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It is due to Juan Antonio Pellicer that the “ínsula Barataria” and the place of the dukes are located in Alcalá de Ebro and Pedrola respectively. In this paper I will try to show that Pellicer’s only motivation for this geographical location was to involve the Duke of Villahermosa and the Argensola brothers in order to ignore them. I propose that a detailed reading, without prejudice, provides us with information to locate possible references to the “ínsula Barataria” in a different part of Aragón., Se debe a Juan Antonio Pellicer que la ínsula Barataria y el lugar de los duques se sitúen en Alcalá de Ebro y Pedrola respectivamente. Con este trabajo trataré de demostrar que la única motivación de Pellicer, para esta localización geográfica, fue la de involucrar al duque de Villahermosa y los hermanos Argensola para, así, ningunearlos. Propongo que una lectura pormenorizada, sin prejuicios, nos da información para situar posibles referentes de la ínsula Barataria en otro punto distinto de Aragón.

In this posthumously published paper, James Thweatt describes the archetype of the puer aeternus—known within Jungian thought as the fascinating but undependable youth who, despite aging, cannot ma...

As one of the literary figures in post-war American literature, Norman Mailer tackles psychological and sociopolitical issues in The Naked and the Dead (1948) that bewildered both critics and readers. He combined them in a complementary way that explained their cause and effect development. The present paper sheds light on the definition of power in comparison with megalomania, its different causes, and its devastating effects on both the victimizers and the victimized. It also aims at revealing the inner thought of the contemporary individual as suffering from the spiritual decadence as a rebellion against the political life that hovers almost every aspect of the American society. These points are rendered through Mailer's major and powerful characters like General Cummings and Lieutenant Croft who represent the victimizers as a part of their megalomaniac attitudes. An emphasis has always been directed to two other powerless characters—Lieutenant Hearn and Troop Red Valsen—whom will be victimized at the hands of the victimizers. Mailer, in this novel, calls that the individual is either supposed to surrender to wrongful forces or to endeavor to attain some spiritual independence and dignity.

The relationship between science and cinema has not always been peaceful. If film has been fundamental to scientific and technological progress thanks to the register of movement, when cinema took over fiction, it became interested in the literary stories of mad scientists, who chose to transgress the ethical codes of their field in the name of creating a perfect humanity. Artificial genetic creation laboratories are a reality close to home today, with the insertion of human cells into animal embryos. From Dr. Moreau to contemporary research, the cinematic imagination allows us to examine the fantasies of omnipotence that easily seize researchers, and confront them with the destructive consequences of their megalomania.

Vietnam’s Eastern Southern Region is widely celebrated as the ‘engine’ of the country’s economy. Encompassing rapidly developing Ho Chi Minh City and five surrounding provinces, the region’s growth...

In this chapter, the new social economy is addressed from the point of view of the Swedish social economy. The Swedish social economy is appropriately described as the sole or the backbone of the Swedish society. It is a vast sphere containing several sectors and a melting pot of numerous organisations emphasising social values and has an effect on most Swedish citizens and denizens (for discussion on denizens see Hammar, 1990, p. 21) at some point, if not throughout their entire lives. Hence, it would be close to megalomania to set out to cover all aspects of the social economy sphere in this chapter. Instead, the main focus is on those aspects relating to the Swedish welfare state.

The Internal Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is supposed to be the next crucial step on the way (iter) to commercial energy generation by nuclear fusion. It is more a political technological project than a scientific technological one. Born in the twilight years of the Soviet Union, it became caught up in detente politics between East and West. Its (scientific technical) goal is to show that energy generation by nuclear fusion is in principle possible. For this rather modest goal, after 70 years of effort, a giant collaboration spanning more than half the globe and three-quarters of the world’s gross national project has been set up. ITER’s construction is now in full swing in the south of France, and this chapter describes the tortuous route towards this endeavour, the gigantic costs involved and the sheer megalomania it entails.

The humanitarian and development sectors are probably the most abused by blockchains and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) apologists in terms of SDG-washing. The DLT arena is swinging constantly from megalomania to chronic multidimensional complex of inferiority against other traditional actors such as banks, finance brokers, and money transfer systems. As DLTs struggle to prevail and become mainstream, justifying its potential to solve the most wicked challenges of our age proved to be much easier than facing the issues limiting their competition in adoption, technical improvements, and capacity to scale. This does not mean that all attempts at harnessing DLTs “for good” are coming from a bad place. As it always happens, the sector is populated by very different people motivated by countless reasons and while some only see the “unbanked” as an untapped business target, others are definitely hoping to make a difference against the cynical business model of existing financial systems.

This article presents an analysis of the original score for the 2015 film The Childhood of a Leader, which was composed by the enigmatic and reclusive popstar-turned-avant-garde-experimentalist Scott Walker. In particular, the analysis here considers that important function that Walker’s score plays in illuminating the central protagonist’s evolving megalomaniacal state. The film’s narration of a would-be Fascist leader’s childhood is punctuated and enhanced by Walker’s challenging and aggressive composition, which aurally complements and symbolises the growing disquiet in the youngster’s mind. Focussing firstly on the significant influence of European art and culture on Walker’s musical style and the role of European cinema and aesthetics in Brady Corbet’s direction of the film, the understanding of Walker’s sonic techniques and their use in the film become contextualised with a specific grounding in ‘European Imagination’. The article also explores the combination of sound and images through conceptual and theoretical notions such as Gilles Deleuze’s ‘any-space-whatever’; the use of avant-garde sound techniques such as cacophony and distortion in the composition and sound mixing; before concluding with a textual analysis of the film’s primary creative mode of aligning music to the characterisation of a megalomaniacal mind.

The article is devoted to the study of the politics of memory as an instrument of the formation of national states in the Balkans. The basic historiography of the memory studies is analyzed; features ofthe politics of memory in the leading countries of the Balkan Peninsula are highlighted. The author defines the thirst for grandeur, the emphasis on historical heredity, the call for struggle and the victimcomplex as the main features of the politics of memory and the national mythology of the Balkan states, which determine the high conflict potential of the “memory wars” in this region. It is emphasized a danger of a local version of the “provincial imperialism”, as the political megalomania of ruling elites has repeatedly led to horrible wars and national disasters.

This article describes investment activities of self-government territorial units. Its aim is to present the importance of investments for the provision of public services by municipalities. The opinions of the respondents about the causes of excessive or misguided investments and the ways of reducing their scale were presented. Surveys were conducted in 2015 and the temporal scope of the analysis is 2009–2014. The importance of investments for the provision of public services, shaping the living conditions of inhabitants, and conducting business activity were described. Based on that, overinvestment was identified as a negative trend in public resources management. The most frequent causes of excessive investment are megalomania of the municipality authorities and their desire to gain the support of the inhabitants (voters). Another important aspect is the lack of sufficient social control in the decision-making process regarding investment tasks execution. It was also demonstrated that overinvestment is due to the purpose of spending financial resources, not to the relative amount of investment expenses. Among the actions preventing excessive or misguided investments, the cost and benefit analysis was indicated the most often. Using strategic planning tools is also beneficial for the effectiveness of investing in self-government.

espanolSiguiendo, desde una perspectiva cultural e historica, la Teoria Cognitiva del Lenguaje Figurado de Dobrovol'skij y Piirainen (2005), este articulo analiza el trasfondo simbolico del sauce en la cultura china, y las huellas del mismo en el lexico figurativo y los proverbios. Esta planta tiene una carga semiotica especifica en China, reflejando criterios esteticos, normas morales, creencias, costumbres, etc. En la cultura china, se le atribuyen varios simbolismos, relacionado con la belleza femenina, la primavera, el amor, la tierra natal, la sinceridad, etc. Por otro lado, el sauce tambien conlleva connotaciones culturales negativas, por ejemplo, el sauce puede representar la frivolidad, la megalomania, y ademas, se relaciona con la prostitucion, la tristeza, etc. EnglishFollowing the Cognitive Theory of Figurative Language (Dobrovol'skij and Piirainen 2005), from a cultural and historical perspective, this article analyzes the symbolic background of the willow in Chinese culture, and its semiotics in the figurative expressions, idioms and proverbs. This plant carries a specific semiotic value in the Chinese culture, reflecting social aesthetic criteria, moral norms, beliefs, customs, etc. For Chinese people, the willow is associated with feminine beauty, the season of spring, love, homeland, sincerity, etc. On the other hand, the willow also carries negative cultural connotations, for example, the willow may represent frivolity, megalomania, and is also related with prostitution, sadness, etc.

History, especially the latest, shows that every human activity is in a state of development. At a certain point however, that development begins to move out from the socially acceptable norms. Often the developing process of lighting technology passes the reasonable limits. The megalomania manifests itself in the light sctattering and the uncontrolled overlit areas of the natural environment and the inner spaces. The question that still arises at present is when the average citizen and the representatives of lighting industry will identify the existence of light pollution and visual glare as harm rather than a benefit. Visual culture is educated through the realization of adequate lighting environment. Several campaigns wake up and focus public attention and awareness on the light pollution issue and its impact. The benefit of those campaigns does not relate to their demonstrational manner, but to the lack of adequate energy and environmental culture that should corresponds to the present high-technological progress. It is necessary to rethink the artificial light, the understanding of the hygiene of lighting, especially if it is overdosed and unsatisfactorily managed. Aren’t we on the verge of a new lighting technical age?

According to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, higher education is a social device intended to relieve elites who would otherwise be frustrated. That is, the elites receive higher education not because they are elite; rather, higher education exists to restore pride and offer satisfaction to those elites who are not socially competitive. Notwithstanding that, most architects are unable to put to practical use in society the megalomania acquired through education. Therefore, they experience extreme frustration. Architects are professionals fated to be frustrated. Naturally, architects have the opportunity to obtain relief through the design of private houses only when there are clients. What is interesting is that clients too are quite frustrated individuals. They too try to relieve their frustrations through the construction of houses. Modern egalitarianism has generated frustration. Women are basically excluded from society and, as a result, are frustrated as well.

An essay on regression.

German Abstract: In vorliegendem Essay wird die Bedeutung und die Erscheinungsformen des Zustandes psychischer Regression erortert, die als offensichtliche und ernsthafteste Problem unserer Zeit gewertet wird. English Abstract: Continuing the reexamination of prevailing views, conceptions and paradigms carried out on the basis of the psychoanalytic theory, as it already has been done in previous publications, and considering great significance of the topic, I open the year 2019 with my essay on the state of psychic regression, which in my opinion is the most obvious and earnest problem of our time, and invite all scholars and qualified individuals to participate in a discussion.

The late 1950s and early 1960s saw a slew of popular Hindi films with the staple figure of the tyrannical and malicious mother-in-law whose raison d’etre was to torment her young compliant daughter-in-law. Produced and directed by men, these films depict the mother-in-law (albeit reformed by the end of the film) through megalomania and evil machinations. With the rise of the Angry Young Man films, this sadistic figure was increasingly replaced with the long-suffering mother, adored and venerated by her sons. Subsequent decades witnessed the emergence of new films and filmmakers who sought to represent femininity and familial relations somewhat differently and the figure of the mother and the mother-in-law underwent representational changes. But has the evil mother-in-law really left the building? The chapter traces the journey of this formidable figure in popular Hindi cinema, analyses the ‘pleasures’ of viewing that she afforded audiences and reasons for her attenuation in the recent decades.

Продолжение темы статьи «Идеология и нарциссизм. Мании грандиозности: наблюдение, симптоматика, генезис». Вытеснение проблем, связанных с нарциссическими отклонениями (как и всего, касающегося психопатологии и психиатрии), объясняется драматическими обстоятельствами в биографии социума. Проблему обостряют рецидивы мегаломании в сочетании с обесцениванием, ломкой «первичного нарциссизма» социума, возникавшего на руинах СССР. При всей близости идеологий миссионерства выявляются кардинальные различия эпидемий нарциссизма в США (лидерство в политике, в приватной сфере) и в России (идеализирующий перенос на власть и персонифицированные культы). Мифология сплочения, силы и глобального превосходства представляется «психическим убежищем» (Дж. Стайнер) для страдающих разными формами комплекса неполноценности. Подчеркивается необходимость специальной рефлексии, противостоящей «нарциссическим провокациям» коллективного пациента, соблазнам «аналитической грандиозности» и «всемогущества терапевта». Критикуется глубокое социальное расслоение, открывающее «низам» перспективы нарциссического истощения в состояниях, близких к бреду величия. Анализируется медийная оптика, в которой отражение собственного совершенства заменяется образами грандиозности правления на экранах ТВ и мониторах PC. Исследуются нарциссические эффекты в теневой, латентной, диффузной и «проникающей» идеологии. Фиксация на завышенной самооценке обнаруживается в конкретных идеологемах – от приписывания самим себе миссии воплощения всечеловеческих ценностей до картин «одиночества страны-полукровки»., The author continues work on problems presented in the former article Ideology and Narcissism. Manias for grandiosity: observation, symptomatics, genesis. Repression of topics related to narcissistic deviations (as everything close to psychopathology and psychiatry) is determined by dramatic biography of society. The problem aggravated by relapses of megalomania combined with devaluation of the "primary narcissism" of the society that has arose on the ruins of the USSR. Despite similarity of missionary ideologies there are significant differences in the epidemics of narcissism in the USA (leadership in politics, private sphere) and in Russia (idealized form of transference to power and personified cults). Mythology of cohesion, strength and global supremacy seems to be a "psychic shelter" (J. Steiner) for those who suffer from various forms of the inferiority complex. The need for special reflection that opposes the "narcissistic provocation" of the collective patient, the temptations of "analytical grandiosity" and "the omnipotence of the therapist" is stressed in the article. The author presents critique of deep social stratification which opens to the deprived social groups the future of narcissistic exhaustion close to delirium grandeur. Media optics is being analyzed showing how the reflection of own perfection is replaced by images of the power grandiosity on TV screens and PC monitors. Narcissistic effects are investigated in the shadow, latent, diffuse and "penetrating" ideology. Fixation on overestimated self-esteem is revealed in specific ideological constructions starting from own attributing the mission to embody universal values up to the works presenting "loneliness of the half-blooded country."

The authors posit syphilis as the source for Kurtz’s affliction in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and argue for understanding the novella as a deployment of the rhetoric of disease, which yokes together medical fears and problematic sexual morality with a global violence infecting self-congratulatory European benevolence and charity. Conrad’s tale is both implicitly and explicitly eroticized as well as steeped in gothic representation of the hidden and revealed to manage an unsayable horror. As such, the language of the story parallels pervasive late nineteenth-century syphilis discourse that likewise relies on obfuscation and silences. Descriptions of Kurtz’s megalomania resonate with the symptomatology of syphilis and perceived syphilitics, such as Nietzsche and Columbus, who might have served as models for the character.

A number of recent literary readings of the Elijah's narratives have argued that the prophet is presented as selfish and disobedient. This is not a convincing interpretation of the final form of the text, which presents Elijah in positive light. These readings highlight a problem in the way narrative criticism is often practised, as it does not sufficiently take into account into account the composite nature of the biblical text. There are indeed oddities in 1 Kings 19 but it is very difficult to find satisfactory explanations for most of them on a purely literary level. A reading strategy needs to be adopted which recognizes that some of these may simply be the result of the text's pre-history and does not force upon them significance they were not meant to possess.

Almost 200 years ago, in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel coined the concept of the List der Vernunft, usually translated as “Cunning of Reason.” Hegel believed that the idea of Reason unfolded itself in history through the deeds of larger-than-life characters like Alexander the Great, Caesar, or Napoleon. This process was a messy one, and the protagonists who realized Reason in history did not do so on purpose, adopting ideals and a way of life that could be characterized as by any means reasonable. On the contrary, their motivations were low, compulsive, and without restraint, including greed, envy, fanaticism, pride, ambition, vanity, and megalomania. Yet through these self-seeking passions, history was able to realize itself according to its rational design, making the men who are driven by it into its instruments and tools that may destroy old structures that have ceased to be useful but that are themselves also worn down and used up in the process: gear to be discarded after they had ceased to be useful. “This may be called the cunning of Reason—that it sets the passions to work for itself, while that through which it develops itself pays the penalty and suffers the loss.”1

This article explores the writing of home within John Galsworthy's (1867–1933) novel The Man of Property. The novel appeared in 1906 and was heralded by The Times Literary Supplement as a new kind of novel that wrote the world in a new and challenging way. Today, however, Galsworthy is rarely seen as an original or inventive writer and is more frequently considered to follow in the tradition of Victorian realism. Yet in The Man of Property there is evidence of stylistic and formal developments that differentiate Galsworthy from Victorian realism. It is a novel that focuses on the homes and home life of Soames and Irene Forsyte, but theirs is not an idealized or sentimentalized relationship; rather, it is one that is expressed through marital rape, megalomania, and the threat of divorce. Taking these themes as a starting point, this article explores how The Man of Property writes home, as both idea and space, in new ways that differentiate it from Victorian realism.

The myth of the ‘Nazi steroid’ has persisted over the past four decades in the absence of any reliable evidence to support it. This essay traces the myth back to a short article that appeared in the respectable American journal Science. Our examination of the paper trail suggests that the myth was started by a rumour that the Science journalist converted into a hypothesis. Two factors account for the impressive career of this fantasy. First, it is striking how many writers were willing to transmit this claim to their readers in an uncritical manner on the undocumented assumption that it was a plausible idea. The second factor is how the world has imagined the Nazi regime. It has been credited with the capacity to commit virtually any perverse act, no matter how improbable or bizarre it may seem. In the last analysis, the myth of the ‘Nazi steroid’ confirms once again a widespread fascination with the Nazis that includes a masculine megalomania that is best represented by the legendary sadism of the Nazi c...

Self-deception has been studied by philosophers and psychologists for some time. Frenkel-Brunswik (1939) published the first psychology paper. In Triandis (2009 p. ix) there are references to 24 papers by philosophers and psychologists that examined this concept. All humans have self-deceptions, some more frequently than others. That is, they see the world the way they would like to be rather than the way it is. As I thought about the concept over the years I believe that the most important point for understanding self-deception is to examine what percentage of the information that humans use when constructing (Taylor, 1998b) the way they see the world comes from inside their body or from outside their body. If most of it comes from inside their body there is a high probability that they have a self-deception. The information from inside the body consists of emotions (e.g., hopes), needs (e.g., hunger pangs), desires (e.g., imagined attractive objects), cognitive systems (e.g., prejudices, stereotypes, in-group preferences), memories (e.g., we are descendents of heroes), theories, ideologies, and elements of subjective culture acquired during socialization. The information from the outside the body is reality, and captures aspects of the ecology. Geography, climate, the actions of others, occupations, and events in the environment, are all relevant. For example, when a wild animal is attacking we focus on outside information. But when making judgments about philosophy, economics, religion, education, politics, terrorism, aesthetics and the like we often use inside information to shape our perceptions. The Buddha had the insight that we use information from both outside the body (reality, truth) and inside our body (emotions, ideology) when he said “Where self is, truth is not; where truth is, self is not.” (Spencer-Rogers, Williams, & Pang, 2010). In this paper I will start with some examples of self-deception. Then I will discuss some of the characteristics of self-deception—it is often linked to cognitive simplicity, megalomania, and if we have no self-deceptions we might be depressed, but if we have large self-deceptions we might be mentally ill. Then I will discuss how self-deception is implicated in many of the controversial issues of our times. I will end with some suggestions for further research linking culture and self-deception.

Cassius Dio’s account of the emperor Elagabalus, with which he ends his thousand-year history of Rome, struck earlier generations of historians as inept. More recent scholarship sees Dio as exploiting rhetorical stereotypes to craft a picture of a “bad emperor” and points to the increasing ferocity of posthumous defamation of emperors beginning with Commodus. I argue that Dio’s account of Elagabalus is artfully constructed as a satire that draws the reader’s attention to other trends since the accession of Commodus that disturbed Dio. My analysis focuses on nicknames, Elagabalus’ effeminacy, and his promotion of the god Elagabal. As nowhere else in his history, Dio uses nicknames for Elagabalus – to send up the way emperors in Dio’s lifetime renamed themselves and faked genealogies to legitimize their rule. Dio’s stories of Elagabalus’ extreme effeminacy, especially the marriage to Hierocles, underscore a detachment of individual achievement from status that Dio believes was fostered by dynastic rule. The promotion of Elagabal exposes the ability of emperors since Commodus to indulge their whims to the point of megalomania. By ending his whole history with Elagabalus, Dio gives his final, most fearsome warning of the ugly potential of dynastic monarchy at Rome.

The first aphorism of the last chapter of Ecce Homo (EH, Why I Am a Destiny) is one of the most challenging and terrifying in Nietzsche's work. It essentially deals with the "reevaluation of all values" as an "act of the highest self-assessment of humanity" for which Nietzsche was fated and through which he would become a destiny for philosophy and humanity. The aphorism has served as evidence to some that Nietzsche's madness had already broken out - as megalomania. Yet the clear and careful construction of Ecce Homo, like The Antichrist for which is was supposed to pave the way, do not show any signs of confusion. And Nietzsche had already spoken of his task in a challenging manner: to raise humanity and culture to a new level as a single individual. Correctly understanding Nietzsche requires being able to integrate this aphorism into this work, too. The following essay provides an interpretation of this aphorism based on the context of Ecce Homo and The Antichrist as well as against the background of Nietzsche's work as a whole.

Predictably, certain patients present treatment issues which resonate strongly with issues that are still problematic (unconscious and/or only partially resolved) for the therapist. This paper examines the author's professional/personal development over forty years, beginning with reflections about a countertransference enactment triggered by an acting-out African American child whose father, his primary caregiver, had abandoned him at age 18 months. The potential dangers and benefits of therapist grandiosity are also considered.

Investigations carried out on 293 cases of progressive paralysis showed that the widely held view of a "classical form" of progressive paralysis is not applicable. Thus megalomania was found in only 13% of the patients and a manic type state in less than half. Disturbances in affectivity, drive and intellectual functions in progressive paralysis are, in general, uncharacteristic and can appear in any psychotic syndrome. Moreover, neurological symptoms taken as characteristic for progressive paralysis such as the Argyll-Robertson phenomenon or the "mimic quivering" are more the exception than the rule.

Last year I went on a trip to Kaliningrad. There I found a huge half-built cathedral only slightly smaller than the one in Moscow. Earlier I had been struck by the same kind of megalomania in Voron...

My first and only direct encounter with Herman Kahn came in August 1975 in Vancouver in Canada. I was in the process of recording my first Science Show for the ABC (the Australian program) and was keen to snare some big names. Back then, Kahn was big, and together with Thor Heyerdahl, Lord Ritchie Calder, and Scientific American publisher Gerard Piel was attending the Pacific Science Congress at the University of British Columbia. I had taken the trouble to write to Khan in advance at the Hudson Institute where he was based and received a courteous reply. How relaxed and dignified relations between broadcaster and 'talent' were back then in 2007, the target is simply crash-tackled on the way to the limo. The appointed hour came, and I strolled to the Hyatt carrying my immense (by today's standards) Nagra tape recorder. He opened the door, wearing only boxer shorts. With another man that would, perhaps, have been unremarkable. But Khan was immense and spectacularly hirsute. He repaired back to his made-up bed where he had obviously been sitting, eating grapes. He lifted a large bunch and nibbled them like Nero at a Roman banquet. To my great relief, I was not invited to share the feast.

Born in 1916 in Berlin, Unica Zürn committed suicide in Paris in 1970. During the last twenty years of her life, this artist, painter, and sentimental companion of Hans Bellmer, fought against schizophrenia. She spent many periods in psychiatric hospitals and has described her mental illness, her remissions from this illness and the psychiatric universe in El Hombre-Jazmín. This is an unusual autobiography, narrated in third person and in the present historic, and represents a direct and perturbed testimony of a lucid nature about her experiences. The book includes anagrams that sh developed over a long period of time. Née en 1916 à Berlin, Unica Zürn se suicide à Paris en 1970. Durant les quelque vingt dernières années de sa vie, cette artiste, peintre et écrivain, compagne de Hans Bellmer, luttera contre la schizophrénie. Elle fera de nombreux séjours en hôpital psychiatrique et décrira tant sa maladie mentale et ses rémissions que l’univers psychiatrique dans un texte majeur, L’Homme-Jasmin. Une étrange autobiographie à la troisième personne et au présent, troublant témoignage direct et lucide sur un vécu perturbé, qui inclut les textes anagrammatiques auxquels elle s’est longuement adonnée.

Before turning to the catastrophe called Adolph Hitler, we begin by quoting Nietzsche as related in Erwin Staub’s volume: The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence.

This study details how the medieval Central Asian leader, Timur, looked upon by many in the Latin West as a potential savior, came to be vilified as British imperial interests moved from the Ottoman Porte to India and Central Asia. To the vast majority of those to whom his name means anything at all, it commemorates a militarist who perpetuated as many horrors in the span of twenty-four years as the last five Assyrian kings perpetrated in a hundred and twenty ... The crack-brained megalomania of [a] homicidal madman whose one idea is to impress the imagination of mankind with a sense of his military power by a hideous abuse of it ...2

Psychoanalysis is a technique to let creativity develop, and thought must be a prelude to action, rather than its substitute. Megalomania, redefined according to Bion as the capacity to act responsibly, lies at the extreme positive end of the spectrum of personality.

People with delusions have been shown to have both generalized (Huq, Garety & Hemsley, 1988) and content-specific biases in reasoning (Bentall, 1994). Our concern here was whether the hastiness that has been found when people with delusions reason on relatively abstract tasks would be present on a more realistic task. A second concern was whether reasoning with salient or emotional material would increase the hastiness bias in people with delusions. Two versions of a probabilistic reasoning task were used to study the data gathering of people with delusions. The first version employed realistic but emotionally neutral material. People with delusions requested less evidence before making a decision than psychiatric and normal comparison groups. Therefore, the hastiness found previously with abstract materials was seen to generalize to a more realistic task. In the second version participants were required to reason with material that had an emotional content and may have been regarded as being personally meaningful. In this condition all groups reduced the amount of evidence requested before making a decision.