Imago

Imago [related: American Imago , Sigmund Freud, Anima, Dream Telepathy]
Final stage of insect metamorphosis. Also called the imaginal stage. Imago is characterized by the emergence of functional wings ¹ , often at the expense of great pain and suffering to the pupa. Starting in the early 20 ^th -century the term imago appeared often in the related fields of psychoanalysis and psychology. In 1912, Sigmund Freud and his disciple Otto Rank established a periodical under the Imago moniker (later renamed American Imago in 1939) - using the term to refer to an entangled mosaic of alters , archetypes, and idealized images entrenched in the psyche 3 . The journal came to include contributions from a number of notable thinkers including Immanuel Velikovsky, and was often used as a platform for Freud's advocation of narcotics, particularly cocaine, as a veritable cure for both physical and mental disorders ⁵ . The publication also offered extensive documentation of Freud's foray into Dream Telepathy, the totality of which was eventually published as part of the 1953 book Psychoanalysis and the Occult . The term Imago has since found occasional use in popular culture, including a giant mutant fly-like boss with only partially functional wings in the Metroid series of games by the Nintendo Entertainment System.

¹ A process in which the exact mechanisms of transformation remain largely opaque to the scientific community, Jan Swammerdam's "imaginal disc" ² hypothesis notwithstanding.

² "A microscopic and sometimes even unicellular disc of imagination that somehow converts a leg to an antenna - or even, in fact, wings - in mere days? Sounds to me more magick than wisdom." - [REDACTED]

³ To extend the concept, metamorphosis is then presented as healthy periodic disregarding of outdated imago and the gradual taming of anima ⁴ - neurotic is a term used to refer to individuals who lack the creativity and elasticity to shed these "shells".

⁴ The irrational part of the soul; the innately feminine (according to Freud); in Japanese [アニマ], ghost/spirit/shadow.

⁵ A stance that was undermined by the infamous "Cocaine Episode" in which Freud's friend and patient Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow developed acute "cocaine psychosis" while self-medicating for an infection earlier acquired during a botched autopsy. Strangely, Freud saw cocaine as a cure for the (at the time much more common) addiction to morphine, reportedly contributing to cocaine's errant classification as a Schedule II Narcotic by the United States Government in 1922.