though both functions utilize the same pharyngeal-oral area.

Similarly, the two sexual functions could temporarily associate and harmonize to promote the reproduction of the species, while serving independent purposes, although dependent on the same erogenous zones.

The crucial point, then, is to define the specific purpose of this early function, beyond the pleasure to which Freud intended to reduce it.

Before going further, it is necessary to examine the following presupposition, underlying both Freud’s thesis and the axioms that follow: is it legitimate to consider human sexuality as genetically programmed? Freud believed that instinctual drives were determined “phylogenetically,” that is, transmitted hereditarily. This concept remained somewhat vague, as nature and nurture were not yet perceived as complementary, and molecular biology had not yet revealed the genetic mechanisms of heredity.

Culture can shape the human psyche in very different ways, but such fluidity does not preclude a common genetic basis, pre-existing the various cultural expressions, just as the genotype pre-exists the phenotype, with all the variability attributable to epigenetic factors.

A basic criterion suggesting that a function is genetically determined is that its fundamental features are found in all forms of culture. This is at least the simplest hypothesis for explaining the existence of cross-cultural invariants. For example, in all languages ​​spoken by different human populations, we observe certain identical phonemic, grammatical, and semantic patterns, even if the borrowed forms are different. Similarly, in facial expressions: there is no culture where joy is expressed by the lowering of the corners of the mouth and sadness by a spontaneous smile.

There are also cross-cultural similarities in matters of love and sexuality: the invariants observed between different forms of society can be attributed to a common genetic programming, defined as genetic structures of human sexuality, some of which can already be found, in part, in primates such as bonobos.

Genetic predisposition in no way excludes cultural influence exerted through education, imitation, prohibitions, conditioning, or other processes of intergenerational transmission. Heredity is a broader concept than innateness, and innateness is a broader concept than genetic transmission. The latter encompasses only the raw factors supposedly transmitted by genes, the latter adds the influence of the intrauterine environment, and the former encompasses the entire influence of the social and material environment on the development of the other two.

It should be noted that the notion of genetic invariance is essential to any general reasoning on psychic functioning, particularly to the analysis of dysfunctions attributable to cultural influence. A prohibition can have pathogenic consequences only insofar as it impairs a function inherent to the individual’s genetic structure. Thus, the dogma of cultural relativism cannot be invoked to justify any form of culture. Beyond certain limits, the repression of essential functions can have detrimental effects insofar as prohibitions suppress essential functions intimately linked to individual development.

The fact that sexual activity is linked to pleasure, for example, appears to be genetically determined, this link being invariant across all known cultures. The evolutionary interpretation explains this link by the usefulness of pleasure in learning reproductive function. This does not preclude the possibility that a certain type of pleasure belongs to another function linked to eroticism, whose teleological significance would transcend the limits of the biological.

Without a purpose useful to the species or the survival of the individual, any instinctual function would represent a loss of energy. The selection pressure would then be negative, for example, due to the unrewarding danger to which individuals engaged in an unproductive quest for self-gratification would expose themselves. It is therefore unlikely that a strictly hedonic function has been developed or maintained by the mechanisms of natural selection. This is why it seems reasonable to us to look beyond pleasure for a specific purpose in human sexuality, at least in all genetically programmed human sexual behaviors that are not useful for procreation.

Empirical Relationships Between Sexuality and the Metapsychic

Nothing allows us to assert a priori that the hedonistic viewpoint adopted by Freud is erroneous: one could imagine that erotic pleasure, under the aegis of an evolution specific to the human lineage, has become an end in itself. It could promote survival through group unity, or, as in bonobos, allow for the resolution of conflict situations. This would explain the existence of homosexual drives, and partly that of precocious drives: pleasure would be indirectly useful to the evolution of the species or to personal development, by ensuring the reinforcement of certain useful conditioning factors. Selective pressure would have favored appropriate mutations.

Certain observations lead us to consider another hypothesis: experience shows that the fulfillment of erotic drives and orgasmic fulfillment, under certain very specific conditions defined as constituting “metasexuality,” is regularly followed by an activation of creative intuition and, with significant frequency, by the appearance of extrasensory faculties (see Garden of Earthly Delights, The Secret of the Future or The Mystery of Hieronymus Bosch Solved!, Part 2, CLIP 2017).

Despite the reservations that the paranormal may inspire within the conventional explanatory framework, this interaction has proven frequent enough to be considered verifiable and reproducible. It therefore seems judicious to derive from this a postulate capable of complementing Freud’s thesis: the reproductive function is associated with a type of pleasure (linked primarily to coitus) and a purpose (conception); the other function, essentially polymorphous, would be associated with a specific type of pleasure (eroticism, orgasm in both sexes) and a purpose of a metapsychic nature.

Freud denied a priori the existence of metapsychic phenomena. It is understandable that, despite his extraordinary capacity for analysis and theorizing, he could not assign such a purpose to a sexual function. Furthermore, normative logic held that the drives inherent in infantile sexuality, lacking specific meaning, were, in its terms, at the service of genitality, and that polymorphous relationships constitute preliminary pleasures designed to lead to normal intercourse.

Conversely, the postulate of a metapsychic purpose leads to attributing to polymorphous drives an autonomous function, independent of the reproductive function. Sexual maturity is therefore no longer defined solely by the capacity for procreation. It must be considered in terms of two aspects: biological maturity, linked to the functionality of the reproductive system (development of the genital organs, secondary sexual characteristics, drive organization aimed at fertilization and the care of offspring, as observed in animals); and, on the other hand, maturation characterized by the capacity to develop a metapsychic dimension.

It should also be noted that the importance of a metapsychic function, which facilitates the control of situations that are difficult to predict intellectually and confers upon existence a spiritual significance, thus harmonizing social life, is subject to selective pressure that may explain its genetic nature. This is corroborated by the omnipresence of the metapsychic in traditional cultures, recognizable across various animistic and religious traditions.

A link between erotic function and metapsychic development explains the omnipresence of sexual drives in human beings, as well as the independence between sexual activity and fertility. Our postulate provides a structural justification for the pansexualism inherent in the Freudian approach, while freeing it from the perverse component that some attribute to it.

An immediate corollary is the explanation for the rarity of metapsychic faculties in our type of culture and morality. Polymorphic sexuality cannot develop as nature would have it, under the effect of the prohibitions that the dominant morality opposes it to, so that it cannot reach its purpose. Another corollary is that research is necessary to determine the conditions that would guarantee the natural functioning of non-reproductive sexual drives and their metapsychic fulfillment.

The main difficulty encountered with this type of reasoning lies in the uncertainties surrounding the notion of the “metapsychic”. The only serious psychoanalytic reference for this concept is found in the work of Carl Gustav Jung. In his last work (Essay on the Exploration of the Unconscious, 1961), he wrote: “We must not forget this fact of millennia-old renown, that dreams and visions are the channel through which God has always addressed himself to humankind.” Associated with what he called the collective unconscious, as well as with eternal symbols, or archetypes, the metapsychic dimension thus appears intrinsically linked to a constant observable in all cultures: the quest for “spirituality” and the relationship to a higher world that humankind has always considered to be of “divine” essence.

The findings of parapsychology empirically support the existence of phenomena that transgress the laws of ordinary space-time. Moreover, nothing in physics allows us to exclude their existence. On the contrary, the EPR paradox (Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen) proves, through the spin of photons, their existence. that there exists a faster-than-light transmission pathway for information, in other words, one that “transcends” the relativistic spacetime inherent to our material universe. Integrating the existence of a metapsychic dimension into a rational theory is therefore not irrational, especially when this theory explains the inaccessibility of this dimension under traditional conditions of existence.

We should mention the recent work of the Swiss Institute of Noetics (Geneva 2008), which has demonstrated the reality of “out-of-body” phenomena. A research protocol meeting all the requirements of objectivity established that the medium was able to capture information present in the visited location, information whose nature neither the medium nor the experimenters could know or predict. This simple observation is, in principle, sufficient to challenge the entire prevailing scientific paradigm and highlight the limitations of materialism.

The relevance of a hypothesis is manifested in particular by reducing the contradictions of the existing explanatory system. Now, the postulate we propose allows us to structurally reconcile the divergent theses of Freud and Jung: human sexuality in its non-reproductive function, including the Oedipal complex, would be at stake in the development of metapsychic processes, which are central to the Jungian approach.

For the former, neurosis stemmed from the repression of so-called infantile sexual drives; for the latter, from the repression of the “numinous energies” immanent in the “archetypes” delivered by a “collective unconscious”: a direct link between these two aspects of psychic activity reconciles the two explanatory models.

The disturbances of non-reproductive sexual function, highlighted by Freudian psychoanalysis, particularly the Oedipal trauma, explain the rarity of metapsychic phenomena and, consequently, the limited resonance given to the Jungian thesis. As we will see… Let’s see, rather than discussing the Oedipus complex within the context of the incest taboo, we should more simply consider the repression of polymorphous drives within ourselves.

Jung rejected the Freudian approach because of pansexualism. He stigmatized, for example, the garbage of infantile sexuality, whereas Freud excluded a priori the existence of a metapsychic dimension, a pet project of his former disciple. He only accepted telepathy insofar as it had found an electromagnetic explanation.

Both were subject to the prejudices of a culture that was both reductionist and puritanical, rejecting the sexual and the paranormal. It would have been difficult for them to establish links between love and the extrasensory.

Libido and the Axiomatics of a Metapsychic Energy

Freud postulates the existence of a psychic energy: libido, considered as Immanent to all psychic processes, libido is, according to him, fundamentally sexual. This viewpoint is opposed to that of Jung, who intended libido to be a neutral energy of spiritual essence animating the entire psyche and its metapsychic dimension.

It may seem risky to introduce the notion of energy into the psychophysiological domain, and even more so into the metapsychic domain. However, it should be noted that even in physics, there is no clear and distinct definition of energy. Yet, this notion underlies many lines of reasoning. Its relevance is evident from the simplifications it brings to reasoning, the absence of contradictions, and the experimental verification of the predictions it makes possible.

Borrowing the notion of energy from the exact sciences and transposing it into an imponderable domain like the psychic and metapsychic could be seen as a linguistic artifice, masking our ignorance of phenomena that are particularly complex and inaccessible to analysis. The most basic precaution is to justify the use of the concept with an axiomatic framework that is as rigorous as possible: what do we mean by energy here? Is it a quantifiable quantity? Are the phenomena associated with it verifiable and reproducible? Does it add value to the theory and its applications, or does it merely obscure areas in our understanding of observed facts?

The first step is to ensure that the semantic content intuitively and culturally associated with the notion of energy corresponds to the elements we are attempting to describe. This notion encompasses a number of criteria that can be formalized as follows: activation – localization – accumulation – transmission – transformation – conservation – degeneration. It is therefore necessary to examine to what extent the relationship between sexual phenomena and metapsychic phenomena adheres to this set of criteria.

Let’s take an example from physics:

1. Electrical energy can activate a physical system, such as an incandescent lamp, a motor, or an electromagnet. Observation shows that metapsychic phenomena are activated after a metasexual relationship (visions, attraction, creativity), which can be explained by the hypothesis of an energy gain associated with erotic contact.
2. Electrical energy can be stored in a battery, a capacitor, or a conductor; it does not diffuse indiscriminately. Similarly, it seems that metasexual energy can concentrate in certain regions of the body, defined as “erogenous” zones, whose stimulation and contact appear to be crucial in the emergence of the phenomena in question.
3. Electrical energy can accumulate in greater or lesser quantities. Likewise, a relationship is observed between the intensity or duration of the preceding metasexual experience and the more or less intense and sustained functioning of the various metapsychic faculties.
4. Electrical energy is transmissible; it can pass, for example, from one battery to another. It also seems that a person who has accumulated a certain amount of metasexual energy is able to transmit it to other people who enter into physical contact with them, which is verified in particular by the often immediate appearance of extrasensory faculties.
5. Physical energy is conserved, which implies that it neither appears nor disappears spontaneously. The same seems to be true of metasexual energy, in that it only appears under very specific conditions of romantic experience, preferably in contact with partners in whom it has had the opportunity to accumulate previously.
6. All physical energy can be transformed—electrical energy into mechanical, chemical, etc.—and metasexual energy can be transformed into creativity, intuition, paranormal abilities, etc. This suggests a distinction between metasexual energy, which arises directly from physical contact, and metapsychic energy proper.
7. A particular case of transformation is the degradation of a noble energy into heat, partly irreversible, as the concept of entropy explains. For example, electrical energy degenerates into thermal energy through the Joule effect in a short-circuited power line, a faulty connection, etc. We also observe a degeneration of metasexual energy when there are “short circuits” or “bad connections” in a romantic relationship: it then transforms into suffering, leading to increasingly irreversible situations. Like heat, which is linked to molecular disorder, romantic suffering, in this model, represents a disorder in the transformations of metapsychic energy.
8. Finally, let us note that physical energy can carry information: electromagnetic energy from the sun, which enters through a window as light, carries not only thermal energy but also images conveying all kinds of information; similarly, metasexual energy, by giving rise to extrasensory phenomena, or simply through the creative inspiration it is capable of fueling, seems to carry information, such as that found in the symbols or archetypes it makes accessible. It would therefore be more appropriate to speak of “energy-information,” a term that evokes the combinations that seem to occur between “quanta” of energy with different informational content, rather than simple additions or subtractions.

Furthermore, there is another analogy: the notion of energy, though foundational in physics, the queen of the exact sciences, cannot be defined. It constitutes a “fundamental quantity,” which is inferred from the observation of material phenomena. Its “reality” can only be verified through the observable phenomena it is capable of triggering, and through the verification of the predictions it allows us to make theoretically. The same is true for metapsychic or metasexual energy as we postulate it: we cannot properly define it, but it allows us to explain phenomena and to structure a coherent theory.

The distinction between psychic energy and metapsychic energy provides an epistemological foundation for analyzing the relationships that may exist between different types of sexual experience. Libido would necessarily be present at the level of sexual and emotional drives as simple drive energy; metapsychic energy, on the other hand, could be absent during a sexual experience limited to the neurophysiological level, its presence being linked to the more subtle aspects of a metasexual relationship, characterized by the appearance or development of metapsychic phenomena.

This does not exclude, in accordance with the notion of partial drive, the possibility of the fulfillment of polymorphic drives (belonging in principle to the metasexual function) on a purely playful or organic level, then characterized by the absence of metapsychic manifestations; nor the possibility of metapsychic manifestations outside of sexual or amorous activity, although parapsychology describes an affective component regularly accompanying extrasensory phenomena.

The transmission of metasexual energy during breastfeeding would explain, in particular, the importance of the oral stage, the first manifestation of infantile sexuality; the permanent dissatisfaction of the infant, described by Freud (An Outline of Psychoanalysis), would reflect the mother’s energy deficiency, attributable, for example, to the metapsychic failure of marital sexuality.

This same notion of metapsychic energy transmissible through bodily contact, unlike libido confined to the nervous system, would explain the universal concomitance between feelings of love, transcendence, and the emergence of physical sexual drives. The erotic phenomenon, in fact, compels bodies to enter into intimate contact, fostering an exchange of energy-information; the associated affective state guarantees the openness and relaxation conducive to its reception, and the sensation of “magic or amorous trance” signifies the opening of more subtle channels allowing it to nourish transcendent functions.

This theoretical model allows us to describe the failure of metapsychic purpose in sexual behaviors otherwise classified as normal. The drive apparatus can function, so to speak, “in a vacuum,” solely in the mode of libido, engaging only the partial drives necessary to obtain sexual pleasure, while excluding the subtle energies that should confer upon these activities their metapsychic dimension. In everyday sexuality, this “metasexual failure” seems to be the reference point, and is recognizable by the general atrophy of extrasensory faculties.

It is therefore necessary to define a “pseudo-normality” of a cultural order (absence of energy in normative sexuality) as opposed to an “original normality” (presence of energy in non-normative sexuality), a distinction that lies at the heart of the nature-nurture dilemma.

In summary, we propose to designate any sexual relationship that obeys the requirements of a metapsychic energy input and engages the polymorphous drives characteristic of non-reproductive sexuality by the concept of “metasexual relationship”. The sum of these behaviors in their various forms, which remain to be defined, will constitute “metasexuality”.

These few precautions of language and thought should prevent us from falling into vagueness and preconceptions, as has been the case with many attempts to approach the paranormal, such as Fourierism, mesmerism, magnetism, Swedenborgianism, and even parapsychology.

Metasexual Postulate, Genitality, and Infantile Sexuality

The notion of “metasexuality” leads us to distinguish two forms of genital sexuality: a purely organic form encompassing drives observable in animals, and a form of procreation supported by a metasexual relationship and associated with metapsychic phenomena.

Conversely, it allows us to distinguish between a purely playful or hedonistic polymorphous sexuality and the same behaviors imbued with metapsychic energy. The generally accepted equation “infantile sexuality = playful sexuality” reflects only the specific case of early sexual activity limited to the fulfillment of partial drives, whereas the natural fulfillment of these drives inherently encompasses affective and metapsychic aspects.

This would explain why infantile sexuality experienced under ordinary conditions, characterized by a lack of metapsychic energy, is a source of frustration and fails to meet the child’s fundamental needs (as demonstrated by the difficulty in resolving the Oedipus complex). Sexual curiosity, as described by Freud, would not be an inherent trait of childhood, but rather a reaction of the unconscious to a pathogenic situation, aimed at exploring its causes and possible outcomes. Note André Gide’s description of “sexual games” experienced by the child as “magical,” far removed from a purely playful pursuit (in [If It Die]CITE)).

The very qualification of “infantile sexuality” thus proves clumsy, insofar as the drives in question are not restricted to any particular age group, nor are they representative of deficient development. Rather, the deficiency lies in the adult’s inability, on the one hand, to realize their own polymorphous drives (which aligns with Marcuse’s perspective), and on the other hand, to accept their natural metapsychic outcomes. Similarly, the concept of “preliminary pleasures” subordinates polymorphous drives to a reproductive sexuality considered sovereign, erasing their structurally essential function in metapsychic development.

The Freudian explanatory model would therefore commit a double error by attributing to infantile sexuality a playful character and a role subordinate to “normal coitus”. He confines it, in effect, to the early period as if that were its defining characteristic, whereas this precocity simply stems from its immanence in human nature and its permanence throughout existence, from birth to old age. Conversely, its primacy over the function of “reproduction” should be recognized, elevating it to a higher level of “procreation” connected to the metapsychic and spiritual significance of childbirth, rather than to an essentially biological or hedonic function.

To avoid confusion with common terminology, we propose a term that seems more appropriate. Konrad Lorenz introduced the concept of “instinctual program” in relation to animal behavior, meaning by this a set of innate drives, organized in such a way as to achieve a purpose useful to the individual or the species. For example, the succession of instinctual behaviors that drive an animal to mate, nest, and feed its offspring.

Far from any intention of confining human behavior to an ethological approach, this term can be applied more broadly to the full range of amorous and sexual drives specific to human beings. The distinction between two structurally independent instinctual programs then allows us to usefully differentiate between drives specific to reproduction, as humans seem to have inherited them from animals, and the more specifically human drives that would be the metasexual drives.

We will thus speak of the reproductive instinctual program (or RIP) to characterize all drives converging towards conception, procreation, and childcare; and of the metasexual instinctual program (or MIP) for the full range of drives aimed at the metapsychic development of the individual.

These programs encompass not only purely sexual or erotic drives (genital and pregenital), but all related drives, such as seduction, rivalry, attachment, and the “nesting instinct” for the BIP; elective affinities, “love magic,” self-giving, the aspiration to transcendence, and the concept of eternal love for the MIP (for more details, see the table page 84further below)).

Legitimacy of the MIP + BIP Model

Observable behaviors, as well as introspective data on love and sexuality, exhibit wide variability and great complexity. The interdependencies and interactions between the various factors involved in the development of an erotic relationship are such that one might question whether it is reasonable to reduce human sexuality to two fundamental axes. Even if a model invoking two components is more likely to be representative than the monolithic model based on animal sexuality, its legitimacy must be justified.

The reduction to two components presupposes that the implementation of each of the two functions is possible independently of the other. It does indeed seem that the BIP (Personal Instinctual Reproductive) can occur outside of any subtle component, for example, during assisted reproduction: fertilization can take place without any metapsychic manifestation, and the chain of associated drives can occur without major disruptions (maternal instinct, breastfeeding, establishing a home, etc.). The MIP (Personal Instinctual Reproductive), on the other hand, is primarily realized outside of any intention to procreate, whether in a homosexual or heterosexual context, particularly outside of fertile periods (early years, gestation, old age).

A second criterion supporting the relevance of the proposed model is that it explains the inherent contradictions in the classical viewpoint. For example, the number of orgasms required to ensure a favorable psychological balance seems disproportionate to the number of sexual encounters necessary for the reproduction of the species. Such a disparity suggests that orgasm is a specifically metasexual function, distinct from the ejaculatory function (although the two can coincide). Reich was the first to contrast two forms of orgasm: a “true orgasmic power” linked to an energy he calls orgone, and an “ejaculatory power” of a biological nature.

In parallel, a significant degree of independence is observed in female sexuality between clitoral orgasm and sexual activity leading to fertilization.

We should also note the contrast between the strength of the drives that motivate sexual relations and the necessity of contraception. The contradiction is easily explained in terms of metasexuality: the instinctual pressure stems from the existential importance of the primary instinctual drive (MIP), while the multiplication of fertilizations results from confusion with the primary instinctual drive (BIP), which is centered on genitality.

Let us note another contradiction in the classical viewpoint regarding the problem of homosexuality. According to the equation “sexuality = reproduction,” any erotic attraction to a subject of the same sex appears undeniably as a form of deviation from natural drives. Psychiatry, after having classified homosexuality for a century as a pathology and a perversion, was forced to recognize its own distinct status. Such a rehabilitation is difficult to explain within the classical model—except perhaps by the political power of the gay community.

However, considering two independent instinctual programs structurally resolves the problem, allowing us to assign a metapsychic function to homosexual attraction. Plato provides a very elaborate description of this in his famous dialogues The Symposium and Phaedrus. Indeed, many particularly inspired creators were homosexual, which presupposes—in accordance with Jung—that genius or creativity is essentially metapsychic.

However, as with any type of relationship, a distinction must be made between two forms of homosexuality: the one Plato describes in all its spiritual subtleties, Uranian Eros, and a “disconnected” form, often a simple imitation of the BIP-type heterosexual relationship (the gay model), which he categorizes as Pandemic Eros.

A third criterion of relevance would require that a model of explanation closer to reality be able to explain the suffering and contradictions that arise in the experience of love, or even prevent them. One of the most characteristic examples of this is that of fidelity, presented as the foundation of a happy relationship, and the very systematic irruption of adulterous impulses, the devastating power of which the current model struggles to explain. The MIP + BIP model resolves this contradiction, placing fidelity within the realm of reproductive drives, given its usefulness for the stability of the home and the healthy development of children; while so-called adulterous impulses are explained by a search for energy, the usefulness of which is understood within the framework of MIP (Reich noted that a temporary extramarital affair could strengthen the primary relationship).

Another criterion can be seen in contrast to the problems arising within the framework of the classical paradigm. For example, young people experience discomfort with sex education classes. Their reaction does not seem to be reducible to a simple question of modesty, morality, or guilt. This type of education, as it is currently conceived, presents sexual experience as an essentially biological process, and the criticisms heard from young people point precisely to the absence of a more emotional and subtle dimension, such as that rehabilitated by the metasexual model. Along the same lines, the frequent disappointment of adolescents after their first sexual experience can be explained by the contrast between the fantasies inherent in the MIP (hope of transcendence) and the more modestly hedonistic benefits of a BIP-type relationship.

A major cultural contradiction exists between the narrow limits that religious moralities attempt to impose on sexuality and the unstoppable expansion of pornographic activities. In terms of the MIP → BIP drive induction, these activities appear as a degraded form of the failed metasexual function, with frustration leading to confusion with genitality and giving a compulsive character to partial drives.

The pervasiveness of morality, for its part, stems from the existential importance of the metasexual function, access to the metapsychic realm being essential for spiritual fulfillment.

It should also be noted that classical psychoanalysis recognized the importance of the principle of amorality, which also contradicts the common notion that morality is univocal and universal. This precaution can be seen as more than a mere deontological artifice: any moral prejudice against sexual behaviors whose meaning is not understood by the dominant model compromises the objectivity of both the researcher and the analyst. The necessity of an amoral approach thus suggests that the realities of natural sexuality do not coincide with the normative image conveyed by common sense. In other words, there would be a contradiction between the cultural representation of human sexuality and its natural data, hence a gap between norm and nature, which the MIP + BIP model perfectly describes.

At the very origins of our Western culture lies the indispensable contribution of the Greek philosophers. Here too, Plato’s teachings surprisingly intersect with our dichotomous model: the dialogues The Symposium and Phaedrus provide a detailed description of two Erotes of different natures: one, Eros pandensis, aimed at the pursuit of pleasure or reproduction, the other, Eros urani, enabling access to the Essences, the nourishment of the gods and the soul. Plato specifies that access to the Essences involves the faculties of inspiration and divination, which we classify precisely as metapsychic faculties.

The parallel is striking with the two sexual functions described by Freud. In both the MIP + BIP model and the Freudian model, these two functions are independent, that is, capable of manifesting themselves alone, even if they combine in certain situations. One model only appears with maturity and is limited to periods of fertility in women, while the other manifests from birth and continues throughout life. In both models, the latter encompasses all polymorphic drives, whereas the reproductive function is centered on what is considered normal intercourse.

It is worth noting that our model also aligns with evolutionary theory, as access to a metapsychic dimension is beneficial for the survival of the individual and the species. Selective pressure may therefore have favored the genetic evolution of the drive apparatus, originally responsible for managing reproduction, toward a more elaborate form, just as it may have favored the transition from vocalization to articulated language and symbolic function. A complexification of the drive structures associated with sexuality is already observed in primates. Bonobos (according to Frans de Waal) use them to resolve conflicts and maintain group cohesion. It is therefore plausible that it occupies an even more complex and subtle place in human beings.

It seems that no observational element or theoretical contradiction stands in opposition to the metapsychoanalytic model. Nevertheless, any explanatory model is merely a projection of the analytical forms inherent in our psyche onto a complex reality and can in no way claim to provide an exhaustive representation. The MIP + BIP model simply attempts to account for human realities more pertinently than the biological model based on the Enlightenment’s monolithic equation: sex = reproduction.

Pleasure, Enjoyment, and Guilt

A question arises concerning the nature of the pleasure attached to the fulfillment of either reproductive or metasexual drives. Since our model distinguishes two independent functions, we can indeed expect the existence of two types of pleasure of a different nature. As the two functions can cooperate to varying degrees, pleasure could be situated along a continuum, one end of which would be linked to the metasexual dimension and the other to the reproductive function.

However, we do observe a very different level of enjoyment during a sexual relationship driven by intense love, for example, during a “love at first sight” experience, compared to a relationship of the “marital duty” type. We speak, for instance, of a “honeymoon” phase in contrast to the sexual “routine” of a prolonged relationship, which experience shows can lead to boredom, or even generate aggressive reactions.

Is it relevant to relate this dichotomy to the opposition that psychoanalysis describes between pleasure and enjoyment?

Freud (for example, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle) relates jouissance to the image of the mother and the alternation between satisfaction and dissatisfaction: in the logic of our postulate, the mother would indeed be for the child the first symbol of metasexual energy, linked to the fusional nature of the dyadic relationship. The alternation between satisfaction and dissatisfaction could encompass the variations inherent in an exchange of energy, logically greater after a separation than during constant contact. This would coincide with the decrease in jouissance observed during repeated relationships between adults.

We find the same elements in Lacan’s terms: for him, jouissance is “marked by lack”, “entangled in the unconscious dialectic of desire”, related to “the signifier of lack in the Other”. This formulation aligns with the dynamics of a metapsychic energy exchange as it stems from our postulate.

For Reich, there is an identity between enjoyment and energy ("pleasure in itself is energy"), insofar as the relationship obeys the criteria of what he calls true orgasmic power. Here, too, we see the emergence of the distinction between two types of pleasure: one limited to an organic manifestation, and the other specific to the completed orgasmic fulfillment, the only one to convey orgone, energy that is simultaneously biological, electrical, orgasmic, and spiritual in this author’s conception.

It is worth noting that in Antiquity, pederasty was often considered sacred, for example, in the Orphic cult. It seems that the Ancients were still very close to a conception of sexuality linked to the spiritual, in which pleasure played only a subordinate role. For Plato, only vulgar Eros aims at pleasure. The misadventures of Zeus and Hera could represent the manifestations of a sexuality reduced to its heterosexual and reproductive component. The love story of these supreme gods is anything but a smooth, untroubled affair.

It is also possible to link the MIP + BIP model to the condemnation of pleasure by Christian tradition. A low-level pleasure, characterizing the failure of the metasexual function—and therefore the most common given the prevalence of the reproductive function—may have intuitively provoked unease in some religious leaders, leading them to demonize sexuality as a whole, except within the sacrament of marriage.

This relates to the concept of guilt, which should also be reconsidered from two perspectives: a culturally induced guilt, shaped by education, religious morality, and popular tradition; and a primary guilt, belonging to the instinctual structures inherent in the MIP. Since any behavior contrary to the natural fulfillment of the metasexual function risks compromising metapsychic development, it is understandable that certain drives, experienced as guilt or aggression, are responsible for controlling the natural course of the romantic relationship.

The psychic organization generally maintains its dynamic equilibrium through regulatory systems. It is therefore plausible to postulate the existence of primary reactions of aggression and guilt (aggression turned against oneself), intended to ensure a “homeostatic” regulation of the metasexual function. These reactions would target the various behaviors and attitudes likely to cause it to fail, in order to ensure its optimal fulfillment.

Cultural guilt then appears as a kind of summation of primary feelings of guilt, accumulating in the collective memory the experiences of reactions that occurred during the multiple individual experiences that have marked the history of the group. The sum of these engrams ultimately constitutes a crystallized, verbalized morality, transmissible from generation to generation.

A morality thus constituted is not, however, immune to all sorts of distortions. It is by nature subject to the vagaries of a degraded sexuality, deprived of its metapsychic purpose, as has been the case for many centuries. It can also be influenced by the deliberate actions of certain influential figures: religious dignitaries, saints, scribes, philosophers, sexologists, not to mention the leading figures of psychoanalysis.

Such a conception of morality is compatible with Bergson’s viewpoint, who, in his famous work The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, distinguishes between a morality of intuitive origin and a morality of intellectual origin, incapable of reaching the heart of reality. The notion of “stream of consciousness” clearly evokes what we call metapsychic energy, from which indeed springs an incessant flow of creative intuition.

Freud seems to have considered only cultural guilt, whereas Reich explicitly distinguishes between natural morality and social morality. What the MIP + BIP model adds is the possibility of assigning a precise purpose to sexual morality, far exceeding its social implications, and explaining the universal relationship between morality and religion: if religion, as Jung understands it, aims to re-connect the individual to the divine and the world of archetypes (the metapsychic dimension), it is logical that morality should primarily preserve the metasexual function, given that this function is responsible for the primary task of developing the individual’s metapsychic potential.

The paradox is that traditional morality today often has the opposite effect, by inhibiting the MIP. This misunderstanding stems from the Western conception of sexuality, which excludes any function other than reproduction and pleasure. With representations and behaviors confined to a truncated model, morality has strayed from its original mission and become burdened with prohibitions contrary to the transcendent function of love. It ultimately compromises the very primal behaviors it was meant to protect.

Freudian Topography and the Definition of the Superconscious

Freud considered the unconscious to contain all innate instinctual drives, as well as all behavioral patterns and prohibitions acquired through learning.

Insofar as there exists a metapsychic dimension, whose modes of operation largely escape conscious awareness, it is necessary to add to the first Freudian topography, defining the unconscious, the preconscious, and the conscious, a realm that could be called the “transcendental unconscious.”

This aligns with Jung’s perspective, who spoke of the collective unconscious, the realm of archetypes and numinous energies. The adjective “collective” has the drawback of evoking unconscious content acquired as common denominators and pervading social thought. Jung understood archetypes as transcendent, eternal entities, prior to any culture, imbued with meaning and emotion, collective because they transcend the individual, and accessible through metapsychic perception (archetypes emerge, according to him, during dreams and visions).

Freud’s first topography should therefore be supplemented to define, beyond the conscious, the subconscious, and the ordinary unconscious related to the drive apparatus and learning, a higher unconscious space, related to metapsychic faculties, archetypes, and their spiritual implications.

The metasexual postulate also suggests reconsidering Freud’s second topography. As a reminder, this comprises three instances: the Id, the origin of drives; The Superego, where learning data and societal prohibitions are inscribed; and the Ego, responsible for managing the fulfillment of the Id’s drives while taking into account external contingencies and the prohibitions incorporated within the Superego.

Insofar as a part of the unconscious seems dedicated to the metapsychic dimension, it is necessary to supplement the Freudian model to account for certain possible interactions between transcendent values ​​and the classical psychic agencies. Such an interface will have the following main functions: to adapt the Id’s drives to the demands inherent in the input of metapsychic energy; to oppose acting out when a drive would lead to the waste or misinvestment of associated energies (libidinal and metasexual); and to silence a feeling of guilt that risks inhibiting energetically useful behavior. It will notably contain extrasensory faculties, such as true intuition, authentic creativity, precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, etc., and will ensure access to the archetypal contents of the transcendental unconscious.

Such a complex capacity for discrimination implies a specific form of learning, organized around the internal sensations linked to the romantic relationship (pleasure-displeasure, enjoyment-frustration, fulfillment-depression, etc.), according to the relationships existing between metapsychic contents (perception of archetypes or other data) and the development of the different drives.

Note the parallel with the Superego, which, based on the history of the Ego, learns to control the drives of the Id. The instance we are defining is also supposed to act directly on the Id, but independently of the control exerted by the Superego and the Ego, and from a different value system: it is for these reasons that we propose to differentiate it as the “Surid.”

The Surrid would intervene as a kind of interface between metasexual energy and libido, between the metapsychic and the psychic, between the archetype and the interpretation, like the converter that transforms digital information into analog information in a computer.

This view is supported by the following observation: libido can lead to unfortunate relationships, resulting in inappropriate attachments, disappointments, and suffering, whereas a certain “obedience” to metapsychic contents, largely unconscious or subconscious, seems capable of preventing failures.

Jung spoke of a continuity between archetypes and instincts. The Superid is precisely the agency capable of translating metapsychic contents into psychic processes. The archetype can notably be expressed in the form of a fantasy, so as to direct the drive toward one type of fulfillment rather than another.

Melanie Klein defined the fantasy as the mental representation of the drive. This definition should be revisited in order to distinguish between the original fantasies of the Id, genetically programmed, the fantasies induced by the Superego and translating memory contents, and the fantasies generated by the Superid, translating archetypal values, unpredictable through rational means.

Freudian’s second topography would thus comprise four agencies, with the Superid ensuring the functional relationships between metapsychic values ​​and the drive apparatus. This viewpoint might seem speculative. However, the concept of the Superid allows us to circumscribe a number of well-known properties of the psyche that we otherwise don’t know how to address. For example, creativity has always been a mystery; everyone senses that the new idea arises from a place inaccessible to consciousness, which is apparently neither the Superego nor the Id, and even less so the Ego, judging by the difficulty of consciously solving complex problems.

Creative intuition is better analyzed if we posit the existence of a “space” of archetypes and an instance capable of translating transcendent contents into instinctual manifestations at the level of the Id, and then verbalizing or visualizing them at the level of the Ego. The Superid would thus be the place of origin of “genius” (this term originally designated a transcendent entity presiding over destinies).

As we define it, the Superego encompasses all extrasensory faculties: their function is to reveal to the Ego elements emerging from the transcendental unconscious, which seems to be connected to the cosmos through a channel that deviates from the laws of space-time. Visions, as Jung described them, for example, present, in the form of images, most often symbolic, the content of an archetype related to a present, past, or future situation.

Such elements of information imply subtle communication with the metapsychic dimension, which in turn implies the existence of an appropriate agency. They cannot, in fact, be explained by the contents of the Superego, which merely stores events from the past that belong to ordinary psychic life.

Observation shows that extrasensory faculties develop preferentially in response to an external input of metasexual energy, and that, once established, they are maintained independently of romantic experiences for a relatively long time. This relates to the notion of structuring: just as social experience structures the Superego, metasexual and metapsychic experience would ensure the structuring of the Surid. This could even encompass the interpretation of extrasensory messages, which often defy ordinary intellectual understanding.

It would thus be necessary to consider a genuine structuring of the Surid, undoubtedly linked to a sensitive period, more or less delimited in time, prior to puberty, so as to avoid confusion with reproductive drives. Conversely, it is understandable that the widespread failure of the metasexual function, from which stems the absence of early metapsychic experiences, leads to a deficient structuring of this agency. Such a deficiency explains the rarity of so-called “sensitive” subjects (in the parapsychological sense) in a moral context that inhibits the expression of metasexual drives.

Psychoanalysis: Science or Doctrine?

The conflict is long-standing between those who saw psychoanalysis as a science of the human soul, and those who recognized it only as a doctrine founded on unverifiable premises and leading to ambiguous conclusions. The debate is more heated than ever, reignited in 1984 by an American essayist, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, who challenged Freud’s abandonment of the old seduction theory. The movement then evolved into a denial of infantile sexuality, to the point that all of Freudianism takes on the appearance of a gigantic and perverse fabrication. Under these conditions, the question of scientific validity is no longer relevant.

Without going into detail about the current anti-Freudian diatribe, it is worth noting that this situation rests on a misunderstanding: as early as 1897, Freud considered that trauma could be caused either by early seduction (what we would call “sexual assault” today) or by the repression of drives specific to infantile sexuality. He therefore did not truly abandon the seduction theory; he added to it the existence of early drives whose repression was pathogenic, which would lead him to define the repressed Oedipus complex.

In broad terms: he based his work on the notion of the unconscious, postulating a determinism, with each slip of the tongue or pathological behavior potentially stemming from an internal conflict inaccessible to consciousness. After using hypnosis to facilitate the patient’s access to these conflicting contents, he opted for dream interpretation, the analysis of slips of the tongue, and free association (any resistance in speech denoting an underlying conflict). To the division of the psyche into conscious and unconscious, he superimposed a second topography: the Ego (the instance where one says “I”), the Id (the seat of instincts), and the Superego (the memory of experiences and prohibitions). He also defined the oral, anal, and phallic stages, each characterized by an erogenous zone playing a primary role. Behavioral disturbances stemmed from repressed drives during these stages, expressing themselves through deviant channels, either destructive in neurosis or socially acceptable in sublimation.

Freud thus constructed a model of the psyche, serving as a framework for the search for past events that might explain psychological disturbances. This model has the advantage of accounting for drives linked to biology, such as sexual drives and emotions, without excluding intellectual functions. Cognitivism also acknowledges the notion of the unconscious, but neglects instinctual drives, replacing them with the concept of motivation. Therefore, there is no place in cognitive psychology for early sexual drives linked to significant emotional content, and even less so to a metapsychic function.

This helps us better understand the causes and depth of the conflict between cognitivism and psychoanalysis. The two viewpoints are incompatible, or could only be reconciled by a major broadening of the concept of the cognitive unconscious. They are two models superimposed on reality, each potentially serving as a reference point for a relevant approach to certain aspects of the human psyche.

What arguments do cognitivists put forward in their critique of Freudianism? Their own method is based on the rules of scientific research akin to physics, combining observation, hypothesis, and verification (through the search for confirmations and, above all, refutations). Such an approach is relatively easy because the study of cognition can highlight invariants and make measurements, allowing for the formulation of hypotheses about the brain’s neurological functioning, which can be objectively verified (or refuted) using all sorts of tests of reaction time, discrimination ability, and so on.

Psychoanalysis addresses the entirety of the psyche (although Freud overlooked metapsychic aspects). The level of complexity is much greater, involving aspects that are very difficult to measure. For his own reasons, Freud was not particularly concerned with creating protocols to test his hypotheses, contenting himself with verifying his theory of neurosis and the Oedipus complex in specific cases (one might call them case studies), and in a qualitative manner. Quantitative verification would have required research on randomized populations, which was, in truth, technically difficult and expensive. Double-blind studies were obviously not applicable.

To what extent, then, can we say that psychoanalysis is a science or a pseudoscience? It all depends on the dividing line one draws between these two assessments. Karl Popper argues that a scientific theory must be falsifiable: it would be necessary, for example, to be able to show that, in certain cases, the emergence of traumatic memories into consciousness does not lead (contrary to Freud’s assertion) to the disappearance of the disturbances. However, this is impossible, since it is always possible to assert that the disorders persist due to unresolved unconscious residues. The great epistemologist’s perspicacity is remarkable, as no one before him had been able to formulate the criterion of falsifiability. Nevertheless, this criterion does not apply to every science: in geology, astronomy, archaeology, and other fields where only indirect and fragmentary data are available, one is often reduced to hypotheses that are difficult to refute. Yet, these are still classified as sciences.

Moreover, there is a bias in the argument above that deserves to be pointed out: Popper infers from the lack of falsifiability applied to the therapeutic act the unfalsifiability of psychoanalysis as a whole. Most diagnoses are ambivalent and therefore difficult to refute, because an unconscious conflict can manifest itself either as a negative symptom, directly expressing it, or as a reaction formation, aiming to sublimate or control it. Conversely, a symptom can stem from various factors, so cause-and-effect relationships are not one-to-one. Analysis is more akin to hermeneutics than an objective procedure. On the other hand, Freudian theory can be refuted or modified based on concrete observations. Popper also seems to have overlooked the fact that every theory, even in physics, is in itself merely a model projected onto reality and which always remains open to question.

Another condition of scientific validity defined by Popper is that the theory be verified by a sufficient number of scientists who do not subscribe to it a priori: it is the failure of attempts to refute it that ultimately confirms the theory’s validity. This claim, however, clashes with another notion formulated by Popper himself: Science is situated within a paradigm common to all scientists, that is, within a system of axioms, certainties, or beliefs, such that observed facts or hypotheses that exceed or contradict the dominant paradigm are rejected or obscured. The criterion involving verification by a body of scientific knowledge is therefore valid only within the limits of this paradigm. It is clear that psychoanalysis—and even more so metapsychoanalysis—struggles to fit within a paradigm that tends to deny infantile sexuality or Oedipal drives.

Lacan intended to give psychoanalysis a scientific foundation through linguistics, which he saw as a reflection of the symbolic, metaphorical, and metonymic mechanisms characterizing the unconscious. This attempt also failed to gain the support of the cognitivists who currently occupy the forefront of the scientific scene in psychology.

It is surprising, by the way, that critics of psychoanalysis have not sought to objectively refute the existence of precocious sexuality. This would not be impossible nowadays, for example, using MRI, electroencephalography, or the measurement of emotions through eye movements, all within a perfectly behaviorist framework.

But let us turn to what the postulate of a link between sexuality and metapsychic development (or the metasexual postulate) brings that is new to the debate: we believe it is impossible to construct a scientific approach around an instinctual function without taking into account the true purpose of that function. The entire theoretical framework risks being biased if the accepted purpose does not correspond to the data of human nature, in this case, when it is confined to the simple pleasure associated with that instinct.

For example, we cannot develop a true science of nutrition if we ignore that the food instinct (hunger, appetite) aims to nourish the body. Only by understanding the purpose of this food instinct can we grasp the meaning of observable behaviors and determine whether a given diet meets or deviates from the body’s needs. Without this understanding, and if dietetics considered only the pleasure of eating, it could only recommend foods based on their hedonic value, neglecting their utility or harmfulness. It would remain merely a lifestyle, in this case, gastronomy.

A true science of nutrition requires the ability to determine whether a given food intake is beneficial or harmful, excessive or insufficient—that is, “correct” or “incorrect” in relation to a set of laws linking behavior and purpose (for example, “eating fruit is beneficial because it provides the vitamin C necessary for health”), whereas gastronomy considers only the hedonic aspect (it’s so much better in jam, as a fritter, fried, with a little sauce).

The study of a sexual function similarly leads to a dead end if its ultimate purpose is ignored and it is explained solely by pleasure. An act that generates pleasure, even if it lacks the true aim of the drive, will be considered legitimate and in accordance with nature, even though it is a deviation and can lead to all sorts of problems. Likewise, certain moral prohibitions will seem inconsequential if they are supposed to deprive individuals of simple pleasure, whereas their harmfulness becomes immediately apparent if one can articulate the deprivation to which they condemn the individual.

It should also be noted that attributing a clear and distinct purpose to an instinctual function amounts to stating a “natural law”. It then becomes possible, free from any moral prejudice, to define which behaviors are natural and which are unnatural. This is not a moral categorization, but simply a recognition of conformity to natural laws, as any science does with regard to any phenomenon. These natural laws are defined here in terms of genetic programming.

Thus, the metasexual postulate, by allowing us to determine what is right or wrong with regard to the metapsychic purpose attributed to the non-reproductive sexual instinct, brings forth objectifiable and verifiable criteria that structurally reconcile morality and science. Morality would then merely authorize what is right and denounce what is wrong with regard to the success or failure of extrasensory development, itself objectifiable through the examination of the metapsychic phenomena associated with it.

The simple act of importing the postulate of a metapsychic dimension into the current scientific paradigm allows us to reconstruct a psychoanalysis founded on the attribution of a clear and distinct purpose to so-called infantile sexuality. However, the study of an instinct whose goal is clearly defined, provided it adheres to scientific methodology, can claim the status of a science. Every assertion becomes falsifiable, since a verifiable criterion allows us to distinguish truth from falsehood, even in moral judgments. A moral precept can be evaluated as just or false based on the extrasensory success or failure of the relationships it governs.

Reductionists, with the zeteticists at the forefront—those who have vowed to demonstrate the non-existence of the extrasensory—will undoubtedly object that the metapsychic is incompatible with the rationalist paradigm. This objection is untenable, because rationalism, and even positivism, advocate, in a laudable pursuit of objectivity, the recognition of empirical facts and the neglect of none. However, experience shows that metapsychic phenomena are empirical facts, that they obey a certain number of invariants, and that their content is verifiable. They are certainly difficult to reproduce, but this difficulty does not negate their reality. The theory of metasexuality, on the contrary, explains the rarity of extrasensory experiences by the fact that love is not experienced according to its natural laws in the current “sexual apparatus” (to use Foucault’s term). This fact is supported by the frequency of extrasensory manifestations in primitive societies with non-repressive morality.

Thus, Freud’s cherished wish to make psychoanalysis a genuinely scientific discipline could be fulfilled.

Morality and Perversion

Ignorance of the purpose of an instinctual function opens the door to errors of evaluation, contradictions, and the most diverse conflicts. In particular, it is not possible to give a clear and distinct definition of the notion of sexual perversion without sufficient knowledge of the ultimate purpose of human sexuality.

In the 19th century, psychiatric theorists echoed the prevailing Puritanism, reducing sexuality to a function of procreation. Any behavior that deviated from the necessities of conception was declared perverse, as evidenced by Krafft-Ebbing’s infamous De psychopathia sexualis. This stigmatization, inspired by the burgeoning biologism of the time, coincided with that of moralists who declared any behavior not conforming to morality perverse: what was immoral was unnatural, and vice versa.

The apparent convergence of these positions, respectively rationalist and Puritan, rested on the fact that prevailing morality was constructed, on the one hand, on rules of behavior modeled on animals—a legacy of Enlightenment philosophers—and, on the other hand, on a divine will as interpreted in the “be fruitful and multiply” of Genesis, in Mosaic prohibitions, or in the Epistles of St. Paul, etc. It is undoubtedly the apparent congruence of the Cartesian paradigm and the Judeo-Christian heritage that gave the force of law to the repressive morality whose seeds the Inquisition had sown in previous centuries without yet managing to impose it concretely.

The situation became particularly complicated from the moment Freud highlighted the existence of a sexual function independent of reproduction, including forms of excitation that extended far beyond the realm of genitality. Either this function, natural since determined phylogenetically, had to be considered perverse, its characteristic polymorphism transgressing the rules of puritanical morality (Freud described the child as polymorphously perverse); or it was necessary to admit that the pursuit of sexual pleasure was no longer a sin and to revise morality.

The second branch of the dilemma, less overtly contradictory, ultimately gained ground. From the mid-20th century onward, masturbation was no longer systematically condemned as an abomination, and then, toward the end of the century, homosexuality was removed from the list of pathologies, and later from the list of paraphilias, by the very official American Psychiatric Association.

The result of these hesitations is that psychiatry today lacks a clear and distinct definition of the concept of perversion. The cause is a centuries-old confusion between norm and nature: psychiatry has started from the premise that perverse behavior is contrary to social norms, inferring that it is therefore contrary to natural laws. However, there is no guarantee that the principles of normative morality conform to nature.

Even in dictionaries, for example in the CNRTL (National Center for Textual and Lexical Resources), we find the same ambiguity: “Perversion = The act of diverting something from its true nature, from normality”. Other definitions invoke the pursuit of pleasure through the suffering of the partner: this leads to a shift towards the notion of sadism, which is merely a specific instance of perversion.

Freud was concerned with the concept of perversion very early on. After initially defining it as a simple instinctual deviation, a transgression of prohibitions, or even as barbaric acts, he gave it, as early as 1915, an increasingly structural connotation: in contrast to neurosis, the repression of id drives, and psychosis, the denial of reality, he defined it as an organization of the ego based on the denial of castration. It would be linked to a split between denial and recognition of the phallus in the mother, with a fixation on infantile sexuality.

Melanie Klein saw it as a manifestation of the death drive. In the 1960s, Lacan considered it a fundamental component of human behavior and placed it within a tripartite structure alongside neurosis and psychosis, devoid of any pejorative connotation.

Nevertheless, certain sexual behaviors can clearly be considered perverse in the common sense. It is therefore necessary to examine to what extent the metasexual postulate would allow us to formulate a definition of perversion that, if possible, combines the psychiatric, psychoanalytic, and common-sense approaches. We will refer here to a general definition, which seems applicable to any instinctual behavior associated with a form of pleasure:

“Any behavior consisting of seeking pleasure for its own sake at the expense of the natural purpose of the drive would be perverse.”

It should be noted that “pervert” (from the Latin per-vertere) etymologically means “to overturn”: there is indeed a reversal of the pursued goal, which shifts from the original (innate) purpose of instinct to a purely hedonistic aim. The pervert thus maintains himself in a position of splitting between the natural, innate goal of the drive and the goal pursued by the Ego, by means of an intellectual will, or an artifice enabling the reversal.

This type of behavior is generally complicated by a certain degree of harm. For example, eating behavior aimed at obtaining gustatory satisfaction without regard for the body’s needs will be considered perverse. Consuming excessive amounts of fried food solely for the pleasure of the palate, in the absence of genuine need and neglecting the risk of cardiovascular disease, effectively combines pleasure and harm (a combination that could form the basis of the notion of “gluttony” in its most pejorative sense).

The BIP + MIP model thus allows us to formulate a clear and distinct definition of sexual perversion:

• With regard to the reproductive function of sexuality: behavior aimed at genital gratification while excluding conception would be considered perverse, for example, prostitution, rape, pedophilia, or even the use of contraceptives, abortion, etc. This could suggest an unconscious origin for the notion of “fornication” brandished by the Inquisitors, and would explain the apparent contradiction in moralistic discourse between the condemnation of sexual pleasure and the necessity of reproduction.
• If we apply the same definition of perversion to the metasexual function, we must consider as perverse any behavior aimed at obtaining pleasure at the expense of the gain of metapsychic energy that constitutes its ultimate goal. This viewpoint would paradoxically vindicate the 19th-century moralists and psychiatrists who declared all sexual behaviors except coitus perverse: polymorphous behaviors are indeed perverse, according to our definition, from the moment the metasexual function is rendered ineffective.

It is worth noting in this regard that the irruption of sexual morality, to borrow Reich’s title, generated a vicious circle, not only as a result of the frustrations inducing compulsive behaviors, but also for a reason intrinsically linked to the drive structures of metasexuality: feelings of guilt alter the innocence necessary for the metasexual function to achieve its goal (in the same way that aggressive thoughts inhibit metapsychic faculties); the wave of guilt induced by masturbation phobia would thus have aggravated the failure of the metasexual function; this failure, constituting a slide towards perversion (in the sense of the failure of the metasexual purpose), may in turn have reinforced feelings of guilt, the loop closing in a puritanism coupled with the disappearance of metapsychic faculties.

Viewed from this perspective, Freud’s approach paradoxically constitutes a form of apology for perversion, insofar as it posits that polymorphous drives have as their sole purpose the gain of pleasure and must be placed at the service of genitality. Since the purpose of these drives lies beyond pleasure and is intrinsically unrelated to reproduction, a theory built on this basis proves perverse according to our definition, given that it condones sexual behaviors diverted from their natural purpose. The use of polymorphous drives as preliminary pleasures, with the deliberate aim of stimulating genital fulfillment—itself diverted from its reproductive purpose through contraception—would even constitute a double perversion.

This paradox helps us better understand why psychoanalysis has encountered such quiet resistance, reaching fever pitch today in the discourse of certain cognitive scientists and philosophers, even though it has managed to penetrate, more than any other approach, to the heart of human sexuality and the suffering associated with it.

In any case, the question of perversion would benefit from being re-examined against the backdrop of a definition of the natural purpose of sexual drives, in order to refocus morality, legislation, media discourse, and the increasingly numerous and often biased legal cases concerning morality.

Chaotic Id and Original Id

Freud believed that the Id is by nature chaotic. The Ego and the Superego are therefore necessary to bring order to natural drives and adapt their fulfillment to the demands of society. The chaos in question consists primarily of sexual or aggressive impulses, which can lead to behaviors contrary to social norms and cause harm to those around them, partners, or the individual themselves.

However, a chaotic state can stem from several causes, including genetics, neurophysiological disorders attributable to stimulants such as food and other substances, conditioning, environmental pressures, states of frustration, compulsion, and so on. From the theoretical perspective we propose here, we must also consider the role the Superid should play in controlling the Id’s drives, that is, the unconscious interactions between metapsychic factors and the drive apparatus.

Let us begin by examining the norms against which the presumed chaos is measured. The existence of unknown or seemingly inexplicable drives, such as those of the MIP (Person-Induced Mental Function), can give the impression of disorder, when we simply do not know how to interpret the apparent anomalies. All evaluation is made in relation to a frame of reference. The frame of reference on which Freud relied is indeed flawed, being deprived of the metapsychic function of natural sexuality.

We must take the following factors into consideration:

1. The genetic factor: to what extent has human genetics been subject to a drift? For example: 1. Under the influence of a lack of selective pressure, could the Id’s drive organization have evolved toward certain disorders such that the intervention of the Ego and Superego is essential to adapt its demands to social norms?
2. Conversely: To what extent have social norms evolved toward behavioral patterns and prohibitions contrary to natural drive demands? Would the innate drive organization ensure a non-conflictual fulfillment of the metasexual function if the social environment were favorable? Do the prohibitions adopted by the Superego prevent harmful behaviors, or do they inhibit useful behaviors programmed in the Id, particularly the fulfillment of metasexual drives likely to lead to the development of metapsychic faculties?
3. Disturbances of the nervous system under the influence of stimulants present in traditional foods, for example, gluten in cereals and exorphins in milk, cannot be excluded a priori. The role of “endogenous excitation” of dietary origin may have escaped the attention of researchers due to its omnipresence and the lack of a reference point for “naturalness”. Without such points of reference, we don’t know how the instinctual apparatus (the Id) should function in its natural state, in the absence of any stimulants not present in a natural diet. However, the experience of a “Paleolithic” diet, excluding grains, animal milk, molecules denatured by heat, alcoholic beverages, and traditional stimulants (nicotine, caffeine, and other drugs), clearly shows that the excitability of sexual drives takes on very different forms from those considered normal.
4. The manifestations of the Id are filtered by the Superego, according to behavioral patterns and prohibitions belonging to the social norm. Insofar as the psychoanalytic framework is imbued with the same patterns, any exploration will be biased from the outset. An abnormal drive, for example, will not appear under the influence of censorship, but since the same censorship affects the direction of the analysis, the analyst will have no reason to be concerned by its absence. Similarly, a natural drive contrary to the norm will appear foreign to natural functioning, so that the image of the Id will appear incoherent and the control of the Superego necessary to bring it back into line with the norm. In other words, the norm simultaneously influences the psychic structuring of individuals and the criteria of normality applied by researchers, such that psychoanalytic research is compromised by the dominant paradigm and its questionable conclusions. A prime example is the notion of “normal coitus,” derived from the equation “sex = reproduction,” around which are structured the concepts of polymorphism, perversion, preliminary pleasures, primal fantasy, castration, penis envy, and many other obscure points of Freudian theory.
5. The disorders induced by frustration attributable to repressive morality are well known: libido that cannot be channeled into natural drives overinvests in substitute behaviors, themselves fueled by the Id. It is therefore impossible, in the presence of frustration, to ensure that observed behaviors correspond to the primary data of the drive apparatus. However, the causes of frustration are multiple, even partly unknown: one can distinguish hedonic frustration at the level of unfulfilled partial sexual drives, concerning libido; affective frustration at the level of feelings normally associated with these drives, also invested by libido; and at the level of metapsychic energy and subtle feelings that signal its presence (the oceanic feeling), a particularly strong metasexual frustration due to the existential importance of metapsychic development. These three types of frustration, whether cumulative or combined, are omnipresent in a repressive context and disorganize the Id, leading to chaotic functioning.

The theory that the Oedipus complex is resolved in the realm of fantasy is now accepted by the majority of psychoanalysts. However, this option may have been somewhat hasty, influenced by the social context. Freud notes in his Outline of Psychoanalysis that no research had yet determined what happens in societies where infantile sexuality is not repressed, and the situation has not changed in the meantime. Given this lack of knowledge, it is impossible to conclude that any particular mode of Oedipus complex resolution is relevant. Nor is it possible to know how the Id might function in a non-repressive context.

Freud could in no way determine, and neither could contemporary psychoanalysts, whether the chaotic aspect of the Id stems from its nature or from cultural constraints.

Added to this is the theoretical difficulty faced by the analyst when interpreting drives whose metapsychic purpose is unknown. A nutritionist unaware of the energetic role of food would be astonished by seemingly inexplicable behaviors (e.g., stealing food during a famine, asthenia due to malnutrition, etc.). Similarly, the psychoanalyst cannot grasp the meaning of certain drives belonging to the metasexual function, nor of the compulsive states resulting from their inhibition. Whether acted upon, deviated, or compulsive, they will appear unnatural or neurotic. Since this pattern is repeated in all subjects examined, the analyst will have little choice but to attribute them to a constitutional dysfunction of the Id.

It is understandable that, under these conditions, psychoanalysts might have adhered to the Freudian dogma of the chaotic Id, which had the advantage of justifying the respective roles of the Ego and the Superego, and of not placing psychoanalysis at odds with society. This dogma, however, may have hindered research: it may have stifled researchers’ intuitions in their infancy, preventing them from questioning the causes likely to disrupt the functioning of the drive apparatus.

In fact, the impasse was twofold: on the one hand, the dogma of the chaotic Id confined minds to a biased representation of nature; on the other hand, the attribution of a hedonic purpose to infantile sexuality prevented them from asking fundamental questions about its natural purpose.

The postulate of a metapsychic purpose to so-called infantile sexuality thus leads us to question what the original Id might be, in the absence of the causes of dysfunction attributable to the various points mentioned above. From an evolutionary perspective, we can predict that it should obey certain laws of harmony, avoiding excessive conflict with the Ego and Superego and its pathogenic consequences on the life of the individual and the group. The necessity of adjusting drives to the reality principle is not called into question; this is a fundamental mechanism indispensable to the adaptability of behavior. The question concerns the nature and meaning of drives deemed chaotic in light of the social paradigm of normality, and the new interpretation that can be given to them based on our postulate.

Only empirical observation would allow us to clarify matters. Unfortunately, the conditions for such an observation are difficult to achieve, as they presuppose the control of a multitude of potential disruptive factors, or even the questioning of the norm, which is unthinkable when considering the early period.

However, three solutions remain: an interethnic study, allowing control over some of the disruptive factors involved, which vary from one culture to another, in relation to differences in behavior, and enabling the extrapolation of an ideal situation where all these factors would be eliminated; a historical study aimed at shedding light on the functioning of sexuality and metapsychic faculties before the irruption of repressive morality; or finding (for example, following legal convictions) a group of people more or less committed to a return to their origins, applying rules different from traditional morality, and noting the differences in sexual and metapsychic functioning, either between individuals or between groups.

These three types of observations, although embryonic, have already allowed us to state the following points:

• In agreement with Freud, erotic drives are very early; it seems that sexuality appears from birth and is intrinsically linked to innate drive functioning;
• The id’s drives prove to be perfectly organized; the child very early on possesses the necessary sensitivity, far superior to that of the adult, to recognize what is suitable and what is not.
• Although incapable of intellectual discernment before the emergence of the theory of mind (around 3 or 4 years old), the child demonstrates from birth, provided one knows how to observe them, the capacity to intuitively distinguish between natural and perverse behavior.

These observations suggest an id that is far more complex and balanced than the one commonly attributed to children by psychiatrists and psychologists. They align with the current trend that recognizes in the baby a complexity of psychic functioning far removed from the tabula rasa to which behaviorism reduced it. They refute the Freudian postulate of a chaotic Id, arguing that the various drives and perceptual capacities are operational and well-organized from a very young age.

The appearance of chaos is explained by the misinterpretation of drives based on the Freudian model, by reactions to inappropriate responses or demands from those around them, by frustrations inducing a compulsive state, and by overexcitation of the central nervous system under the influence of food stimulants (exorphins from cow’s milk, gluten, neurotoxic AGEs).

In short, the Ego and Superego do not have the original function of managing a disorder of drives inherent to a chaotic Id; their action should be limited to adapting natural drives, judiciously controlled by the Superego, to the variable and unforeseen data of the relational environment.

Oedipus Complex and Metasexual Postulate

From his earliest years, Freud asserted that hysteria, and later neurosis, were closely linked to the repression of infantile sexuality. He discovered at the heart of the unconscious conflicts of all his patients the same scenario: When the boy, around two or three years old, enters the phallic phase of his libidinal development and experiences the voluptuous sensations provided by his sexual organ, when he learns to procure them for himself at will, through manual stimulation, he then falls in love with his mother and desires to possess her physically in the way that his sexual observations and intuition have allowed him to guess. He seeks to seduce her by exhibiting his penis, the possession of which fills him with pride; in short, his early awakening virility incites him to want to replace his father in her affections, who until that moment had been a model because of his obvious physical strength and the authority he wielded". invested; now, the child sees his father as a rival.

This description of the Oedipus complex appears in An Outline of Psychoanalysis, Freud’s last work, which constitutes a kind of testament to his many years of reflection. The existence of early amorous and sexual drives, which he calls “incommensurable” compared to adult drives (in The Sexual Life), shocked many minds and perhaps shocks even more today.

These views, however, seem to be confirmed by the countless analyses conducted within the framework of classical psychoanalysis, which reveal the characteristic features of the Oedipus complex, regardless of their therapeutic outcome, the inadequacy of which may be due to other factors (notably the fundamental error of attributing a purely playful or hedonistic purpose to early drives). These findings are largely corroborated by observations of child sexual behavior in traditional societies uninfluenced by Western morality; confirmation is found in the work of Kinsey (currently the subject of intense debate), which supposedly showed that children are capable of experiencing orgasm from a very young age. In any case, the history of sexuality (van Ussel, Michel Foucault, Héroard, etc.) teaches us that child-adult relationships were common in our society until the 18th century, a fact that Freud paradoxically seems to have ignored.

The existence of sexual drives in early childhood raises a fundamental question: why did nature, that is, human genetics, prescribe such powerful drives, without them having any function other than the pursuit of pleasure? Every instinct represents a loss of energy in its fulfillment phase, a loss that must be compensated by an advantage in terms of the survival of the individual or the species. It is doubtful that sexual pleasure in itself brings more advantages than disadvantages.

Freud and his followers might have been astonished by the biological aberration of such a situation in light of the laws of evolution. If they didn’t do so, it was partly because nothing in the context prompted them to seek a theoretical justification for these drives; partly because they were unable to observe the spontaneous and untainted fulfillment of this early instinct within their own environmental conditions. Furthermore, simply discussing infantile sexuality put them at odds with society, a threat that inevitably inhibited any freedom of thought.

Added to this was the taboo that forbade any scientifically oriented researcher from asserting the existence of paranormal phenomena. In France, a decree from the Academy of Medicine published in 1841 prohibited any form of research on the metapsychic. Attributing a well-defined purpose to early drives would certainly have led the first psychoanalysts to seriously consider the possibility of an unrepressed Oedipus complex, a question that Freud nevertheless raised on several occasions.

According to him, the resolution of the Oedipus complex should not be repression but, “if things happen ideally, a destruction and elimination of the complex”. From our perspective, such a destruction would be that of the very roots of the Oedipus complex. Freud acknowledges that this process is not without difficulty and that it leaves behind “the greatest trauma of the early period”. Faced with this dilemma, he considers the factors supposedly governing this disappearance (The Sexual Life, 1923):

1. the incest taboo;

2. biological immaturity;

3. a resolution anticipated in the imagination;

4. a genetic predisposition;

5. the castration complex.

6. The incest taboo is generally considered by ethnologists to be foundational to civilization: it is this taboo that opens the family or clan to the outside world through the gift of the daughter, that establishes economic exchange through the dowry, and that lays the groundwork for cultural exchange, even symbolic thought. One might, however, be surprised by the conflation that psychoanalysis makes between the prohibition against an act of reproduction between a father and a nubile daughter and the prohibition against the child’s early sexual impulses. The need to differentiate these two forms of prohibition stems directly from the distinction Freud makes in Three Essays between infantile sexuality and genital sexuality: if there are two sexual functions, there must also be two types of incest.

   To which type of incest does the taboo then apply? Ethnological considerations relate to reproductive incest. The fact that child-adult relationships were common before the Puritan period demonstrates that the taboo, in the popular consciousness, initially concerned only late incest, and therefore child-relationship incest (CRI).

   Repressive morality introduced confusion on this point, which the discovery of the Oedipus complex explains by showing that the need to repress infantile sexuality is a consequence in adults of the repression of their own early drives.

7. Freud also sought to justify the disappearance of the Oedipus complex by the impossibility for the child to fulfill their drives due to their biological immaturity and the insufficient size of their penis (in The Sexual Life). This reasoning, however, seems contradictory: it presupposes that the fulfillment of early drives necessarily involves coitus, whereas Freud elsewhere excludes any vaginal fantasy in the prepubescent child. A drive could hardly tend toward a fulfillment that anticipates existing fantasies. As for the polymorphous drives that constitute infantile sexuality, nothing organically prevents the child from fulfilling them.

8. According to Kinsey, the prepubescent child, on the contrary, seems capable of reaching orgasm more easily than the adult. The emergence of polymorphous sexual drives is, according to him, independent of estrogen and testosterone levels. It could depend on neurological maturity, but the child left to their own devices seems to very early on possess the erectile and motor coordination skills necessary for masturbation and the directive gestures that guide the adult to their erogenous zones. Many parents can attest to this.

9. Another explanation is offered by Freud in the same article: “The Oedipus complex must disappear because the time has come for it to dissolve, just as baby teeth fall out when permanent teeth come in”. Early drives would have the sole function of ensuring, through a process of repression, the structuring of the psyche.

   This hypothesis encounters several inconsistencies:

   1. The disappearance of the Oedipus complex leads in most cases to a conflictual, even traumatic, structuring, the burden of which the individual carries for life;
   2. Infantile drives never completely disappear, but continue to exert a pathogenic influence in the unconscious;
   3. It is not understood why early and transient sexual drives would be necessary to ensure psychic structuring, nor why their disappearance should be pathogenic.
   4. The latency period (during which no sexual drives are supposed to manifest until puberty) is not observed in permissive societies; rather, it appears as a consequence of the repression of natural drives.

10. Conversely, it could be that the Oedipus complex is meant to be resolved in the imaginary. This viewpoint, developed by Lacan, makes it possible to reconcile the universality of the complex with the demands of morality: the unconscious process of identification with and opposition to parental images, particularly sexual identification, could unfold through simple fantasies and allow access to the status of a normal adult.

    However, a desexualized model of psychosexual development must be approached with caution, as it may stem more from moral or social considerations than from an objective observation of facts, which is difficult to achieve under current societal conditions. In the absence of counter-experiments, it is difficult to draw any conclusions. Among the adults we interviewed, many reported discovering orgasm incidentally well before puberty, despite repressive upbringing.

    Regarding the MIP-BIP model, resolution in the realm of the imagination appears incompatible with the energetic function of metasexual drives as we postulate it. Indeed, physical contact proves empirically indispensable in adult relationships to guarantee the supply of metasexual energy necessary for the development of metapsychic faculties. There is no basis for asserting that it can be sublimated without harmful consequences during the emergence of early drives.

    We know how inadequate language learning, for example, can impair the faculties of thinking and verbalizing, leading to almost irreversible developmental delays. It would be risky to exclude a priori the hypothesis that the fulfillment of early drives is necessary for adequate metasexual and metapsychic structuring.

    It should also be noted that the notion of “precocity” stems from a moral prejudice alleging the sexual immaturity of the child, inspired by the equation “sexuality = reproduction,” itself based on the Cartesian equation “human sexuality = animal sexuality”.

    Nevertheless, the repression of infantile drives and the latency period have proven to be very real in a large number of individuals undergoing analysis. Freud could not leave the reasons for this pathogenic situation unexplained.

The Castration Complex

From 1923 onwards, Freud proposed a more fundamental explanation for the disappearance of the Oedipus complex: he invoked the castration complex, a thesis reinterpreted by Lacan in the 1950s. The analytic experience highlights a castration anxiety present in every human being, which Freud explains as follows: The penis is already in childhood the primary erogenous zone, the most important autoerotic sexual object, and its valorization is logically reflected in the impossibility of representing a person similar to the self without this essential constituent part (Infantile Sexual Theories / Über infantile Sexualtheorien (1908)). For the boy, the agent of castration is the father, who represents for him all the threats formulated by other people (these threats were commonly used in education at that time); The situation is less clear for the girl who, in a position of rivalry with her mother, may feel more deprived of her penis by her mother than by her father.

Castration anxiety, however, exists even in individuals who have not been subjected to threats. Freud notes that the theory remains unsatisfactory in the case of the girl, since the anxiety of losing the penis is difficult to explain at the moment when she becomes aware of having already lost it. The desire for a penis in girls seems in itself unconvincing, and the feminist movement has vehemently opposed it. The alternative considered fundamental: “to have a penis or be castrated”, even if the threat is verbalized, hardly explains the renunciation of sexual drives, which Freud also states are “incommensurable” during the early period, and the entry into the latency period. Another paradox arises from the fact that the boy can only escape the Oedipus complex and achieve paternal identification by renouncing the use of his penis, which is nevertheless the quintessential component of the father image.

Faced with these difficulties, Freud attempted to explain the castration complex as an archaic anxiety dating back to periods when men supposedly lived in hordes, with the father castrating his male children to secure ownership of the women. This “scientific myth” has been largely refuted by advances in anthropology; at best, it may have a symbolic or phantasmatic value.

Lacan, taking up Freud’s thesis, analyzes castration as a symbolic process: for him, it concerns not the organ (the penis), but the phallus, an imaginary object that plays a role for both girls and boys. The incest taboo compels the child to renounce the mother as an object of desire. He then recognizes the father as the possessor of the phallus and observes that he is indeed the object of the mother’s desire. The boy thus renounces being the mother’s phallus, an operation that grants him the status of a desiring subject. As for the girl, she must renounce the paternal phallus to find the object of her desire elsewhere.

The Lacanian perspective also encounters various paradoxes: why must one be castrated, even symbolically, to reach genital maturity? Does this idea of ​​maturity correspond to a natural maturity, or to a paradoxical maturity specific to a particular type of culture? One might be surprised by the importance given to the possession or loss of the phallus, a signifier whose significance in relation to the possibility of experiencing sexuality in adulthood is not readily apparent, given that it does not entail the actual loss of the organ.

In any case, it is legitimate to question the reason for such intense anxiety related to the loss of an imaginary object.

This particularly delicate aspect of psychoanalytic theory seems to find a more satisfactory explanation, on both logical and phenomenological levels, based on the postulate of the metapsychic finality of infantile drives. First, it should be noted that the phallus, in ancient Egypt and Greco-Roman times, a figurative representation of the erect penis, was conceived as an object of veneration, symbolizing transcendent virility and endowed with supernatural, magical power. The “sacred phallus” found in Hermes, messenger of Olympus to humankind, is clearly distinct from the erect organ of Priapus, god of fertility, which, in its excess and satyr-like appearance, expressed a compulsive, animalistic virility. This iconography reveals the opposition between the two functions of human sexuality: one associated with transcendence, the other with reproduction.

The figure of the ithyphallic or psychopomp Hermes (guide of souls in the afterlife), bearing the caduceus surmounted by two wings, aptly illustrates the “hermetic” relationship between the sacred phallus and the metapsychic faculties responsible for ensuring communication with the divine world.

For Lacan, the phallus is the “signifier of desire, or of sexual jouissance,” that is to say, “of that which transcends pleasure in the satisfaction of the drive”. According to him, “clinical facts demonstrate a relationship to the phallus that is established without regard to the anatomical difference between the sexes. The phallus is a signifier, whose function in the intrasubjective economy of analysis perhaps lifts the veil on the function it held in the mysteries.”

In other words, the role that the phallus (as a symbol) plays in the Oedipal trajectory would be related to certain transcendent values ​​that the ancients sought in initiatory cults through the sacred phallus.

Lacan’s language becomes clearer and simpler if we admit the existence of a metasexual energy and its function in metapsychic development. The phallus, from being the signifier of desire, becomes the signifier of metasexual energy. Since the intake or deprivation of this energy plays a crucial role in an individual’s development, particularly their metapsychic or spiritual development which shapes the very meaning of their existence, it is logical that the unconscious possesses a fantasy (or archetype) intended to represent metapsychic energy in its fundamental relationship with sex.

Since the primitive unconscious was not bound by puritanical morality, the best signifier that nature could provide for this purpose was the erect phallus. The clitoris, which clearly plays the same role in women, is less representative. Moreover, the tradition built upon archetypal data and passed down to us likely originated in patriarchal societies.

It is worth noting that the sight of an erect phallus, or more precisely, its idealized representation, can, under favorable conditions, create an emotion similar to that which animates “love at first sight,” or “love magic,” an emotion characteristic of metasexual energy. It was likely this subtle emotion that the phallophoria of the Greeks or Japanese, the phallic dances of the Inuit, or the lingam of the Hindus were meant to reactivate, hence the universally acclaimed sacred character attached to these various archaic traditions.

Based on these observations, we can postulate that the phallus is the unconscious fantasy, or the archetypal signifier, of metasexual energy. It is therefore necessary to examine what becomes of castration theory when we posit this initial equation: “Phallus = Metasexual Energy.”

The Lacanian alternative around which the Oedipus complex revolves, “having or not having the phallus”, then translates into “the presence or absence of metasexual energy”. This is indeed the central problem for the child with regard to the fulfillment of their Oedipal drives: Will my mother be able to give me this energy? Does my father intend to forbid it? Would my father even know how to give it to me? Would my mother be castrating in the sense that she wants to deprive me of it?

This issue is easily verified through concrete observation: the child tends to approach the adult who is nourished by metasexual energy, and to distance themselves from them in the opposite case. He displays aggression toward adults whose behavior degrades this energy or prevents him from seeking it, which explains the fantasies of murdering the father and the hatred toward the castrating mother.

Indeed, alongside the metasexual drives, we observe a range of reactions of anxiety, aggression, inhibition, and prohibition, innate and controlled by the Surida (that is, intuitively or extrasensorially), which arise as soon as a situation is not energetically favorable. If the partner is driven by feelings of possession or guilt, if they are oriented toward genital sexuality or a calculated pursuit of pleasure, the metasexual drives vanish, giving way to these aggressive impulses. A kind of shift occurs from love to hate, from openness to closedness, from attraction to rejection, which seems to pre-exist any learning or education.

The main cause of this shift is, somewhat paradoxically, the common reproductive relationship and its various manifestations: its representation seems to act, on an unconscious level, as a trigger for inhibition or prohibition. Children traditionally display a certain aggression towards “lovers,” whom they readily mock. They also experience visceral disgust when they learn that they are the product of copulation between their parents. A similar aversion is observed towards the image of the condom, an immediate symbol of penetration. These aversions are found in the primal fantasy described by Freud, in which the child unconsciously visualizes their father hurting their mother during marital relations. This would be a kind of safeguard marking the boundary between the MIP (Primal Instinctual Mode) and the BIP (Primal Instinctual Mode).

Based on these elements, the metasexual postulate suggests a structural interpretation of the castration complex, unfolding on the two levels of the Superego and the Id:

• The repression of early drives (whether within the Oedipal framework or not) is perceived as a frustration, coupled with a threat to metapsychic integrity, leaving indelible traces in the form of trauma inscribed in the Superego. Any potential attempt at seduction, characteristic of the BIP (and therefore incompatible with the early drives specific to the MIP), also provokes traumatic reactions of anxiety and aggression that mark the Superego.
• Simultaneously, the child seems to intuitively sense the energy deficiency in a family environment where love is experienced at the level of the BIP. The Id then blocks the Id’s drives, as they would not, in any case, achieve their metapsychic purpose.

The situation crystallizes through repetition throughout childhood. Ultimately, the two metapsychic and instinctual drives become structured in a negative mode and definitively block metasexual drives, establishing the latency period. This means that the fantasy of the sacred phallus is systematically deactivated, in favor of the primal fantasy, a situation that will only be reactivated with the emergence of the reproductive drives of maturity.

In a society founded on the nuclear family, this process unfolds canonically within the triangular constellation of mother-father-child, such that the castration complex is systematically associated with the Oedipal situation. It is neither the threat of penis removal nor the realization that the mother lacks a phallus, but rather the type of amorous behavior in the surrounding environment, dependent on the BIP (Progressive Instinctual Reflex), and the absence of a source of metapsychic energy capable of fueling the MIP (Progressive Instinctual Movement) that produces the spontaneous repression of early drives, which ultimately crystallizes in the Superego and the Id.

Let us examine the outcome of this explanatory model in light of the contradictions of the classical explanation:

• Such a hypothesis symmetrizes the castration complex between the two sexes, resolving the difficulty encountered by the feminine aspect of the Freudian explanation.
• It explains the repression of infantile sexuality without resorting to the incest taboo, which is poorly suited to infantile sexuality.
• It explains the latency period as the child’s (apparent or real) renunciation of the fulfillment of their primary instinctual drives (MIP) within a context whose primary instinctual drive (BIP) they have internalized.
• It explains the universality of Oedipal repression in our societal model, founded on the repression of early drives and the prevalence of BIP.
• It aligns with Reich’s thesis of the pathogenic nuclear family.
• It helps explain the presence of the phallus as a signifier in unconscious structures and the determining role played by symbolic castration in the Oedipal trajectory.
• It is consistent with Lacan’s thesis presenting the phallus as a symbolic object (object a), detachable, exchangeable, capable of being given as a gift, transformed into another object, etc.: these are the characteristics of an energy.
• It is understandable that Lacan replaced Freud’s loss of the penis with the loss of the phallus, and that he made it the central point of primal repression: it is the impossibility of obtaining this energy (and not the anxiety of an organ loss) that provokes the repression of Oedipal drives.
• It is understandable why, according to Lacan, the Oedipus complex is transcended through the double renunciation of “being” and “having” the phallus, that is, of being both the emitter and receiver of metasexual energy: such ambivalence is inherent in any exchange of energy-information.
• We can more generally understand why psychoanalysis has aligned itself with a phallic problematic, of the order of the symbol, stopping, as it were, halfway (at the loss of the phallus) instead of going back to the failure of the metasexual function and the energetic deficiency: the theorization has been based on the analysis of the contents of the unconscious, which are articulated in the mode of signifiers. From this stems the ingenuously sexual character of Freud’s discourse (the penis being taken for energy), whereas Lacan leads us into a desperately abstract symbolism of the phallus, for lack of reference to the energetic and perceptible dimension of the signifieds.
• We also understand that the Oedipus complex has existed since time immemorial, following the instinctual disturbances affecting metasexuality under the influence of dietary changes that occurred during the Neolithic period and their impact on the nervous system, hence the antiquity of the Oedipus myth.
• It explains the worsening of neurosis and the decline of the metapsychic realm following the 18th-century prohibition of masturbation, a situation that inevitably had repercussions in terms of materialism and politics.

In conclusion, the metasexual postulate allows us to explain both the central role of the Oedipus complex in psychic structuring and its relationship with the castration complex. It is worth noting that in the Puritan context of the time, the threat of castration was quite commonly used to dissuade children from masturbating. It is thus understandable that Freud used this mutilation to characterize an amputation just as serious as the loss of the primordial function of metasexuality.

The MIP + BIP model also suggests a definition of the Oedipal period independent of the nuclear context. Ethology teaches us that every instinctual program is characterized by a sensitive period, during which drives are particularly active, as is the internalization of their first realizations and of environmental constraints. These characteristics are precisely those of the Oedipal period. It therefore seems pertinent to consider the Oedipus complex as the specific sensitive period of the metasexual instinctual program.

This definition accounts for the particular intensity of early drives, the irreversible aspects of the Oedipal trauma, and the widespread failure of metapsychic development within the context of repressive morality. However, it suggests that the psychic structuring of the child could be different in a society not based on the nuclear family, such as tribal societies may have been. Studying the modalities of psychosexual structuring within a social environment itself structured according to the MIP + BIP model is one of the challenges of metapsychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis and Metapsychoanalysis

The metapsychoanalytic perspective implies a major shift in therapy. Classical analysis aims to bring repressed drives into consciousness, so as to consciously reject them, in the name of a recognized and deliberately accepted prohibition. The process should allow the Ego to master the conflicts and traumatic content linked to the repressed, and to limit their pathogenic effects. The principle appears perfectly logical, but the length, difficulty, and often mixed results of analyses may lead one to question its validity.

The presupposition underlying this conception is that frustration, the source of the Oedipal trauma, stems from a deprivation of pleasure. Here we find the Freudian postulate of infantile sexuality aimed at a simple “gain of pleasure”. It is indeed surprising that a denial of pleasure can cause such profound psychological suffering. A child deprived of sweets and cakes would likely not require years of analysis to recover.

The picture is quite different if we refer to the metasexual postulate: what the child is deprived of is far more essential than pleasure; it is the possibility of developing their metapsychic faculties, a deficiency whose consequences will affect the very meaning of their existence.

Metapsychic energy can be compared to nourishment essential to psychological development, just as food is indispensable for physical development. Depriving a child of the nourishment their body demands will not only create a psychological disturbance on a hedonic level, but also organic deficiencies that are difficult to reverse. Similarly, the deprivation of metasexual energy, insofar as its supply is genetically predetermined, will certainly create hedonic frustration (the amount of pleasure integrated being less than what is genetically predetermined), but much more seriously, it will lead to a failure of natural metapsychic development, likely to generate major existential anxieties. This explains the seemingly disproportionate prevalence of the Oedipus complex.

Faced with this situation, it immediately becomes clear that the only truly effective therapeutic approach would not consist of simply reactivating the memory of the scenes that led to the internalization of conflict situations and retroactively accepting them as inevitable: this can only resolve relational elements such as fantasies of murdering the father or other grievances against those perceived as responsible for the lack (just as explaining to a malnourished child the circumstances that caused their undernourishment would free them from the need to designate scapegoats). It is more a matter of reconstructing what could not be built during the sensitive period, a process that presupposes an input, albeit belated, of the energy that was lacking in the early period (just as it is by providing the nutrients whose lack caused malnutrition that one can rebuild the organism and eliminate anxieties about death).

On a lived level, it would involve rediscovering the levels and qualities of emotions inherent in the metasexual function, and making possible subtle (non-reproductive) relationships, experienced orgasmically, ensuring a concrete input of metasexual energy. This presupposes knowledge of the characteristic features of the metasexual function, essential for distinguishing it from ordinary BIP-type sexuality, which otherwise risks overwhelming the new relationship. The aim is, in fact, to restore the capacity for discernment between the two sexual functions, as it would spontaneously develop if the child could experience their natural drives during the genetically predetermined sensitive period. The reproductive drives that arise during sexual maturity would then be easily recognized as such.

In other words, psychoanalysis could achieve its ultimate goal—namely, resolving internal conflicts and allowing the individual’s potential to express itself optimally—on one condition: enabling the adult to find the metasexual energy that was lacking in early adulthood, by reactivating polymorphous drives (as Marcuse advocated) and by re-establishing internal and external conditions that allow these drives to reach their metapsychic purpose. Observation shows, in fact, that it is the prolonged lack of metasexual energy into adulthood that gives the Oedipal trauma its apparent irreversibility. The contribution of this energy has empirically proven capable of ensuring partial reversibility.

Seen from this perspective, the classical mode of analysis, which consists of bringing early drives to consciousness and accepting their repression, paradoxically leads the analysand to deliberately reject the metasexual function and to settle even more definitively into a genital-type sexuality, incapable of providing what they unconsciously yearn for. The metapsychoanalytic approach, on the contrary, consists of helping the patient explore their unconscious in order to recognize its traumatic contents as products of the errors of a partially unnatural morality, and to gradually free themselves from them so as to be able to access metapsychic energy in their experience of love. From this perspective, the analytic work must focus as much on the present as on past sources of conflict.

Ultimately, it is the experience of love that must serve as the foundation for the various stages of the restructuring process, through the successive difficulties arising from unconscious conflicts and the realization of past mistakes—a realization made possible by understanding the characteristics of the metasexual function. Each effort toward improved functioning is immediately “rewarded” by an influx of energy (and pleasure) in the loving exchange, so that it is positively imprinted on the Superego; successive corrections accumulate and gradually restore structures as close as possible to the genetically predetermined potential. The same is true for the Id, through the concomitance of metapsychic perceptions (sensations of romantic magic upon approaching the partner) and the contributions of pleasure that characterize the metasexual exchange.

The problem of transference must also be revisited, taking into account the patient’s yearning for genuine energy, an expectation that the analyst reactivates by delving into the sediments of the past. We should also emphasize the role of extrasensory phenomena in the interpretation of unconscious contents (as Jung described them). The aggressive impulses that appear during analysis remain more limited when the analyst can effectively help the patient find, in their current romantic relationships, the energy they unconsciously seek, the lack of which induced and perpetuated the Oedipal trauma.

This seemingly excessive aggression is explained by the analysand’s dissatisfaction with an analytic process incapable of providing the true object of their frustration. They feel, in a way, deceived and at odds with their true aspirations, so that their unconscious protests vigorously against the person or persons responsible.

This mechanism can be seen as the backdrop to the hatred, more evident than ever today, directed at the father of psychoanalysis. The unconscious expectation of access to transcendence through sexuality has not found a true answer. The promise of redemption attributed to Freud, even though he never made it, has not been kept. Iconoclasts are surging forward and intend to make him pay the price.

The level of investment in transference remains minor when the analysand can fix their metasexual drives onto a third party and experience a MIP-type relationship. The gain in genuine metapsychic energy then prevents any confusion between analytical work and private life. The clear articulation of the energy deficiency and the moral errors that caused it also helps the patient, both now and retroactively, to better cope with frustrations. Guilt and aggression gradually lose their power, as when one forgets past failures. A better understanding of moral aberrations and their consequences for psychological structures helps one to better tolerate the imperfections of others.

The effectiveness of the therapeutic process is demonstrated by the almost spontaneous dissolution of traumatic content dating back to the early period, by an equally spontaneous resurgence of memories of key situations (release of inhibition), by the capacity to fall in love instantly and to experience, without inhibition, the happiness naturally associated with love. The main criterion for success, alongside the gradual forgetting of suffering and depressive states, remains the development of metapsychic faculties such as intuition, creativity, paranormal dreams, and extrasensory perception.

Neurosis and Social Homeostasis

Even in his last work, An Outline of Psychoanalysis, Freud expressed astonishment that infantile sexuality lies at the center of unconscious conflicts and far surpasses other possible causes of neurosis.

Here, for the record, are the main points of Freud’s theory of neurosis: Under the influence of repression, early drives cannot be expressed along their natural path. Drive energy accumulates, giving them a compulsive character. They then take indirect routes, either destructive—transgressions of prohibitions, feelings of guilt, aggressive impulses—or socially acceptable (hyperactivity, competition, ideologies, and other forms of sublimation). These disorders are accompanied by anxiety, in response to frustration, and feelings of guilt due to concrete or imagined actions that contradict the parental images introjected into the superego. The ego employs defenses, mostly unconscious, aimed at maintaining a bearable situation, including repression, denial (refusal to acknowledge the drive), regression (return to behaviors associated with an earlier stage), projection (attribution of unacceptable drives to others), and so on. This pattern develops during early childhood and constitutes neurosis, definitively acquired around the age of seven or eight, whose symptoms resurface with the reactivation of adult sexual drives.

Freud observes that any repressed drive could lead to a neurotic situation and is surprised that infantile sexual drives are the only ones that analytic experience brings to light: perhaps sexuality is subject to greater repression in our civilization than other instincts?

The difficulty is resolved when we understand that the Infantile Process plays an extremely important role in the development of the individual. The existence of a metasexual function suggests that the repression of early drives constitutes a major existential harm, depriving the individual from a very young age of their natural potential for metapsychic development. We can therefore expect the emergence of defense mechanisms that profoundly alter psychic structures. Like an animal that bites harder when the danger is more threatening, the unconscious seems to implement defenses proportional to the severity of the potential harm.

The paradox noted by Freud thus stems from the ignorance of the true function of so-called infantile sexuality, reduced to a playful and hedonistic function completely out of proportion to the severity of the disturbances induced by its repression. Logically, the trauma is less about the repression of sexual drives than about the failure of these drives to function (a defense, in principle, tends to limit harm). In this second case, we can expect at least a partial reversibility of the neurosis when the metasexual function once again achieves its goal, a prediction that seems to be confirmed by observation.

This issue leads to another question to which classical psychoanalysis also seems to fail to provide a satisfactory answer: what are the deep-seated origins of repressive morality? Is morality purely contingent and random, or does it instead stem from fundamental, innate, and irreplaceable elements? And why has this morality persisted, even intensified, across generations despite its pathogenic nature?

Our premise allows us to outline the following chain of mechanisms: the unconscious can recognize, based on primal fantasies, sexual behavior that fails to achieve its natural purpose (just as a baby can recognize signs of abnormal communication with its mother from the first weeks); situations of failure in the metasexual function multiplied with the increase in endogenous excitation, due to dietary changes during the Neolithic period and their growing sophistication; the aggressive impulses and feelings of guilt associated with these failures crystallized an excessively repressive morality in the collective memory.

Reinforcing these prohibitions through education exacerbates the situation by causing increasingly pronounced early conflict in the child, associated with sexual and metapsychological frustration; as an adult, they manifest even more aggressive impulses toward any situation that reactivates repressed content, particularly toward the early impulses of their own children. This vicious cycle could only intensify the prohibitive pressures from generation to generation. The situation evolved until it reached its peak with Puritanism, which barely tolerated even the minimum amount of intercourse necessary for the survival of the species.

It is thus understandable that the repression of metasexual drives was accompanied by increasingly pronounced symptoms, culminating in the “discovery” of hysteria, to the point of prompting some avant-garde researchers to question its mechanisms. Between Charcot’s “Thing” and Freud’s “Three Essays,” an awareness finally emerged, tending to rehabilitate certain freedoms, as was the case with the May 1968 movements and later with the rehabilitation of homosexuality.

The advent of neurosis therefore seems to have had indirect positive effects in terms of raising awareness. One might then wonder whether the mechanisms of neurosis, generally considered pathological, might not have a specific function in light of the metasexual postulate.

If we examine the situation while momentarily setting aside psychiatric and psychoanalytic paradigms, we could indeed discern a homeostatic function in neurotic mechanisms: unconscious defenses against internal conflicts, as well as the aggressive drives associated with them, converge, at least symbolically, toward challenging prohibitions contrary to the metasexual function. Neurosis would thus aim to denounce, through symbolic means, the errors of education, morality, and society responsible for metasexual failure.

The various neurotic symptoms can be analyzed as symbolic behaviors organized by the unconscious in such a way as to make the conscious mind recognize certain social constraints that compromise access to the metapsychic realm: the histrionics of the hysteric, under the guise of possession, stage the importance of sexual drives that morality claims to eliminate; Perversions caricature and mock pathogenic prohibitions (Sade “invented” sadism precisely at a time when repression was intensifying); fetishism denounces the quest for unattainable energy by projecting the phallus onto a symbolic object; suicidal impulses actualize, in the form of a simulacrum, the spiritual death represented by metasexual failure. Even Jung’s conception coincides with this viewpoint, neurosis for him stemming from the repression of metapsychic (numinous) energies.

Neurosis does not merely express the unconscious conflicts from which the subject suffers; it brings to the surface, in the sphere of consciousness, within the individual and even more so in those who witness their behavior, the nature, the cause, and even the consequences of cultural errors that threaten the evolution of the individual and the group. One could say that it allows the unconscious to stage the causes of existential failure, exonerating them through symbolism, in order to bypass the censorship of the conscious.

This stems from the fundamental mechanism of neurosis: the diversion of repressed drives consists of investing the drive energy blocked by repression in a substitute pathway, more or less related to the natural one. Now, as Lacan showed, the unconscious is a place of language, including metaphor and metonymy: we should not be surprised that the diversion of libido operates according to a symbolic logic, and that neurotic thought or behavior expresses, in the form of signifiers, more or less distant from the signifieds, the substance of the suffering that is articulated between the natural demands of being and the constraints compromising their fulfillment.

Due to its interindividual nature, neurosis plays an essential social role, of which psychoanalysis is, in a way, an extension: it prompts us to decipher the outlines, reflected back by the unconscious of the most injured individuals, in symbolic and compulsive form, of our educational and societal errors. It is notably “thanks” to neurosis that psychoanalysis, by tracing pathological behaviors back to their origins, was led to highlight the importance of sexuality, particularly infantile sexuality, in a society that sought to conceal it by all means (even if Freud opted for a purely therapeutic approach).

Neurosis can be seen as a kind of spontaneous psychoanalysis, manifesting on a behavioral or attitudinal level the problems that the unconscious has recognized and that neither the individual nor the group has yet been able to formulate or resolve. In this respect, it resembles “simulation,” an innate behavior whose real purpose differs from its stated purpose (see below the theory of the Excalibur complex). Its ultimate goal is to make those around the individual recognize, in a symbolic and coercive form, an unexpressible suffering.

Sublimation and the Reparative Function of Culture

The theory of “sublimation” can also be reconsidered in light of the metasexual postulate. In the Freudian conception, early drives aim at pleasure, so their repression does not have serious consequences in itself: the renunciation of pleasure is, on the contrary, an operation necessary for the structuring of the Ego. Under these conditions, diverting libido from its sexual pathways to invest it in more socially acceptable avenues, such as cultural, artistic, or other activities, seems likely to lead the individual and society toward harmony and progress.

If, on the other hand, we posit that repressed drives aim to gain energy essential for metapsychic development, particularly creativity, the reasoning must be revisited from the ground up. It is necessary to distinguish between two types of cultural activities.

• On the one hand, there is a primary culture, encompassing activities inspired by creative intuition, related to archetypal values, and contributing to the metapsychic or spiritual evolution of the individual and the group: for example, the writing of sacred texts, the creation of myths, the construction of pyramids or cathedrals, music, and other inspired arts. The oceanic feeling described by Freud in the preface to Civilization and Its Discontents (CITE) would be central to this culture, serving as a source of inspiration for the artist and as a generator of metapsychic openness for the public.
• On the other hand, there is a secondary culture, comprised of various activities fueled by deviant drives, the beneficial nature of which is far from proven. This second category could include the creation of ideals and the genesis of behaviors based on metasexual frustration or the resulting Oedipal complex, as well as the cult of Reason stigmatized by Jung. These neurotic mechanisms can be at the root of egocentrism, materialism, reductionism, interpersonal conflicts, interethnic enmities, racism, antisemitism, religious fundamentalism, wars, genocides, and other destructive facets of our civilization.

This dichotomy extends into traditional cultural activities, leading to a distinction in art between a part inspired by creative intuition and a defensive part. The former would include the great masterpieces, whose renown can be explained by the metapsychic resonance they awaken in people’s consciousness (archetypes being common to all individuals and all cultures); In the second category, we would find the neurotic aspects of art, such as the pursuit of fame and fortune, snobbery, convoluted works conceived by the artist to attract attention, unconstructive art criticism, politics as we know it, and so on.

An excellent example is Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, a masterpiece that has defied the centuries despite an enigmatic character that has remained impenetrable to all exegetes. In light of the MIP + BIP model, the interpretation is immediate: it is an initiatory work intended to safeguard the values ​​of an Adamite Eros whose characteristics, carefully depicted in numerous motifs, are none other than those of metasexuality. Exegetes have dubbed Bosch the “maker of demons,” which would be consistent with a neurotic personality. The confusion stems from a simple ignorance of the metapsychic function of sexuality.

One could also distinguish between a truly Olympic sport, in which success is contingent upon inner mastery (like archery in Zen philosophy), and a sport centered on competition, the need for domination and notoriety, and financial gain.

The same distinction applies to schoolwork: Freud believed that the sublimation of infantile sexual drives was useful, if not necessary, so that the diverted instinctual energy could fuel schoolwork; however, in a posthumous note, he asserted the opposite, attributing intellectual inhibition and inhibition at work to the inhibition of infantile masturbation. Based on the postulate of metasexual energy, one must distinguish between schoolwork actually grounded in sublimation, which therefore includes neurotic aspects (ambivalence towards subjects and teachers, compromise between obligation and boredom, between submission and rebellion, fear of grades and cheating, hatred of top students, etc.); Conversely, there is a school-based approach founded on wonder at knowledge, a sense of “magic” in discoveries, subtle communication between student and teacher, the joy of understanding and teaching, the optimization of individual qualities beyond notions of rank, the intuitive adjustment of requirements according to the student’s abilities (Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development”), and so on.

There is not necessarily an incompatibility between the two aspects of culture as we distinguish them here. The alternation between realization and sublimation, inherent in the vicissitudes of any love life, constitutes in itself a dynamic basis capable of producing the seeds, at the individual level, of both facets of culture. Periods of realization provide the necessary metapsychic energy to give learning, artistic creation, and scientific advancement the touch of inspiration, not to mention the added spark of genius, that makes them a genuinely creative endeavor. In times of unfavorable circumstances, sublimation allows the libido to fuel more down-to-earth, pragmatically useful activities—organizational, artisanal, discursive, and so on—whose ultimate goal is to return to a genuinely creative state, by more or less indirect means.

This aligns with Reich’s view that sublimation is only possible without harm after a sufficient period of drive fulfillment. The phenomenon is easily explained in terms of energy: just as one must have built up food reserves to survive a period of famine unharmed, one can better endure a period of sexual abstinence when one possesses a certain reserve of metasexual energy. Beyond a certain threshold, frustration inevitably leads to destructive or self-destructive drives, which ultimately preclude positive sublimation.

The process of sublimation is, in fact, ambivalent: as long as suffering is not too intense, the Ego and Superego manage to channel libido into constructive activities: maintaining a stable relationship, professional reliability, self-discipline, good works, and religious faith. But when the lack of metasexual energy becomes too great, libido irresistibly fuels destructive activities, even if these are more or less socially recognized: repressive upbringing, forced learning, restrictive regulations, alcoholism, police repression, holy war…

The preceding considerations suggest a unified theory of neurosis and sublimation in terms of their function on both the individual and social levels. The mechanisms of sublimation are identical to those of neurosis: it can therefore be predicted that the path of libido in both cases aims at the same goal: to denounce, through symbolic behavior, the non-verbalizable lack of metasexual energy.

Young delinquents who assault bus drivers, set fire to cars, or smash shop windows are expressing their unconscious suffering, thus bringing it to public view, except that they do so in the antisocial mode of neurosis.

Art, too, is fundamentally subversive and most often seeks to shake a value system whose root causes the conscious mind cannot decipher, but it does so in a non-destructive and socially acceptable way (for example, rap).

If we examine the whole of culture and its various forms from this perspective, we can decipher in practically everything created since Antiquity, and more compulsively since the rise of repressive morality, an unspoken need to symbolically denounce a system of sexuality from which both the individual and the community suffer unconsciously, and which jeopardizes the spiritual future of humanity, if not its very future. The myths of the ancients, the literary and cinematic productions of modern times, and even the iconoclastic forces that inspired revolutions and wars, or that inspire delinquency, terrorism, and even genocide today, all find a common meaning: through often blind and always very costly denunciations, they tend to shake a millennia-old system contrary to natural laws and to restore the primordial function of love, lost at the dawn of civilization.

Our modern society, heir to Mosaic and Puritan prohibitions, has developed an essentially materialistic and intellectual culture, which is clearly the expression of an imbalance in the direction of substitute activities and ultimately smacks more of neurosis than sublimation. Far removed from the archetypal inspirations still felt in the works of Antiquity, technological hypertrophy and the pride of knowledge could ultimately crush the last vestiges of spiritual values. Unless, perhaps, they lead to an awakening of consciences.

The ecological disaster, an indirect consequence of this evolution, could serve as a wake-up call. It will undoubtedly fall to intellectual awareness, supported by the intuitions without which it is nothing, to denounce the root causes of the cult of Reason and the descent into Matter.

Beyond Freud’s reflections in Moses and Monotheism, it is necessary to re-examine the entirety of Genesis and the Old Testament in light of the metasexual postulate: between the symbolism of myth and the cruelty of history, we find the narrative of the loss of the sacred function of love, with its consequences for the spiritual destiny of humankind. Confused with the Divinity, with the ambivalent image of an omnipotent Father, dispenser sometimes of love and forgiveness, sometimes of prohibition and vengeance, those expelled from paradise have no other option than to wander in spiritual darkness in search of an original state that has become inaccessible.

The same broad outlines are found in the myths of various cultures. Greek mythology depicts the various facets of the degradation of the human condition, stemming from original sins symbolized, for example, by Typhon and Echidna, the serpent-man and serpent-woman who gave birth to all the monsters it portrays, including the Sphinx of Thebes. Quetzalcoatl, intoxicated by his wife, unites with her, and from this union spring all the misfortunes of the Aztecs. The Immaculate Conception rejects the idea of ​​a divine child born of copulation. Dracula feeds on the blood of his partners. For a century, the most powerful films have revolved around this same theme. May ‘68 advocated making love, not war…

The universality of the denunciation of a fault inherent in sexuality, in light of the postulate of its metapsychic purpose, might lead us to highlight an unconscious function responsible for deciphering the unverbalized errors of which it is a victim: we could thus define “mythogenesis” as an innate and therefore universal process, aiming, through sublimation and archetypal symbolism, to restore in consciousness a recognition of lost values ​​and the hope of their possible rehabilitation. We could see it, as Freud did, as a simple defense by projection against internal suffering due to the vagaries of a repressive upbringing. But we cannot dismiss the hypothesis of a fully-fledged psychic function, genetically determined in such a way as to guarantee the reactivation of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement).

Thanatos, Excalibur Drives, and the Origin of Morality.

Thanatos, as defined by Freud to account for the aggressive drives regularly associated with libido, invokes the notion of “death drives,” the presumed counterpart of the “life drives” grouped under Eros. This aspect of Freud’s thesis has been sharply criticized, notably by Wilhelm Reich.

The key question is whether aggressive drives are inherently associated with the drives of Eros, or to what extent they are the consequences of a deviation from the natural laws of human sexuality. Any form of frustration or guilt is likely to trigger aggressive impulses, and there is no basis for asserting that the way sexuality is experienced in our moral context fully satisfactorily meets our innate instinctual needs.

The postulate of the metapsychic finality of the MIP suggests that aggressive drives could be, at least in part, unconscious reactions against the repression or deflection of metasexual drives. Observation seems to show that a system of innate aggressive drives, linked to polymorphic drives, manifests itself from an early age in such a way as to denounce the failure of the metasexual function. These aggressive drives should only emerge sporadically, in response to occasional failures. When failures are too frequent, they become chained and persistent to the point of appearing intrinsically linked to the libido. This system of aggressive drives could contain the “will to power” described by Adler as compensation for the inferiority complex, the latter stemming precisely from metasexual failure.

These aggressive impulses first appear in the form of simulations, that is, behaviors whose apparent goal does not coincide with the real goal. They are recognized by signs of unease, gloom, impatience, lack of concentration, facial expressions, inhibition of gestures, sulking, withdrawal, etc., aimed at alerting the partner or those around them. When a situation of failure persists, the drives become increasingly intense, eventually becoming compulsive and taking the form of outright aggression, either directly in the sexual sphere (indecent gestures, exhibitionism, brutality), or in neurotic or “sublimated” forms such as threats, insults, breakups, violence, abandonment, continence, infidelity, and other manifestations that can be observed, for example, in a failing relationship.

Thus, within the cultural and moral context specific to our society, where metasexual failure is omnipresent, a death drive emerges that can appear genuine, whereas initially the aggressive drives merely served to usefully denounce sexual situations detrimental to metapsychic development.

Seen from this perspective, the concept of Thanatos does not appear unjustified, whatever Freud’s detractors may have said. However, its metaphysical interpretation is open to criticism: Thanatos is clearly not the supposedly necessary counterpart of Eros, attempting to annihilate what the life drives strive to order. The very principle of dual drives is unfounded; the drives programmed in the psyche obey a gradient overwhelmingly oriented toward the development and maintenance of life. Aggressive drives do exist, but these always respond, in the final analysis, to a failure of the former and aim to decipher the causes of this failure.

Negative drives are associated with positive drives, not as a counterpart obeying a hypothetical principle of neutrality, action, and reaction, but as an instance of control and self-regulation. Every homeostatic process must necessarily have two poles to steer the realization of drives, just as a motor vehicle has an accelerator and a brake. They are initially expressed as fantasies and simulations. They only manifest in a frankly destructive form when the situation they attempt to denounce becomes protracted and causes them to succumb to compulsion.

The drives grouped under Thanatos would thus have the function of controlling the correct actualization of the drives of Eros by denouncing the elements likely to doom them to failure, so as to safeguard their metapsychic purpose. It therefore seems more logical to return to Freud’s initial conception: aggressive drives would be the path taken by libido when it cannot be expressed through the channels of Eros. This form of aggression thus stems from neurosis, and not from a supposedly structural death drive. Neurosis, on the contrary, tends to re-establish conditions favorable to the expression of Eros.

Such a view can only be considered on the basis of the metasexual postulate: indeed, lacking knowledge of the metapsychic purpose of early drives, Freud could hardly attribute a regulatory function to drives that appeared to him to be systematically destructive. It is understandable that he therefore sought justification for them in a distinct entity, oriented towards death: thus was born the mirage of Thanatos.

The restoration of a regulatory function to aggressive drives leads to considering them as part of a perfectly organized drive complex, which must then be named. Just as Freud sought in mythology a figure representing the totality of drives from the early period, henceforth dubbed the Oedipus complex, we can find in Arthurian legends a symbol uniting the sharp edge of aggression and the will to truth: the famous sword “Excalibur”.

We will therefore speak of “excalibur drives” whenever we deal with aggressive or other drives aimed at denouncing the causes of failure of the metasexual function. This does not encompass all aggressive drives, for example, those that would respond to food deprivation, a commonplace insult, or social injustice, but only those, seemingly the most frequent and intense, that concern the deviations of amorous behavior and the deprivation of metapsychic energy. For example: fantasies of murdering the father are typically driven by excalibur drives tending to denounce a lack of love or, more profoundly, a lack of energy provided by the father; the primal fantasy denounces the loss of energy linked to the normative coitus of the parents; The depressive position often protests, for example through sulking, against unfair situations linked to family energy deficiency and the resulting lack of empathy from parents, etc.

Because their target is by definition inaccessible to consciousness, or at least not verbalizable (otherwise the ego could identify it), Excalibur impulses most often fixate on objects that are only symbolically related to the cause of failure. In this respect, they obey the principle of the “scapegoat”. Lacking sufficient visibility of the real cause of the deficiency, the Excalibur impulse targets an element that recalls, by analogy, the situation that led to it, or a person bearing certain similarities to the one responsible—a lability that can sometimes complicate their interpretation.

More importantly, Excalibur impulses can target the subject themselves, insofar as they commit certain errors in relation to natural laws. They are then experienced as guilt, for example, in a man who seeks his own pleasure and feels guilty toward his partner, without being able to verbalize it. This is a primary guilt, determined genetically or through the influence of the id, which should not be confused with secondary guilt induced by social morality and the superego. Only the latter was considered in the Freudian model.

We can therefore define primary guilt, or structural guilt, as the specific case of Excalibur drives when they turn against a behavior or fantasy of the subject himself. This model has the advantage of integrating primary aggression and guilt into a unified theory, as homeostatic functions aimed at safeguarding the metasexual instinctual program. Alternatively, they can be considered an integral part of this instinctual program, which would then encompass the drives of Eros, the Oedipus complex as the sensitive period of the metasexual instinctual program, and the Excalibur drive complex intended for the self-regulation of its natural functioning.

We can therefore establish a structural link between Thanatos and morality: it is indeed likely that aggressive impulses and feelings of guilt, unanimously shared by individuals confronted with a given behavior (unanimously because they are genetically determined), leave systematic traces in collective memory. The accumulation of all past experiences can thus constitute, over the centuries, a moral tradition, stigmatizing behaviors detrimental to the metasexual function.

We can thus understand why a sexual morality is an integral part of all religions, given that sexuality is directly related to metapsychic development, the foundation of all spirituality. The concept of chastity, for example, certainly arose with the aim of preserving a spiritual integrity that concupiscence could degrade. This does not preclude the possibility that certain deviations have led morality to value deviant behaviors or repress natural behaviors, either by mistake or because the latter no longer achieved their metapsychic purpose, for example, under the influence of abnormal excitability of the central nervous system due to diet. Thus, a paradoxical morality could arise, inducing a secondary (cultural) guilt that is out of sync with primary guilt (the Excalibur drives).

Reich strongly defended the notion of natural morality, advocating, for example, complete sexual freedom for adolescents. His argument, however, remains questionable, given that he does not distinguish between the two instinctual programs: one leading to reproduction and centered on coitus, the other, essentially polymorphous, aimed at providing metapsychic energy. This deficiency leads him to unwittingly validate behaviors contrary to the natural laws of the MIP (Personal Intuition Model), which explains a certain deviation in his personal experience, his silence on extrasensory perception throughout his work, and his reaction formation in the form of a cloudbuster meant to bring rain or repel storms.

Ultimately, we can classify within the Excalibur complex all the impulses—aggressive, depressive, or inhibitory—that aim to ensure the proper functioning of the MIP and counteract its deviations.

Aggressive impulses first manifest as simulations: impatience, threats, insults, broken dishes, semblances of physical aggression, even escalating to the compulsive form of the crime of passion.

Depressive impulses can also progress through different stages, ranging from feigned behavior—muteness, grief, tears, histrionics, a crisis of despair, a failed suicide attempt—to the compulsive form of completed suicide.

Among the inhibiting impulses, we can note shyness, modesty, various embarrassments, aesthetic alliesthesia, and feelings of ugliness, baseness, and disgust.

Of particular note is the existence of “reflexive impotence,” an unconscious inhibition of erection aimed at avoiding an inappropriate sexual encounter that might escalate into a more serious sexual experience. Many men believe themselves to be victims of physiological disorders or aging, when in reality their usual sexual relationship, especially within their marriage, has simply become depleted of energy. This impotence protects them against unwelcome fixations and an existential void that could have serious consequences.

Our unified theory would thus group together, within the metasexual instinctual program: Eros, the Oedipus complex, and the Excalibur complex, the latter inducing a natural morality on a social level. In a population where the MIP (Personal Instinctual Mode) is too consistently disrupted, sexual drives and Excalibur drives are disorganized and often compulsive, leading to a cultural morality more or less incompatible with the genetic makeup of the psyche or archetypal values.

A vicious cycle ensues: MIP drives repressed under the influence of unnatural prohibitions in turn trigger Excalibur drives, which regularly veer into compulsion whenever they fail to restore the MIP. Aggression and destructiveness are omnipresent, with the corollary being the phantom emergence of a pseudo-death drive complex: Thanatos.

Simulacrum, delinquent function, and sadomasochism.

The concept of the Excalibur drive leads us to outline a theory of transgression that could shed further light on criminology, particularly in the area of ​​juvenile delinquency.

Excalibur drives most often manifest themselves in the form of simulacra, that is, transgressive behaviors whose real purpose differs from the apparent one. These simulacra most often tend to symbolically denounce inappropriate parenting practices to which the child is subjected or adult behaviors that the child perceives as contrary to their fundamental drives, especially the child’s internalized desires.

For example, when a child sulks, it is clearly not to isolate themselves, but to protest as best they can against a feeling of frustration or injustice that they are unable to analyze. Lacking an appropriate framework for understanding this, the parents remain indifferent or punish the child for their bad temper. The simulated drive, having failed to achieve its goal, will be repressed and will emerge with even greater force at a later opportunity. Since the environment is unable to provide the child with what they seek in terms of the interpersonal drive, these simulated drives, which are nothing other than Excalibur drives, will become increasingly compulsive and resurface in adolescence in the form of generational conflict, anarchism, delinquency, or suicidal impulses.

Delinquency thus appears to be primarily a social function aimed at raising awareness of certain errors that could jeopardize the destiny of the individual and the community. Logically, one might expect it to be exacerbated in a repressive society, which condemns the metasexual function to systematic failure. In various primitive societies that impose few or no sexual prohibitions, delinquency is indeed nonexistent. However, in these societies, we observe a metapsychic activity that seems to attest to the presence of the metasexual function.

This is consistent with Reich’s position, who went so far as to assert that young delinquents possessed a healthier and more robust psyche than others. The thesis by Dollard, Doob, and Miller, [Frustration and Aggression] (CITE) (1957), also posits frustration as the necessary and sufficient cause of aggressive behavior. The metasexual postulate adds a hitherto unexplored causal field, namely the impossibility for the child to ensure the natural development of their extrasensory faculties. Education condemns them to a lifelong metapsychic disability.

Psychoanalysis has gone through a number of stages in its search for the causes of sadism and masochism, hesitating to decide which of these two perversions is primary or secondary. There are even three forms of masochism: a primary masochism stemming directly from the death drive; a second form linking libido and pain, respectively the life drive and the death drive; and a third, the most important, a “moral masochism” based on guilt, whose aim, at the level of the ego, is to maintain a certain amount of suffering in response to the attacks of a sadistic superego.

The metasexual postulate leads us to revisit the classical approach based on the notion of excalibur drives, originally organized to ensure the success of the metasexual function. In situations of failure, metasexual drives trigger excalibur drives, either in the form of aggression or guilt. These drives tend to interrupt the fulfillment of metasexual drives for the time necessary to identify and overcome the cause of the failure. When this cause remains undecipherable, the frustration is prolonged, the excalibur drives become compulsions and can no longer be contained: what would otherwise be mere pretense turns into deliberate transgression, even crime. This is all too often the case in our form of culture.

These excalibur drives can undergo various deviations: aggressive drives will be directed, according to the scapegoat principle, either against the subject himself (masochism) or against the sexual object (sadism), this discharge partially disinhibiting sexual drives; Feelings of guilt can either fuel the masochistic self-punishment scenario, thereby “exonerating” desire by diverting the impulses of the superego, or induce a reaction formation that reinforces the sadistic component. The duality of the Excalibur drives (aggression + guilt) explains the systematic link between sadistic and masochistic manifestations, a link enshrined in Freud’s binary terminology of sadism-masochism.

It follows that sadomasochistic behavior is more neurotic than perverse in nature: it is not about the pleasure of causing the other to suffer in their sexual fulfillment, nor about achieving pleasure through the suffering of the other, but rather about the deviation of primary drives belonging to the Excalibur complex. Intrinsically linked to the primary drive and expressed through aggressive impulses or feelings of guilt, these drives manifest as a simulation and disrupt relationships. Acting out these impulses through sadistic or masochistic behavior allows for their release and the disinhibition of sexual drives. One might then have the impression of achieving pleasure through aggression, directed against the other or oneself, when in reality it is a way of paying one’s dues to the Superego (for social guilt) or the Id (for primary guilt), due to the lack of a framework for understanding the underlying process.

It thus appears that sadomasochism does not belong to natural psychosexual functioning, contrary to what psychoanalysis claims, which tends to present it as a facet of normality. Its apparent omnipresence in sexuality stems from the systematic activation of these intense drives, due to the fact that it is regularly experienced in a way that contradicts natural laws. These are not destructive impulses that inherently interfere with Eros, but rather corrective impulses that evolve into compulsions as a result of the culturally determined repetition of situations that transgress the laws of metasexuality.

Triangular Constellation and MIP ↔ BIP Interactions

The triangular constellation is intrinsically linked to the Oedipal complex. Is it induced by the nuclear family context, or does it exist as a natural relational basis? The Polynesians had a term for it, far removed from any notion of family, which supports the latter possibility.

Freud attributed to it a phylogenetic predetermination, independent of the family structure, the child naturally seeking a third party beyond their dual relationship with the mother. He defends the existence of a fundamental bisexuality, from which adult psychosexual structures would develop, through repression of the heterosexual or homosexual component, or through the absence of repression in the bisexual. For him, the triangular constellation was limited to the early period and disappeared with the Oedipus complex.

The binary relationship is traditionally considered the basic structure of the heterosexual couple and the fundamental unit of all romantic relationships. It stems directly from the necessities of copulation and rivalry between competing males, as can be observed in a large number of animal species. The nuclear family model, constitutive of our type of society and seemingly inevitable for biological and instinctual reasons, rests on this binary relationship: the intrusion of a third party very generally provokes reactions of jealousy, destabilizes the family unit, and harms the development of offspring.

The metasexual postulate, however, leads us to reconsider this entire picture, not to mention this idealized image consecrated over centuries, from a new perspective:

1. The binary relationship structurally belongs to the reproductive function: Parents who have a child go through a series of emotional phases that can perpetuate their union; regardless of any moral considerations, a faithful couple provides a foundation of security and stability for raising children.

2. The triangular constellation, on the other hand, seems to constitute the basic relational configuration specific to the metasexual function, for three main reasons: it is at work during the early (or Oedipal) period, when only the metasexual function is involved; the opening of a binary relationship to a third party is by nature conducive to the exchange of metapsychic energy; the multipolar drive dynamic that is established facilitates access to the metapsychic dimension through the particular emotions that are involved.

Such a model of functioning leads us to further examine the drive structures associated with the triangular constellation, not only during the Oedipal period, but also in adulthood. Since the metasexual function remains active throughout life, we can expect a triangular dynamic to persist alongside the binary dynamic inherent in reproduction, such that these two structures interact positively from maturity onward.

We can therefore anticipate a natural drive configuration in romantic relationships that is more complex than that of the classic couple relationship, and even more complex than that of the Oedipal phase, given the possible interactions between the interpersonal and reproductive drives.

Let us mention from the outset a little-known drive complex, because it is nonexistent in ordinary situations, which we might call the love of love. Indeed, when the situation is favorable, we observe a possible reversal of possessiveness and jealousy into a feeling of transcendent love for the other person. Such a “state of grace” seems to be the prime source of a renewal of metasexual energy. It is most often during relationships of this type that metapsychic phenomena or faculties appear. This process is not without its challenges, but it appears to represent the most fundamental aspect of the MIP (Personalized Interpersonal Relationship).

Acknowledging a natural drive for love for love’s sake implies a revolution in the understanding of psychic structuring. Under ordinary circumstances, the third party is perceived as a risk of loss of love. Their image is linked to that of the castrating mother or the prohibiting father, primarily a negative one. Within the framework of the MIP, it is precisely the opposite: the third party is a guarantee of additional love, happiness, and metapsychic development. Their image is therefore, a priori, positive.

These positions, crystallizing from an early age, determine fundamentally different psychic structures, which will characterize opposing predispositions toward the intervention of a third party, both in a romantic relationship and in any form of social activity. For the sake of simplicity, we can characterize them symbolically using a simplified notation. A closed structure to third parties can be denoted (2-1), while an open one is denoted (2+1).

Subjects with a (2+1) structure, for example, will tend to be spontaneously open to the arrival of a third party in the home, thus exhibiting a spontaneous sense of hospitality and a pleasant welcome (which may explain the sexual hospitality practiced in the Middle Ages and still found in non-Westernized regions). This same openness will be observed in response to a new idea brought by a third party, an invention, criticism, etc. Subjects with a 2+1 structure will, a priori, tend to close their door to any potential intruder; hospitality will be perceived as a task and a risk. Any new idea will be opposed a priori, and its potential validity much more difficult to accept.

From a psychopathological perspective, it can be said that the (2-1) structure is the basis of neurotic, paranoid, or perverse structures as defined by Freud. The (2+1) structure would then be characterized by the absence of these three psychological alterations and would simply represent a “normal state” that psychoanalysis seems to have failed to define so far.

The social repercussions are immediately apparent: a society made up of (2+1) individuals will be much more harmonious and easier to govern; disagreements will be the exception, and cooperation spontaneous. In contrast, a (2-1) type society will experience permanent conflicts and resistance to any external intrusion, difficulty in governance, and the need for all sorts of subterfuge or threats to rally individuals, with personal interests prevailing over any community activity—evoking what we observe in our Western democracies.

The very notion of power is called into question: with (2-1) structures, the power holder perceives others as potential enemies to be subdued, their allies only make sense within the framework of a united front against others, and personal interests prevail, leading to prevarication and corruption. With (2+1) structures, those who assume power do so out of devotion to others, finding joy in putting their skills at the service of the community. They face an audience open to their ideas and more readily willing to relinquish personal interests in the name of the common good. This results in a reversed political situation, a guarantee of social peace and national unity. They themselves remain open to criticism and grievances, prioritizing openness to others and empathy for those in difficulty over adherence to a personal political ideology.

Similarly, between nations, (2-1) structures generate an inherent tendency toward war within the population, while (2+1) structures foster a spirit of peace and reconciliation that would undoubtedly have changed the course of history…

But let’s get back to the matter at hand, or more precisely, to the social and moral system in which we are immersed. Despite the general repression of the metasexual function, certain partial drives, such as the adulterous drive, or certain forbidden polymorphous drives, can be activated by specific stimuli. They then inevitably disrupt, if not destroy, the course of what would be an ideal reproductive function, dependent on the idealized image of the eternal couple and the family as a haven of happiness. The interplay between the interplay of the psychic and reproductive drives, between their respective aims and relational structures, not to mention the Excalibur complex and its many manifestations, opens the door to a love life far removed from the image of the long, tranquil river that the ideal couple’s life should be. One might see in this the infallible remedy against the boredom and degradation that, according to Reich, inexorably threaten so-called faithful relationships.

This raises a whole series of questions: Is the peaceful coexistence of the two functions possible? Are moral interventions necessary to manage the dynamics of drives and prevent their excesses? Is the innate programming of the various drives, including the Excalibur drives, capable of spontaneously ensuring a harmonious unfolding of love life? Do the Excalibur drives inherent in the metasexual function risk interfering with reproductive behaviors? Is a confusion between the metapsychic purpose of the former and the biological character of the latter possible? Only concrete observation can provide relevant answers to these various questions.

It is primarily from a developmental perspective that we must examine how the reproductive function, emerging at maturity, should coexist with a fully developed metasexual function that has escaped repression. Our model proposes a kind of inversion here: the classical view considers the reproductive function to be the primary one, around which a few surviving polymorphisms may revolve as preliminary pleasures. Attributing a metapsychic purpose to the entire set of polymorphic drives, considered as an autonomous drive complex, encourages us, on the contrary, to view the metasexual function as central, with reproductive drives subsequently grafting themselves onto it, feeding off it, perhaps even opposing it, without diminishing its primacy.

The crucial question then becomes how this “grafting” should occur under ideal conditions, that is, free from prohibitions and pathogenic repressions. From the perspective of the drive structures likely to be involved, the first step is to make a discriminating inventory of metasexual drives as opposed to reproductive drives.

The former, by definition, include the early polymorphic drives attached to the different erogenous zones, as well as drives that are not strictly erotic but are responsible for managing everything that may revolve around the metasexual function. It is therefore relatively easy to make the distinction, simply by attributing to the reproductive function the drives that appear at puberty, both sexual and relational.

Since observing subjects free from repression is hardly possible within our social framework, we must consider the mirage effect, which would lead us to perceive as new drives that remained silent during the latency period. A second criterion can help to distinguish between the two: The drives corresponding to the early stages of development (oral, anal, and phallic) certainly belong to the metasexual function, while the drives specific to the genital stage should* a priori be classified within the reproductive function.

We can also consider the sexual behaviors observed in the animal world. All animals, even the most archaic, including spiders and fish, exhibit displays, ritual combat between males, courtship dances, or other procedures leading to mating and ensuring sexual selection. Analogous behaviors observed in humans should, in principle, be classified within the BIP (Progressive Instinctual Reproductive).

Among the most highly evolved primates and cetaceans, sexual mores are particularly complex, notably among bonobos: these close relatives of humans practice (in the wild) polymorphic relationships, independent of rutting seasons, including heterosexual, homosexual, and even pedophilic ones. This primitive “eroticism,” according to primatologist Frans de Waal, serves to reduce tensions and maintain group harmony.

The animal closest to humans thus seems to already possess two independent purposes related to sexuality. It would be risky to directly extrapolate this to human beings. However, a cautious extrapolation, through the laws of evolution, can still have some heuristic value when exploring the origins of the dual function of human sexuality.

Another heuristic that could facilitate this categorization: since the two functions, metasexual and reproductive, are essentially linked to the same organs, it should be possible to establish certain homologies between the two instinctual programs. Each drive governing reproduction should correspond to a homologous drive aimed at gaining energy. This is not a demonstration, but we can expect to find connections stemming from the genetic evolution of the psyche: metasexual drives probably result from an evolution of reproductive drives, with which they may have retained certain connections and analogies due to shared organs and the use of the same brain circuits, much like language may have evolved from the cry.

The table on page 95 offers an initial classification of the homologous components of the MIP and BIP. This categorization is not absolute. Both BIP and MIP components are always more or less present in a lived relationship. The question is which one takes precedence over the other, which one should predominate under ideal conditions, and, above all, how they should interact. Environmental pressures or the subject’s psychosexual structures can favor certain drives, inhibit others, reinforce certain types of interaction, and so on.

In clinical practice, such a classification can serve as an analytical framework when a relationship is painful or conflictual, when partners do not share the same aspirations, when a third party enters the couple’s life, when unfounded jealousy damages the relationship, when neurotic traits impair communication, and so on. The most classic example is the mismatch between the partners’ respective expectations: one seeks a “magical” love without necessarily making a contractual commitment, while the other hopes to start a family. In all these situations, the MIP-BIP decoding allows us to trace the difficulties not only back to specific, supposedly traumatic events, but also to much deeper structural causes.

Compared to classical psychoanalysis, one could even speak of a reversal in terms of guilt: instead of leading the analysand to exhume reprehensible impulses and renounce them in the name of social conformity, the aim is to recognize with them the natural character of these impulses and to become aware of their essential metapsychic function.

They can thus understand the pervasiveness of the suffering inherent in frustration, appreciate the responsibility of culture, distinguish between primary and secondary guilt, and engage in philosophical reflection on the root causes of this state of affairs, thereby more easily freeing themselves from reproaches, hatred, shame, and other destructive feelings. Such a process preserves the subtle dimension of their romantic and sexual aspirations; their relationships can become more enriching in terms of energy, which ultimately allows them to better accept the social system for what it is and to better accept themselves.

Table: Cross-Drive Analysis Grid

New definitions of neurosis and perversion

From an etiological point of view, taking into account the homologous drives of the two instinctual programs leads to attributing a new structural basis to neurosis.

Neurotic disorders are classically explained by the diversion of libido: instinctual energies that cannot be discharged through natural channels seek other avenues of expression, in the form of aggression, partial or substitute sexual drives, flight from the demands of the Id, and feelings of guilt.

However, we see here another type of diversion: when a drive of the MIP type cannot be fulfilled, due to an external prohibition or one internalized in the Superego, the accumulated instinctual energy can be invested in homologous drives of the BIP type, due to their similarity or phylogenetic proximity. For example, the libido normally attached to a polymorphic drive, if the latter remains inhibited, may be discharged into genitality; Vaginal penetration will therefore play an exaggerated, even compulsive, role in the representation and realization of love life, with all the direct and indirect consequences this can entail: female frigidity, marital difficulties, unplanned pregnancies, abortion, adolescent disappointment after the “first time,” demographic disruption, etc.

We will call such a drive deviation from the primary drive (MIP) to the primary drive (BIP) “drive induction”. This is a particular case of deviation in which the major drive energy linked to metasexual drives overinvests reproductive drives, giving them a compulsive character.

The transfer of energy from a metasexual drive to the closest drive of a reproductive type is reminiscent of the transfer of electromagnetic energy between two parallel solenoids. The term “induction,” while debatable like all terminology, has the advantage of reminding us that these are very closely related, even parallel, drives: the drives of the internal reproductive function (IRF) are inherently added to those of the internal reproductive function (IMF) from the onset of maturity, a process that must unfold according to certain rules of harmony. However, they can also serve as an outlet for IMF drive energy when it has been repressed.

The establishment of an instinctual function is generally linked to a sensitive period, and it is at puberty that the reproductive function is established. It therefore seems pertinent to distinguish two sensitive periods: one in early childhood, associated with the IMF, which takes on the characteristics of the classic Oedipus complex within a nuclear family context; the other in adolescence, linked to the IRF, with the emergence of genital drives, the fantasy of penetration, and secondary sexual characteristics. Thus, two distinct sensitive periods contribute to the psychosexual development of the individual, rather than a single period as is generally considered.

This model is validated by the irreversibility of fixations, both Oedipal and pubertal. The sexual experiences of adolescence remain definitively inscribed in memory and can condition the entirety of an individual’s romantic life. During this period, a crystallization of behaviors occurs, reminiscent of the Oedipal phase.

Here, we will examine the different possible fixations, attempting to contrast a psychosexual development based on the integration of drives from the internalized internal environment (IIE) with those of an unrepressed internalized internal environment (IIE), with the paradoxical development resulting from the interactions between IIE drives and repressed IIE drives.

The strength of drive induction can be explained by the power dynamic between the two instinctual programs. It is common to assume that the reproductive function is the primary one, given the prominence of genitality in our cultural system. However, it would be a mistake to rely on this accepted prevalence to minimize the importance of the metasexual function a priori: the failure of the metasexual function can indeed explain the overinvestment in genitality.

One criterion for assessing the balance between the two functions would be to compare the number of orgasms necessary to ensure a satisfactory metasexual equilibrium with the number of acts of intercourse or ejaculations required by the reproductive function. In animals, we observe relatively rare matings, limited to the rutting season, of a few per female. The orgasmic need specific to humans (already observable in bonobos), on the other hand, represents thousands of sexual encounters. Since female orgasm is in no way necessary for fertilization, the orgasmic function seems essentially linked to the MIP (Personal Instinctual Mass). We could therefore attribute to the metasexual function a potential for drive energy far greater than that of the reproductive function, and thus better explain the disproportionate amount of BIP drives invested by MIP energies.

The MIP→BIP induction process is highly complex, due to the number of drives and behaviors belonging to each of these instinctual programs. We have represented the main elements involved in the table on page 101. The first column lists the different classes of drives or activities at the personal or social level, the second column describes their components belonging to MIP, and the third their counterparts specific to BIP. This allows us to better visualize the homologies between the two programs and predict possible inductions.

These first three columns are reproduced on page 108, with the main outcomes of the interactions between the homologous components, summarized in their most salient manifestations and initial developments, appearing on page 109 (columns 4 and 5).

In column 4, the first term (before the slash) indicates a type of activity or social value resulting from the overinvestment of the BIP drive by the corresponding accumulated MIP drive energy. This manifestation of drive induction, whether individual or social, falling outside the framework of natural functioning, triggers, like any unnatural situation, Excalibur drives aimed at signaling the anomaly. These drives constitute a reaction formation charged with destructiveness, indicated after the slash.

Further developments follow this conflictual situation. The manifestation of the Excalibur drives (second term in column 4) itself constitutes an anomaly; in fact, it should not exist in a context conforming to the natural laws of Eros. This will, in turn, be followed, at the social level where all these forces intersect, by a restorative manifestation, tending to restore a better balance, this time outside of sexuality itself—that is, a product of sublimation. This is summarized in the first term(s) of the fifth column.

But the rejection of the sexual component is itself a deviation from natural laws, so that a new reaction formation manifests itself in an excessively sexualized form as compensation (second term of the fifth column). Further developments can occur, but the most significant are contained in the last two columns of the table.

Thus, for each class of drives or human values, we obtain two dipoles: one concerning compulsive sexual manifestations and the prohibitive reaction forces (column 4), and the other concerning the sublimation of the drive and the hypersexualized reaction formation associated with it (column 5).

For example, line 13 characterizes the different sexual approaches: in column 2, the MIP (love magic) type approach; unable to be realized due to its repression, the instinctual energy accumulated during childhood, which is felt as a yearning for the magical, is invested in the BIP type approach, which, as with higher animals, is much more mechanical and includes proposition and consent (column 3).

This alternative, amplified by the hope of access to the magical, an open door to the spiritual, then takes on the appearance of seduction (the prefix “sé” evokes corruption), indicated in column 4. Under the effect of frustration, things can escalate to harassment, or even rape. Since these behaviors are not inherent to human nature, they activate Excalibur-like impulses, which can generate a cascade of social movements: the imposition of the veil, chaperoning, contempt for unwed mothers, as well as a repressive morality and legislation intended to prevent these excesses.

These elements, largely permeated by sexuality, will be opposed (col. 5) by desexualized elements, such as the valorization of chaste friendship between men and women, which maintains the gendered approach while sublimating any explicitly sexual component, or, more rigorously, the separation of the sexes, the ideal of holiness conflated with continence. Such a social construct, masking a rejection of natural impulses, activates the Excalibur complex through various reaction formations, introducing into society the stereotype of flirting, or quite simply that of prostitution under the pretext of a need for liberation.

Similar transformation processes will appear for each homologous drive or impulse in both programs. These processes will be found even in cultural productions, as these are influenced by various forms of internal conflict, such as morality, the theorization of sexuality, and so on. Furthermore, one must consider the multiplicity of possible outcomes, stemming not only from internal processes but also from their social repercussions and the boomerang effect on the individual of social values ​​instilled over time by individual deviations.

Each line requires in-depth analysis, which would far exceed the scope of this booklet. The subject will be treated more comprehensively in a specialized work.

Nevertheless, it is possible to establish an initial framework for deciphering the structural origins of the various normal or pathological behaviors revolving around sexuality and inherent in cross-drive neurosis. Although simplistic, such a framework has the advantage of outlining the various pathways of drive induction, indicating a few examples of reaction formations and cultural constructs generated by the overinvestment of the primary drive and the frustrations of the secondary drive. This provides an initial framework for structuring the analysis of individual or societal particularities. It is applicable both to the problem of psychosexual structuring (by allowing, for example, the definition of a natural psychic structure) and to neurotic disorders and their cultural outcomes.

The elements of the table, like any human drive or value, are distributed according to their predominance. Every concept is polysemous and context-dependent, so many concepts could appear in several rows or columns. The choices were made based on their significance and their center of gravity. Natural morality, for example, primarily contains rules designed to preserve the MIP (Progressive Instinctual Movement), but it goes without saying that a part of this natural morality aims to protect reproductive aspects.

The proposed model opens the way to a form of psychoanalysis that we believe it is pertinent to rename “metapsychoanalysis,” for two reasons: it incorporates the metapsychic dimension as Jung attempted to rehabilitate it; and it allows for an approach to problems of psychosexual structuring based on an element not taken into account by Freudian psychoanalysis, namely the metapsychic purpose of so-called infantile sexuality, a purpose that could restore meaning to the essential part of human sexuality. The quintessential tool of metapsychoanalysis is thus what can be called “cross-drive analysis,” which consists of searching for the origins of the disorders manifested by a patient, or affecting society, in terms of MIP → BIP (Progressive Instinctual Movement) drive induction.

Table : Homologies MIP / BIP

This reasoning model allows us to define a criterion for recognizing sexual perversion based on a structural basis (there is currently no consensus on its definition): “any perverse sexual behavior or fantasy activates certain Excalibur drives”. The general definition given above (the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of the instinct’s purpose) is compatible with this criterion, because Excalibur drives are by definition opposed to a loss of energy in the pure pursuit of pleasure. Given that the Excalibur drives aim to denounce behavioral errors in relation to the data of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Model), which by its very nature tends to guarantee optimal metapsychic development, perversion appears as contrary to this development, and therefore contrary to spiritual evolution, which explains the universal link between sexual morality and spirituality.

Such a criterion for recognition has the advantage of being independent of the contingent morality specific to a given culture: the genetically programmed Excalibur complex generates a universal morality, leaving only a minor place for cultural relativism. We can expect to find, in such a morality, all the complexity and subtlety of the MIP and its interactions with the BIP (Personal Instinctual Model).

Metapsychoanalysis and Cross-drive Analysis

Metapsychoanalysis represents a complete reversal of perspective compared to classical psychoanalysis. It is no longer a matter of bringing repressed drives to the surface in order to consciously reject them. This principle, on the contrary, appears as a fundamental error in relation to the genetic data of human nature.

This time, the aim is to recover aborted drives in order to validate them as a primary function whose purpose is the development of the most subtle and essential part of the psyche, namely its metapsychic aspect. The cause of repression is no longer to be found in the maladaptation of so-called polymorphous drives or of a chaotic Id to the demands of morality, but in the maladaptation of morality to the eternal and universal values ​​of the human soul.

The position of both the analysand and the analyst, insofar as the latter is still necessary, are completely transformed. Guilt, internalized in the Superego as a result of real or imagined transgressions, is no longer to be attributed to the individual, but to a clearly articulable societal error. Nor should it be attributed to castrating parental images, the parents themselves appearing as victims of a system that was beyond their control, for which they were not responsible and whose distortions they could not humanly discern.

The analyst is no longer perceived as a representative of social demands, which he embodies despite himself and despite all the precepts of amorality: the patient who is told that he must reject his impulses in the name of society inevitably comes to situate the analyst within the system that is the source of repressive morality, the unconscious reproach he makes to the analyst adding to the transference of negative parental images. When the analyst clearly explains to him that this system is built on a fundamental error, resonating with his deepest aspirations, he can, on the contrary, regain confidence in himself, as well as in his own impulses and intuitions.

The transference no longer occurs through the projection of a parental image onto the analyst. This figure is perceived as the educator capable of explaining the parents’ mistakes and helping them forgive, knowing that they simply did their best within the dominant paradigm. Or as the redeeming father-educator denouncing the errors of which both parents and child were victims. If there is transference, it is that of a profound understanding of early situations, an understanding that implies forgiveness, itself liberating.

Knowledge of the natural laws of love makes possible a phantasmatic reactivation of all situations still recoverable in memory. The analysand, becoming aware of what should have been, can revisit the frustrations caused by what was and gradually resolve the tensions and conflicts internalized in their superego.

The same applies to irrecoverable content, obscured by infantile amnesia. Simply being able to imagine early situations, even with a significant degree of uncertainty, as they might have been in contrast to what they should have been, is a way to free oneself from the traumas they caused.

This process applies to both past sexual abuse and the rejection of infantile drives. In both cases, the child’s sensitivity and yearning for the magical have been wounded. Understanding that this yearning, which continues more or less unconsciously into adulthood, does not represent a regression to an infantile stage, but rather a fundamental need at any age, directly linked to an essential supply of metapsychic energy for the individual’s spiritual development, has many positive implications.

The individual can understand the unease they felt regarding the degraded sexual behaviors they saw around them, as well as those they sensed (or witnessed) from their parents. He can regain confidence in his own intuition and rebuild his own identity on a solid foundation. The primal fantasy can thus be understood as a justified reaction of the unconscious and loses its harmfulness; it resumes its proper function as the antithesis of the sacred phallus. Sexuality can be resacralized as a path of metapsychic and spiritual evolution.

The rehabilitation of the magical also allows the individual to manage their own love life differently. By distinguishing between situations that generate magic and those that destroy it—recognizable, moreover, by the emergence of aggressive impulses or feelings of guilt stemming from the Excalibur complex—the individual learns to avoid the pitfalls they previously encountered. They possess a framework for interpretation that allows them to discern truth from falsehood, the natural from the pathological, without being beholden to a morality that reinforces an arbitrary norm too often contrary to nature.

The essential consequence of this new state of affairs is a more secure access to metapsychic energy, recognizable by inspiration, creativity, and a feeling of fullness and bliss. One could call it a feeling of redemption, no longer to be found in religion or contingent morality, but in the profound unity of being.

Old conditioning, produced by feelings of frustration and guilt that tainted romantic experiences, is gradually reversed as new experiences generate positive feelings. The more these inhibiting conditionings lose their hold, the more readily energy-generating situations can arise. Thus begins a virtuous cycle leading to an increasingly frequent and gratifying influx of energy.

Metasexual energy plays an essential, if not indispensable, role in healing old wounds. It is precisely this energy deficiency that constituted the substance of the frustration and lies at the root of the early trauma. Being forbidden, forbidding oneself, feeling obligated, forcing oneself, feeling guilty, intellectualizing—all these traits, too often imposed by context during early sexual fantasies or experiences, have inevitably compromised access to transcendent energy. Understanding, made possible by a framework for interpretation aligned with natural laws, allows the anathema to be lifted. Feelings of happiness act as a balm, promoting the gradual healing of old wounds.

This is, in itself, a fundamental therapy, since it consists of correcting the very factor that caused the trauma. Under ordinary circumstances, this trauma is maintained and aggravated by systematic metasexual failure and by the energy deficiency that persists or worsens throughout adulthood. However, by rediscovering, even later in life, the irreplaceable source of this energy, the wounds and ruts are filled, ultimately largely erasing the scars of childhood.

Cross-drive analysis greatly facilitates the interpretation of unconscious contents. It allows us to relate them to neurotic processes of drive induction that remain inaccessible to classical psychoanalysis. It offers not only the practitioner, but also the patient, the possibility of experiencing internal conflicts in depth and in their true essence, through resonance with the real unconscious needs linked to the inner workings of the mind. This applies both to accessing the transcendent dimension, a fundamental human need, and to the role of the metasexual function and thus of polymorphous drives in relation to their metapsychic potentialities.

The rejection of the magical dimension under the guise of infantilism and immaturity gives way to a recognition of its foundational role in the development of metapsychic faculties and in the fulfillment of the self. The magical appears as the authentic fantasy prefiguring metapsychic and spiritual evolution. Beyond the immediate theoretical shift that results, this recognition allows the analysand to reclaim their primal aspirations, condemned under the guise of normality, and to recognize themselves in their true identity. This aligns with Jungian psychoanalysis, with the added benefit of restoring the natural character of polymorphous drives, far removed from any repressive morality.

For example, the use of drive induction allows for a much deeper treatment of phobias than classical psychoanalysis or behavioral therapy, by relating them to anxieties generated by the repression of the primary drive. On the one hand, we better understand the pervasiveness of these anxieties, knowing that their underlying issue is the major existential failure represented by metapsychic failure: a lack of intuition, creativity, and extrasensory abilities, even in a context where these deficiencies have become the norm. Primary anxieties are genetically determined and are all the more compulsive because the dominant thought system leaves no room for any representation of their origin.

Furthermore, the MIP→BIP decoding framework allows for a better investigation of the circumstances in which these anxieties became fixed on particular objects. For example, certain anxieties related to secondary sexual characteristics (disgust for the opposite sex in homosexuals, for one’s own sex in heterosexuals, for pubic hair in pedophiles) can be linked to the concrete situations in which the drive was triggered. The confusion between the aspiration for transcendence and the dependence on genitality will allow the analysand to understand in depth the negative impact of the anatomical details onto which this anxieties have become attached, details which would otherwise have no reason to be so prohibitive.

Regarding the difficulty of accepting one’s own body during adolescence, metapsychoanalysis, postulating the genetic programming of drives, opens two avenues of exploration: does anxiety stem from a culturally ingrained aesthetic conditioning that promotes a hairless and anorexic body, thus distorting self-evaluation, and what is the origin of this aesthetic canon? To what extent does it arise from the existential failure consecrated by the drive induction MIP→BIP during adolescence, through the projection of the resulting anxiety onto the bodily changes occurring at puberty? While psychoanalysis can only reduce these aesthetic singularities to parental images laden with hedonic frustration, transpulsion analysis connects them to a more substantial deficiency inherent in a centuries-old error that strips love of its essential function.

It is worth noting in this regard that the perception of beauty can shift to neutral or reverse into a sensation of ugliness depending on the MIP status of a romantic situation. These perceptual variations are generally attributed to processes of cerebral adaptation, conditioning, emotional saturation, projection of parental images, and so on. These factors cannot be denied, but they also encompass a far more fundamental mechanism, which could be called “aesthetic alliesthesia,” belonging to the Excalibur complex and whose purpose is to avoid relationships unfavorable to MIP.

There is clearly a link between the aesthetic sensation (for example, upon seeing the body or sexual organs) and the “energetic content” of the situation, with perceived beauty revealing affinities that justify closeness, and ugliness warning against an inappropriate relationship. To these alliesthetic variations are added, of course, cultural or individual aesthetic conditioning, sometimes to the point of completely overshadowing them—a frequent situation in a social context where BIP is the norm. It is all the more important to be able to distinguish these two sources of aesthetic sensations (line 16 of the table on p. 90) in order to clarify past situations and uncover the true causes of trauma.

Ultimately, every aspect of psychoanalysis, sexual behavior, perversions, moral values, and the cultural manifestations that derive from them directly or indirectly should be revisited in terms of cross-drive analysis, which would far exceed the scope of this booklet. We will limit ourselves here to these few guidelines and examples, reserving a more exhaustive analysis for a future work.

The main difficulty with this approach is that Excalibur drives, like all drives, can be repressed, deflected, or projected, so that one cannot rely on observable aggressive reactions without analyzing their true origin. Otherwise, we might mistake aggressive reactions stemming from the Superego or induced by culture for genuine Excalibur drives. Nor can we rely on the absence of visible manifestations, given their possible repression in a type of culture founded on the repression of the Instinctual Drive Complex (MIP), of which the MIP is an integral part.

The marital situation, for example, associated with duty and normality, is generally presented as a guarantee of happiness: they lived happily ever after and had many children. However, upon closer examination, we find that the image of the faithful couple systematically triggers MIPs, particularly between spouses. These are recognizable by boredom, a sense of routine, impatience, aggression, and the need for escape or rupture that gradually creep into a prolonged relationship. In the long run, married life appears as a failure of the MIP. It embodies a confusion between MIP and BIP, with the need for metapsychic fulfillment linked to the former being channeled into the promises of happiness associated with the latter. But the latter does not satisfy the need for transcendence inherent in the former. The disappointment—unformulable—results in a whole series of increasingly destructive reaction formations and impulses implemented by the Excalibur complex, with the relational consequences that can be observed in most closed couples (line 14 of the table on pages 108 and 109).

Cross-drive analysis advocates a revolutionary approach to couples therapy. It does not attempt, as is common practice, to “put the pieces back together” by getting partners to control their negative impulses or to communicate better in order to overcome their antagonisms, a method whose long-term results are all too well known. It teaches spouses to situate their relationship within a deeper understanding of the natural laws of love, particularly to no longer expect the romantic and spiritual bliss that the dominant paradigm had led them to imagine from a closed, binary relationship.

The realization that the equation “love = marriage” is a recent innovation, whereas before the modern era, as in all existing cultures, marriage was primarily about reproduction, completely changes the game. It empties the disappointments and despair of not finding in marriage the ideal setting for the falsely promised erotic and transcendent expectations. Abandoning romantic hopes certainly requires a certain amount of detachment. However, it is by grounding the couple’s unity in a wonderful shared task—raising children—and not in a false promise of easy sexual happiness, that this unity can best withstand the test of time.

The adulterous compulsion, viewed from the perspective of the MIP (Personalized Interpersonal Relationship), aims in itself to re-establish the triangular constellation capable of reactivating the metasexual relational dynamic. It appears as an attempt by nature to resurface. It can manifest in both partners. The first step is to understand it, an intractable task in the ordinary moral context, but one that flows naturally in light of the metasexual postulate: it is explained by the search for a source of energy external to the couple. The major difficulty is not intellectual, but instinctual: overcoming possessiveness and jealousy.

The MIP→BIP deciphering framework allows us to understand jealousy as a perversion: it stems from the possessive tendencies of the BIP, overinvested by the instinctual energies of the MIP. Simply knowing that the suffering inherent in jealousy comes from energetic frustration and is easily overcome when this energy is once again available leads to experiencing an openness within the couple as a potential source of happiness (according to Reich, a temporary openness can improve the couple’s relationship). The key concept of love for love, relatively easy to grasp, at least formally, helps spouses put their feelings into perspective.

On the other hand, adultery practiced in a BIP mode (with a predominance of intercourse) naturally triggers very violent Excalibur impulses, linked to the primal fantasy. Under these conditions, it in turn appears perverse (causing a major loss of metasexual energy), and it is understandable that particularly violent Excalibur impulses emerge to signal the danger. In a MIP context (with a predominance of polymorphous impulses and metapsychic openness), it is, on the contrary, felt as a transcendence of the ego, an outpouring of the heart, a gift bearing universal love, an act of self-sacrifice. The resulting influx of energy when things go well is enough to erase the fear of losing the object of love and to definitively overcome possessiveness.

The consideration of the MIP (Person-Induced Mental Disorder) leads, as we see, to a general reversal of the framework of sexuality and the structures of morality, undermining the normative references still clinging to Freudian psychoanalysis and psychiatry. The analyst is entrusted with a significantly more active role than in classical psychoanalysis: although still expected to accompany and facilitate the surfacing of traumatic content, they must assume the function of an educator, even if it means maintaining an attitude of caution and openness to questioning the theory. Such a balanced approach is essential in order not to overwhelm the patient with concepts that defy common sense, and quite simply for epistemological reasons, given that all theory must be subject to constant verification.

These theoretical shifts affect all perversions and paraphilias. For example, fetishism no longer requires recourse to the dual problem of the phallic substitute attributed to women and the denial of castration: Its prevalence is explained by the projection of fantasies specific to the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement), which have become compulsive due to their repression, onto a part of the body or some object symbolizing the aspiration for transcendent love.

Puritanism itself presents itself as a perversion: it appears as a denial of the primordial function of human sexuality and arouses Excalibur-type impulses (recognizable by the pejorative connotation attached to the term). Zetetics (skeletons in the closet) also falls into the category of perversions, insofar as it condemns a priori the existence of metapsychic phenomena and thus opposes a denial to the metasexual function. The only morality devoid of perverse (and therefore psychotic) character is that which brings together all the behavioral patterns and prohibitions capable of guaranteeing the success of the MIP and natural metapsychic development. It should be noted that the notion of chastity initially referred not to continence, but to the observance of rules preventing the metasexual function from veering into mere reproduction.

The decoding of the unconscious by psychoanalysis was carried out without reference to the fundamental nature of so-called infantile sexuality and its metapsychic purpose. The very term “infantile sexuality,” even though Freud insisted in his later works on its immanence and permanence throughout life, is likely to mislead. This terminology evokes a temporary vector of sexual curiosity, playful behavior, and polymorphous perversions, quite the opposite of a phase of establishing the metasexual function.

A confusion has thus arisen between the true nature of infantile sexuality and its perverse manifestations induced by the cultural context, in which it is impossible for it to flourish except in the form of transgressions. Its playful aspect stems from a deflection of infantile drives and a split between partial drives and the metapsychic content of which they should be the physical expression. Since the playful form is the most frequent, it has become the norm, and when André Gide speaks of a sexual magic experienced by children, hidden under a lavishly covered tablecloth, indulging in what adults call “nasty behavior,” the paradox is attributed to the perverse component of his genius.

All these elements are likely to come into play during a cross-drive analysis, so the analyst must be able to explain them to the analysand. Freudian concepts have become widely known during the last century, often understood very superficially and perpetuating the misunderstanding between the pursuit of pleasure and metapsychic purpose. This Freudian confusion is compounded by the fact that a child’s sexual behaviors, while they should be the foundation for the development of the metasexual function and are of paramount importance, are popularly reduced to a banal act of curiosity (touching one’s private parts), a notion Freud himself adopted.

The main task, however, remains the exhumation of repressed traumatic content. This can be accomplished through techniques advocated by classical psychoanalysis or through other methods that facilitate the release of censorship, such as hypnosis, dream interpretation, slips of the tongue, free association, paranormal visions, the Rorschach test, and parasympathetic reactivity to meaningful images.

The major difference with classical psychoanalysis lies in the interpretation of conflicting and traumatic content. Psychoanalysis interprets these conflicts in terms of hedonic frustration, while metapsychoanalysis, without neglecting this aspect, relates them to the various MIP and BIP homologies and their respective drive inductions with their different repercussions (see table on pages 108 and 109). The metapsychic and spiritual failure, which gives these internal conflicts their full substance, is incomparable to the mere deprivation of pleasure considered by Freud, hence the clear difference in effectiveness between the two approaches.

More fundamentally, the aim is no longer to reject drives recognized as contrary to morality, but to restore their primordial meaning to genetically programmed drives that have been unable to express themselves due to a morality contrary to human nature. Cross-drive analysis allows us to detect the deviations these drives have undergone, not only through encountering prohibitions, but also as a result of the failure of the primary impulse (MIP) and the confusions that have arisen with the homologous drives of the primary impulse (BIP). It is therefore a way for the individual to rediscover themselves in their natural potential and to better understand the developmental disturbances they have experienced.

In addition to exploring past events, it is also important to examine recent or current experiences, whose unpredictable events are just as revealing of internalized disturbances as past experiences, provided one has an appropriate interpretive framework. Romantic relationships, reoriented as much as possible toward metasexuality, are also essential as sources of the energy necessary to heal past wounds in a substantial way, and not just in the imagination.

Correcting one’s dietary habits, in the sense of a diet more closely aligned with the genetic predispositions of metabolism, promotes relaxation of the central nervous system, the release of censorship, fixations, and internal tensions in general. As we will see later, the use of raw, natural foods can also have repercussions on paranoid tendencies and facilitate the abandonment of splits and stereotypes, thus facilitating restructuring. Furthermore, any change in eating habits reactivates unconscious links with the image of the nurturing mother and the family environment, contributing to the exploration of pathogenic conditioning and content.

Precocity and the Infantile Ego

According to Freud, the precocity and “two-phase” establishment of sexuality, particular to human beings, played a determining role in the humanization process. However, a conclusive explanation for the precocity of infantile sexuality and a relevant definition of the humanization process are lacking. The “gain of pleasure” does not justify precocity, because the need for a specific pleasure only becomes strong once that pleasure is discovered.

Freud also wonders what would become of the infantile ego in a non-repressive social context. He leaves it “*to future science… to group these still isolated data to derive new insights”. *Malinowski, for his part, sought to demonstrate that the repressed Oedipus complex was not a universal phenomenon, citing the absence of neurosis among the famous Trobriand Islanders, whose sexual freedom was exemplary at all ages.

Towards the end of his work, and following the research of Melanie Klein, Freud admitted that sexuality appears at birth. It is clearly the Enlightenment equation “sex = reproduction” that was, and still is, at the root of the denial of infantile sexuality, or the astonishment at seeing it manifest itself from such an early age. This equation posed no problem in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, or up to the 17th century.

Insofar as infantile sexuality fulfills a metapsychic function from the outset, we are led back to the astonishment that the existence of a metapsychic life in young children, even babies, can elicit: what purpose can metapsychic activity serve in the first years of life?

The image of the child at the beginning of the 20th century was largely influenced by the postulates of English empiricism, Enlightenment rationalism, and behaviorism: a virtually blank slate at the outset, where everything was supposed to be constructed through learning and successive conditioning. For the past few decades, new experimental techniques developed by cognitive psychology, particularly the study of non-nutritive sucking and eye fixation times, have demonstrated that babies are capable from birth of perfectly ordered operations, such as recognizing abnormal responses from their mothers to their smiles, distinguishing delayed reactions, facial expressions, phonemes, a circle from a square, and so on. From the age of four, a child is already capable of empathy (theory of mind), which represents a particularly complex mental operation.

Therefore, there is nothing to prevent us from thinking that the programming of polymorphous drives is also innate and operational from a very young age, under the aegis of the oral, anal, and phallic stages. The rehabilitation of the infant by cognitive psychology as a complex and largely “pre-wired” being endorses Freudian postulates, albeit a century late. Nothing precludes the possibility that the Excalibur drives and other characteristics of the MIP (Person-Induced Mentalization) are just as precocious, at least to some extent, particularly the capacity to access the metapsychic and archetypal symbolism, and thus the collective unconscious and the archetypes described by Jung, even if intellectual analysis is still far from what it can be in adults. We have had the opportunity to observe clairvoyant phenomena in two-year-old babies and excalibur-like impulses before the emergence of language.

In [Civilization and Its Discontents] (CITE), Freud emphasizes that [the infantile ego, permeated by the oceanic feeling, appears much larger than the adult ego: The latter would be nothing more than a shrunken residue,* giving way, in Lacan’s terms, to the dialectics of desire.

However, what Freud describes as the “oceanic feeling” (while very honestly admitting that he himself experiences nothing of the sort) corresponds exactly to the characteristic feeling that accompanies the manifestations of the MIP. Thus, two different theoretical perspectives emerge: the Freudian viewpoint, which is found in modern developmental psychology, posits that this oceanic dimension disappears with maturity. Our postulate of a metapsychic function of infantile sexuality suggests, on the contrary, that the oceanic feeling prefigures the natural development of metapsychic potentialities, indeed linked to an ecstatic-type feeling, ranging from amorous trance to the altered state of consciousness characteristic of access to the transcendent dimension. We could therefore assimilate the oceanic feeling to a fantasy prefiguring the very purpose of the MIP.

The French word “ratatiné” (shrunken) used by Freud in his original German text might reflect a certain unease with this process of involution, even though he presents it as normal. It is true that many potentialities are lost during development, such as the ability to pronounce phonemes existing in all languages ​​in favor of only those specific to the mother tongue, or the phonemic deafness that develops when faced with foreign languages. We know that normal development is associated with the loss of many neurons in the early years. This is one of the reasons that may explain the lack of inquiry into the fate of childhood magic: is it natural for it to give way to rational thought, or should it accompany it as a source of creative inspiration, and what educational or other factors cause its disappearance?

It is clear that the classical viewpoint must be revised as soon as the metapsychic dimension is rehabilitated, even if the efforts of Carl Gustav Jung or parapsychology have not yet been sufficient to modify the reductionist position of most researchers. The metasexual postulate, in this respect, has the advantage of offering a rational model of the developmental processes of these potentialities, coupled with an explanation for the rarity of metapsychic faculties in our type of culture.

The paranormal is present in practically all traditional societies. One of the best-known cases is that of the Trobriand Islanders, among whom Malinowski observed in the 1920s, on the one hand, the absence of almost any sexual taboo, and on the other hand, the constant presence of the extrasensory in daily life, particularly in romantic relationships. Many other ethnologists have observed a similar correlation between the absence of repressive morality and the presence of metapsychic phenomena, such as Malaurie among the Inuit, Villeminot among the Aborigines, and others.

The question then becomes: does the “Western” position of denying the paranormal represent progress toward objectivity and rationalism, or must we admit that primitive societies possessed a truth that we have lost in the dazzling Enlightenment?

The position we propose has the advantage of resolving many of the contradictions that exist in this field: between the “official” denial of the paranormal and the popular beliefs that persist, between the rationalist paradigm and the widespread attraction to the “supernatural,” between the phenomena documented by modern parapsychology and the rejection of this discipline, between the love or tolerance advocated by religions and interreligious hatred, and so on.

Added to this are the contradictions that plague psychoanalysis: the dogma of the repressed Oedipus complex as a normal situation and the pathogenic consequences of this repression, the “shrinking” of the infantile ego contrary to the notion of development, the mixed results of analyses, suicidal tendencies, the recurring schism that has marked its history, the increasing complexity of discourse and the abstraction of terminology, etc.

The metapsychoanalytic model invites us to consider the repression of infantile drives as a cultural error, a rather recent one in fact, given that the emergence of repressive morality dates back only a few centuries. The repression of childhood masturbation dates back to the mid-18th century, when this practice was presented as the supreme abomination, the cause of a host of diseases, by a plethora of authors including the famous Doctor Tissot with his seminal work De onania and its multiple re-editions in eighty languages from 1760 onwards.

From our perspective, the consequences of this repression would include not only traumatic effects attributable to Oedipal repression, necessarily more severe if infantile masturbation is more violently repressed, but also, concurrently, the loss of natural access to metapsychic faculties. Hence, a structuring of the infantile ego that is both conflicted and deficient, marked by an atrophy of extrasensory faculties and by an overinvestment in aggressive impulses under the influence of the Excalibur drives (neurosis going hand in hand with metapsychic deficiency). One could see here the infantile roots of the major cultural shifts that have marked our so-called Enlightenment civilization, the consequences of which are incalculable.

The omnipotence we attribute to Reason, considered by Jung as a threat to the future of humanity, might well be, despite the technological advances of our time, merely a reactionary formation against the void felt from a very young age following the loss of the normal expansion of consciousness.

Ambivalence, Splitting, Good and Bad Object

During the sadistic-oral and sadistic-anal stages defined by Melanie Klein (a disciple and dissenter of Freud), destructive drives can be explained by the child’s disappointment in not finding, either at the breast or during grooming, the metapsychic energy they instinctively expect from their mother. Since the mother is generally engaged in genital sexuality and deprived of this energy, and forced to conform to moral demands, the child is systematically left unsatisfied. The Excalibur drives, protesting against this deficiency, explain the paradoxical presence of destructiveness at such an early stage.

From our perspective, the two “sadistic” substages correspond to the establishment of the Excalibur complex. It is indeed quite logical that the homeostatic system appears at the same time as the first polymorphic drives, whose implementation it is responsible for managing. Excalibur drives react not only to observable behaviors, but also to their metapsychic content, that is, to the absence of a genuine exchange of metapsychic energy between the protagonists (which is evidenced by the lack of development of metapsychic faculties). From this perspective, the Oedipus complex would indeed precede the phallic stage, bearing the mark of Excalibur drives rendered compulsive by energy deprivation from the oral and anal stages onward.

The ambivalence between good and bad object would thus be rooted in the depressive position experienced by the child following this energy deprivation, coupled with the satisfaction of receiving milk and maternal tenderness, hence Melanie Klein’s distinction between the good breast and the bad breast. The good breast would be the one that provides both nourishment and energy, the bad one the one that does not transmit the expected energy (nor, potentially, breast milk when weaning is imposed).

We can also understand the infant’s dissatisfaction, which Freud found astonishingly persistent even when the infant can nurse to their heart’s content and is showered with maternal tenderness. In the various forms this ambivalence takes, we find traces of organic and emotional satisfaction in opposition to metapsychic disappointment. For example, in a situation of regression to the oral stage, such as smoking: we can recognize, on the one hand, purely physiological oral stimulation (= oral contact at the breast) and the search for social recognition from the adult who has the right to smoke (= maternal recognition); on the other hand, the search for a euphoric effect from nicotine (= symbol of metapsychic satisfaction).

Ambivalence manifests itself around each partial object: sex itself is felt as an object of enjoyment, a promise of pleasure and, unconsciously, of energy, while simultaneously being an object of disgust, the target of aggressive impulses for failing to provide the expected energy. The same explanation applies to parental images, where the parents gave a certain tenderness through words and caresses that the child integrated as gratifying (the good parent), but which did not bring the expected energetic fullness and which the child unconsciously felt the lack of (the castrating parent).

The notion of partial drive also appears from another angle when one postulates the metasexual purpose of polymorphism. One can distinguish the good drive (that which is in accordance with the Superconscious and leads to a gain in metasexual energy) from the bad drive, restricted to the ordinary psychophysiological level, the libido then realizing only organ pleasure or functional pleasure.

One can also trace the notion of splitting back to the opposition between organic or affective satisfaction (which should normally be associated with a metapsychic contribution), and the profound dissatisfaction inherent in metapsychic failure. The Excalibur drives, expressing in an increasingly compulsive form the protest of the unconscious and the suffering inherent in energetic frustration, widen the gap between the dissociated components and give the split its significance and irreversibility (this applies to the split between good and bad drives as well as between good and bad objects).

The love relationship can thus be analyzed on four complementary levels, in each of the partners involved:

1. Metapsychic: oceanic feeling, metapsychic faculties
2. Psychological: emotional and intellectual aspects
3. Physiological: partial sexual drives
4. Homeostatic: Excalibur drives

Such a breakdown integrates quite naturally into the transpulsion analysis as we defined it above. It is thus possible to explain, based on the activation or inhibition of the various components, the many forms that a romantic relationship can take: MIP or BIP, asymmetry, love at first sight, adulterous impulses, attachment, activity, passivity, rejection, disgust, the ideal of chastity, various forms of impotence, etc. The analysis is based on a four-axis coordinate system for a single subject, eight for a binary relationship, or even twelve for three protagonists. It allows for a “mathematical” analysis of the evolution of a couple’s relationship or a triangular constellation through the confrontation and interaction of the partners’ internal states.

If conditions are favorable, a perfectly harmonious organization of the different levels occurs: partial drives are activated only when physical closeness is conducive, emotional aspects such as desire and attachment intervene appropriately and in the right proportions, and the oceanic feeling reflects metapsychic openness, in the absence of any excalibur-like impulse. Metapsychic development (creativity, inspiration, extrasensory abilities) confirms the healthy functioning of the relationship.

Conversely, various desynchronizations of partial components are observed in cases of metapsychic energy deficiency, for example, when a relationship begins with a deliberate seduction process. The risk of metapsychic failure triggers the emergence of excalibur drives, whose action is necessarily inhibitory, given that they lead to the interruption of certain behaviors and the intellectual analysis of the causes of failure.

There is then a splitting either between the different drive components, or between the different psychic agencies (Id, Ego, Superego, Sub-Id), or within the Ego itself, insofar as it identifies with incompatible elements. In the typical conditions of cross-drive neurosis, metapsychic failure is prolonged, frustration sets in, and the excalibur drives become permanent. The split takes on a pathological dimension, becoming increasingly irreversible, paving the way for paranoid tendencies.

Lacan considers “the expression of a total sexual tendency (therefore without blemish and without prohibition) as an impossibility or as a fantasy belonging to the realm of magic*: it does indeed belong to the metapsychic realm, the great exile of Western culture.

Food Alliesthesia, Desire, and Paranoia

Freud was astonished by the almost monopolistic role of sexuality in the origin of neuroses: It is beyond doubt, he wrote again in 1938, that the drives which manifest themselves physiologically as being of a sexual nature play an unexpectedly important role in the causation of neuroses.

What we know today about food alliesthesia may lead us to question the role of gustatory pleasure in psychic structuring. Alliesthetic mechanisms do indeed operate on a pleasure/unpleasure basis. Their learning occurs in the early period, so they necessarily play a role, like any reward/punishment process, in the structuring of the Self. This obvious fact does not seem to have been taken into consideration until now, undoubtedly because the social context dictates that young children’s diets adhere to certain cultural constants, making it difficult to extract, through comparative analysis as required, the cause-and-effect relationships between dietary characteristics and their psychodynamic consequences.

Olfactory-gustatory alliesthetic mechanisms are an integral part of regulating food intake: they vary the perception of food flavors according to organic needs and digestive capacities. They are complemented by sensations of fullness that indicate when digestive potential or metabolic needs have been exceeded. Thus, experience shows that the perception of a natural food as sensorially pleasant shifts to unpleasant, thereby interrupting its consumption. These mechanisms are easily observed in animals: for example, a dog, initially attracted to meat, rejects it at the smell and is no longer able to swallow another bite once its need is met.

The sense of smell appears to be genetically determined, just like digestive and metabolic functions. However, the human genome developed over millions of years through contact with foods consumed in their raw form. For the past few millennia, the food environment has radically changed with the advent of culinary arts and agriculture: foods processed using increasingly sophisticated recipes now have flavors very different from their original tastes. We can therefore expect some dysfunctions in olfactory and gustatory mechanisms, insofar as they may be genetically ill-adapted to the current culinary context. Cooking recipes change rapidly, whereas genetic adaptation typically requires many generations.

It is easy to demonstrate that a fruit consumed raw, such as a strawberry, goes from having a very pleasant flavor to an unpalatable bitterness after a certain quantity is ingested, the amount of which depends on the individual’s state of health. The addition of sugar or cream is then enough to restore a pleasant perception and allow for consumption until one is full. The senses of smell and taste thus have a homeostatic function, which is explained by the laws of evolution, given the harmful effects of any dietary imbalance on the individual and the species.

What interests us here are the consequences of these sensory processes on the psyche of the young child discovering the pleasure of food. Under natural conditions, they spontaneously learn that a food that was a source of pleasure can become a source of unpleasantness from one moment to the next. The same food put in the mouth the next day will sometimes be pleasant and sometimes unpleasant, depending on the body’s needs. In other words, pleasure is not predictable, and the only possible stance regarding the pursuit of pleasure is that of questioning: will this food be good or bad here and now?

In the culinary context, alliesthesia plays a secondary role, as preparations are chosen to appear appealing as independently as possible of nutritional needs. Indeed, a recipe that didn’t eliminate unappealing taste components simply wouldn’t be accepted by tradition. The child observes that strawberries and cream always have virtually the same pleasant flavor. They thus learn that it’s possible to reliably predict pleasure and can establish a position of assertion: strawberries and cream always taste like strawberries and cream, they’re always delicious, I love strawberries and cream, etc. The same applies to all prepared, cooked, or seasoned foods.

Thus, through countless experiences of gustatory pleasure, at an age of heightened oral receptivity (the child begins to discover the world through their mouth), a relationship to the pleasure principle is structured, different depending on whether the food is in its natural or prepared state. In the first case, the child learns that reality will not necessarily fulfill their desires; in the second, that their predictions must come true.

However, the characteristics of the pleasure-learning process are, a priori, genetically adapted to the natural context: the child needs a certain proportion of failures in their predictions to construct the correct position of their self in relation to the world. If this proportion is insufficient, the process will be unbalanced, leading to confusion between desire and reality, with all the potential side effects such as disappointment, dissatisfaction, bitterness, feelings of persecution, splitting, and so on.

All things considered, such an imbalance in the gustatory learning of the reality principle lays the foundation for a generalized paranoid tendency, which can then play a major role in many situations, particularly in learning about erotic pleasure. Everyone knows that expecting too much from a romantic relationship can cause great suffering when things don’t go as planned. When a child enters the Oedipal phase with a tendency to expect too much from the people on whom their libido is fixed, they can only experience a more acute sense of frustration.

It therefore appears that the dysfunction of alliesthetic mechanisms in the culinary context induces a paranoid structuring from the first year, explaining an exaggerated sense of frustration when the young child’s expectations are not met. This provides an explanation for the unexpected (according to Freud)* magnitude of the consequences of early erotic experiences subjected to repression or suppression, and thus for the pervasiveness of the Oedipal trauma.

A paranoid functioning can only amplify the frustrations and anxieties linked to the failure of the primary mental process (MIP) and metapsychic deficiency. Jung stigmatized the dominant role of reason without being able to identify its underlying causes. For him, the hypertrophy of Reason was the cause of the repression of numinous energies. From our perspective, it is rather the failure of the MIP and energetic frustration that excessively activate the Excalibur drives and produce an inordinate investment of the mind, particularly during the learning of language and rational thought, fostering primary narcissism and the formation of an inflated ego.

Paradoxically, the poor integration of nutritional regulation mechanisms would be a determining factor in the paranoid and neurotic structuring of the early period through its repercussions on the first libidinal and metapsychic experiences.

The numerous stimulating substances contained in traditional diets, such as gluten in cereals, exorphins in milk, theobromine in cocoa, caffeine, and AGEs (Advanced Glycation Endproducts), are increasingly likely to exacerbate these paradoxical processes by increasing the tendency towards mental automatisms and rumination. The level of excitation of the various drives exceeding genetically predetermined norms, the repercussions of clashes and conflicts with those around them, as well as internal conflicts, will mark the psyche all the more profoundly, much like the indelible traces left by hallucinatory experiences under the influence of certain psychotropic drugs.

The metapsychoanalytic model thus offers a threefold explanation for Freud’s astonishment at the Oedipus complex: frustration is experienced in an abnormally painful way under the influence of paranoid structures induced by the failure of alliesthesia experiences with food and the poor integration of the pleasure principle; Food-related excitement amplifies the intensity of Oedipal suffering; metapsychic frustration is added to libidinal frustration, with effects that are likely deeper (the “repression of numinous energies” in Jungian terms), although less accessible to analysis, notably compromising the possibility of later experiencing metasexuality.

Freud’s perplexity thus proves perfectly justified, which speaks to his extraordinary capacity for intuition. None of these elements were available given the state of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. One should even note the precision of his language. When he expresses surprise at the importance of “drives that manifest themselves physiologically as being of a sexual nature,” he is not referring to sexual drives per se, but leaves the field of exploration open to potential elements that might lie hidden beyond their physiological manifestations. This is precisely the case with their metapsychic purpose.

Schizophrenia, Psychic and Neurological Factors

The MIP→BIP drive induction model suggests a new etiological approach to schizophrenia. The genetic and systemic factors already identified do not account for all the characteristics of this pathology or its incidence rate. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the role that the interaction between metasexual function and reproductive sexuality might play, a still unexplored avenue.

Fragmentation is explained as a defense against the major conflict between BIP drives, overinvested by the drive energy of repressed MIP, and the excalibur drives that stigmatize this abnormal situation. Internal conflict is exacerbated by the inability to understand its causes, due to the lack of an explanatory model, and by the repression it suffers from those around it. Feelings of guilt are also activated, particularly after puberty, following fantasies or sexual acts linked to the emergence of BIP drives.

Splitting allows for the reduction of internal tensions and the preservation of a minimal equilibrium. The individual can thus categorize the fantasies or concrete realizations of BIP drives, exacerbated by the drive energy of repressed MIP, into one category; the Excalibur drives, compulsive because they cannot achieve their goal within the prevailing moral context, into another; and the unease felt when confronted with the spectacle of a family or society embodying the overinvested BIP, or with parental prohibitions and other social factors contrary to their deepest aspirations, into yet another.

Under ideal conditions, the Excalibur drives emerge in consciousness in such a way as to draw the subject’s (or a third party’s) attention to the error represented by the confusion of drives between the primary and secondary drives (MIP → BIP) and to restore natural functioning. In a cultural context that leaves no room for understanding these processes, they cannot achieve their goal and tend toward compulsion. Their excessive destructiveness then induces painful internal or external prohibitions, which splitting allows to be neutralized. When the internal conflict exceeds the norms of what is bearable or persists beyond a certain period, defenses take precedence over the reality principle, the fragmentation can exceed the ego’s capacity for control, and lead to psychosis.

This development takes off particularly from the moment the short circuit between MIP and BIP occurs, therefore after puberty, and can remain latent for several years before manifesting. It can be associated with various defenses aimed at avoiding, minimizing, or abreacting it, such as intellectual overinvestment, rejection of social norms (stained clothes, bizarre behavior, exhibitionism, etc.), or depression (an expression of suffering due to energy deficiency).

This helps us better understand why schizophrenia most often appears after puberty, when BIP drives reach their full intensity and the adolescent or young adult sees their sexual and Excalibur drives clash with the social model, which has become more pervasive through learning. It can be aggravated by maternal double standards, foreshadowing splitting, or by other intrafamilial divisions. The underlying process, however, remains the defense against internal conflicts linked to cross-drive neurosis and the activation of the Excalibur complex under the influence of primary or secondary guilt.

The influence of neurophysiological factors should not be overlooked, however. The fragmentation process is amplified by the tendency toward mental automatisms and rumination, induced by the stimulating factors present in everyday food, particularly the gluten in cereals and the exorphins in dairy products. This amplification causes them to exceed the limits of conscious control, so that symptoms eventually manifest and become entrenched in the form of psychosis.

The prevalence of “paradoxical maternal injunctions” is better explained by the fact that they are induced by the ambivalence between the maternal instincts (MIP), which drive the mother to seek an eroticized relationship with the child (kiss me…), and the prohibitions present in her own superego (rejection, rigidity). The mother’s internal conflict, foreshadowing the child’s internal situation, can more easily contaminate the young psyche and induce, through mimicry, a division between her maternal instincts and her own superego.

In other words, internal tensions, increasing due to the intensification of BIP drives and antagonistic Excalibur drives, fuel mental automatisms, the organization of which can be influenced by the organization of the maternal psyche. The tensions between the different trigger points can eventually exceed the capacity for self-control and lead to splitting, resulting in some cases in psychosis. An aggravating factor can be premature weaning or the absence of breastfeeding, more precisely, the lack of eroticized contact at the breast, a source of energy, with the resulting increased dependence.

Such a model opens the way to new psychotherapeutic treatments for schizophrenia, applicable at the onset of the first symptoms or, better yet, preventively. For example, it would involve explaining to young adolescents that the reproductive drives emerging at puberty become excessive because their childhood drives have been repressed, and that it is a mistake to expect from genitality what they should have found in a polymorphous eroticism not limited to heterosexuality. Conscious self-control could be established in time, thanks to a better understanding of internal mechanisms, and prevent escapism through fragmentation. Improving dietary habits could help maintain a socially acceptable balance. Greater detachment from the omnipotence of the surrounding sexual apparatus could also reduce internal tensions between the Superego and the Id, and preserve the integrity of the Ego.

The MIP-BIP model suggests that the incidence rate of schizophrenia increases with prohibitions against early sexuality. The imposition of Judeo-Christian morality would explain the similarity in incidence rates among populations accessible to researchers. We should also expect a higher incidence with dietary habits favoring gluten consumption over other stimulants, without neglecting the influence of cannabis and other increasingly widespread drugs.

Thus, the activation of genetic predispositions would be facilitated by the MIP-BIP drive confusion and by conducive dietary habits. The incidence rate of schizophrenia should have increased particularly since sexual prohibitions became established under the aegis of the Enlightenment’s reductionist equation: “sex = reproduction,” and since dietary habits have evolved toward the overconsumption of grain and dairy products. This would explain its growth over the last few centuries and its still lower value in developing countries.

Sexual Identity and Metasexual Identity

The theme of the androgyne dates back to Antiquity. Long overshadowed by Christianity, androgyny resurfaced during the Renaissance and became prominent in painting and literature during the 19th and 20th centuries. Such enduring resistance, particularly to the rationalism of the Enlightenment, might suggest a more archetypal unconscious resonance than a simple mere addition of sexes.

For some authors, androgyny is associated with the subtlety of eroticism, a refinement tinged with homosexuality characteristic of adolescence, as opposed to the naturalistic vulgarity of animalistic intercourse, or even to the orgiastic and diabolical woman who awaits the man only to behead him. This range of symbols, though largely caricatured, could reflect the opposition between the MIP (Personal Instinctual Mode) and the BIP (Personal Instinctual Mode), or more precisely, between the MIP and BIP distorted by the drive-related induction resulting from metasexual repression.

Thus, the MIP (Pre-Invasive Male Sexuality) would be the site of a different sexual identity, which could be called “metasexual identity,” as opposed to a reproductive-type sexual identity associated with the BIP (Pre-Invasive Male Sexuality). The question is how sexual identity is constructed, to what extent it depends on the respective roles of the parents (for example, what happens with homosexual adoptive parents), what is the influence of the repression or non-repression of the MIP, as was sometimes the case in non-repressive cultures (Trowbridge Islands, New Guinea, Samoa, etc.), and what is the influence of the social context on gender expression.

The debate concerning sexual monism (the viewpoint that relates everything to the male or the phallus), against a backdrop of fundamental psychic bisexuality, has become somewhat bogged down by encountering the theoretical difficulty of reconciling sexuation with the principle of a single libido. For Lacan, sexual identity is linked to the “circulation of the phallus” and the “attribution of the phallus” within the dialectic of being and having and castration: the child first imagines itself to be the phallus that its mother lacks, then makes the father the one who “has” it as a rival; the child then renounces both being and having, which is equivalent to castration. The various manifestations of this subjective elaboration will determine heterosexuality or homosexuality, hysteria, fetishism, transvestism, and even transsexualism.

The Lacanian explanatory model is simplified when we apply the equation: “phallus = signifier of metasexual energy”. The crucial problem for the child lies on two axes, related to the anxiety of frustration: which partner will be able to give me the energy I need (the attribution of the phallus), and how should this energy circulate within the triangular constellation of parent and child (the circulation of the phallus)? Castration, for its part, is equivalent to the renunciation that the child must make, realizing that this energy is inaccessible to him.

Any attempt to theorize this highly sensitive issue runs up against the taboo of incest and the system of prohibitions and representations surrounding infantile sexuality. The solution we propose consists of reconstructing what psychosexual development might have been like under primitive conditions, preceding the irruption of repressive morality. The question is not to decide for or against a return to an “original” state, but to create a framework for reasoning that allows us to theoretically represent the conditions of development to which human genetics was originally perfectly adapted. Such a theoretical representation should allow for a more fundamental approach to the normative situation, thanks to a better understanding of its evolutionary and historical roots.

It is clear that current environmental conditions, although they may seem unavoidable, are very different from what they were a few millennia or centuries ago. The nuclear family is a recent phenomenon, as is the repression of masturbation and the demonization of erotic pleasure under the influence of Judeo-Christian morality. Human genetics dates back to time immemorial, and there is no evidence to suggest that the innate programming of instinctual drives has adapted favorably to the repressive context. Primitive psychosexual mechanisms would, in a way, attempt to re-establish their natural functioning through frustration and excalibur-like drives that denounce the inadequacies inherent in current conditions.

It should be noted that this reconstruction is not entirely abstract. Malinowski reported that the Trobriand Islanders had no sexual taboos, the only taboo being that of incest concerning relations between brother and sister. Furthermore, the biological function of the father (the usefulness of sperm) was unknown to them, and when he asked the women to explain why, under these conditions, they needed a husband, they replied: “But who would sleep with my children?” Margaret Mead reports that, among the Polynesians, the baby’s genitals were innocently caressed by parents and other adults. Closer to our time, the famous Chronicle of Héroard, court physician, tells us that the future Louis XIII’s genitals were, from the earliest years of his life, the object of adult attention ("the Marquise de Verneuil would put her hand under his tunic”). This custom is confirmed by Rabelais regarding wet nurses. We cannot therefore dismiss the idea that the current normative paradigm is only one way among others of addressing the problem of infantile sexuality.

Generally speaking, the psychic and physiological organization of the species encompasses both the needs and drives of the child and the adult drives likely to respond to them. The example of language is particularly instructive: adults instinctively react to a baby’s babbling by modifying their own speech in a way that facilitates its learning. This “baby talk” is found in all cultures, in accordance with Vygotsky’s concept of the “zone of proximal development,” where the adult positions themselves at a level just slightly above that of the child in order to make learning possible and stimulating.

The question then becomes: how would psychosexual development occur if innate drives were not hindered by any unnatural prohibitions?

A crucial factor seems to be the discriminating role of innate fantasies. As early as 1915, Freud defined the concept of the primal fantasy: the unconscious and innate representation, present from a very young age, of a destructive act of intercourse between the parents, the father injuring the mother to the point of causing bloodshed, later mistaken for menstrual blood.

Can such a structured picture be genetically programmed? We now know that a baby, even before any formal learning, is capable of distinguishing a circle from a square, one facial expression from another; it therefore seems that a sense of form is partly innate. A fish’s brain, though tiny, is capable of recognizing the shape and color of spots on other fish; nothing precludes the possibility that the human brain, far larger and richer in cortex, is capable of distinguishing or prefiguring relatively complex images and situations.

In the Freudian tradition, the primal fantasy plays a role in castration and in the “process” of sexual identity, creating in the child an aversion to parental intercourse, particularly aggression against the father, perceived as a rival and as mistreating the mother.

The metasexual postulate suggests a different interpretation: the primal fantasy would belong to the Excalibur complex, responsible for denouncing errors made in relation to the primal sexual identity. However, intercourse as practiced when MIP fails is a form of deviation: Its intrinsic goal is fertilization, while the partners’ goal is most often pleasure achieved by avoiding fertilization. The primal fantasy would therefore serve to sensitize the child to the unnatural nature of this model of sexuality.

Since all homeostatic regulation requires bipolar control (in the mode of yes and no), we can expect a symmetrical fantasy to be charged with the recognition of an authentic metasexual relationship: this fantasy would be none other than that of the sacred phallus, as we saw earlier. Thus, the child would possess two opposing fantasies capable of indicating either the failure or the success of the metasexual function in their environment or in their own experience, and of directing their own drives toward an adequate source of metasexual energy. This dipole, as an unconscious instance of discrimination, would be at the origin of the Excalibur drives, activating or suspending them depending on the situation.

This would provide a structural answer to the question of discernment: the child, while certainly lacking intellectual discernment, would be capable of intuitively sensing what is right or wrong in the sexual relationships and attitudes they encounter. The phallic fantasy would be the trigger for the oceanic feeling, which goes hand in hand with the MIP (Penal-Induced Mood), whereas Freud’s primal fantasy would inhibit this feeling to make way for aggressive drives, revealing a drift toward the BIP (Penal-Induced Mood).

In a culture like ours, which leaves little room for the MIP and infantile magic, the primal fantasy of destructive coitus is susceptible to almost constant activation. It is understandable that there is then a very general crystallization of the natural dipole onto the single negative pole: this is equivalent to the castration complex and is projected, depending on the circumstances, onto either one parent or the other, determining the repression of either homosexual or heterosexual drives. Since the father is generally fantasized as the active perpetrator of maternal abuse, and moreover as the primary symbol of metasexual failure, it is understandable that the male homosexual structure is rarer than its heterosexual counterpart: the primal fantasy is projected onto the father, whose superego image is synonymous with prohibition and destruction. The mother cared for the child, in principle breastfeeding it, thus imprinting components of tenderness and transcendent fusion (oceanic feeling) onto the feminine form.

The bisexual structure should be even rarer, given that the primal fantasy requires a target, either the father or the mother, which will produce the repression of at least one of the sexual polarities.

The MIP + BIP model therefore provides an explanation for the prevalence of heterosexuality and the rarity of bisexuality. It can also explain the fantasy of the “engulfing vagina” observed in homosexuals: this would be the result of the projection, through instinctual drive induction, of the primal fantasy negatively crystallized in the early period, concerning heterosexual penetration occurring in adolescence with the BIP.

The next step is to examine how the process of sexual identity would theoretically unfold in a non-repressive context. The reasoning encounters an initial difficulty: can a non-repressive society exist that is simultaneously structured around the nuclear family? Since the basic relational structure of the MIP is the triangular constellation, romantic relationships cannot be confined to the binary of a couple relationship, so romantic encounters spontaneously tend to expand the family in the direction of the extended family, which includes not only parents and children, but several generations, grandparents, cousins, friends, and domestic staff.

In an extended family context, parental images would have been far less dominant than in the bourgeois family of the Freudian context. Further back in time, the social structure appears to have been universally tribal: this coincides with the fact that the triangular constellation, active when the primal phallus is not repressed, automatically induces the progression from two individuals to three, then from three to more (without all relationships necessarily being sexualized), the process culminating in the tribal model. In such a context, the child would have a much wider range of individualities and polarities to observe, and fewer reasons to crystallize the primal fantasy around its negative pole.

In Lacanian terms, the circulation of the phallus would be much more flexible, and early drives would simply be directed where the source of energy was most favorable. In other words, the castration complex would remain a simple homeostatic regulation, shielding the child from harmful relationships. As we understand it, it would be merely the residue of the nuclear family structure, itself induced by the repression of the primal ego state (MIP): the libido associated with the fantasy of the triangular constellation, overinvesting in the binary model, generates a fantasy of the eternal couple, which we know from experience to be illusory.

In any case, the natural functioning of the MIP in the environment seems to allow the child to retain the natural flexibility to shift between the primal fantasy and the phallic fantasy, so that castration would have no absolute character: the negative pole would only crystallize under the effect of regularly destructive or energy-poor situations. The child would thus learn, through fantasy and therefore without engaging in concrete relationships, not to let their impulses fixate on unsuitable partners or inappropriate types of sexual behavior.

The “metasexual identity” resulting from this mode of structuring would have little reason to favor one sex over the other, which brings us back to the fantasy of the androgyne. In other words, the natural psychosexual structure would remain bisexuality, coupled with an unconscious capacity for discernment that automatically guarantees the choice of partners capable of experiencing the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement) in accordance with its innate programming. Sexual monism would remain the norm for the reproductive function, but would coexist with bisexuality, which would be reserved for the metasexual function.

Such a coexistence is not necessarily simple; it raises, in particular, questions about the respective roles of heterosexual and homosexual impulses in the triangular constellation, the stability of the couple, educational harmonization, the division of labor, and so on. These elements, integrated from a very young age, would thus form part of the metasexual identity, which, due to its multipolar components, is much richer than classical sexual identity. This could be considered the paradoxical residue of the sexuation process confronted with the repression of the primary sexual orientation (PSO). It should be noted that unconscious regulation of this kind should largely prevent the headlong rush into romantic affairs that lead to breakups and suffering, unfortunately frequent in the current climate.

From a topical perspective, the metasexual identity process would be equivalent to a dual structuring, resulting, on the one hand, in the capacity to discriminate between behavioral and situational data that are either favorable or unfavorable to the functioning of the PSO, unconsciously recognized through the phantasmatic dipole of the sacred phallus/destructive coitus and inscribed within the Superego; On the other hand, it relates to the structuring of the Surça, through the development of metapsychic potentialities ranging from intuition to extrasensory faculties, capable of indicating the danger or suitability of a relationship beyond appearances, for example, through visions that allow one to recognize its potential future before any concrete commitment. The problems of seduction (the Latin prefix “se-” denotes separation, deviation, or even corruption) and discernment would thus be structurally resolved.

Finally, it should be noted that this dual structuring is always more or less present, even in a context of failure of the MIP. Fantasies play a significant role, allowing children, based on their internal resources, to construct a more or less ephemeral metasexual identity. This manifests, for example, in their ability to sense or not sense the presence of romantic magic when they fall in love, to recognize relationships whose subtle nature they unconsciously perceive even if they contradict the dominant model, or to react negatively from the outset to the calculated intentions of a seductive third party.

Thus, the discernment capable of differentiating a beneficial relationship from a destructive one on a metapsychic level is an integral part of metasexual identity. This subtle discernment can be complemented by a BIP-type discernment, which involves recognizing which partner would be suitable for bearing children, which behaviors are socially acceptable, which material conditions are conducive to starting a family, and so on.

Adolescence, Masculinity, Femininity, Misogyny

When we consider an individual’s journey from childhood to adolescence and then to adulthood, we are struck by the contrast between the different emotional activations. Young children automatically trigger an aesthetic perception evoking tenderness, fragility, beauty, life, wonder, and hope. During the transition to adolescence, these components undergo significant changes, generally attributed to emerging masculinity or femininity, a quest for autonomy, and a societal-related existential unease.

The metasexual postulate and cross-drive analysis suggest another explanation. The adolescent form, through seductive behavior and the emergence of secondary sexual characteristics, would symbolize not only the developing BIP (Personal Internal Revolution), but primarily the irreversible short-circuiting between MIP (Personal Internal Revolution) and BIP. Indeed, adolescents generally exhibit the characteristics we have deduced from drive induction: an overinvestment in BIP traits, compounded by various aggressive components stemming from the intervention of the Excalibur drives, which denounce the unnatural structuring of which the individual is a victim.

Adolescence, as experienced in our modern society, is indeed primarily characterized by:

1. generational conflict, the projection of Excalibur drives onto parents, who are (unconsciously) perceived as responsible for the failure of the individual’s personal development (MIP).
2. feelings of rebellion against society, which is indeed responsible for the failure of the individual’s metasexual development (school rejection, hatred of those in power, disinterest in politics, etc.).
3. feelings of anguish, commensurate with the gravity of the existential failure represented by the inability to access the metapsychic realm.
4. feelings of guilt (the turning of Excalibur drives against the individual due to the inability to identify the true causes of the failure of the individual’s personal development).
5. an escape into romanticism (a substitute for the transcendent dimension of love).
6. Through an abreaction manifested in violence (school refusal, car burning, attacks against institutional representatives), denouncing unconscious dissatisfaction at the expense of scapegoating.
7. Through depression generated by energy deficiency, a direct consequence of metapsychic failure.
8. Through a sudden, often obsessive interest in the opposite sex and in genitality (potentially leading to gang rape), which reflects the irruption of the overinvested BIP (Person-Related Internalization) through drive induction and can constitute an abreaction.
9. Through a tendency to despise people of the opposite sex (“your chick, your girl, your guy”), a direct expression of the Excalibur drives emitted by the unconscious to denounce an attraction or dependence contrary to the natural integration of MIP (Person-Related Internalization) and BIP (Person-Related Internalization).
10. Through the loss of the child’s angelic emanation and gangly appearance, the adolescent form has become fixed in our cultural aesthetic markers as a symbol of metapsychic failure (a short circuit between the Pre-Integrated and Pre-Integrated stages).

Seen from our premise, the major articulation between pre-puberty and puberty would not be merely hormonal or societal in nature, but intrinsically linked to the unconscious existential catastrophe represented by the definitive fixation of the Pre-Integrated stage’s failure, henceforth mired in reproductive drives. Puberty being a sensitive period, the impregnation of the internal conflict is indeed profound and irreversible.

An opposing image of the adolescent, untouched by the Pre-Integrated/Pre-Integrated stage conflict, is precisely provided by the myth of the androgyne. The fantasy of a being not bound by the sexual polarity characteristic of the BIP (Personal Instinctual Reality) has persisted through the ages, undoubtedly because it represents, in its own way, a lost ideal, the essential stake of which is access to the metapsychic dimension and the spiritual meaning of existence. The androgyne is indeed perceived as mysterious, sensitive, even supernatural. The myth of Tiresias associated it with the power of divination, which is indeed characteristic of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Reality).

A similar analysis is possible for the “angelic” image of the prepubescent child. Classical explanations invoke the following elements:

• As in all animal species, the image of the infant plays a role as a triggering schema for protection and care given to the child.
• There could be confusion with femininity, in fact a double projection: that of the childlike form onto the woman, and that of the woman onto the childlike form, activating reflexes of tenderness and protective emotion in both cases.

Our postulate suggests another explanation: the child is still pure MIP (Personal Impulsive Mode), representing, in some way, a hope for the rehabilitation of the lost metasexual function, so that the unconscious confers upon its image a “celestial” character in the Platonic sense (as opposed to “vulgar” Eros). This projection is found in Christianity: the Savior is incarnated in the form of a small child, whose adolescence is, moreover, omitted and who will remain protected from the tasks of reproduction.

The same tendencies are found in primitive societies in the form of the concept of the child-king. The child was considered to possess a soul equal to that of the adult, although not yet having the same capacities for reasoning, expression, and self-defense, and on the other hand, to be purer and more sensitive. This also explains why young children could be named pharaohs or monarchs, considered capable of intuitions as reliable as those of adults, who were entrusted with more organizational tasks.

The same ambivalence is found in our images of masculinity and femininity. The question arises as to what constitutes a natural masculinity, or a natural femininity, based on the absence of repression of the primary impersonal drive (MIP). Transpulsion analysis provides a way to gain an understanding of this: all the elements present in columns four and five should be absent or at least not dominant in these two personality types.

We are thus led to consider a metasexual masculinity as opposed to normative masculinity, and the same applies to femininity. Plato believed that eromenos who had experienced a Uranian-type relationship developed a superior virility, and that they alone were capable of leading states—a viewpoint that contrasts sharply with the dominant stereotype today. He agrees, however, with what we can deduce from transpulsion analysis.

In our image of the “ideal male,” we can indeed discern more or less obsessive components of seduction, lust, a taste for pornography, a fetishistic tendency (arousal by women’s underwear), a touch of neurosis and paranoia, complicity in the harassment of women, a cult of the nuclear family curiously bordering on a certain Don Juanism, a selfish, activist tendency, a taste for consumerism, a propensity for jealousy, a cult of blood and home, an often destructive careerism, an obsession with competition and the success of offspring coupled with a repressive upbringing, a faith in intellectualism and progress, an aspiration for eternal marriage alongside traits of domestic violence, and a murderous force against sexual deviants.

The social image of the mother seems more ambivalent, torn between the good mother—breastfeeding, protective, and a dispenser of love—and traits of authoritarianism or abdication, sadism towards her children, jealousy, careerism, and other components found in feminist movements. It seems that women, crushed for centuries under the influence of compulsive BIP (Personal Instinctual Relation to Impulse) and the deviant form of masculinity that derives from it, seek revenge by adopting, in turn, certain macho traits that have nothing in common with authentic femininity. Some paradoxes linked to this situation indicate its unnatural character, such as resorting to wet nurses, entrusting gestation to a surrogate mother, allowing men to bottle-feed infants, and so on.

Macho parental traits are experienced negatively by many adolescents, who attribute them to excessive authoritarianism or indifference, and end up either rebelling or suppressing them to reconstruct an image of ideal parents. This unease generally erupts at puberty in the form of generational conflict, escapism through drugs (preferably not the “dad drugs” of alcohol and tobacco), social violence, delinquency, or suicide.

It is worth noting that the macho traits listed above are not as strikingly present among homosexuals, and even less so among bisexuals, whose sexual structures and lives may be closer to the MIP (Personal Intimacy Model).

A word on misogyny: this tendency is classically explained by a negative image of the mother that men project onto women. The metasexual postulate opens the way to another analysis: for men, woman is the ultimate symbol of coitus. She is therefore the object of an ambivalent projection. On the one hand, men associate her with a fantasy of pleasure, all the more powerful because the energy of repressed polymorphous drives overinvests the carnal desire characteristic of the BIP (Personal Instinctual Relation). On the other hand, she is the target of the Excalibur drives that denounce the error of confusing MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement) and BIP with its implications of spiritual failure.

We can therefore expect, in any society where MIP is in decline, to find this dual representation of woman: the fairy who promises supreme happiness, and the tempting witch who casts a spell on man’s destiny.

This mechanism is confirmed by the observation of particularly misogynistic male subjects: Access to MIP, recognizable by the development of extrasensory abilities, is accompanied by a reduction in obsessive desire for women (less sensitivity to the “pin-up” ideal) as well as a disappearance of aggressive, misogynistic impulses.

These same mechanisms allow us to better understand the essence of feminist movements. Women have suffered for centuries from patriarchal oppression that, under the pretext of marital duty, made them victims of a compulsive desire for penetration. The Excalibur-like impulses of women accumulated to a point of no return, ultimately fueling a compulsive demand for parity, linked to the scotomization of gender difference (we now know that female and male babies have different interests from birth).

The metasexual postulate could contribute to restoring a more equitable balance by rehabilitating polymorphous drives and restoring to sexuality its transcendent mission. This would be a way to better understand the origin of gender stereotypes that do not conform to nature, in other words: to reconcile the gender instilled by education with the genetic characteristics linked to sex.

The rehabilitation of polymorphous drives and the disengagement from the obsession with coital sex could simultaneously provide a solution to the demographic problem.

Birth Trauma, Latency, Orgasm

Birth trauma, invoked by Rank and taken up by Françoise Dolto under the term umbilical castration, can be reinterpreted from the metasexual postulate: it results from a post-hoc elaboration of the frustration due to the lack of metapsychic energy occurring after separation from the maternal body, as a consequence of premature weaning, the use of a crib, but also the energy deficiency suffered by the mother. Even if the baby is breastfed, she may find herself in a state of energy depletion due to the resumption of a BIP-type sexuality after the cessation of menstruation, or simply the absence of a source of metasexual energy, hence a failure of the “dual relationship” already in the first months.

The “good object”/“bad object” dichotomy noted by Melanie Klein, particularly the “good breast/bad breast” ambivalence, could reflect the discrepancy between physical reality and the energetic void (absence of the oceanic feeling, i.e., metasexual energy). This issue is already present in the baby’s persistent dissatisfaction after feeding, as they continue to suckle and whimper as if searching for something they cannot find.

This perspective presupposes that the baby is already capable of metapsychic perception. Nothing allows us to exclude this, and observations of very young children support this view. The lack of intellectual analysis or verbalization capacity does not preclude a form of perception that precisely occurs outside of language and any mental activity. Analytical thoughts, in fact, only serve to disrupt metapsychic functions.

Furthermore, it can be observed that the oceanic feeling, or the feeling of love magic, is communicative, without requiring any recourse to verbal communication. A “sensitive” subject, in the parapsychological sense, perceives the oceanic state of the person who, for example, is holding their hand; extrasensory visions may occur to confirm their feeling. The hypothesis that the baby is still sensitive enough to sense its mother’s oceanic state, or conversely, her energetic deficiency, therefore does not seem far-fetched.

It is thus understandable that the traumatic content stemming from these early situations of lack (even beyond the dyadic period) can be reorganized retrospectively around birth as a signifier symbolizing the energetic separation from the mother (the latter being the primary signifier of metasexual energy). The frequent difficulties of childbirth and the physical or psychological trauma experienced by the newborn add to the energetic factor (for example, separating the infant from the mother for bathing, placing them in a crib, and giving them a bottle or a rubber pacifier). Furthermore, the anxieties generated by the often incomprehensible behavior of babies in adults explain the somewhat hasty adoption of the birth trauma theory.

The perspective we propose has the advantage of avoiding the unlikely assumption that birth can be traumatic in itself, given that it is a process as old as the first mammals and should follow the same rules of harmony as all vital functions. It would indeed be detrimental to a species if the psyche of its offspring were not adapted to this essential stage of existence. The perspective we propose has the advantage of avoiding the unlikely assumption that birth can be inherently traumatic, given that it is a process as old as the first mammals and should obey the same rules of harmony as all vital functions. It would indeed be detrimental to a species if the psyche of its offspring were not adapted to an essential stage of existence. The development of genetics has therefore every reason to have progressed towards a tolerance of the processes of parturition or a capacity for resilience that excludes traumatic sequelae, except in exceptional circumstances.

The same reasoning applies to the traumas supposedly occurring during the oral, anal, and phallic stages: it would be paradoxical for the psyche to be organized in such a way as to suffer traumatic sequelae when these stages are experienced under natural conditions, that is, free from prohibitions or inhibitions added by the accidents of culture. Evolutionary common sense, on the contrary, suggests that the regressive and traumatic aspects linked to these stages are more likely the effect of contextual factors too far removed from the primitive conditions to which human genetics is still adapted. In this regard, it is necessary to consider not only instinctual frustrations, but also, and perhaps primarily, energetic frustration, which can be present even when the drives are fulfilled.

This brings us back to a subject that Freud seems to have hesitated to resolve: does the Oedipal trauma stem from early seduction, or from the repression of early infantile drives? Even in his last work (An Outline of Psychoanalysis), the master leaves the ambiguity between these two aspects open. Given the postulate of metapsychic energy, it is understandable that frustration exists in both cases, since in the existing social context, the metapsychic energy to which the child aspires is lacking in any case, whether in the absence of any relationship or during a relationship of the BIP type.

Frustration could even be more pronounced in the longer term, during the fulfillment of a partial drive that does not provide metapsychic energy, much like a broken promise. This is also borne out in adulthood: the absence of sexual relations is preferable to a relationship that leaves a feeling of emptiness or disgust. All of these facts would be different in a context where the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement) is operational, and where metapsychic energy is available, both during breastfeeding and in subsequent stages.

The same questions arise concerning the latency period: this is supposed to follow the Oedipus complex, from the moment the child renounces their incestuous impulses. According to Freud, the polymorphous drives characteristic of infantile sexuality first appear during the oral, anal, and phallic stages, with an “incommensurable” intensity, before disappearing with the Oedipus complex until puberty and finally serving the genital drives as preliminary pleasures.

It is surprising that nature organizes drives at an age when they cannot or should not be acted upon, only to make them disappear at the risk of leaving behind a traumatic situation, and then have them reappear at puberty with the conflicting content they acquired during the Oedipal trajectory. Furthermore, in permissive societies such as the Trobriand Islanders, children continue their sexual activity uninterrupted into adulthood.

The hypothesis of a genetically determined latency period is even more improbable if one postulates that infantile sexuality serves to provide essential energy. It is explained, however, by the fact that the child recognizes the futility of their drives in an environment incapable of supplying the energy they seek. The feelings of modesty and disgust for sexuality, which Freud considers characteristic of latency, are perfectly explained by the powerful drives emanating from the unconscious to inactivate partial drives systematically doomed to failure in achieving their energetic goal.

A crucial point in this reasoning is the function of orgasm. Freud scarcely addressed this point, whereas Reich made it one of his central arguments. However, it is regrettable that the theory proposed by the second author reduces the phenomenon to a simplistic tension-release mechanism, whereas individual experience suggests a great deal of complexity, if not a certain orgasmic mystery. It is worth noting in passing that the etymology of the word “ỏργη” refers to the festivals that the Greeks celebrated in honor of Dionysus, thus linking them to a sacred dimension. The intense, passionate feeling that the term “orgasm” conveyed when it first entered the French language in the 17th century is undoubtedly only a distant echo of its original meaning.

In any case, the possibility of fertilization without female orgasm suggests that the orgasmic process itself belongs to the metasexual function. This hypothesis is confirmed by the trance-like state that accompanies it, given that trance is characteristic of metapsychic phenomena. The popular term “little death” also hints at a transcendent dimension. This would explain why Freud showed little interest in it, given his rejection of any metapsychic reality; whereas Reich, sensitive to the existence of a transcendent energy (orgone), attempted to decipher its function. He distinguishes in male orgasm a genuine “orgasmic power” from a simple “ejaculatory power,” to use his terms: this dichotomy accurately reflects the presence or absence of metasexual energy during climax.

The metasexual postulate would lead us to believe that the orgasmic process functions as a kind of transmutation or sublimation of metasexual energy (sublimation in the physicist’s sense), elevating this energy to a higher level: indeed, after a metasexual encounter, we observe a shift in sensitivity from the lower abdomen to a sensation of fullness at the level of the solar plexus, the presumed seat of metapsychic energy. It is also in these circumstances that extrasensory faculties may appear. These phenomena do not occur when the encounter is interrupted before orgasm, or when it meets the criteria of the BIP (Personal Inhibitory Reflex).

In this regard, Freud observes that there is a primacy of the phallus, and no genital primacy (the latter would imply a vaginal primacy in women, which is apparently nonexistent). This asymmetry seems to confirm that the metasexual function, although generally repressed in current circumstances, occupies a far more important place in human psychosexual structures than the reproductive function. One might expect to find the same relationship of importance between polymorphism and coitus, if polymorphism were not obliterated by the repression of infantile sexuality.

The failure of the metasexual function explains why polymorphism, in current circumstances, is considered secondary, and genitality central. In terms of drive economy, one can say that the libidinal energy that should fuel the polymorphous drives is diverted into the genital drive, hence, in particular, an overvaluation of vaginal penetration. Freud considers this situation as the advent of adult sexuality. By virtue of the autonomous purposiveness of polymorphous drives, the same deviation appears, on the contrary, as a form of perversion, insofar as they are reduced to a pursuit of pleasure in place of their original purpose.

What can we deduce from these considerations regarding the latency period? We must, in fact, reason differently depending on whether orgasm has a function limited to fertilization, or an energetic role in metasexual processes. Renouncing all orgasmic expression is harmless in the first case, whereas it can have major consequences for psychosexual and metapsychic development in the second.

A posthumous note by Freud (quoted above) shares his final conclusions: “The ultimate basis of all intellectual inhibitions and inhibitions at work seems to be the inhibition of infantile masturbation.” Such inhibitions can hardly be attributed to a lack of playful activities or autoerotic pleasure. They are better explained if we accept that sexual function and the orgasmic process, regardless of age, involve metapsychic energies capable of fueling the state of wonder conducive to intellectual discovery. From a neurophysiological perspective, it is worth recalling that Kinsey concluded, in his famous (though now discredited) study, that orgasm is easily accessible from early childhood.

We can gain an idea of ​​what a natural psychic structure should be by examining the interactions of psychosexual development with the stages of intellectual development defined by Piaget. The Oedipal period overlaps with or precedes the stage of preparation and organization of concrete operations, which Piaget places between 2 and 11 years of age, as well as that of formal operations, from 11 to 16 years of age. Metapsychic development would thus precede or accompany all intellectual and emotional development, so that analytical and operational functions would develop in constant harmony with creative intuition, oceanic feeling, and even with the archetypal messages provided by extrasensory faculties.

Einstein wrote, in essence: “Nothing is more precious than the capacity for wonder and rapture; it is the source of all true art and science; woe to him who lacks it, he would be better off dead.” He added elsewhere that “no logical path leads from facts to theory,” that is, to the understanding of facts. Beyond his well-known provocative nature, this great scientist seems to have been aware that the source of creativity and genius lies not in the capacity for intellectual analysis and theorizing, but in a much deeper realm that can be linked to the metapsychic dimension. Indeed, it is in the collective unconscious that Jung, for example, locates the source of inspiration and new ideas. What is true for discovery is also true for the rediscovery that schooling and learning should represent.

Under current conditions, the absence of metapsychic development forces children to construct their intellectual faculties and emotional impulses through a process of splitting, separating what remains of their archetypal values ​​and their first erotic stirrings, experienced as magical, from social and cultural norms. His mind is organized around the anxieties, feelings of guilt, and rivalry characteristic of the repressed Oedipus complex, instead of being built around his capacities for wonder, intuition, and metapsychic sensitivity. This can only lead to a hegemony of Reason at the expense of the spiritual, as Jung lamented, and to an overinvestment in Feeling (the mind’s control of emotion), which culminated in the Romantic period. It is surely no coincidence that Romanticism gained momentum just after the establishment of the campaign against “solitary vice.”

These processes, through the projection of metasexual aspirations onto substitute objects and behaviors, have led to the establishment of the primacy of material values ​​and competition, characteristic of our modern civilization and far removed from an authentic conception of learning, discovery, and love of one’s neighbor. One only needs to observe children in school today to be convinced of this.

As for adults, the notion of “work” (whether its etymology is tripallium, an instrument of torture, or “trans” and “val,” with the idea of ​​overcoming resistance to move towards something) is imbued with an ambivalence that is also explained by the presence or absence of metapsychic energy. This can be seen as a consequence of the failure of the metasexual function and of poor structuring dating back to childhood. Everyone can observe that effort is felt differently depending on whether or not it is fueled by an input of metapsychic energy (a feeling of magic): in the absence of this energy, the feeling of euphoria that accompanies creative activity gives way to a feeling of oppression, depression, or other unconscious resistances. The unconscious fully accepts only activities that conform to the impulses of the Surah, are in harmony with the metapsychic dimension, and are driven by the oceanic feeling.

Metasexual failure would thus explain students’ resistance to effort and intellectual inhibitions as a result of Excalibur drives activated by the absence of metasexual energy. To these inhibitions are added, from adolescence onward, more active Excalibur drives, revealing the crystallization of psychosexual structures based on the MIP → BIP drive induction, compromising the individual’s future.

It is the lack of intuition and capacity for wonder that condemns the future adult to uncreative activity, focused solely on economic gain, prone to succumbing to boredom, disinterest, and depression. This could explain the classic picture of employees and unions, characteristic of the social climate in the West, while Asians, closer to a culture of sexual freedom, seem (or seemed) to have a completely different conception of work.

Narcissism and Autoeroticism

Freud first introduced narcissism in relation to homosexuality: “inverts” supposedly wanted to reproduce their mother’s love by loving themselves.

As early as 1914, he distinguished a primary narcissism, prior to any differentiation of the Id and the Ego, with autoeroticism still being intertwined with the Ego’s drives; This period would be characterized by a belief in the magic of words and the omnipotence of thought, as found in primitive societies. A theoretical difficulty remains, however, as this primary narcissism presupposes a coherent organization of partial drives (disordered like the chaotic Id), which, in principle, only occurs through the formation of the Ego.

Then, with the distinction between object libido and ego libido, Freud defines a secondary narcissism, characterized by a withdrawal of libido previously fixed on external objects, which becomes fixated on the subject himself in a psychotic manner. In the normal subject, an equilibrium is established between object libido and ego libido, a perspective that foreshadows the notion of the Ego Ideal, which will itself eventually merge, to a greater or lesser extent, with the Superego.

Melanie Klein, considering object drives to be primary, rejects primary narcissism. Lacan attributes primary narcissism to the constitution of the Ego, based on the child’s capture, during the mirror stage, of its own image alongside the image of its mother; the period of autoeroticism would thus be relegated to the very first period, that of partial drives, the fragmented body, and an original distress whose threat remains the foundation of aggression.

The theme of narcissism, although one of the great bastions of psychoanalysis, thus remains rather vague in its theoretical outlines. The postulate of the metapsychic finality of infantile sexuality could provide some elements of reflection likely to better define a phenomenon undoubtedly as old as the myth that gave it its name. Although the meaning the Ancients gave to myth was not necessarily consistent with what we have reconstructed today around the same concept.

A first question arises concerning autoeroticism. This notion stems, on the one hand, from our image of infantile masturbation, and on the other hand, from Freud’s definition of libido: drive energy capable of being fixed either on an external object or on the subject himself. In fact, both of these foundations are questionable: no satisfactory theory can explain the masturbatory drive, whose prevalence is nevertheless undeniable if one objectively examines human sexual behavior; the very principle of self-satisfaction must be rethought in terms of metasexual energy, the economy of which is linked to far more complex phenomena and responds to criteria quite different from those of libidinal drive economy.

Therefore, it is necessary to question the very principle of narcissism: the explanatory model invoking the turning of libido back upon the subject itself might be merely a hasty interpretation of a metapsychic process, escaping the psychoanalytic explanatory paradigm. Since masturbation is characteristic of infantile sexuality, undoubtedly the principal of the polymorphous drives, it can only be theorized in terms of metasexual energy, which shifts it from a presumed hedonistic aim to a metapsychic purpose. This leads to fundamentally different lines of reasoning.

In terms of metasexual energy, after weaning, the child finds themselves in a situation of near-total separation from their mother, that is, from the source of energy they had or should have had access to until then. In a non-repressive environment, physical, even erotic, contact would remain much more frequent. In Martinique, before the arrival of missionaries, adults used to innocently put a young child’s genitals in their mouth. Western society seems to have been the first to eradicate these customs, which Rabelais mentioned in his description of wet nurses’ habits in Gargantua, and which are also found in The Chronicle of Heroard. What we call sexual assault could, contrary to our preconceived notions, play an essential role for the child, not in terms of pleasure, but as a source of energy toward which their drives are inevitably drawn.

In the absence of any energy input, the child is left with only a few alternatives, which are very well described in the Kleinian conception: the depressive position, alternating with the paranoid-schizoid position; depression consisting of introjecting a good object (a good image of the mother) as a defense against the paranoid position; and the anxiety of persecution following the loss of the mother, seen as split (in a schizoid manner) into good object/bad object. This configuration can be compared to that of the fragmented body and original distress, which Lacan attributes to the same early period, the starting point of all subsequent aggressive tendencies.

In the explanatory model based on the metapsychic purpose of early drives, the reaction to energy deprivation manifests as excalibur drives, effectively laying the foundations for future aggression, and expressed in the image of the mother as a bad object, while the good object remains the image of the mother capable of providing the expected energy. When these excalibur drives are repressed and rendered compulsive by educational measures or parental incomprehension, the child is left with two possibilities: either an anaclitic position (renunciation of an energy that is too inaccessible); or a split between a reactive destructiveness that he cannot accept because it is contrary to his libidinal drives and his expectation of energy, and an exacerbated hope of finding an ideal mother, capable of giving him this energy through her touch and caresses. This problem is, in a way, the negative of what the oceanic feeling would be if energy circulated in accordance with the child’s needs.

The child is then left with the path of autoeroticism, or more precisely, self-satisfaction: deprived of the energy that contact with others should provide, the child falls back on partial drives, accompanied by substitute fantasies. These drives, practiced, as Freud notes, under the mother’s gaze, have a seductive function, not to say a cry for help. It is, in fact, a primary drive to seek a partner, rendered compulsive by the prolonged energy deprivation. The child’s attempts are immediately repressed given the prevailing educational principles, so that they resort to solitary self-satisfaction. This remains incapable of providing genuine energy and, in turn, generates intense drives, in the form of primary feelings of guilt (in addition to the guilt imposed by education) or depression. It eventually becomes abandoned, even repressed, thus establishing the latency period.

Such a function of public masturbation has been observed among the Trobriand Islanders and Polynesians: far from being a perversion, this practice aims to elicit empathy from a potential partner capable of filling a void of love. Such behavior is probably part of the drive arsenal of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement). It is also found, in a compulsive form, in exhibitionism or pornography.

Seen from this perspective, narcissism appears more as a withdrawal into oneself, a state of renunciation in the search for the expected source of energy, characterized by a split between a reactive formation against frustration and a fantasized reconstruction of a natural state of oceanic feeling, possibly coupled with self-satisfaction. This leaves almost the same traces in the unconscious as a libidinal investment in the self.

It should also be noted that the myth of Narcissus is not primarily linked to a rejection of heterosexual love offered by the nymph Echo: another version, less well-known perhaps because it features a homosexual relationship, recounts the rejection of the advances made to Narcissus by Ameinias, to whom he offers a sword, and who ultimately commits suicide. Narcissus is then punished by Nemesis, the goddess responsible for rewarding good deeds and punishing bad ones, and ends up either taking root like a flower or committing suicide in turn. One might therefore think that the myth aimed to remind people that refusing love is equivalent to a bad deed (far removed from the Christian conception of chastity), enacting a destructive intellectualization (the sword) that amounts to spiritual death. It thus falls squarely within the realm of metapsychoanalysis.

The myth leads us back to Lacan’s reflections on the “mirror stage.” First, it should be noted that this theory dates back to a time when the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror was considered specific to human beings. It is understandable that various theorists sought to assign it a foundational role in the constitution of the self, itself also specifically human. Subsequent experiments on animals have led to a more nuanced understanding of these positions. Chimpanzees and bonobos, as well as monkeys of less evolved species, have proven capable of identifying their own image.

More recently, a magpie, to whose breast the experimenter had surreptitiously stuck a colored dot, attempted all sorts of maneuvers to get rid of it, even rubbing itself against the ground when it couldn’t manage with its beak and claws, all the while regularly checking its image in the mirror: its efforts began the moment it saw its reflection and ceased as soon as its plumage returned to its normal appearance. It would therefore be necessary to admit that a bird’s brain is already capable of recognizing a mirror image, and to place humans more modestly on the scale of cerebral evolution. Even more recently, this capacity has been observed in orangutans, gorillas, Asian elephants, dolphins, orcas, pigs, crows, parrots, and even ants!

Lacan’s thesis, presenting mirror recognition by the child as constitutive of the Ego, seems implausible for two other reasons: firstly, the discovery of a simple image occurs in a playful manner, engaging little libidinal energy, and should remain a secondary process; On the other hand, the necessity of a physical mirror to ensure psychic structuring is unlikely, as glass and silvering are recent inventions: genetics has certainly programmed the essential phase of psychic structuring without anticipating the use of such devices—or perhaps only our ancestors who lived close enough to a still body of water to access it from a very young age could properly develop their psyches.

At most, one could consider the mirror image as a fetish object onto which the child can project the phallic fantasy (signifying the hoped-for energy) when they see their own image next to that of their mother, thus placing themselves in a regressive position for having already introjected the maternal image as devoid of any source of energy. However, this parallel seems tenuous, because what sets the child’s drives in motion is not so much a fetishistic excitation of a instinctual nature as a quest for magic in love and its natural physical expression. Seeing one’s own image primarily stimulates intellectual functions, not the oceanic feeling. This means that the mirror stage is not narcissistic in the libidinal or metasexual sense, but at most constitutes a stage in learning the intellectual functions belonging to the Ego, or more precisely, the I, as Lacan ultimately clarified.

Triangular Dynamics, Polarities, Ideal Couple

The notion of a triangular constellation should be understood as a drive dynamic governing the relationships between three people, such that at least two pairs of them are linked by romantic feelings. It makes no assumptions about the duration of the relationships and only describes the connections between the different libidinal investments, the potential exchanges of energy, and the powerful drives that intervene to ensure their healthy development.

In any situation of this type, other relationships generally pre-exist, so that the third protagonist is, in a way, grafted onto a branch that is already well-established or, conversely, more or less in poor condition. We will begin by considering the ideal scenario, in which the initial relationship functions properly. The new romantic attraction typically develops with only one of the two existing partners and is commonly interpreted as adultery.

The “injured third party,” to use Freud’s term, is immediately placed in a critical situation, most often experienced as suffering and jealousy. Normally, two solutions remain: either the new intruder withdraws to allow the old relationship to continue unharmed, or the injured third party is left out in the cold, and the new relationship replaces the previous one.

In both cases, there is suffering: in the first, due to the loss of a budding love, and in the second, due to the pain of the breakup. This pattern seems canonical, and the equation appears to have no other solution. Yet, mathematics enthusiasts might cite the adage, “the friends of my friends are my friends,” and try to apply it here in the singular form: “the lover of my lover is my lover.”

The formula conceals a presupposition that seems self-evident and could be stated as: “I should be happy that the person I love receives love,” even if a third party is responsible for giving it. Why is the logic of love, in everyday reality, so far removed from algebraic logic?

The MIP + BIP model could provide a solution to the enigma. On a reproductive level, rivalry is essential: the best male must pass on his genetic information; it is beneficial to the species that he eliminates the less successful competitor. The situation is not the same when it comes to the transmission of energy: if the purpose of the metasexual function is a gain of energy, it is useful for the loved one to receive new energy-information from an external source, the injured third party will himself benefit from the renewal made possible for the old relationship.

Freud addressed this question in Chapter IV of The Sexual Life (CITE), under the heading “A Particular Type of Object Choice in Men.” He writes, for example, “In marked cases, the lover shows no desire to possess the woman for himself alone and seems to be quite at ease in the triangular relationship”… “The patient had certainly been very jealous of his husband in his early love affairs; he had forced the woman to cease all marital relations, but in the many relationships he had thereafter, he behaved like the others and no longer considered the husband a hindrance.”

These texts did not receive much attention, probably because they evoke situations generally destined to end in pain. Or perhaps because the explanatory paradigm of psychoanalysis does not allow for an understanding of their meaning. It is possible, however, that Freud may have identified a more fundamental phenomenon than initially apparent.

Reich notes in The Sexual Revolution (CITE) that a fleeting external relationship could reinvigorate a longer-standing relationship threatened by routine and boredom.

This could involve more than just a mental, emotional, or even libidinal renewal; it might be a process involving metapsychic energy. This hypothesis seems to be confirmed by observations made in such situations, marked by the emergence of extrasensory faculties that can be explained by a specific energy input.

It even seems that the triangular constellation, due to the significant energies of all kinds involved, is the key situation for metapsychic evolution: within the framework of our observations, no case of the emergence of extrasensory faculties could be observed outside of a triangular dynamic, whereas more than seventy cases occurred within the triangular context. These observations should be continued, although they raise delicate ethical issues, in order to consolidate our hypotheses, but the results already obtained are sufficiently convergent to allow for an initial theorization.

The major stumbling block in any triangular relationship is, of course, the question of jealousy. However, this does not seem to be structurally part of the MIP (Personal Interpersonal Model). The interpretation, within the Oedipal framework, of a boy’s jealousy of his father is ultimately not jealousy per se, but rather the suffering of being excluded from his relationship with his mother. This can be observed in adulthood under the following conditions:

Let A and B be two partners engaged in a romantic relationship; let us suppose that a third party, C, falls in love with B, and vice versa. At this point, B has two options: either to act on his love for C while “deceiving” A; or to first inform A of his feelings for C and wait for A’s “go-ahead” before any intimacy.

The first approach regularly leads to a situation that is energy-draining, as lying and guilt are incompatible with the desired emotional state. It can even lead to an explosion of intense impulses if the infidelity is discovered, as jealousy often leads to a breakup. Whereas the second formula allows A not only to better tolerate the external relationship, but, when the situation is favorable, to experience love for both B and C.

Observation shows that the love between A and B can be intensified, as if it were receiving a kind of nourishment (energy) provided by the new relationship. The partners learn, from experience to experience, a particularly gratifying psychic position. As we mentioned earlier, “the love of love” is indeed characterized by a particularly high level of bliss. To the delights of Eros is added the jubilation of having triumphed over the ego and its possessiveness. And it is always in situations of this type that the greatest advances on the metapsychic plane manifest themselves.

These facts suggest that the “love of love” position belongs by nature to the MIP and should remain constant as long as the relationship conforms to natural values. Conversely, jealousy might be linked solely to the BIP. If we observe higher animals, we do indeed see rivalries, sexual contests, the elimination of weaker males, or sometimes females lower in the group hierarchy (alpha pair). This is an archaic drive found in humans, but the jealousy felt in situations of loss of a love object, characterized by significant suffering, cannot be reduced to such a trivial element. It is worth considering what shift in perspective the MIP + BIP model can bring.

Observation and introspection lead us to distinguish five independent components in jealousy as we know it in our culture, characterized by the failure of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Mode):

1. The manifestation of animal-type rivalry, characteristic of the BIP (Personal Instinctual Mode), but overinvested by the MIP → BIP drive induction, with the Excalibur drives belonging to the MIP channeled into rivalry-type drives between competitors (manifesting as a compulsive intolerance of any other person vying for the same partner);
2. A possessive component, tending towards the appropriation of the sexual object, also present in some animals, but overinvested by the MIP → BIP induction (the subject seeks in the illusion of possessing the other the magical feeling that in fact belongs to the love of love characteristic of the MIP);
3. An anxiety about losing the love object, a trace of the failure of the fused relationship with the mother, which disappears when the MIP (Personalized Interpersonal Relationship) functions satisfactorily (the triangular constellation rebuilds confidence in the idea that love as energy does not depend solely on one partner and that openness to a third party can represent an increase in happiness);
4. The vestige of repressed childhood impulses, or Oedipal contents, reactivated by the triangular situation reminiscent of the early period.
5. A cluster of impulses denouncing behaviors not conforming to the MIP, activated particularly when the new relationship is situated on the BIP (Personalized Interpersonal Relationship) plane (recognizable by the primacy of genitality, rivalry, possessiveness, depression, etc.).

Jealousy, thus defined, appears not as a trait inherent to human sexuality, but as a secondary, neurotic, and paranoid phenomenon, linked to the failure of the primary sexual orientation (MIP) and the overinvestment of the homologous drives of the primary sexual orientation (BIP). In this respect, it is intimately related to Thanatos and can be considered, in the same way, a cultural mirage.

Another crucial point is to determine the respective roles (competition, equivalence, or complementarity) of homosexuality and heterosexuality within the triangular dynamic. A constellation of three people inevitably includes at least one homosexual relationship. However, observation reveals a clear asymmetry between the two types of relationships. On the one hand, heterosexual relationships tend to more easily “slip” into a reproductive function (since intercourse is the primary focus), resulting in the loss of the oceanic feeling, possessiveness, rivalry, and, through the drive-induced activation of the Excalibur drive when the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement) remains blocked, jealousy, depression, aggression, etc. On the other hand, when things are going well, the homosexual relationship seems to function as a source of energy, and the heterosexual relationship as a receiver.

Indeed, it can regularly be observed that triangular constellations in which the homosexual relationship is not realized tend to break down. Both heterosexual relationships activate irrepressible feelings of rivalry between the two individuals of the same sex, alongside a progressive decrease in energy levels, recognizable by the fading of the oceanic feeling and the absence of metapsychic development.

Conversely, still within the triangular and metasexual framework, homosexual relationships seem to provide an energy capable of nourishing heterosexual relationships, as demonstrated by the following:

• on a metapsychic level: the development of creativity, extrasensory abilities, and the significance of visions;
• on a reproductive level: by conferring an oceanic component to conception, gestation, and childbirth, that is, by fueling reproductive drives and allowing, through extrasensory means, a better perception of the meaning of the future child’s destiny;
• on a material level: by making daily tasks related to the BIP (Personal Involvement of the Reproductive Environment), such as child-rearing, material obligations, and chores, lighter and preventing disenchantment.

It should be noted, however, that a homosexual relationship can also “slip” on the BIP plane. Drive induction can indeed overactivate the genital drives of the heterosexual male, which then deviate into homosexual activity, particularly sodomy. This type of homosexuality is recognized by the presence of characteristics typical of a heterosexual couple, with one partner imitating the female sex in gestures, attitude, speech, hairstyle, painted nails, perfumes, nesting behavior, jealousy, etc. No metapsychic development is observable in this type of relationship, which is far removed from the Uranian Eros described by Plato.

In this scenario, the primary guilt stemming from the failure of the MIP (Personalized Interaction Model), compounded by the cultural guilt of not being like others, leads the partners to seek security in a borrowed image of the normative couple. This caricature shatters the idealized image of the perfect couple, which serves as justification for heterosexual BIPs (Personalized Interaction Models) against their primary guilt. This reactivates both the major anxieties linked to the failure of the MIP and the intense, visceral impulses against the very traits of the BIP that mimic their own failure. This helps us better understand the compulsive nature of classic homophobic behaviors, which can even lead to murder.

Along the same lines, it is important to distinguish between fidelity based on “absolute trust,” transparency, selflessness, and a love of love—characteristics of the MIP—and the potential or actual openness of the couple. The other concerns the fantasy of the eternal couple (the instinctual induction of the need for an all-encompassing feeling within the BIP couple image), degenerating into possessiveness, jealousy, rejection of the third party, the compulsion to commit adultery, and prohibitions. This very classic picture of the “ideal couple,” when one tries to translate it into practice, is explained by the simple fact that the confinement of the MIP within a closed, binary relationship is contrary to nature.

The stereotypical fantasies of “love forever,” of “fidelity as a guarantee of happiness,” of “you will be one flesh” appear as products of instinctual induction, stemming from the homology between the triangular dynamic, a guarantee of transcendence, and the binary image of the heterosexual couple inherent in the BIP.

The unconscious expectation of fulfillment and happiness is projected, for lack of anything better, onto the couple relationship, but the latter remains incapable of satisfying it, which elevates these aspirations to a compulsive level, obliterating reality.

Indeed, it is surprising that the systematic failure of most closed couples and the explosion of divorces have not yet opened the eyes of either common sense or marriage counselors to the aberration of marriage based on love as a lasting source of happiness.

Anal Stage and Prevalence of Heterosexuality

Homosexuality was widespread in many cultures since Antiquity, more or less discreet depending on the case. Long condemned by Judeo-Christian morality, it is no longer considered in the West as pathological or even as a paraphilia, but as a form of sexuality in its own right, albeit a minority one. It plays a significant role in the sexual behavior of bonobos, the primates most closely related to humans.

Therefore, it is worth asking what its “market share” would be in a society structured according to principles closely resembling human genetics. In other words: what would be the relative frequency of individuals with homosexual psychological structures if education were free from the various prohibitions that contradict the natural potential inscribed in our genetics and did not impose the heterosexual model as the norm?

A related question is why this form of sexuality has been subjected to the banishment it has suffered. The phenomenon certainly has a deeper cause than the simple need for the survival of the species. This biological factor does not explain the visceral violence that permeates homophobia. The metasexual postulate could pave the way for a more fundamental approach.

Sodomy appears to play a significant role in the arsenal of homosexual drives. It is more directly targeted by various homophobic movements than other forms of contact, and therefore deserves special attention.

It is clear that it involves anal erogenous zones. These vary considerably from one individual to another, independently of inhibitions related to upbringing and morality. It is therefore necessary to ask what factors are likely to influence these erogenous zones. According to psychoanalysis, these factors date back to the anal stage, a period of establishment during which this erogenous zone plays a primary role.

The emergence of an erogenous zone depends on both neurological maturation and learning. The emergence of anal eroticism generally occurs after the oral stage and before the phallic stage, that is, from around six months and before two years of age (although some overlap between the different stages is possible). One might then ask what kind of learning concerning this erogenous zone could ensure its development in accordance with the natural potential of the human being.

Defecation produces a certain pleasure, but this is far from what one can experience orally or phallically. In contrast, the care provided by the mother, as perceived by the baby (who has no concept of hygiene), has a more erotic character, especially during the anal stage when local erogenous zones are heightened. Early grooming experiences are inherently associated with a libidinal object in the person of the mother or caregiver, a connection conducive to their eroticization. In adulthood, certain caresses, within an erogenous context, can be observed to have a manifest pleasurable content, as suggested by the expression “rose petal” (lingo-anal contact).

This leads us to question the nature and social connotation of this infant care, and its potential changes over time. The mother’s attitude, which we now know is recognized by the baby from a very young age, can be of great importance. Maternal discomfort, impatience, nervousness, or bad mood can be linked to the erotic experience very early on.

The vagaries of morality can influence a mother’s behavior. Embarrassment linked to prudishness, and anxiety stemming from the stigmatization of the child-adult relationship, inevitably affect her attitude. However, observing young mothers and their babies during diaper changes has revealed another factor: the mother’s aversion to the odors of feces, particularly when they have been in diapers with urine, is easily visible on her face and visibly influences her gestures. The infant registers these changes in attitude, as evidenced by their own changes in expression and gaze, and their less fluid movements.

Moreover, excremental odors depend on diet. They are virtually nonexistent when the child receives breast milk, whereas they become repulsive if the child receives cow’s milk. It is less well known that these aversions are also minimal, as is the case in wild animals, when the diet is natural (neither cooked nor prepared). Changes in breastfeeding and feeding practices may therefore have influenced the mother’s aversion to grooming areas, with this aversion worsening as food has deviated further from the natural diet and breastfeeding has been discredited.

What, then, can the baby register during the anal stage? That its mother is disgusted by what is happening in this part of its body; that she is pleased when it defecates in a potty provided for this purpose, as if it were giving her a gift; that she scolds it if it puts its fingers in the anal area; confirmation is given by their unpleasant odor if it does so secretly. In short, any erotic activity of this type causes him to lose his mother’s love, whereas the effort of cleanliness and the controlled defecation allow him to obtain it. He is therefore unable to integrate his anal eroticism into non-conflictual psychic structures.

This deficiency is deeply and irreversibly ingrained, given that all learning results in the anatomical development of interneuronal connections. It is known that the brain develops differently depending on whether or not early learning is possible. This rule certainly applies to erotic learning. This explains the difficulty and the time required to restore natural anal eroticism in those who were unable to develop it in childhood, as brain connections are established more slowly in adulthood. Partial rehabilitation seems possible but may take years.

The young person who lacks natural anal erotic potential unconsciously suffers from a deficiency. His attempts at digital or other penetration will often result in tenesmus (painful spasms) that are definitively dissuasive. He will compensate by an escalation of phallic eroticism, establishing a paradoxical focus of desire and guilt on the penis (a factor hitherto neglected in the genesis of the castration complex). From puberty onward, this same overinvestment will fuel vaginal fantasies, establishing an excessive dependence on genital sexuality.

The repression of the anal stage thus leads to a hypertrophy of early drives related to order, money, and cleanliness. These are further reinforced at puberty through drive induction, with the emergence of the BIP (Breeding instinctive Program) where they feature prominently in the general nesting instinct. They also contribute to the rejection of the third party (money for me), the obsessions with order and cleanliness, the ideal of the Self and the contempt for others, judged to be dirty and disorderly, contrary to the openness to the third party required in the triangular constellation. Here we recognize the source of paranoid tendencies linked to the relationship with the mother and dating back to early stages, as highlighted by Melanie Klein. Their unexpected prevalence is explained by the overinvestment resulting from the MIP→BIP drive induction.

The Excalibur drives inevitably become involved and fixate on available scapegoats, fueling components of hatred for the image of the mother as having presided over the negative grooming experiences and for the image of the prohibitive father, a substitute for the true causes of the failure of anal development. These same Excalibur drives will later fixate on homosexuality, foreign to the ego image given the absence of anal eroticism, or, by mirroring effect, on the image of the Other, who is a priori deprived of anal eroticism.

This process helps explain the prevalence of heterosexuality, due to the deficient erogenous zones in the majority of individuals, as well as the general repugnance for homosexuality, linked to introjected maternal disgust, and the general hatred of sodomy, due to the foreclosure of anal eroticism and its metapsychic function.

This sheds light on the visceral, historical, if not biblical, hatred directed at individuals who do not suffer from the same deficiency: frustration is unconsciously perceived as an injustice all the more intolerable because the homosexual deficiency compromises the triangular dynamic and, consequently, the entire MIP (Personal Instinctual Mode). Homophobia would thus have a constitutional basis, linked to cerebral anatomy and largely irreversible, structurally explaining the age-old dichotomy between homosexuality and heterosexuality. The phenomenon should be more pronounced in regions of the world where food is most processed. Homosexuality was, until recently, very well accepted in Asia, where neither wheat, nor animal milk, nor dairy products were consumed.

It is also understandable that psychoanalysis stopped at the idea that the anal stage’s function was psychic structuring in terms of order, money, and cleanliness. These elements should remain entirely secondary, like any practical learning. Freud and his followers, operating within a culinary framework, unfortunately failed to see that this stage might not be repressed and that it is intended to establish, through eroticized grooming, an anal erogenousness intrinsically linked to the natural psychosexual balance and essential in terms of MIP (Personal Instinctual Management). It was therefore impossible for them to take into account the causes of the major frustration suffered by individuals considered normal.

Masturbation, Circumcision, Excision, Virginity

Masturbation, that is, the manual stimulation of the penis or clitoris, beyond prohibitions and secrecy, seems to be an integral part of human sexual behavior. Some, however, consider it a perversion, stemming from an illicit or unnatural quest for pleasure. The anti-masturbation campaign that swept through the 18th century, leading to repressive measures unthinkable today, is an excellent example.

How is it that doctors and moralists, with the Swiss physician Tissot at the forefront, were able to win the support of a global public by condemning a practice that had been perfectly tolerated and unspoken since Antiquity? Dr. Tissot’s seminal work, De Onania, was republished after his death and even “considerably expanded.” It became a true bestseller and has endured through the centuries like a new Bible of sex. Such enthusiasm presupposes a receptiveness on the part of the public and cannot be explained in terms of conspiracy. Rather, these are popular trends that a certain “elite” (including Jean-Jacques Rousseau) exploited to launch a movement of thought or repression, to alleviate their own feelings of guilt, or to cultivate their own notoriety.

Masturbation and other polymorphous stimulations belong to the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement). When the MIP fails, these drives do not disappear completely; on the contrary, the fact that they do not reach their ultimate goal makes them compulsive. This explains the prevalence of partial drives, severed from their affective and metapsychic components, exploitable for the pursuit of sexual pleasure alone while missing their original purpose. They are indeed perversions, characterized by compulsion and by the activation of Excalibur drives that denounce deviations, independently of any pre-established morality.

The failure of the MIP (Personal Inhibition Method) can therefore generate intense impulses directed against masturbation, even though it is part of it. The pursuit of pleasure replaces the metapsychological goal, establishing a compulsive hedonic search because it never reaches its objective, or even an addiction that leads to a loss of energy and harmful conditioning (fixation on perverse fantasies).

This aligns with the usefulness of the Excalibur impulses, without excluding their indirect harmfulness: failing to achieve their goal, they veer into compulsion, and then, when addressed by society, ultimately constitute a repressive morality. This induces secondary (superegoic) guilt, in addition to primary guilt (the Excalibur impulses emitted by the Superego). These complex feelings of guilt, if they fail to change behavior or reveal the nature of the error, further and definitively block the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement), establishing a vicious cycle.

This explains the violence and universality of the anti-masturbation fervor, which past centuries have witnessed—and whose aftereffects we still bear. The methods used to deter children from committing this “abomination” can rightly be described as violence: bandages preventing downward arm movements, hands tied to the edge of the bed, cords with bells, wire mesh masks around the genitals, sometimes studded with spikes, bandages filled with lead or thin metal strips coated with a cooling ointment, or equipped with an electrical device that activated a bell in the parents’ room, ablutions with a solution of camphor and lead extract, and drinks containing vinegar, lemon juice, sugar, sulfuric acid, citric acid, and saltpeter.

Not to mention the surgical interventions: a ring in the foreskin, infibulation of the labia in girls until the clitoris is covered, circumcision or excision, straitjackets, and the glans or clitoris burned with a red-hot iron, induced to suppurate with croton oil. It took a long time to realize that these measures were counterproductive because they focused young people’s attention on self-gratification (see Victor in Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pécuchet).

Such disproportionate reactions can be explained by the unleashing of primal urges in response to irrepressible sexual behaviors that miss their metapsychological purpose. They are commensurate with the major existential stake linked to the failure of the MIP (Personalized Instruction Method), on the same scale as anxieties about death, since this failure calls into question the individual’s spiritual life. We can therefore expect to find similar examples of destructiveness at other points in history: circumcision and excision date back to very ancient times.

According to some sources, circumcision (or perhaps epicision) originated with the Egyptians, from whom the Hebrews adopted it. It existed and is still practiced in many African ethnic groups. Long before the arrival of Western missionaries, it was virtually universal among Polynesians and in the Philippines. It is sometimes advocated in modern times for reasons of hygiene, even recommended by the WHO as part of AIDS prevention.

What interests us here is the ritual connotation systematically associated with it. We still witness this in the Jewish and Muslim religions. Its emergence is certainly not an accident of history, nor is it likely the result of a presumed calculation aimed at increasing the pleasure of intercourse. Such universality suggests a more fundamental phenomenon.

Now, the failure of MIP (Premenstrual Intimacy) triggers the activation of intense impulses, which must find a target. The penis, resonating with the fantasy of the sacred phallus, and endowed with a clearly visible foreskin that encourages early masturbation, is a prime scapegoat. Her mutilation allows these impulses to achieve a semblance of purpose, like a sacrifice to the gods: the renunciation of sex represented by the bloody wound, even the child’s suffering, has as its unconscious counterpart the gods’ rehabilitation of what we have lost and what should have been established precisely in childhood. Whether expressed as a covenant with the Eternal, or as an initiatory rite of passage into adulthood, it is an aspiration to the sacred that underlies the sacrificial act: the quest for divine absolution, the only remedy for primal guilt.

The situation is exactly the same with regard to female genital mutilation. This barbaric practice is associated, in the tribes that practice it, with a ritualistic formalism intended to please the gods or ancestors. A similar vein is found in a Hindu cult, advocating the total castration of the boy in honor of a goddess promising spiritual fulfillment.

Sexual mutilation directly offends our common sense and our sensibilities: the cries of the child, the risks of infection, the mortality that was once significant due to lack of asepsis, the deprivation of pleasure, the coercive attack on physical integrity. But scruples are swept aside by a yearning for the magical, a hope for redemption that draws its strength from the tragic loss of the metapsychic and the spiritual, from which the community suffers without understanding its nature.

In short, the loss of access to the metapsychic activates Excalibur-like impulses in light of the existential failure it represents. Mutilating the child’s genitals then serves as expiation; the horror of the scene amplifies its sacrificial value. The painful destruction of the foundation of a sexuality that has failed to fulfill its transcendent mission is felt as a plea for divine mercy, a quest for forgiveness whose connection to sex is vaguely perceived, a guarantee of divine benevolence with which the child is endowed for its social and spiritual future. It is a way of warding off the loss of metasexuality. To these restorative impulses can be added a more vindictive nemesis, a way for the adult to dispossess the competing child of what has been taken from them.

The perceived role of masturbation in MIP, which it organically differentiates from BIP, can also explain an intervention intended to hinder it. One can decipher in this a desperate quest for lost values, shifting the mission of providing the hoped-for transcendence onto vaginal penetration, facilitated by the absence of the foreskin or the removal of the clitoris.

It is possible that a more conscious calculation presided over the rite of excision: preventing the woman from experiencing clitoral orgasm, with the deliberate aim of making her experience vaginal orgasm, aligns with the ideal of numerous offspring, common in Africa, the homeland of female mutilation. It remains astonishing to witness the unflinching patriarchal sadism and the abject subjugation of women, from whom the operators (sometimes mothers) are recruited, but all of this is more profoundly explained by the MIP’s debased existential mission.

Paradoxically, we find this picture of the transition from young virgin to fertile woman, barely altered, in Freud’s writings: for him, clitoral sensitivity must gradually shift to the vaginal pole. So much so that it took half a century and vibrators to rediscover the clitoris and its orgasmic function.

The quest for the sacred through sexual renunciation also extends to virginity. The Excalibur complex, particularly through the primal fantasy, suggests that intercourse can represent a serious and consequential transgression of the MIP within the BIP. Unable to analyze the situation, our unconscious projects onto the young woman who has sinned the loss of the transcendent dimension: a virgin, she promised to be an angel; deflowered, she is a potential shrew.

The search for the young virgin can also stem from the sensory experience of greater pleasure due precisely to the absence of degradation of energetic factors. Don Juan would be a predator yearning for metasexual satisfaction; his allegory would denounce the general situation of loss of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Mode). The man who seeks fulfillment in genitality, confusing MIP and BIP (Personal Instinctual Mode), is condemned to an endless quest for meaningless pleasures, and each time he leaves a young virgin behind.

We find the obligation of virginity among the Vestal Virgins, and many other priestesses of Antiquity. There too, the relationship to the sacred is explained by the metasexual postulate. Particularly significant is the virginity demanded of the famous Pythia of Delphi: chastity and solitude guaranteed the proper functioning of extrasensory perception and the reliability of oracles.

Virginity was once a source of respect, adulation, and vulnerability, a role which the Virgin Mary has carried on in recent centuries with its miraculous power. Nowadays, it is more often considered a flaw, a sign of backwardness, in contrast to the esteem in which deflowering has been granted. This semantic shift reflects the institutionalized MIP→BIP (pre-middle-class sexual preference) phenomenon that characterizes our modern culture: male desire, trapped by the representation of coitus, sees a more reliable guarantee of fulfillment in a woman who has already been tested…

Pedophilia and Metapsychoanalysis

Neither psychiatry nor psychoanalysis can clearly define the etiology of pedophilia (sexual preference for prepubescent children). Both disciplines simply classify it as a perversion, but in different ways: for psychiatry, it is contrary to “normative” sexuality and has recently been classified as a “paraphilia”; for psychoanalysis, it belongs to the category of perversion, the latter being understood as a personality type (as opposed to neurosis or paranoia).

In the current context, it is difficult to address the issue of pedophilia objectively. Moral pressure, if not legal pressure, prevents the free deliberation of ideas. Researchers who dare to assert the simple existence of prepubescent sexuality today encounter resistance even worse than that which Freud faced. It is no longer possible, at least in some countries, to allude to it publicly without risking being labeled a pedophile.

One can cite the case of the study by Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman, published in 1998 in the Psychological Bulletin, the journal of the American Psychological Association, which concluded that there was no trauma inherent in the child-adult relationship itself. For the first time in history, a scientific study was condemned by the US Congress. The recent publication of the WHO’s recommendations on children’s sex education, recognizing children’s right to learn about their bodies and to establish relationships with the people of their choice, is also encountering significant resistance.

The first question that arises is the origin of these shifts in public opinion. Why does the possible existence of childhood sexuality elicit such intense emotional reactions? Why is the child-adult relationship, common in Antiquity and even in past centuries, suddenly the target of popular, media, and political rejection? Why has psychiatry followed suit, knowing that just a few decades ago it was working to demonstrate that observed traumas stemmed from societal reactions (family, police, justice system) and not from the relationship itself?

Since the 1980s, most psychiatrists and psychotherapists have supported the idea that any premature awakening of sexuality causes irreversible trauma which, even if it cannot be detected immediately, is destined to resurface decades later, at which point its devastating effects will become apparent.

The tone is reminiscent of the anti-masturbation discourse of recent centuries. The causes could well be the same: the projection onto the child’s sexuality of the failure of the early childhood development process (ECD), which it unconsciously represents the establishment of. It must be acknowledged that this argument is irrefutable: “even if the absence of trauma is demonstrated, it will necessarily resurface later.” Popper would call it unscientific. Furthermore, it neglects factors other than the perceived harm of premature sexual awakening (confusion bias), and contradicts the observations parents can make about their children’s erotic behavior.

It should also be noted that the term “pedophilia,” in its popular and legal usage, encompasses very different types of behavior, ranging from simple erotic sensitivity to childhood forms to sadism, rape, and even murder. The influence of the media, inevitably biased by the need to generate scandal, does little to clarify the situation.

We will discuss here only the erotic attraction that some individuals feel toward the prepubescent form, and that a child may feel toward an adult, excluding any coercion or violence.

This type of attraction is fundamentally contrary to the common understanding of sexuality, considered a specifically adult reproductive function, such that pedophilia and its incurability appear respectively intolerable and inexplicable. If we wish to better understand the phenomenon, we must consider it as a social fact and examine its causes and consequences without yielding to any ideological or emotional pressure.

Pedophilia has not been the subject of specific theorizing in psychoanalysis, unlike fetishism or sadomasochism, perhaps as a result of the conflicts within the school of thought surrounding the theory of seduction. At the end of the 19th century, Charcot attributed hysteria to a childhood sexual assault that had been forgotten in the interim. As early as 1897, Freud attributed the trauma to two possible causes: either the seduction of the child by an adult, or infantile drives directed toward the parents and repressed under the influence of the incest taboo. With reference to the famous myth, he defined the “repressed Oedipus complex,” which he considered the primary source of neurosis. He did not, however, examine the case of the free fulfillment of infantile drives. He wrote about this in 1938, shortly before his death: “It will be up to future science to group these still isolated data in order to derive new insights.”

From the perspective of classical psychopathology, pedophilia appears as a form of erotomanic delusion, in which the adult projects their own narcissistically unbearable impulses onto the child. Psychiatry classifies it among the 547 paraphilias it has identified to date. It is traditionally classified as a perversion, even though the concept of perversion has not been clearly defined, due to the lack of distinction between the norm and nature.

The MIP-BIP model could change this. Attributing a metapsychic purpose to non-reproductive sexuality allows for a better understanding of the existence of a natural, early sexuality, independent of maturity, as Freud asserted. It also sheds new light on the drives that children may feel for adults (Oedipal drives) and vice versa.

The failure of the MIP, like that of any developmental stage, engenders regressive tendencies. These are all the more pronounced because it is not only a failure of drives, but also an energetic frustration whose stakes, perceived unconsciously, touch upon the very meaning of existence. Initiated during the Oedipal phase, this frustration persists into adulthood through the paradoxical psychosexual structuring induced by early failure, itself incompatible with the MIP (Personalized Instinctual Mode). This lack can manifest as a regressive and chronic depressive state with the emergence of fantasies that refer back to childhood, a symbol of both metasexual aspiration and failure.

The average person translates these fantasies into all sorts of activities characteristic of neurosis or sublimation (repressive education, child protection, the Redeemer Child). They channel them into socially acceptable representations. In the case of a confirmed pedophile, these fantasies are projected onto a child as a libidinal object, carrying with them the full force of the drives of a BIP (Personalized Instinctual Mode) overinvested by the repressed instinctual energies of the MIP.

Psychoanalysis suggests that the pedophile seeks to rediscover the child he once was in the child onto whom his libido is fixated. Stoller sees this as an attempt to heal childhood wounds. Metapsychoanalysis adds to this regressive process the notion of energetic deprivation, which explains the severity of these wounds.

Being deprived of only a sensory pleasure, as Freudian theory suggests, would represent a minor lack, especially when this pleasure has not been previously experienced or has been only very incompletely. Energy deprivation, on the other hand, can be compared to food deprivation: depriving a child of the energy demanded by their drives amounts to denying them the nourishment necessary for their growth (in this case, metapsychic growth). Lacking other sources of energy to compensate for this deficiency, it will leave its mark into adulthood. This explains the frequency of pedophilic offenses and recidivism in a society that nevertheless makes every effort to repress them.

The concept of drive induction (MIP→BIP) helps us better understand that the libido attached to repressed infantile drives is, according to Freud, of incommensurable intensity: it is endowed with all the accumulated drive energy inherent in the MIP that could not be expressed during childhood. Insofar as this same energy fuels the regressive process (the adult’s attraction to the child), we can understand the irrepressible nature of pedophilia.

Most often, in adults structured according to the BIP model, it is the genital drives that become fixated on the infantile form in the denial of castration, hence the perversion of object choice. In other words, there is confusion between the natural BIP object, which woman should be for man, and the equally prepubescent form of the child. The picture would be different if the adult possessed a MIP structure, which would involve polymorphic drives conditioned by their metapsychic meaning and thus responding solely to the child’s innate expectations.

The same analysis does not directly apply to female pedophilia, which is nevertheless more frequent than commonly believed. The lesser violence of female drives, even in the absence of a MIP structure, can be explained by the fact that the woman projects onto the childlike form, alongside regression to her own childhood, the image of the child she would be called upon to mother. The aggressiveness of BIP-type sexuality is tempered here by the protective tenderness inherent in the mother-child relationship. The situation would be different again if the woman possessed a MIP structure, allowing her to avoid confusion not only between polymorphism and genitality, but also between Eros and mothering.

More than a manifestation of immaturity or a denial of castration, pedophilic regression, from this perspective, represents, beyond the repair of a wound, an unconscious homeostatic attempt to restore the metasexual function whose early establishment failed. The rejection of the adult object would reflect an unconscious refusal of normative maturity, felt as unnatural, because it symbolizes energetic frustration.

In summary, the pedophile appears as the vector of a fourfold perversion (in the psychoanalytic sense):

• Regression to infantile stages manifests as the fixation of libido on the childlike form (object perversion);
• Libido linked to repressed metasexual drives fuels genital drives through drive induction (purposive perversion);
• The accumulated libidinal energy of the child-infant (MIP) renders the genital drives compulsive (BIP) (behavioral perversion);
• The state of compulsion inhibits empathy for the child-victim, as the excalibur drives generated by frustration, which have also become compulsive, can make the child the scapegoat for an unbearable internal conflict (sadistic component).

Each of these components can be more or less intense depending on the case. This is a variable-geometry model that, during an analysis or expert assessment, allows us to account for the complex characteristics of the pedophile, which can be summarized as follows:

1. The irrepressibility of pedophilic urges is explained by the importance of the metasexual function and the libidinal energies unconsciously associated with it, exceeding the control capacities of the Ego and Superego when the primary sexual orientation (PSO) cannot or has not been experienced (felt by the pedophile as an irrepressible need to give happiness to their victim).
2. The perversion of object choice stems directly from the failure of the period of PSO establishment (the Oedipal period), the childlike form remaining the symbol of the lost function and the adult form the symbol of the castrating parent, with the irreversibility characteristic of a sensitive period (the impression of seeking for oneself the happiness that was lacking in the early period).
3. The harmful nature of this type of relationship stems from the confusion between the early-life-directed (LID) behavior characteristic of the pre-pubescent period and the adult-directed (ID) behavior that has replaced it. The latter is all the more traumatic for the pre-pubescent individual when compulsion is present (experienced by the pedophile as a primal urge exceeding all control, a source of sexual fear in the victim).
4. The symmetry between the Oedipal drives formerly directed toward the parents (a remnant of the repressed Oedipus complex) and those of the adult directed toward the child (current) facilitates the process through the reactivation of repressed libido (a feeling of healing for the adult and of protection for the child against Oedipal wounds).
5. The sense of righteousness that pedophiles claim to feel, aside from the fear of being discovered and convicted, is explained by the innate nature of the impulses of the MIP (Pedophile-Inducer-Midsexuality), although these impulses are most often diverted into the paths of the BIP (Pedophile-Inducer-Relatedness). Their harmful nature is not perceived because it is overshadowed by the prevalence of social, external, or superegoic guilt, against which the pedophile must struggle despite themselves.
6. The idea of ​​initiation, put forward by many pedophiles, operates on two levels: the conscious idea of ​​introducing the child to the sexual pleasure from which the pedophile remembers having been deprived; and unconsciously, introducing the child to a magical dimension (the oceanic feeling characteristic of the MIP), particularly among pedophiles who experienced a MIP-type child-adult relationship in their childhood.
7. The search for reparation, through the rehabilitation of one’s own MIP function via the a posteriori fulfillment of early drives that had remained repressed, reactivated by a mirror effect in light of those fantasized or observed in the minor.
8. The sadistic components often present in pedophilic behavior are explained by the Excalibur drives targeting the child, perceived as a symbol of both personal MIP failure, the social model (belonging to a society responsible for MIP failure), and the fear of social decline for which the child is felt responsible. This can be compounded by an unconscious reproach against the child, perceived as a source of temptation, a symbol of social decline, a cause of internal conflicts, or a cause of frustration, due to the fact that the child cannot provide either the partial satisfactions of genital sexuality or the genuine fulfillment of the metasexual function (incompatible with the repression of MIP and feelings of guilt). The overlapping and compulsive nature of these Excalibur-like impulses can explain the denial of the child’s suffering and acts of barbarity, even the murder of the minor, more fundamentally than a conscious calculation aimed at eliminating a potential accuser.
9. The masochistic components, expressed in the risk-taking of condemnation and loss of social status, result from the conflict between a sexual function of existential importance, albeit regressively fixated on the infantile object, and the social prohibition. This conflict is partly resolved by the paranoid sacrificial attitude felt by the individual, who is ready to take any risk to make the child realize, and/or to rediscover for themselves, what they were unable to achieve in their own childhood.

Regarding the reactions of those around them or of society to pedophilia: the uncritical acceptance of the intrinsic trauma theory by the public, the media, and many professionals can be explained by the omnipresence at the social level of excalibur-like impulses triggered by the widespread failure of the MIP (Personal Inhibition Method) and targeting the most salient sexual anomaly of the moment, as was previously the case with homosexuality. The wave of repression indeed emerged just after the rehabilitation of homosexuality, of which pedophilia has, in a way, taken over. The financial losses incurred by some media professionals, therapists, and experts due to the legal recognition of homosexuality could also explain their eagerness to find a substitute.

These factors help explain certain manifestly irrational approaches to the psychiatric, social, and legal treatment of pedophilia, including:

• the lack of critical thinking regarding Freud’s attribution of a hedonic purpose to an instinctual function;
• the confusion between aggression by an adult and a consensual relationship or one initiated by a minor;
• the denial of a minor’s capacity to experience erotic impulses and desire a relationship with an adult;
• the denial of any capacity for discernment;
• the obscuring of ethnological and historical realities demonstrating the omnipresence of the child-adult relationship;
• The intensity of the controversies surrounding seduction theory, which have marked the history of psychoanalysis up to the recent explosion of anti-Freudianism in the USA;
• The victimhood movement, with its emphasis on children’s testimony (for example, in the Outreau case);
• The confusion between the credibility and reliability of the victim;
• The presumption of guilt (particularly in the media);
• The stereotype of complicity among prominent figures;
• Fantasies of pedophile networks;
• The unleashing of passions in sexual assault cases;
• The popular feeling that sentences are always insufficient;
• The fear of recidivism;
• The often counterproductive tightening of sanctions and surveillance measures in the name of zero risk.

These points help to better understand certain contradictions inherent in our history and culture:

• pederasty, the object of cults in Antiquity, and its Judeo-Christian demonization;
• the very ancient existence of opposing viewpoints (Plato accuses the proponents of pandemonium of having been responsible for the stigmatization of uranian eros);
• the gap between the tolerance once common in Europe for child-adult relationships and their criminalization during the Enlightenment following the mid-18th-century prohibition of masturbation;
• the classification of relationships experienced without coercion or violence, or initiated by the minor, as assault or rape; judicial aberrations such as the Outreau case;
• the tendency of experts to vilify the alleged perpetrator;
• the fact that many artists and creators have had pederastic relationships, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Wilde, Proust, Gide, various kings of France, etc.

This helps explain why hundreds of French intellectuals, philosophers, and psychiatrists proposed to the Penal Code Revision Commission in 1977 the removal of age limits and the right for minors to establish relationships with partners of their choice.

In any case, the problem of pedophilia currently lacks a satisfactory solution. A better understanding of unconscious processes, early drives, and their primary purpose could foster a more fundamental approach than the often visceral stigmatization displayed by the public and echoed by legislators, as well as by practitioners of psychiatry and psychology. The paradigm underlying classical approaches, which limits sexuality to reproduction or a purely hedonistic purpose, even though pleasure is never the end goal of an instinct, seems responsible for the current theoretical drift.

In terms of therapy, the opportunity offered to pedophiles to understand the unconscious origin of their impulses could help them to control them consciously. This reflects the general principle of psychoanalysis: to bring unconscious content to light and better understand it, in order to consciously recognize its social unacceptability. Telling a pedophile that their urges are perverse generally only elicits opposition or hypocrisy, because it is usually impossible for them to deny attractions they feel are fundamental and without which their life seems meaningless. Not to mention the difficulty for their self-esteem in admitting they are “abnormal.”

Under the aegis of the metasexual postulate, the pedophile can better understand why they experience their urges as natural and uncontrollable. The label of perversion is not enough to convince them to renounce them or to give them the strength to do so. It is more advantageous to shift the focus of the problem, showing the pedophile that his impulses are based on a natural foundation, that they are the product of instinctual drive under the influence of energetic frustration (a concept relatively easy to grasp even when expressed in simple terms), that child-adult relationships were common in other cultures as well as in our own a few centuries ago, but that the current social context makes them highly harmful, both through the guilt-tripping of the minor, which can have traumatic consequences for their entire sexual life, and through the risk of dramatic legal repercussions for all parties involved.

As for the classic “child raped → adult rapist” model, it must be revised based on the same premise. First, it is necessary to distinguish between genuine rapes, which traumatize the victim directly through sexual fear, and consensual relationships, even those initiated by the minor and experienced as forbidden love, which only appear to be traumatic in retrospect. In the first case, repressed suffering and anguish can indeed resurface in the victim, now an adult, in the form of new abuse inflicted on a minor, the reversed reenactment of the traumatic situation serving as revenge or an attempt at reparation. In the second case, the tendency to reproduce the experience stems from the fact that moral barriers, crossed once, are ineffective in the face of the memory of an early sexual discovery felt as essential, and from the impulse to give the same happiness to another child, further amplified by the need to transgress the social order. In both cases, the experience of a relationship with an adult will lead the minor to reproduce the behavior, but based on opposing mechanisms and under the sign of perversion when there is confusion between metasexuality and genitality.

It is also important to be aware that victims’ testimonies can be biased by the social, media, and legal context. A minor who expressed happiness at having had a relationship with an adult would immediately be labeled a pervert or reckless, or even rejected by their family. Substantial compensation can also contribute to the distortion (or shaping) of testimonies. Society thus maintains a demonized image of pedophilia in the iconography of sexual crimes, an image that is by no means guaranteed to correspond to the reality of the relationships experienced, nor to what would be the natural expression of childhood impulses. The excess of these representations has the secondary effect of increasing transgressions (the pedophile feeling unjustly demonized), miscarriages of justice, and family tragedies.

The current stigmatization of the child-adult relationship, as presented to children through media campaigns, prevention measures implemented by associations and public authorities, and parental warnings, could have a currently overlooked consequence: since certain early impulses are inherently directed toward adults—impulses necessarily belonging to the Early Interpersonal Process (EIP)—their repression forces the child to register them in their superego as perverse, dangerous, and antisocial, thereby undermining the very foundations of their future sexuality.

The resulting unconscious conflict can only intensify these primal impulses (fantasies of murdering the father or others), the repression of which risks leading to a compulsive escalation of juvenile violence. The rise in incivility and delinquency, as well as the increasingly younger age at which violent acts are occurring, seems to confirm this hypothesis.

This is not about rehabilitating pedophilia, much less about liberalizing behaviors whose traumatic aspects are clearly evident from the points above, but about seeking the root causes of this type of behavior and the failure of the social treatment it receives.

From a fundamental perspective, the question is whether the current conception of childhood sexuality and so-called normal psychosexual development is consistent with the genetic potential of human beings. A better understanding of pedophilia could help us better understand human sexuality as a whole.

Metasexual Postulate and Mythogenesis

The world of mythology is both fascinating and ludicrous when its symbolic content is not grasped. As Lévi-Strauss observed when comparing myths from different sources, certain regularities are evident. These suggest either universal mechanisms ensuring their genesis on a cognitive level, a social function stemming from constants common to all human societies, or a more mysterious, shared source of inspiration. Many myths revolve around the problem of love and sex, somewhat reminiscent of Freud’s astonishment at the dominant role of sexuality in neurosis.

The postulate of a metasexual function may encourage us to revisit classical attempts at explanation (or the lack of satisfactory explanations), taking into account not only the metapsychic purpose of human sexuality, but also the possibility of an archetypal source of inspiration providing myth-makers with universal symbols and scenarios, laden with fundamental initiatory meanings and values.

This amounts to relating myth to fantasy. As we have seen, the role of primary fantasies (induced by the Superid) is to guide the Id and the Ego toward behaviors conforming to the natural laws of love, thus safeguarding the spiritual function of the MIP. The kinship between different mythologies is then explained by the similarity of the problems of MIP → BIP slippage in various cultures, even if to varying degrees.

It is true that myths could be merely playful, poetic, lyrical, like an art form all the more sublime for being useless. But mythology is too universal, too deeply embedded in the heart of all civilizations, and its symbolic recurrences too systematic to exclude a priori the hypothesis of a more fundamental function.

Many myths recount the amorous adventures or misadventures of gods or heroes, contrasting guilt and punishment, love and curse, sin and the Fall, temptation and exile, adultery and death, coitus and the misfortunes of humanity. Zeus and Hera, Laius and Jocasta, Adam and Eve, Arthur and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde, Quetzalcoatl and his wife—the list goes on. The common thread running through all these stories is that something is amiss in the romantic relationship, something difficult to define, but with major consequences for the individual or for humanity as a whole.

What we know about the MIP (Personal Intimacy Model) and its failure might well provide a solution to the enigma. To be sure, we must analyze each myth and verify in detail that the various elements fit into the intricacies of the MIP: the relationship between love and extrasensory perception, the role of extrasensory perception in the spiritual realm, the dangers of the mental versus the emotional, the difference between metasexuality and genitality, feelings of guilt, Excalibur-like impulses…

If myths are rooted in the unconscious, we should expect to decipher a symbolism similar to that found in dreams or visions. The principles of interpretation should therefore draw upon metaphor, metonymy, condensation, displacement, inversion, litotes, hyperbole, and so on. And if their source is the collective unconscious, mediated by the Surça, we can expect the usefulness, even the necessity, of extrasensory abilities for authentic decoding.

Most myths (at least the foundational myths of each mythology) depict romantic situations and the resulting troubles. Given that the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement) has a metapsychic and spiritual function, we can discern a pedagogical function aimed at raising awareness of the mistakes one risks making in romantic and sexual relationships. This is also the function of the Excalibur impulses.

The errors in question can logically be identified by three main criteria: degradation of extrasensory faculties, romantic suffering linked to inappropriate attachments, and depressive states reflecting energetic frustration. It is therefore quite easy to verify, based on these criteria, whether myths and Excalibur impulses do indeed denounce errors of this type and tend to ensure the proper functioning of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement).

The next step in reasoning consists of postulating that myths are a particularly elaborate production of Excalibur impulses. These impulses aim to denounce errors committed in relation to the natural laws of the MIP and metapsychic evolution. They can thus produce in the collective memory, on the one hand, a natural morality, and on the other hand, in a more subtle and incantatory form, symbolic narratives. This production can occur within a single individual, or it can result from a multipolar or layered creation, with different people, more or less inspired, reworking a basic story. Most myths, in fact, have several versions, each of which, upon close analysis, complements the overall meaning rather than contradicting it.

Since the message is transmitted in the form of a story, the importance of each myth’s genealogy becomes clear: the characters often originate from earlier myths, while others reappear in later ones. These lineages most often represent the causes or consequences that a particular error can have on an individual’s life or on the future of society.

The connection to Excalibur impulses seems plausible: myths often display a certain aggression, directed against common beliefs, against presumed morals, against certain common tendencies considered normal; shocking aspects, like those in horror films, leave a deeper imprint on the mind than sentimental stories, even if their meanings often remain difficult to define. Moreover, it is helpful that these meanings not be presented too obviously, so as to require a certain amount of inner work, which will contribute precisely to the evolution of consciousness, the very opposite of an ideology fixed once and for all.

In a concrete situation, Excalibur impulses prove capable of precisely targeting errors in individual attitude and behavior likely to cause the failure of the MIP (Personal Impact Model), even in complex situations that escape conscious analysis. It is therefore not unreasonable to postulate that the same Excalibur complex, when confronted with the general behavioral data of a society, is capable of conjuring up, in the most inspired minds, elaborate fantasies aimed at denouncing, with all the desired subtlety, the errors inherent in these behaviors.

Thus is defined a structural “mythogenesis” stemming, like natural morality, directly from the genetic programming of the Excalibur complex. Such a heuristic leads us to proceed in the opposite direction to the structural analysis carried out by Lévi-Strauss: rather than seeking common denominators between different myths to deduce a shared signifying orientation, we start from a probable function, postulated on a plausible theoretical basis (the MIP+BIP model), in order to examine a posteriori whether the different narratives present symbolic content compatible with our hypothesis.

The undertaking is risky, because there is no guarantee that the presumed function actually exists. It is possible that the random creation of myths, due to pure imagination or shallow artistic pursuits, might produce “radiological images,” giving an impression of convergence, even though this convergence might stem from pure coincidence, or even the Barnum effect. The symbolism of legends could be fluid enough to give rise to all sorts of optical illusions. However, insofar as the common denominators of a sufficiently large number of myths align with the proposed interpretation, insofar as the details are sufficiently precise and recurrent, the contradictions are rare, and the overlaps convincing, we can conclude that the method is successful.

And the gamble seems to pay off, because the convergence around the crucial problem of the failure of love’s metapsychic function is striking, not only from one myth to another within each mythology, but also between the various mythologies belonging to cultures that are otherwise quite distant. The same symbolic content is found even in this form of modern mythogenesis that constitutes (good) literary, pictorial, lyrical, cinematic, and artistic production in general. Although ancient myths still seem more foundational.

Take, for example, the myth of Oedipus. Freud extracted from it the model of the triangular constellation linked to the early period, the taboo of incest and its consequences in terms of the castrating mother and the murder of the father, and the guilt induced by the involuntary transgression, the foundation of the entire psychoanalytic problem.

One can decipher, in terms of metasexuality, a much more elaborate symbolism by examining the various connections between the main myth and the different related myths, in order to highlight the various cause-and-effect relationships between events and the characters’ behavior.

A first clue is provided by the genealogy of the myth: Laius, driven from Thebes where he should have become king, takes refuge at the court of Pelops, who entrusts him with the education of his son Chrysippus. Laius falls in love with his pupil and abducts him to make him his lover. Chrysippus is immediately killed on the queen’s orders by his two other sons, who then ascend the throne of Thebes in Laius’s place. After their deaths, Laius returns to Thebes, where he becomes king, and marries Jocasta. But the curse pronounced against him by Pelops haunts him through the words of the seer Tiresias: “You will have a son who will kill his father and marry his mother.”

First observation: it is not incest that led to the Oedipal tragedy; Pelops’s curse comes after the tragedy of Chrysippus. What charges do we find? Pederasty can hardly be considered a grievance, given its recognition in ancient Greece; Plato even praised it shortly before our era. Nor can Chrysippus’s death be dismissed, since it is orchestrated by a jealous stepmother vying for power for her own sons. That leaves the abduction: Laius’s abduction of Chrysippus from his legitimate father appears as an act of possessiveness, presented as foreign to a normal pederastic relationship. It is therefore the intrusion of possessiveness into the love relationship that the myth seems to condemn.

The seer’s blindness must also be understood in light of the circumstances under which Hera inflicts this punishment: in one of the main versions, she deprives Tiresias of his sight to punish him for revealing that female pleasure in the sexual act is nine times greater than male pleasure. Zeus then bestows upon him the gift of prophecy. In another version, it is the chaste Athena, goddess of Reason, who emerged from Zeus’s head, who blinds him with the back of her hand for having unintentionally surprised her naked in her bath. Then, moved by pity, she purifies his ears, allowing him to understand the language of birds. The blame is shared between the calculation involved in the pursuit of pleasure and the violation of chastity, principles empirically found in metasexuality: desire controlled by the mind proves incompatible with the success of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement), as does the temptation of the female body, inherent in the BIP (Personal Instinctual Movement) (which is verified by the absence of extrasensory development). Tiresias loses his sight (extrasensory vision) and receives divination as compensation. There is indeed a degradation of the extrasensory in relation to desire.

Tiresias himself had experienced both sexes in vivo: he had been transformed into a woman and then into a man after separating two mating serpents each time. These serpents remind us of Typhon and Echidna, male and female serpents, direct or indirect progenitors of all the monsters of Greek mythology, including the Sphinx, whose riddle Oedipus would have to solve. A parallel can be drawn with Genesis (given the universality of archetypes), which makes the serpent the instigator of the Fall. The Sphinx, a chimera with the torso of a woman and the body of a lion, unambiguously represents the animality hidden behind the facade of seduction, the culmination of sexuality experienced as desire.

“Oedipus” etymologically means “swollen foot,” an obvious sexual symbol. As a baby, Oedipus is sent to the king and queen of Corinth, whom he takes for his parents. It is on his return journey that he encounters his father, whom he kills without recognizing him following a quarrel over right of way.

Thus, we see the emergence of a first significant series, encompassing possession in love (the abduction of Chrysippus), jealousy (the murder of Chrysippus ordered by the queen), the appropriation of pleasure by the mind (Tiresias’ comparison of male and female pleasures), the temptation of genitality (the mating of the serpents), the degradation of extrasensory perception (blindness compensated by divination), the curse upon the couple (Laius and Jocasta), leading to the rejection of the child (Oedipus exiled to Corinth), the alienation of the relationship with his parents (Oedipus does not recognize them in time), and hatred of the father (Laius killed by his son). This is precisely the chain of cause and effect that occurs within the family following the confusion between MIP and BIP.

Then Oedipus must confront the Sphinx and solve its riddle to avoid losing his life: “What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at midday, and three legs in the evening?” Everyone knows the classic answer: “It is man, who walks on four legs as a child, on two legs as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in his old age.” However, such an answer is so banal that it seems to have been coined following a misunderstanding of the myth, or perhaps to conceal the true answer from the initiated.

Indeed, we find a much deeper echo of this three-part sequence in the development of metasexuality throughout life: in maturity, the BIP (Personal Involvement) appears, which plays out between two partners; with the passage of time, the MIP (Personal Involvement) takes over and establishes the triangular dynamic; whereas for the young child, in addition to their two parents, the presence of a third party was necessary for the couple to be a source of energy, making four protagonists in total.

In any case, Oedipus finds the correct answer, given to him in a dream; the Sphinx kills itself by throwing itself from its rock, but the drama is only just beginning: the crown of Thebes had been promised to whoever defeated the monster, so Oedipus ascends the throne and marries the widowed queen, unaware that she is his mother. When the truth is revealed, the incestuous couple already has four children, Oedipus blinds himself, and Jocasta hangs herself. While his two cursed sons kill each other for the throne, Oedipus goes into exile, guided by his daughter Antigone, and dies near Athens, where he becomes a patron deity.

The significant sequence thus continues according to a logic perfectly illuminated by transpulsion analysis: extrasensory perception allows sexuality to escape animality (Oedipus receives the answer in a dream), but this is not enough to prevent the destructive relationship with the mother. The early alteration of psychic structures following the failure of the fusion relationship (the mother lacks metapsychic energy within the couple) causes, at the emergence of the BIP (Personal Instinctual Relational Issue), a degradation of the relationship with women in general. Man seeks in coitus a source of transcendent energy that he fails to find there (post coitum animal triste est…), resulting in a chain of catastrophes within the family constellation: the spiritual death of the mother (Jocasta feels guilty and commits suicide), the impossibility of love between father and son (Oedipus curses his sons, who reciprocate), hence their struggle for the throne (a fight to the death for power), the loss of transcendent vision (Oedipus blinds himself, a metapsychic castration rather than the sexual castration Freud believed he saw), and a few vestiges of love for his daughter (whom he follows blindly), which evoke the vestige of magic the father seeks in his relationship with her.

All of this played out at the court of Pelops. Mythogenesis, therefore, compels us to seek the antecedents of this unfortunate king. He was the son of Tantalus, who decided to cook him and cut him into pieces to offer as a sacrifice to the gods and test their wisdom. All saw through the deception, except for Demeter, goddess of grain, who was distraught over the abduction of her daughter Persephone and swallowed a shoulder. The gods restored Pelops to life and gave him an ivory prosthesis. After many trials, he ascended the throne of Thebes and founded the Olympic Games. Upon his death, his sons fought amongst themselves for power.

Here we find another significant series, bringing together cooking (the legacy of Tantalus, who defies the laws of nature), fragmentation (excitation of the central nervous system), the role of grains (only Demeter is mistaken), disobedience to the transcendent (the testing of the gods), the degradation of the parent-child relationship (the abduction of Persephone), irreversible trauma (the ivory shoulder), and, most notably, the three new elements of possessiveness in love (the abduction of Chrysippus), competition in the pursuit of glory (the Olympic Games), and the struggle for power (the sons killing each other).

This fits perfectly within the framework of instinctual disorders attributable to cooked and grain-based foods (gluten and other stimulants), the loss of the primary impulse (exacerbation of primary impulses), and the irruption of the ego (exacerbation of the Excalibur impulses). From this chain of events stem the overinvestment in competition, the pursuit of glory and the struggle for power, hatred of the father, the breakdown of communication between parents and children, the loss of extrasensory faculties, and other flaws of “civilized” man as deduced from cross-drive analysis.

Highly consistent with the theory of metasexuality, the relationship to food deserves emphasis. The cooking of Pelops is not necessarily an abstract symbol. Nothing precludes the possibility that the Ancients had an intuition or a memory of the deterioration of romantic relationships resulting from the dietary changes of the Neolithic period. And if this memory was not transmitted orally, it could have been conveyed extrasensorially through creative intuition (the basic principle of mythogenesis).

We must also consider what the Laius-Jocasta-Oedipus family scenario represents. Is this an allegory for the drama unfolding within the family as a social relationship due to the breakdown of the BIP (Personal Intelligence Reference), or a staging similar to the Sphinx’s lineage tracing back to its reptilian progenitors, representing a causal relationship? Myths tell us about humanity’s mistakes and their consequences. Therefore, it is more likely that we should look to the cause-and-effect relationship.

Oedipus is the offspring of Laius and Jocasta, who lived at the court of Pelops, whose second wife killed his son from his first marriage. Power, competition, jealousy—everything unfolds under the manifest sign of the fall into the BIP (Personalized Interpersonal Relationship), and it is in this context that we must decipher both the abduction of Chrysippus, a witness to the irruption of possessiveness in Laius, and the rejection of Oedipus, that is to say, the absence of transcendent communication between parents and child. Here we have the canonical scenario of the family built on the failure of the MIP (Personalized Interpersonal Relationship).

The myth, however, does not present the transgression of the incest taboo as a cause of guilt, contrary to what Freud believed, but rather as a consequence. Oedipus’s relationship with Jocasta primarily represents the degraded relationship of the child to his mother within the family marked by the BIP. It simultaneously symbolizes the relationship with women in general when a man is structured within a family already compromised by this imbalance: he projects onto his partner a degraded maternal image that condemns their relationship from the outset to a MIP-BIP short circuit. This recurrence continues in the relationship of Oedipus, now a father, with his own children; the curse he pronounces against them is reflected in the way the “normal” father raises his sons or expels them from the marital home, symbols as they are of the metasexual failure of his marital relationship.

In fact, the myth reflects the entirety of the social and familial catastrophe stemming from the loss of the MIP.

A rich and instructive parallel emerges with the myth of Prometheus (etymologically: the one who foresees). He steals fire from the gods and brings it to humankind “so that they may cook their food” (as some versions specify). Zeus condemns him to remain chained to a rock for eternity, and an eagle devours his liver (an organ that constantly regenerates). For the Greeks, the liver is the seat of the soul, so his punishment is a suffering of the soul. Now, what is the genealogy of this relentless eagle? Like the Sphinx, it descends from Typhon and Echidna: it therefore represents the evils of heterosexuality based on desire (the serpent).

Zeus does not fail to punish humankind either: he sends them Pandora (etymologically, “the gift for all”), a woman burdened with every flaw, so curious that she immediately opens the forbidden box containing all the plagues, which then spread throughout the world. She hastens to close the lid, holding onto only hope. This is indeed the only remedy left to humans in the face of the cascade of suffering caused by the loss of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Method), and perhaps the plethora of diseases they owe to processed food, as modern science is discovering.

Our interpretive framework also applies, rather surprisingly, to the large triptychs of Hieronymus Bosch. The Haywaiter represents the ideal family and its devastating consequences for the future of humankind and society. The central panel of the Garden of Earthly Delights, next to a paradise devoid of any hint of the Fall (left panel), lists, with perfect innocence, all the manifestations of polymorphous sexuality, illustrated by giant fruits that satisfy hungry mouths, symbolizing the intake of energy. A closer examination reveals that the relationships are all triangular, except for one that leads to a placental figure unambiguously evoking procreation. At the center of paradise is an owl, within a giant iris representing Knowledge, and the same bird, capable of seeing in the night, reappears in the central panel, as the culmination of the amorous encounters depicted by a grand procession of horsemen.

As for the consequences of the drive induction, they are unambiguously deciphered in the right panel, representing hell on earth: the intellectualization of desire (phallus transformed into a knife blade), sexual obsession (disc and bagpipe on the knight’s head), the overinvestment of penetration (the evisceration of the giant egg located between two tree trunks shaped like legs), the existential void (the dark pint lodged in the egg), the aberration of religious morality (the priests sending the faithful into the eviscerated egg), art incapable of compensating for frustration (the musicians, prisoners of their instruments, surrounded by demons), spiritual failure (devouring by the giant owl that has become satanic), etc.

This work, which remained impenetrable to all attempts at deciphering for five centuries, has finally been fully and coherently decoded thanks to the keys provided by the theory of metasexuality (see my recent book, Garden of Earthly Delights: The Secret of the Future).

To conclude with a few more modern myths, let us cite, for example, the Arthurian myths, magnificently reinterpreted by Boorman, which depict the failure of the triangular dynamic (Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot). The king loses his sword Excalibur (his sense of truth) at the very moment he pretends to kill Lancelot. He only recovers it much later, after Guinevere has atoned for adultery through years of chastity. Merlin, the allegory of the extrasensory, remains trapped in the ice, and the king, having fallen into a lethargic state, has nothing left to offer his knights but a futile quest for the Grail.

Or Star Wars: here too, a whole series of symbols is condensed, beginning with Anakis’s downward spiral when, under the aegis of his dependence on his mother, he sacrifices spiritual initiation for married life. His unfortunate choice opens the way to a terrible battle between a dark force (the Excalibur impulses turned destructive) and a superior (metapsychic) ​​force. Or E.T., by Spielberg, a marvelous metaphor for a particular affinity, misunderstood by all, between the extraterrestrial and the child, clearly evoking metapsychic energy through the glowing index finger or solar plexus.

The most foundational myth of our Judeo-Christian culture remains that of Genesis. Although impervious to both theological and psychoanalytic analysis, the message is immediately decipherable under the light of the metasexual postulate. The forbidden fruit symbolizes the confusion between the paradisiacal happiness that only love lived in obedience to divine commandments can grant (MIP), and the temptation that woman represents for man (BIP). The biblical narrative prophetically attributes the cause of humanity’s misfortunes to the Fall; the “be fruitful and multiply” (BIP) is juxtaposed with the multiple curses of the wrathful Creator, foreshadowing the dramatic destiny of which the chosen people would be the object. The entire Old Testament recounts their suffering and contradictions. The Gospel message adds redemption through a Divine Child conceived precisely outside of BIP…

The universality and enduring nature of these symbols suggest that they stem from archetypes pre-existing different cultures, referring to the age-old problem of humanity’s unease within civilization. Myths help us decipher the errors hidden behind this unease. Mythogenesis is still very much at work today. It is a manifestation of the collective unconscious in Jungian terms, tending to denounce cultural errors, some of whose sexual and developmental aspects Freud was able to decipher. It translates, at the social level, the reparative function ensured by sublimation. It is even recognized at the origins of psychoanalysis, a new mythology that stages, using concepts replacing classical allegorical figures, the forces at work in the depths of the psyche.

Mythogenesis touches on all aspects of human existence. It makes us aware, in poetic form, of the causes of failure in our spiritual destiny, outside of which we are but a strange accident of chance among the dust of dust…

Conclusion

To conclude in a field as vast and complex as that of sexuality and its spiritual implications would be utopian. It is more appropriate to pause for a moment and take stock of the perspectives opened up by the metasexual postulate.

Among the obscure points of the dominant classical cultural and psychoanalytic paradigm that are emerging in a new light, we can cite:

The drive and behavioral disorders induced by psychotropic substances present in the traditional diet: wheat gluten, milk exorphins, and various AGEs (proteins altered by food processing) modify drive susceptibility to aggression and other triggering patterns, with various repercussions on psychic structure and the social context.

The existence of two instinctual sexual programs, one established at birth, comprising polymorphic drives and aimed at the development of extrasensory faculties (the metasexual instinctual program or MIP), the other arising in maturity, dedicated to reproduction (the reproductive instinctual program or RIP).

The chaotic Id, which can be explained by the impression of disorder given by metasexual drives whose meaning escapes a cultural context subservient to the BIP, by the compulsive character which they owe to their systematic repression, and by an abnormal excitation of the nervous system attributable to the stimulants present in the traditional diet.

The Oedipus complex, revisited within the broader perspective of a set of drives from the child to the adult, should be the source of metapsychic energy ensuring the development of their extrasensory faculties. The Oedipal period corresponds to the sensitive period of the Interpersonal Process (IPP) during which the learning associated with metasexual drives should take place. The repression induced by repressive morality results in a highly irreversible blockage of the IPP and the scarcity of extrasensory faculties, as observed in the existing moral context.

The castration complex, conceived not in terms of a fear of physical castration, but of the anxiety of losing the phallus as the archetypal signifier of metasexual energy, formerly recognized under the aegis of the “sacred phallus.”

Freud acknowledged the difficulty of extending the theory of the castration complex to the female sex, except through the subterfuge of postulating in girls an anxiety of having been castrated a priori—a rather unconvincing thesis, given that every being is organized in such a way as to feel a sense of unity. This difficulty is overcome if the frustration is not related to the organ (the penis) but to the metasexual energy of which the phallus is the archetypal symbol.

The Excalibur complex is a set of genetically programmed drives aimed at denouncing errors likely to compromise the functioning of the MIP (Primal Morphological System). These drives are initially expressed as simulations intended to attract the attention of others or to interrupt harmful behaviors, but can turn into compulsions if they fail to achieve their goal. They ensure a form of homeostasis around the MIP.

The seemingly disproportionate role of sexual drives in the origin of neurosis: a fact noted by Freud, explained by the existential importance of the MIP (metapsychic and spiritual development) and the polymorphic drives associated with it.

The incomplete theory of neurosis, supplemented by the notion of drive induction (MIP → BIP), and the broadening of the analysis brought about by transpulsion analysis.

The dietary origin of primary paranoia, attributable to a defective learning of the alliesthetic variations of gustatory pleasure in a culinary context, and compromising the Oedipal period through the overinvestment of early drives.

The incompatibility between Freud’s “pansexual” approach and Jung’s asexual approach: for the former, neurosis is the effect of the repression of infantile sexual drives, for the latter, the effect of the repression of “numinous” energies linked to the metapsychic realm; unification occurs if one posits that the metasexual function, which appears from birth, is the source of metapsychic energy and the structuring of the Sursa, the agency responsible for bringing archetypal contents into consciousness.

The disagreements concerning the presumed Thanatos, which appears not as an entity in itself, but as the sum of destructive, excalibur-like drives overactivated by the systematic failure of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement).

The excesses of psychiatry dating back to Krafft-Ebbing, and its inability to define perversion: lacking a clear distinction between norm and nature, psychiatry declares perverse anything that is not normative, often essential natural behaviors, as was the case for over a century with homosexuality.

The fundamental nature of homosexuality, as an essential part of the Personal Instinctual Mode (MIP) due to its indispensable role in the triangular dynamic as a source of energy.

The difficulty of Freudian and derivative analyses: based on a flawed psychosexual model that excludes the primary function of human sexuality, they amount to displacing conflicts by imposing an unnatural restructuring based on the rejection of the MIP, an essential part of human sexuality.

The fact that love, felt as a guarantee of happiness, most often leads to disappointment or significant suffering, despite the partners’ efforts: the confusion between MIP and BIP means that the protagonists expect a transcendence from their relationship that BIP is incapable of providing, compounded by increasingly compulsive, intense sexual drives with repeated intercourse.

The close link between love and sexuality, the former being metapsychic in nature, involves an energy capable of expressing and transmitting itself through erotic drives involving physical contact.

The origin of morality as the “integral” experience of intense sexual drives linked to the failures of MIP, which, through repetition, become fixed in the collective memory in the form of taboos.

The link between sexual morality and religion: given that the primary function of human sexuality is the development of metapsychic faculties, and that these faculties are directly related to spirituality, it is understandable that every religion includes certain moral rules concerning sexuality.

Distinction between natural morality and cultural morality: the former is established based on the Excalibur drives, genetically programmed and independent of culture; the latter on human interventions, more or less enlightened, at the risk of contradicting natural laws.

Lacan’s distinction between pleasure and jouissance: pleasure concerns only partial drives at the level of the body, whereas the overall functioning of the amorous process jointly engages the body for pleasure, affect for happiness, and metapsychic energy for the oceanic feeling, the whole constituting true jouissance.

The difficulties of the couple, which stem from the confusion between BIP and MIP: the binary relationship inevitably evolves towards BIP, of which it is the relational basis, triggering increasingly compulsive Excalibur impulses because the dominant model prevents their meaning from being grasped, hence the visceral aggression between the partners.

The pathogenic nature of the nuclear family and the problems encountered by sexual communities: in both cases, MIP is not experienced according to natural rules (recourse to genitality and lack of metapsychic energy), the aborted Excalibur impulses turn into compulsion and poison the relationships (particularly jealousy).

The unease felt by young people during sex education classes, which present sexuality in its biological and reproductive aspects, while they unconsciously yearn to discover the intricacies of the MIP (Personalized Intercourse) and sense that the official discourse misses the point.

The hatred of adultery and its perceived inevitability, despite its having been punishable by death since ancient times: the triangular dynamic being the fundamental relational structure of the MIP, the drives for the third party ultimately erupt with all the more force because they have been repressed within the binary framework and because frustration has been amplified, even to the point of investing in the drives inherent to the BIP (genitality), to which equally compulsive, Excalibur-like impulses respond.

Homophobia: The excalibur-like impulses activated by the dominant BIP model are repressed because they cannot achieve their goal of denouncing the systematic errors of everyday behaviors—something impossible because they are covered up by the norm. They then seek scapegoats as close as possible, particularly targeting sodomy, the counterpart of coitus, and anything associated with homosexuality. The visceral intensity of homophobia is explained by the power of these excalibur-like impulses in the face of the existential failure represented by the loss of the MIP.

The discourse on sexuality, whose prolixity and concomitance with the rise of Puritanism are noted by Michel Foucault: the more pronounced repression of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement) since the prohibition of masturbation (mid-18th century) could only increase unconscious anxieties, feelings of guilt, and internal or external conflicts, triggering an endless intellectual search for the causes of suffering and frustration—a search doomed to failure due to ignorance of the metapsychic function of human sexuality.

The rarity of extrasensory faculties in our Western society, linked to repressive sexual morality: the guilt induced by this morality, particularly regarding infantile masturbation, compromises the MIP and its natural outcome, which should be metapsychic development.

Pedophilia and its demonization: As a result of the repression of the MIP (Pedophilic Instinctual Movement) and the pressure of guilt, pedophilic acts are most often compulsive and therefore a source of trauma, triggering particularly intense, almost ferocious, impulses in the social environment, whereas such behavior was common in Antiquity and up to the 18th century.

The contrast between the teachings of Plato, fundamentally spiritualist, and those of Aristotle, more intellectualist: the former understood the workings of the MIP (Uranian Eros) and did not exclude its physical fulfillment (contrary to what Christian exegesis claims), while the latter makes no mention of it and seems to have lost the intricacies of Socratic philosophy, hence his purely intellectual approach to reality (Aristotle officiates in the cave of Pythagoras, while Plato escaped from it).

The difficulty of interpreting myths, most of which aim to transmit knowledge intended to preserve the MIP (Personal Instinctual Mode), and which lose most of their meaning in a context from which the MIP and the extrasensory are excluded, notably the myth of Oedipus.

The inability of exegetes to explain certain hermetic works, for example, the triptychs of Hieronymus Bosch: the explanatory key lies precisely in areas excluded by dominant taboos, such as the metasexual function, the love of love, and the world of Archetypes.

The visceral enthusiasm for fantasy or science fiction films like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc. Even though their intellectual interpretation remains unclear, the public unconsciously senses that they contain important messages about love and the meaning of existence, a sign that an aspiration for metasexuality and a transcendent dimension remains alive in the unconscious despite centuries of reductionist conditioning.

The high percentage of individuals who believe that the paranormal exists, close to 50%, despite the dominant paradigm imposed by reductionist rational science, can be explained by the prescience of the metapsychic dimension and its essential importance in the individual’s destiny.

The split between the metapsychic and the religious, the former constituting a form of competition for religion, which is too often unable to give believers what they truly aspire to, and denouncing the hypocrisy of doctrines that deny the importance of the extrasensory in order to promote false promises of paradise.

Sacrificial rites: The loss of the MIP (Personal Instinctual Movement) activates anxieties of spiritual death and triggers Excalibur impulses that target animals, or even humans, as scapegoats, all rationalized under the pretext of appeasing a life-giving deity by offering an expiatory victim.

The disinterest in school and violence of young adolescents can also be explained in terms of Excalibur impulses, overinvested due to the inability of education to illuminate their true problems related to the MIP → BIP (Personal Instinctual Movement) drive induction, which takes hold with maturity and the absence of the wonder necessary for authentic learning.

Monotheism, as a result of the regressive projection onto a divine form of the image of a father supposedly being the primary source of metapsychic energy after the mother, an omnipotent and omniscient image that reflects, more than the superiority of the father over the child, the transcendent dimension that remained inaccessible to the Oedipus complex.

The “original sin,” a subject of endless theological debate, is explained here by the age-old confusion between MIP and BIP: the consumption of grains (the grass of the fields) exacerbates genital urges, seduction and desire take precedence over the subtle values ​​of MIP, and love can no longer fulfill its function as a source of metapsychic energy. Authentic spiritual evolution gives way to the “Be fruitful and multiply” characteristic of BIP, which today threatens the planet…

The iconoclastic movements that have marked history, as concrete manifestations of Excalibur-like impulses targeting religion for its inability to guarantee true spiritual fulfillment and for the sexual error in which it keeps the faithful, particularly target icons and material objects perceived as false promises of fulfillment.

The existential dissatisfaction that runs through the modern world and leads to ever more demanding claims, with the corollaries of inflation, the need for growth, mass consumption and the destruction of the environment, material satisfactions not bringing the metapsychic plenitude to which everyone unconsciously aspires.

The glaring contradictions between the professed morality of prominent figures (for example, the British royal family, US presidents, etc.) and their private lives, the closed-off couple model characteristic of the BIP being unsustainable due to the energy drain it entails.

The general hypocrisy regarding morality: the morality we try to impose on ourselves does not coincide with our essential needs or our deepest aspirations; it constantly forces us to play the game of gratification to make life bearable, while we sense that what truly matters remains lacking.

The cult of Reason, *from which we expect everything, even though it is the result of Excalibur-like impulses activating the mind, and which confines us to a universe devoid of the transcendent dimension to which it only gives the illusion of access, the only dimension capable of bringing authentic spiritual meaning to our existence.

The disenchantment of the world, linked to the scarcity of romantic magic and extrasensory abilities following the failure of the MIP (Personal Intuition Method), and to the unconscious protest against the resulting materialism.

The metasexual postulate thus provides coherent solutions to many questions that have remained unanswered in the dominant paradigm. Nor are there any points where it leads to contradictions. It is borne out in everyday life, whenever love, sexuality, or extrasensory perception are involved.

The ultimate proof of its validity would be that the revolutionary conception it suggests of matters of the soul liberates our society from the shackles of consumerism with its ecological consequences, and opens the way to a world of harmony, peace, and happiness to which everyone’s unconscious aspires…