Herbert Silberer (February 28, 1882 – January 12, 1923) was a Viennese psychoanalyst involved with the professional circle surrounding Sigmund Freud which included other pioneers of psychological study as Carl Gustav Jung, Alfred Adler and others. He had a background in athletics and sports journalism. Biography Silberer was very interested in dreams, and in 1909 published a paper detailing his research into the hypnagogic state (the mental state in which the individual is between waking and sleeping). Silberer's contention was that the hypnagogic state is autosymbolic, meaning that the images and symbols perceived in the hypnagogic state are representative (i.e. symbolic) of the physical or mental state of the perceiver. He concluded that two "antagonistic elements" were required for autosymbolic phenomena to manifest: drowsiness and an effort to think. In 1914, Silberer wrote a book on the relationship between modern psychology, mysticism and esoteric traditions (particularly Western, Christian ones such as Hermeticism, Alchemy, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry): Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik (Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism). Many of the insights Silberer offered, especially into the link between alchemical imagery and modern psychology were similar to those first introduced by Carl Jung in his book "The Psychology of The Unconscious" in 1911. (This book was later retitled "Symbols of Transformation"). Jung further developed these insights in his seminal work "Psychology and Alchemy," in 1944, crediting Silberer for his research. Both Jung and Silberer had included psychic phenomena that Freud had excluded in favor of his theories of sexuality as the predominant factor and cause of psychic disturbances. Freud and his associates coldly and cruelly rejected Jung and Silberer, hindering a greater understanding of our psyche and the treatment of psychic disturbances. Rather than fully understand the causes of disturbances, most patients are treated with medication, suppressing the symptoms which can resurface with greater force. Silberer committed suicide almost 9 years later after the split with Freud by hanging himself January 12, 1923. Jung described in his autobiography "Memories, Dreams and Reflections," the effect Freud's censure had and how it precipitated a major upheaval of his psyche that nearly overwhelmed him as he believed it had for his friend. Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism was Silberer's magnum opus. Taking as his starting point a Rosicrucian text known as the Parabola Allegory, an alchemical writing with many parallels to the Chymical Wedding of Christian