the magic wand

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Luigi Ontani, Cignoleda, 1975, courtesy of the artist

essay

by MARK ALIZART

artwork by LUIGI ONTANI

Writer and independent curator Mark Alizart explores contem­porary technology and cultural transformations. He has worked with art institutions such as the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. His latest books are Dark Tintin (published by Ner, 2023) and The Climate Coup (Polity Press, 2021).

In one of his early publications, Sigmund Freud compares psychoanalysis to magic. He writes in 1890 in Psychical (or Mental) Treatment that the fact that “pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by ‘mere’ words” of the physician makes it akin to a form of “watered-down magic.” More than 40 years later, Freud would use the same comparison between psychoanalysis and sorcery to denounce the burning of 20,000 books, including his own, in Berlin, ordered on May 10,…