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was what his unconscious wanted. Hence, Velikovsky’s claim that this was a symbolic dream involving the Catholic Church is, I think, very strong. It is significant that a few lines after the passage quoted above, Freud wrote about a Roman dream as follows: “There is more in the content of this dream than I feel prepared to detail; but the theme of ‘the promised land from afar’ was obvious in it.”132 We therefore have reason to believe that some of the religious aspects of these Roman dreams were censored by Freud in his commentary. Unlike Velikovsky, though, I think that for Freud Rome, not Jerusalem, was clearly “the promised land.” After all, that desire would have gone back as far as his nanny (whom Velikovsky did not know about). We may also recall that Freud wrote to Fliess, “Next Easter in Rome” instead of “Next year in Jerusalem,” which is the common Jewish expression of a religious hope.
We must also ask further about Karlsbad. The name means “Karl’s baths or waters”—certainly another possible illusion to baptism (i.e., taking the waters). Underlying Karlsbad could also be Freud’s unconscious memories of being bathed by his nanny; if so, such warm and intimate moments would further reinforce the baptism association. In any case, Strachey mentions that both “Rome and Karlsbad came to be identified as symbols of unattainable aims.”133 Karlsbad is in Czechoslovakia (Bohemia), and thus like Prague and Rome can be understood as a nanny symbol.134 We should remember, too, that Freud’s allegiance to Hannibal hid his strong (or stronger) identification with Rome, so with respect to his opposition to Rome, perhaps “he doth protest too much.” But let us look at some new material. Just before Freud brought up the subject of Hannibal as an association to one of his Roman dreams, he wrote: I was in the act of making a plan to bypass Rome next year and travel to Naples, when a sentence occurred to me which I must have read in one of our classical authors: “Which of the two, it may be debated, walked up and down in his study with the greater impatience after he had formed his plan of going to Rome—Winckelmann, the Vice-Principal, or Hannibal the Commander-in-Chief?”135 This unnamed “classical author” (whom Strachey identifies in a footnote as “Jean Paul”136) was alluding to Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768), a well-known historical figure, considered by many to have been the founder of classical archeology. This archeologist and art historian came from a poor German Lutheran background, and for a time was a medical student in Vienna; however, in part for financial reasons, he moved into other occupations. He became very interested in and knowledgeable about ancient Roman art and architecture. Through this interest he met influential art connoisseurs among the Roman clergy. After several years of crisis in his 30s over conversion, he did convert to Catholicism. He |