"The Faustian spirit of the technical world". Mental illness and cultural criticism in Franco's Spain
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Cultural Histories of Science Culture & History Digital Journal 10(1)
in Franco’s Spain June 2021, e007
Ricardo Campos, eISSN 2253-797X
Enric Novella (coords.) doi: https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2021.007
“The Faustian spirit of the technical world”. Mental
illness and cultural criticism in Franco’s Spain
Enric J. Novella
Instituto Interuniversitario López Piñero de Estudios Históricos y Sociales sobre la Ciencia
Universitat de València
e-mail: enric.novella@uv.es
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6823-563X
Submitted: 1 April 2020. Accepted: 20 June 2020.
ABSTRACT: Taking into account the almost constitutive affinity of mental medicine and cultural criticism, it
should not be surprising that, given its particular conflict with modernity, General Franco’s dictatorship was a peri-
od of intense flowering of conservative psychiatric essay writing, Starting from the fears of a possible physical and
moral regression of “Hispanity” due to the artificiality of modern life, the infiltration of liberalism and the erosion
of traditional values, the genre shifted its interest towards an analysis of the contemporary “neurotic society” that,
with philosophical reference points such as Ortega or Heidegger, pointed to the excesses of instrumental reason,
“mechanization” and the “hyper-technification” of the modern world as one of the main sources of malaise and
psychic suffering.
KEYWORDS: Psychiatry; Cultural criticism; Science; Technology; Spain; Franco.
Citation / Cómo citar este artículo: Novella, Enric J. (2021) “‘The Faustian spirit of the technical world’. Men-
tal illness and cultural criticism in Franco’s Spain”. Culture & History Digital Journal, 10 (1): e007. https://doi.
org/10.3989/chdj.2021.007
RESUMEN: “El espíritu fáustico del mundo técnico”. Enfermedad mental y crítica cultural en la España de
Franco.‒ Teniendo en cuenta la querencia casi constitutiva de la medicina mental por la crítica cultural, no debe
sorprender que, dentro de su particular litigio con la modernidad, la dictadura franquista fuese un periodo de in-
tensa floración del ensayismo psiquiátrico conservador. Partiendo de los temores de una posible regresión física
y moral de la “Hispanidad” a causa de la artificiosidad de la vida moderna, la infiltración del liberalismo y la
erosión de los valores tradicionales, el género fue desplazando su interés hacia un análisis de la “sociedad neuro-
tizada” que, con referentes filosóficos como Ortega o Heidegger, apuntaba a los excesos de la razón instrumental,
el “maquinismo” y la “hipertecnificación” del mundo moderno como una de las principales fuentes de malestar y
sufrimiento psíquico.
PALABRAS CLAVE: Psiquiatría; Crítica cultural; Ciencia; Técnica; España; Franquismo.
Copyright: © 2021 CSIC. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.2 • Enric J. Novella
INTRODUCTION propositive and tempered) realm of conservative cultural
criticism.
In March 1935, a group of young doctors of strong In a rigorous and well-documented study, Juan Cas-
Catholic convictions working at the Sanatorio Psiquiátrico co Solís a few years back offered a preliminary cartog-
Provincial de Valencia, all of them former scholarship raphy of the main topics and concepts in the psychiatric
holders at the Colegio Mayor del Beato Juan de Ribera essays of the early Franco regime (Casco Solís, 1999, pp.
in Burjassot, founded Norma, a “university exaltation” 99-101). Thus, the most combative and openly militant
magazine. In its first issue, Juan José López Ibor, future studies frequently included a generalized rejection of the
Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Madrid, ar- psychiatry of the republican years, (Freudian) psychoa-
gued that the mission of universities should go far beyond nalysis, communism, liberalism and democratic values. In
the mere transmission of “scientific creation techniques” this regard, the ineffable “psychological research” of An-
to primarily attend to “the vital needs of men in [each] tonio Vallejo Nágera and Marco Merenciano’s hyperbolic
historical moment” (López Ibor, 1935, p. 9). Next, Fran- statements on the essentially pathological and depraved
cisco Marco Merenciano, future director of the Valencian nature of Marxism are notorious (Bandrés and Llavona,
mental hospital, called for the promotion of a “compre- 1996; Huertas, 1996; Campos and Novella, 2017), as well
hensive education” that, rather than “introducing individ- as López Ibor’s harsh contestation of pre- Civil War psy-
uals to scraps of all the different sciences”, would bring chiatry in his inaugural speech at the Congreso Nacional
together the contributions of “experimental science and de Neurología y Psiquiatría held in Barcelona in Janu-
humanism” and would lead them safely to the “concept ary 1942 (Huertas, 2017). As to other studies, they were
of totality” (Marco Merenciano, 1935, p. 24). And finally, largely focused on identifying, highlighting, or glorifying
Pedro Laín Entralgo, future Professor of History of Medi- the true features of “Hispanity”, or on unravelling the con-
cine at the University of Madrid, wrote about “the human stitutive problem of “Spanishness”—tracing the origins
sense of natural science” in a more significant essay with and potential remedies to its recent “decadence”—, while
arguments that are worth studying in more detail. After others aimed at revitalizing the old equation—already
deploring the fact that “liberalism” had weakened “the formulated by 19th-century hygienism (Campos, 1995;
tight bond that linked the cultivation of the various disci- Novella, 2010)—which assimilated the observance of the
plines with each other, with a community of purpose and principles of Catholic morality to the promotion of public
meaning”, Laín examined the reasons why “the sciences health and the maintenance of individual psychological
of the Renaissance are today uncoordinated and aimless” balance. Vallejo Nágera’s fervent musings on “Hispan-
(Laín Entralgo, 1935, pp. 26, 35). In his opinion, and after ic eugenics” and López Ibor’s more subtle disquisitions
a period of (medieval) splendour “in which the world of on Spaniards’ “inferiority complex” (Cayuela, 2015, pp.
culture [had been] a structurally harmonious whole,” the 134-146) are also worth noting here, as well as the various
“Reformation virus” had contaminated the “pristine nova attempts to “adapt” psychotherapy and the postulates of
scientia of Newton, Kepler and Galileo” and had paved mental hygiene to the premises and cultural particularities
the way for an “anorganic and inconsistent Encyclopae- and psychology of the “Spanish man” (González Duro,
dia,” “scientific liberalism” and the “innumerable con- 1997; Novella, 2016; Novella and Campos, 2017).
venticles of specialization” (Laín Entralgo, 1935, p. 31). However, as anticipated in the pages of Norma and in
Fortunately, and as recent holistic and vitalist approach- line with the intellectual concerns of the time –especial-
es in the fields of biology or medicine were revealing, it ly in Germany (Bollenbeck, 2007, pp. 199-232; Raulet,
was possible to find “reactive attitudes against this Babel- 2009, pp. 133-141)–, a further issue which was always
ic dispersion”, and Catholicism was ready to “bring the and remarkably present in the work of a great number of
university back to its primitive ecumenical mould [and] Spanish psychiatrists, and which has been scarcely not-
Newtonian natural science to a focused and consistent po- ed so far, is the belief that science and technology were
sition within the whole architecture of our conception of among the main factors responsible for the (alleged) de-
the universe”. cline, impoverishment and/or spiritual disorder of the
Only one more issue of Norma was published, in April contemporary world and were thus a source of psychic
1936 (Laín Entralgo, 1976, pp. 134-136),1 but, bearing unrest or suffering. Initially, and insofar as the promotion
in mind the subsequent leading role of its promoters, its of technical-scientific activity had constituted a major
contents are undoubtedly of great interest when it comes hallmark of the regeneracionismo [regenerationism] and
to tracing the genealogy of the issues that would be pre- political progressivism of the first third of the 20th centu-
dominant in the intellectual production of Spanish psy- ry (López-Ocón, 2003, pp. 304-378; Otero Carvajal and
chiatrists after the Civil War. As is well known, over a López Sánchez, 2012), it was to be expected that some of
period of decades, a significant part of this production was the most pro-regime psychiatrists would be ready to ques-
in the form of essays and was markedly ideological (Cas- tion their alleged virtues, to challenge some of its concep-
tilla del Pino, 1977; González Duro, 1978), so that during tual standpoints or mark its purported damaging effects
the dictatorship years some of the most prominent mental both at the collective and individual level. But once the
health professionals consistently cultivated a genre which period of post-Civil War “ideological adjustment” and
at first focused on the enthusiastic exaltation of the “new emphatic self-assertion was over (Casco Solís, 1995),
State” but gradually shifted towards the (somewhat more psychiatric essays did not abandon the reflection upon
Culture & History Digital Journal 10(1), June 2021, e007. eISSN 2253-797X, doi: https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2021.007“The Faustian spirit of the technical world”. Mental illness and cultural criticism in Franco’s Spain • 3
the cultural and psychological implications of science Scientific progress and the culture that goes with it have
and technology; they rather shifted towards a more sober provided man with material goods, they have improved
analysis of a “neurotic society” which, with José Ortega in certain aspects the conditions of his existence, but they
y Gasset and Martin Heidegger as philosophical authors have fostered selfishness, cruelty, perversion, deceit, tyr-
of reference, pointed to the excesses of instrumental rea- anny and so many other tendencies in society that have
son, “machinism”, and the “hyper-technification” of the their substratum at the bottom of the human psyche and
modern world. that civilization seems to encourage, instead of banishing
Taking into account the virtually constitutive affinity them. [...] Unruliness, criminality, licentiousness and mis-
of psychological medicine and cultural criticism (Roelcke, ery reach their peak when peoples reach the height of their
1999, pp, 11-30; Novella, 2013, pp. 33-35),2 and also the material progress. The materialization of consciences has
central place that the analysis of the distinctive attrib- created a civilization that brings with it the tyranny of the
utes of modernity’s technical-scientific worldview has factory and the office, the sacrifice of moral dignity to
traditionally had in cultural criticism (Habermas, 1986; economic interest, and first of all the barbarous conditions
Tarnas, 2008, pp. 356-366), this article attempts to recon- of life in the big cities. Materialistic civilization has di-
struct the starting point, the evolution, and the different minished the physiological, intellectual and moral values
nuances of the discourses on science and technology in of the race, instead of endowing it with personality and
the intellectual production of Spanish psychiatrists during making it great (Vallejo Nágera, 1937, pp. 96-97).
Francoism. First, we will review the place of these dis-
Furthermore, Juan José López Ibor, who also joined
courses in the framework of a willingness to introduce a
the rebel side from Valencia,3 published a Discurso a los
radical break with the recent past and of the anti-modern,
traditionalist, and reactionary mentality which dominated universitarios españoles [Discourse to Spanish University
the rebel side during the war and through the early post- Students] in 1938, which, in his own words, came direct-
war years. Then, a more detailed analysis is presented of ly from his early contributions to Norma (Gómez-San-
the frequent allusions to the bases and consequences of tos, 2007, pp. 55-56). In his Discurso, which was re-is-
modern science and technology within the conservative sued a number of times through the subsequent decades,
cultural criticism consistently cultivated by some of the López Ibor claimed that the “dehumanization of modern
most renowned and influential professional actors at the man” was largely the result of the spread of a “predato-
institutional level. Finally, the loss of relevance and di- ry concept of the world and of life” inherent to post-Re-
lution of this essay sub-genre in the context of the tech- naissance science and technology, which had turned the
nocratic and modernizing fervour of the 1960s is exam- human being into “a small prosthetic God with multiple
ined, as well as the (highly significant) reappearance of claws with which it collects its booty and multiplies its
an incisive socio-political critique of science within the power” (López Ibor, 1938, pp. 27-29). With an expres-
approaches of some progressive sectors in psychiatry over sion which seems borrowed from the German philosopher
the final years of the dictatorship. and historian Oswald Spengler,4 López Ibor—like Pedro
Laín Entralgo—situated in the Reformation the origins of
THE IMPUGNATION OF LIBERAL SCIENCE this “Faustian man”, who, just as in the legend, sells his
soul in exchange for knowledge and technical expertise;
When he joined the “glorious National Movement” the Protestant rebellion, then, was only the first act of the
on 18th July 1936, medical commander Antonio Vallejo sacrilegious “cosmic conquest spirit” that had led directly
Nágera, then director of the mental asylum in Ciempozue- to the “excesses of rationalism and scientism” of the mod-
los, left on the desk of his house in Madrid the manuscript ern world and had placed humanity at the “crossroads of
of a “Racial Hygiene Programme” in which he proposed sorrow”: “amidst so much mechanical greatness, men are
nothing less than to combat the “exhaustion of the sources increasingly losing their specifically human dignity and
of energy and vitality of the once virile Hispanic race” feel lonely, horribly and inconsolably lonely. […] Science
(Vallejo Nágera, 1937, pp. 5-7). Kept safe by his family leaves men glutted with knowledge, but perplexed before
and sent to the rebel-held area, the text was published in life” (López Ibor, 1938, pp. 33-41).
Burgos in 1937 under a new title, Eugenesia de la His- Though with nuances, both Vallejo Nágera and López
panidad [Eugenics of Hispanity] (1937), and was the first Ibor would have plenty of opportunities to disseminate
in a long series of works of exaltation and militancy which their ideas along those years. In his Política racial del
would distinguish his author through the following years nuevo Estado (1938) [Racial Policy of the New State], for
(Huertas, 1998; Richards, 2004; Campos and Huertas, instance, Vallejo Nágera insisted on attributing the “decay
2012). As he wrote in these pages, Vallejo Nágera was of the specific ethical racial values” of Hispanity to a “me-
certain that, along with the “abject democratic and Marx- phitic spiritual environment” and to the “rationalist and
ist virus”, science, technology, and the industrial civiliza- materialistic rottenness” of the Enlightenment. As “our
tion had played a major role in the “degeneration of the great writer Menéndez Pelayo” had shown, as long as
race” and in the erosion of the “moral health” of the peo- Spanish culture actively resisted “foreign influence” and
ple. In a strongly Rousseaunian passage, the head of the preserved its science and its “religious foundations”, it
Servicios Psiquiátricos del Ejército Nacional [the psychi- had been able to circumvent the “path to immorality” and
atric services of the rebel army] wrote: the decline of the “genotype”; but, with the appearance
Culture & History Digital Journal 10(1), June 2021, e007. eISSN 2253-797X, doi: https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2021.0074 • Enric J. Novella
of the “impious influence” of “Voltairean and positivist bearers of eternal essences (Marco Merenciano, 1941,
encyclopédistes”, the age-old Hispanic race had been pp. 49-50).5
dragged into a torrent of “ruin and mediocrity” (Vallejo
Nágera, 1938a, pp. 9-10). On this account, Vallejo Nágera In short, the racial, cultural and professional drift
showed great animosity towards “progressive and liber- promoted by the spread of the premises and implications
al intellectuals”, especially towards the “98 cenacle”, to of modern science and technology called for a spiritual
whose “treason and inhibition” he dedicated, also in 1938, rearming that inevitably involved full commitment to
one his most fierce Divagaciones intrascendentes [Trivial the “eternal values” of the Francoist Movement, that
Digressions], (Vallejo Nágera, 1938b, pp. 72-74). is, Catholic fundamentalism and Spanish nationalism
Regarding López Ibor, a lecture given in 1941 in the (Raguer, 2001; Núñez Seixas, 2018, pp. 65-77).6 “As the
framework of a cycle commemorating the centenary of race is immersed in a materialistic, mechanized and in-
the Instituto Médico Valenciano provided an opportunity dustrialized environment—claimed Vallejo Nágera in this
to return to the ideas of his Discurso and to reflect upon regard—, it is bound to perish unless it fights and protects
“the new image of medical doctors and the reform of itself with the powerful dam of religious and patriotic ide-
medical studies” as a “consequence of our war”. Open- als” (Vallejo Nágera, 1938a, p. 14). López Ibor, for his
ly criticizing Ortega, López Ibor vindicated the status of part, and in view of the havoc caused by something so
medicine as a “cultured profession” (as opposed to “mere symbolic and distinctive of “that de-Catholicized West
technique”) and noted that the hegemony of its “Faustian which is not us”, called for cultivating the “autarky of in-
spirit” should by no means be regarded as “eternal and telligence” and the “ecumenical, imperial, and Catholic
imperishable”: Spanish spirit” (López Ibor, 1938, pp. 39, 73, 103). And,
as for Marco Merenciano, his intellectual motto was the
Technique—he claimed—represents in medicine, as in all imperative “re-Christianization” of medicine and science
spheres of man, a supplementary activity, given that there and “the absolute affirmation of our Catholic principles”:
is a scale of values that is above it. When men become “The Catholic spirit has to reborn so that science, which
technicians, they ultimately become barbarians as tech- abandoned it in pursue of a better life, does not die suf-
nique, just like dynamite, is an instrument […] that can focated by merchants and the Jews” (Marco Merenciano,
serve to do good or to do evil (López Ibor, 1941, p. 16). 1941, p. 52).
Certainly, all these strong proclamations fall within
Therefore, and in as much as “weights and measures the doctrinal and institutional crystallization process of
are not enough to understand a patient and approach a dis- what came to be known as National Catholicism (Bur-
ease”, the practice of medicine was one more privileged rieza Sánchez, 2019), which had precisely as one of its
scenario which reflected the “crisis of modern man” (a major aspirations the foundation of a new science embed-
“distressed” being whose “mastery of the cosmos is not ded in the glorious tradition of “Spanish humanism” and
enough to offer a moment of rest”) and which called first
in harmony with the axioms of the Catholic faith (Negró
of all for the urgent promotion of a “correct assessment of
Acedo, 2014). It is well known that this patriotic and
technique” (López Ibor, 1941, pp. 18, 23).
“missionary” view of science, completely detached from
In a much harsher and more direct style, Francis-
the dominant internationalism and secularism of the pre-
co Marco Merenciano gave another lecture at the same
vious decades, initially legitimized the purge carried out
event on “the temporary and the eternal in medical moral-
in academic institutions and the “cleansing” of the Span-
ity”, whose contents were on the exact same lines. In the
ish scientific community when many were severely pun-
first place, Marco Merenciano fully agreed with Vallejo
ished and/or were forced into exile (Otero Carvajal, 2006;
Nágera’s diagnosis in terms of the causes of the “enor-
Claret Miranda, 2006; López Sánchez, 2013). However,
mous crisis” their generation had gone through. “Adrift
in spite of the fact that this ideal gradually lost its original
among other cultures –he claimed– we have inadvertent-
roughness, it undeniably continued to inspire the activity
ly de-Christianized ourselves, and our Catholic, Spanish,
and contributions of some renowned Spanish scientists
and medical being has gradually lost specific weight”
and medical doctors. In the case of the three psychiatrists
(Marco Merenciano, 1941, p. 42). Furthermore, he also
that concern us here, and especially of López Ibor (by
endorsed López Ibor’s words in relation to the role played
far the most erudite and refined of them), the mark of the
by the “Faustian spirit” in the “dehumanization”, the “re-
sentment”, and the “immorality” which in his view were “eternal values” is clear throughout his whole production
embedded in modern medicine: of essays and popularization activities (Espino y Casco,
2006), and also in some of his most famous theoretical
Technology—he said—has sheltered all the sins of our conceptualizations. As Ángel González de Pablo has in-
civilization […]. With technology, medical doctors, men sightfully revealed, concepts such as angustia vital [vital
of science, lose their military and theological-metaphys- anguish] or timopatía ansiosa [anxious thymopathy] can
ical spirit to become industrial and commercial […]. Let hardly be understood without his commitment to a “salva-
us raise our voices against the burden of this so-called tion knowledge” which was much above the mere “mas-
modern science and against barbaric technology. […] tery knowledge” of natural sciences and the futile “culti-
Let us not forget that vitality values are above utility vated knowledge” of philosophical speculation (González
values and that men are at the pinnacle of life, always de Pablo, 2017, 2019, pp. 27-31).7
Culture & History Digital Journal 10(1), June 2021, e007. eISSN 2253-797X, doi: https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2021.007“The Faustian spirit of the technical world”. Mental illness and cultural criticism in Franco’s Spain • 5
In any case, it is important to note that—occasional- Spanish psychiatry on the path to an institutionalization
ly—bold exhortations were accompanied by more or less process that, in spite of enormous limitations, promoted
nuanced epistemological reflections. In this regard, the fo- a series of important developments at the academic, cor-
cus was primarily on the more (easily) questionable pos- porate and care levels (Casco Solís, 1999, pp. 102-114).
tulates of what some liked to label as “progressive posi- However, even though modernity’s technical-scientific
tivism” (Laín Entralgo, 1941, p. 50), and on the support worldview was no longer seen as a factor in the degener-
–already reflected on the pages of Norma– to the holistic ation of the race or as a product inevitably attached to the
and vitalist approaches which had been gaining ground abominable democratic and liberal mentality, psychiatric
in different spheres of knowledge since the first decades essays still often focused on the assumptions and the im-
of the 20th century.8 Vallejo Nágera, for instance, claimed plications of this worldview. The prolific López Ibor was
that the “great error of positivists” had been their willing- the undisputed protagonist throughout this phase. His in-
ness to “exorcise” metaphysics and religious tenets un- tensive work as a publicist and lecturer through the 1950s
der the pretext of breaking with everything that prevented and 1960s meant that his essays on cultural criticism were
“the world escaping from the responsive laws of science”. remarkably disseminated not only among specialists but
Fortunately, there was a “reaction against mechanistic also among the general public.
civilization” which was based on the conviction that “to- In the context of the late 1940s debate on the (rath-
tality comes first” (Vallejo Nágera, 1937, pp. 99-100). er hackneyed) “problem of Spain” between Laín and
In a “Pequeño periplo en torno al concepto de totalidad” Opus Dei philosopher Rafael Calvo Serer (also a former
[Short journey around the concept of totality] (written un- scholarship holder at the Colegio Mayor del Beato Juan
der the pseudonym of “Juan Pablo Marco”) for Jerarquía, de Ribera) (Raja, 2016), López Ibor in 1951 published
the Revista Negra de la Falange [Falange Black Review] El español y su complejo de inferioridad [Spaniards and
published in Pamplona during the Civil War, López Ibor their Inferiority Complex], one of his most famous essays.
claimed that holistic epistemology was a logical answer Based on Alfred Adler’s renowned theory on the genesis
to the “dessication of modern science”, which –after iso- of neurotic behaviour, López Ibor’s thesis was certainly
lating “ provinces of reality” with the “plural dagger” of controversial; in spite of Menéndez Pelayo’s strenuous
its empirical methods– sought in vain to “reconstruct the efforts to prove it otherwise, and of the achievements of
reality of the world and of life through the assemblage some (few) exceptional individuals, Spaniards suffered
of the dessicated provinces” (Marco, 1937, p. 149); for- from a genuine “inferiority complex” in relation to tech-
tunately, however, it had been gradually “discovered that nical-scientific activity and from a tragic “incapacity or
the whole precedes the parts, not just through the course disability to cultivate it”, which sadly kept them out of
of time, but also in its categorical value” (Marco, 1937, the “colossal machinery” operating in most European
p. 150).9 countries (López Ibor, 1954b, pp. 27-34). Somewhat par-
In the case of medicine, it is worth noting here that adoxically, López Ibor intended to actively fight against a
this type of observation seasoned the positive reception “complex” which certainly curtailed the great potential of
given by a large number of Spanish post-war psychiatrists the “Spanish man”, but, on the other hand, he maintained
to the new anthropological current promoted by a prestig- his perception of “Faustian science” and “the evil of tech-
ious group of German internist doctors led by Ludolf von nology” as “one of the central problems of modern man”:
Krehl and Viktor von Weizsäcker (Sarró, 1956; González
de Pablo, 2016, pp. 58-59). According to the enthusiastic The world is now approaching a Cape—he explained—
opinion of Ramón Sarró Burbano, who would later teach and, in its anguish, cannot say if it will be the Cape of
psychiatry at the University of Barcelona, these authors Storms or of Good Hope. The bright times of the ‘En-
had revealed “ the limits of mechanistic natural science” lightenment’ have brought this dark night. The senseless
and the inadequacy of “an exclusively physicochemical and anti-vital primacy of reason has destroyed ethics. […]
substantiation of medicine”, and had thus “definitively” The current super-technical world will be corroded and
opened the doors to “psychological and psychothera- devoured, because evil lies in its soul (López Ibor, 1954b,
peutic thinking” (Sarró, 1940, pp. 10-11). And Marco pp. 109, 47).
Merenciano himself applauded “this emerging modern
conception of medicine”, though he was convinced that It is no coincidence then that at a lecture given in De-
this “totalizing concept” was “ultimately” a “return to a cember 1950 at the Ateneo de Madrid, López Ibor again
Christian conception of man”. “Totality in medicine –he blamed the “process of secularization of thought” for the
concluded– is also Catholicism in medicine” (Marco Mer- “demystification” (Entzauberung) of the modern world
enciano, 1941, p. 52).10 and for two of its most problematic correlates: nihilism
and “the inflation of the ego”. In his view, the life of the
THE PSYCHOPATOLOGY OF THE FAUSTIAN “technical man” (he expressly cited here some of his most
MAN accomplished descriptions such as Ortega’s “mass-man”
and Heidegger’s man) was so “impoverished” from the
As was to be expected, the strengthening of Franco’s spiritual point of view that he was now condemned to
regime after the post-war years tempered the spirit and grope around amidst “the distressing lights of internal
the rhetoric of the most exalted professionals and placed levels” (López Ibor, 1952, pp. 60-61). Significantly, this
Culture & History Digital Journal 10(1), June 2021, e007. eISSN 2253-797X, doi: https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2021.0076 • Enric J. Novella
“swaying towards inwardness”, symbolically embedded Ibor, 1952, p. 75): “We will have to search for a way of
in Rousseau’s figure and work, had not led to vitalize and life which lessens anguish [and which is not] merely based
strengthen individuals with the “truth of feelings”, but it on medicine”, but on “transcendence, directly related to
had rather trapped them in an upward spiral of solipsism Divinity” (López Ibor, 1950, p. 661-662).13
and emotional distress: “closed in on himself, today’s man In a further step, López Ibor could not resist the temp-
has discovered that his self, isolated, lonely, is at the same tation to adopt the opposite strategy in his contributions
time something [...] that threatens to shatter, to break” to cultural criticism, and turned to psychopathology and,
(López Ibor, 1952, p. 75). Therefore, if—as the title of an- more specifically, to the very concept of neurosis. As he
other lecture given in 1952 stated—the analysis of “life- stated in 1964 in an essay on the Rasgos neuróticos del
styles” was essential for a real understanding of the “ways mundo contemporáneo [Neurotic Traits of the Contempo-
of getting sick” (López Ibor, 1954a), cultural criticism of rary World], we were at a point where “we can no longer
the Faustian spirit was little less than essential for the clar- restrict ourselves to stating that the number of neurotic
ification of the (psychopathological) problem of anguish patients has increased; we need to consider that perhaps
as the core symptom of neurosis in contemporary society. society itself has become neurotic” (López Ibor, 1964, p.
In other times, he claimed, neurotic conditions had 9; emphasis in original). Of course, illness in this field
manifested themselves mainly at the level of human re- had to be understood metaphorically and there was no
lations through motility and sensitivity disorders tradi- certainty that more “neuroticizing factors” were currently
tionally associated with hysteria, but the “hypertrophy of operating when compared to the past; but, in his view, the
the self” resulting from the “eagerness for knowledge” remarkable “decrease” in society’s resilience to neurosis
and the “Faustian concupiscence” of modern science and was unquestionable (due to the fact, among other things,
technology (one of whose most conspicuous expressions that “material well-being” provided by technology was
in this field was precisely psychoanalysis) had “inter- turning human beings more “helpless in the face of adver-
nalized” emotional conflicts to such an extent that they sity”), so that it increasingly showed “similar structures
now affected primarily the “nervous system of intima- to those of neurotic patients” (López Ibor, 1966, pp. 612-
cy”: “on the verge of harrowing disintegration, the self, 614). First, the disturbing “proclivity” to anguish and guilt
overwhelmed by conflicts and unbearable situations […] of modern life was patent, but the “defence mechanisms”
disintegrates the functional eurythmic of the vegetative and the collective attitude when facing the “pain of living”
nervous system” (López Ibor, 1952, pp. 84-85).11 also had to be considered as clearly neurotic: death-de-
Against this background, the fact that López Ibor’s nial, excessive preoccupation for the body, commodifica-
most substantial psychiatric contributions –as well as the tion of happiness, retreat to dulcedumbres edipianas (sic)
largest part of his lucrative private professional activity– fo- [Oedipian sweetness], corrosion of authority, etc. (López
cused on this type of conditions does not seem fortuitous. Ibor, 1966, pp. 639-646). In view of all this, it was again
Indeed, both his extensive monograph on La angustia vital necessary to be wary of mere “technical” palliatives (such
(1950) [Vital Anguish] and his important treatise Las neu- as those offered by medicine, psychiatry or psychology),
rosis como enfermedades del ánimo (1965) [Neuroses as devoid of any trace of moral elevation or spiritual great-
Mood Disorders] include numerous references and digres- ness; if nihilism was the “evil of the century”, and if it was
sions on the “historical plasticity” of neurotic conditions a product of the very “flowering of technical progress”,
(López Ibor, 1965, pp. 607-611) and, very specifically, then it was absurd to think that the wounds of modern
on the pervasiveness of “exhaustion and anguish in mod- society could be healed through “technical paradises”
ern life” (López Ibor, 1950, pp. 659-662). In the first of and without invoking “the presence of mystery in life
these works, in which he introduced his famous thesis of and history” (López Ibor, 1964, pp. 29, 48). Ultimately,
the “tymopathic circle” as a pathology of the so-called “vi- modern science not only projected an “outrageously re-
tal layer” of personality,12 López Ibor justified his interest ductive image of man”, it was also essentially incapable
in the subject claiming that “to speak of anguish means of alleviating the growing “depreciation” of the “human
not [only] speaking of a fashionable subject, but of an adventure”. “Never have we known so much about man,”
experience” whose “morbid crystallization” had become he concluded in another essay published in 1965, “but we
much more frequent “as a consequence of modern life” have never been so ignorant about who he is” (López Ibor,
(López Ibor, 1950, p. 14). Thus, his “technical” analysis 1965, pp. 50, 78-79).
of the “aetiologic constellations” of pathological anguish As pointed out before, López Ibor’s ideas had a re-
differed little from the argumentative framework of his markable echo in Spanish intellectual life through the
essays and lectures: “Man had, in other times, a palliative mid-20th century, but his was by no means an isolated
system for anguish constituted by his idea of the world and case among psychological medicine professionals. In
of his own destiny. Society changed, that world of ideas fell fact, interventions and essays with a similar approach
into decline and, against what was expected, that was not were then relatively common in the production of other
decadence but rather a cataclysm” (López Ibor, 1950, p. Spanish psychiatrists, to the point that it cannot be ruled
13). In spite of being well aware of the main innovations out that, beyond expressing ideological affinity (or loyal-
in psychiatric therapy (López Ibor, 1944), the remedy he ty), these contributions responded to a corporate need to
proposed against this “cataclysm” was, again, the “leap of adopt a certain intellectual profile within the framework
faith” that he had started advocating as a young man (López of the cultural and academic life of the time.14 Thus, in
Culture & History Digital Journal 10(1), June 2021, e007. eISSN 2253-797X, doi: https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2021.007“The Faustian spirit of the technical world”. Mental illness and cultural criticism in Franco’s Spain • 7
May 1952, for example, Marco Merenciano did not miss Unlike López Ibor, however, Llavero—a great admir-
an opportunity to lecture on “The human and the demonic er of Central European culture and a fervent promoter of
in technology” in a talk given at the Escuela Industrial “brain repopulation in Spain”—16 did believe in the con-
de Valencia in which, even when he was addressing an certed action of technicians in order to “mitigate the dan-
audience of experts and engineers, he again insisted on ger that threatens our society”, to the extent that he called
the unfortunate fate of technical-scientific civilization: for “theologians, psychiatrists, sociologists and psycholo-
“The splendour of science and technology today co- gists”, guided by “Divine Grace”, to jointly seek “viable
incides with a maximum destitution of the spirit. What formulas and effective measures” to ensure “a better psy-
kind of man is it that holds in his hands all that magic chic integration of the modern man” and protect him from
of modern technology?” (Marco Merenciano, 1958, p. “the growing divide between the cold and calculating ra-
241). Referring to Ortega’s famous “Meditation on tech- tio and the authentic pathos of love”.
nology” (1935),15 Marco Merenciano was convinced that For his part, Rojo published in 1962 an extensive ar-
humanity was walking with a firm step towards “catastro- ticle on the “Psychopathology of society” in the Granada
phe” because—as opposed to “chance” and “craftsmen” journal Actualidad Médica in which, through a seemingly
techniques—“technicians’ technology” no longer aspired dispassionate study of sociological, anthropological and
to give material form to a “life project”, but had become psychoanalytical literature, he posed the possibility that,
an end in itself. Nevertheless, and despite its “intrinsic “being individuals intrinsically healthy”, their psychic
danger”, the growing sophistication of technology was problems could be a consequence of the fact that “the so-
not the main reason for this drift, but rather the diabol- cial environment in which they live is pathological” (Rojo
ical series of historical events and currents of thought Sierra, 1962, p. 468). Based on recent formulations of the
that had “spiritually prepared it”, among which—always concept of mental health such as that by British psycho-
loyal to his ideals—Marco Merenciano highlighted “the analyst James Arthur Hadfield (Hadfield, 1952), Rojo not
Enlightenment, the French Revolution, German idealism only had no doubt that societies could lose their “harmo-
and Marxism” (Marco Merenciano, 1958, p. 241). But the ny,” neglect their “purposes”, and thus become sick just
exceptional circumstances of the Cold War and the on- as individuals do, but he even postulated an aetiology of
going (technological) confrontation between Russia and “patho-sociological conditions” centred on the irruption
“the Americans” called for the interposition of a “spiritual of “cultural crises” vaguely anomic in nature, and estab-
and civilizing axis” which, encouraged by the “Christian lished a nosography of them based on the conventional
conception of history”, would promote a “Catholic bap- clinical distinction between neuroses (“morphosocial”
tism of technology”. And he further argued that “all ef- syndromes) and psychoses (“onto-social” syndromes)
forts in technology, like all efforts in science [...], should (Rojo Sierra, 1962, pp. 561-585).17 In any case, all his ef-
involve helping creation to gain ontological fullness and forts culminated in a totally apocalyptic prediction of the
to reach the day when all things can truly be recapitulated fate of humanity, which, thanks to technology, had man-
in Christ” (Marco Merenciano, 1958, p. 253). aged to “master the secrets of matter”, but had forgotten
With similar bombast, other less-known professionals “its intimate nature”: “Man aspired to be the author and
such as Francisco Llavero Avilés and Miguel Rojo Sierra, organizer of life without the help of God, [...] and now,
who would later become professors of psychiatry at the devoid of a solid basis, he stands in a state of terrible emp-
universities of Salamanca and Valencia, respectively, also tiness [...] and collapses into a cosmic infinity. [...] The
emulated López Ibor’s analysis of the alarming “neuroti- pale horse of death is about to be unleashed” (Rojo Sier-
zation” of contemporary society. In a paper presented at ra, 1962, pp. 586-587; italics in original). Rojo concluded
the VII International Catholic Congress of Psychotherapy that, providentially, “modern psychiatric trends” such as
and Clinical Psychology held in September 1957 in Ma- existential analysis had warned that “only love can heal”
drid, Llavero, for example, described neurosis as one of and were “preparing the human soil so that the seed of
“the evils derived from materialistic conceptions and the good would bear fruit”, thus contributing to the develop-
Faustian deification of modern man”, fatally “uprooted” ment of a “wholly authentic” Christian society (Rojo Si-
and “dissociated” from “three of his original and specific erra, 1962, p. 588; italics in original).
dimensions: nature, loving communication, and faith in As these words reveal, and as Ángel González de Pab-
its broadest sense”: lo has rightly pointed out, the attraction that the works
of Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ludwig Binswanger
Driven by the Faustian spirit of our technified age [...], exerted on Spanish psychiatry along those years should
this distancing displacement from the world of values be understood in the framework of their potential to
and beliefs irremissibly leads to an alternating circle of amend the anthropological foundations of (problematic)
intense desire, saturation and boredom [...] and to an- doctrines such as psychoanalysis and of their conver-
guishing states that cause neurotic psychic imbalances. gence with the values of Christian spirituality (González
[...] When man and society try to radically replace the si- de Pablo, 2016, pp. 69-71). But, beyond their undeniable
lence and individual retreat of temples with the crackling psychopathological interest, it could well be that a further
of the cogwheel and collective anonymity, they will soon reason of their popularity in wide sectors of the profes-
fall into the nets of Faustian deception (Llavero, 1959, pp. sion was, especially in the case of Heidegger, the climate
243-246; italics in original). of affinity with their critique of natural-scientific “reduc-
Culture & History Digital Journal 10(1), June 2021, e007. eISSN 2253-797X, doi: https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2021.0078 • Enric J. Novella
tionism”, the “technification” of existence and the “inau- consumer society, or world capitalism). From this point of
thenticity” of modern life (Sarró, 1958).18 Leaving aside view, the problem was no longer the “Faustian deification”
the more well-known contributions by Luis Martín-San- of the modern man, but rather his profound defenceless-
tos (an author whose ideological and political positions ness in the face of a dense network of economic, political
greatly differed from those of the authors analysed in this and ideological domination in which science played a cru-
article),19 this point of view is reflected, for example, in cial legitimizing and instrumental role. According to an
some studies by the director of the Provincial Asylum of actor involved in the innovative experiences of those years
Murcia and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of and author of a reference work on the discourses of “Fran-
Valencia Román Alberca Lorente, who in a course held coist” psychiatry, it was precisely “bourgeois capitalist
in 1960 in Santander was grateful to “existential philoso- society” itself that was “sick in its social and economic
phy” for having kept medicine away from its “atomizing structure and in its historical conditioning factors”, to the
objectivism” and for finding the deep roots of anguish in point that it was “unquestionably alienating and disturb-
the contemporary world: ing for the psychic equilibrium of individuals” (González
Duro, 1978, pp. 278, 294). And, from this point of view,
Medicine, by dint of being objective and scientific, has psychiatry, medicine, and science as a whole could not
neglected immense parts of the totality that man is; in a but reveal their true face as devices and technologies of
way, it has objectified man, […] making him lose the best social control:
of his human quality. […] Today’s man is fleeing from
himself and is living in tremendous anguish, in essence, The psychiatrization of society’s problems is nothing but
because he has lost his confidence in the future […] per- a technocratic ideology to cover up in an aseptic and sci-
haps because he has lost the confidence to rise above our entistic way the injustices and contradictions of a world
extreme situation and reach Transcendence (Alberca Lor- divided into antagonistic blocks, into rich and poor coun-
ente, 1961, pp. 394, 409). tries, into ruling and dominated classes, and to justify
the supposed ineffectiveness of any social or economic
change (González Duro, 1978, p. 295).
THE BASIS OF ALIENATION
Quite logically, and as pointed out by Ramón García,
Inevitably, the important transformations experienced another prominent figure of the psychiatric dissidence
in the political, social and intellectual climate in Spain in the final years of the dictatorship (Comelles, 1986), it
throughout the 1960s (Di Febo and Juliá, 2012, pp. 81- was virtually impossible to transform psychiatric institu-
111) had an impact in the field of psychiatric discourses tions in an emancipatory sense without a “radically crit-
and practices. Thus, the new mental health rhetoric from ical attitude towards what science has done in terms of
the English speaking world began to permeate the doc- the mentally ill” and without seeing in “technology” the
trinal production of many Spanish psychiatrists (Novella “body of knowledge and practical means that defends—
and Campos, 2017), while, on the other hand, authors with separates, distances and at the same time reassures—ex-
links to the health administration carried out a series of clusion” (García, Serós and Torrent, 1972, pp. 11, 16; ital-
initiatives in the domain of training and the structure and ics in original). “The technical-scientific process” —he
management of care institutions (Novella, 2019; Simón argued in a lecture given in March 1972 at the Autono-
Lorda, 2020). In a context marked by “developmental- mous University of Barcelona—constituted the “basis of
ism” and technocratic authoritarianism, it was logical that alienation” insofar as it actively and (crypto-)normatively
warnings about the (alleged) evils of the technical-sci- intervened “in the shaping and maintenance” of the “con-
entific worldview of modernity would no longer have a ditions of existence” prescribed by the “social structure”:
significant place among the concerns of the already de- “Science [...] is a force of production, it is a driving force
clining conservative psychiatric essay writing tradition20. for growth [...]; at the same time it is an ideological force
But clearly, the most striking aspect of this process was at the service of the system and, as such, it hides the con-
that after a few years cultural criticism witnessed a rad- tradiction [...] in favour of an order that in practice enables
ical change in ideological terms, and the socio-political [...] uninterrupted material growth” (García, 1979, p. 62).
questioning of science and technology became part of the These approaches undoubtedly need to be seen in
approaches of some progressives sectors of psychiatry the context of the criticisms of “bourgeois” science and
through late Francoism and the Transition period. technocracy posed by the “Situationist International” and
Thus, and just as fast as the regime that emerged from other counter-cultural movements of the late 1960s and
the Civil War entered its “terminal crisis” (Di Febo and early 1970s (Roszak, 1970, pp. 15-56; Echeverría, 1989,
Juliá, 2012, pp. 113-135), the question of the “sick soci- pp. 224-234).21 However, and as we have attempted to
ety” (and, within it, the assumptions and implications of show throughout this article, they were also articulated
modern science) was no longer present within the frame- (rather inadvertently and not without paradox) within a
work of a discursive strategy that vindicated the “values” rich, protean and versatile intellectual tradition. Certainly,
of tradition (in the face of the “dangers” of civilization) and as far as the historical period studied is concerned,
and became a springboard for the criticism and contes- it is by no means a minor shift that what had begun with
tation of the political and social order (be it Francoism, the (psycho) pathologization of the political adversary
Culture & History Digital Journal 10(1), June 2021, e007. eISSN 2253-797X, doi: https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2021.007“The Faustian spirit of the technical world”. Mental illness and cultural criticism in Franco’s Spain • 9
(highest exponent of the impious culture and the hybris 7 This distinction also comes from Max Scheler (Die Formen des
of “Faustian” science), now closed with a new recogni- Wissens und die Bildung, 1925), and was early on assumed
by López Ibor with a clear programmatic intention: “Mastery
tion of the mentally ill as a political subject (emblematic knowledge [...] is the knowledge of the Faustian man. Cultivated
victim of the alienation and exclusion caused by the cap- knowledge would be that of Renaissance man in its first phase,
italist “system” and its science). But it is also necessary when he cultivated his own spirit through the Humanities. Salva-
to recognize that, argued in one way or another, the “set tion knowledge is different and more profound. [ ...] It is heroic
of problems” posed by social and cultural modernization knowledge, the truest and most authentic knowledge, because any
other kind is degraded knowledge, an accident or appendix in life
seems to constitute an invariant of the singular approach since it does not provide it with meaning and does not raise it to a
to madness and psychic suffering embodied by psycho- more worthy plane” (López Ibor, 1938, pp. 151-152).
logical medicine. 8 These include Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt
Koffka’s Gestalt theory, Constantin von Monakow and Kurt
Goldstein’s holistic neurology, and Jakob von Uexküll and
Hans Driesch’s environmentalist biology, as well as Viktor von
Weizsäcker’s psychosomatic medicine. See in this regard the re-
NOTES markable book by Anne Harrington (1996).
9 López Ibor returned to these questions in a series of studies, an
1 In his particular Descargo de conciencia (1976) [Disclaimer of essay originally published in Arbor (1951) and later compiled
conscience], Laín evoked his contributions to Norma in these in El descubrimiento de la intimidad (1952) [The Discovery of
terms: “If I were to make the exceptions demanded by the mental Intimacy] on “La idea del hombre en la biología moderna” [The
and literary immaturity of my poor creations, I would still sub- idea of man in modern biology] being worth highlighting here. As
scribe much of it today […]. A large part, however, seems to me he explained, the importance of von Uexküll’s environmentalist
petulant and wrong. […] I now find this reversal of my balance biology (Umweltlehre), for example, lay in the fact that it had
excessive and naive or ineptly informed by the ‘right-wing schol- enabled questioning the “dangerous” Darwinist theses “based on
biology itself”, thus offering an example of how Christian sci-
ar’ still in me in those days.” (Laín Entralgo, 1976, p. 136). In
entists should proceed: “The mission of a Catholic scholar is to
this regard, it is fair to point out that, even when he remained
fight on the very front of scientific progress, since his rearguard is
firm in his conviction of the need to overcome positivism and to
well covered” (López Ibor, 1952, p. 190; italics in original). In a
promote—especially in the case of medicine—an epistemology
lecture given in 1952 at the Ateneo de Zaragoza, López Ibor even
focused on meaning and values, Laín soon abandoned this no- stated that “Darwinism was to biology what Marxism was to so-
tion of “Catholic science”. On Norma and the evolution of Laín’s ciology” (and psychoanalysis to the field of psychology), namely,
thought in this regard, see Gracia (2010, pp. 180-181, 461-462). a doctrine “superseded from the intellectual point of view” whose
2 Throughout this article, I use the concept of cultural criticism in a “conceptual bases are either false or insufficient” (López Ibor,
broad sense, i.e. within the highly influential tradition of critical 1954a, pp. 7, 9, 12).
reflection on the problematic nature of culture and modern civili- 10 Although he had already abandoned his early dedication to psy-
zation consistently cultivated by the European intelligentsia since chological medicine, it is necessary to remember here Laín’s very
the late 18th century. Among the (extremely vast) bibliography important role in the dissemination of Weizsäcker’s ideas during
available, and to name just a few titles, see Bollenbeck (2005), the 1940s and 1950s (Laín Entralgo, 1958). It seems that Laín
Konersmann (2008) or Ebert (2009). was initially motivated by the anatomist, neurologist, psychiatrist
3 López Ibor, who in 1932 had obtained the Chair of Legal Medicine and neurosurgeon Juan José Barcia Goyanes, who—after reading
and Toxicology at the University of Santiago de Compostela by his first article in Norma—invited him to teach a summer course
competitive examination, held the position in Valencia until 22th on “Anthropological medicine” which could not take place due to
March 1937, given that the holder of the Chair, Juan Bautista Pe- the outbreak of the Civil War. On Weizsäcker’s notable influence
set Aleixandre, had been elected Deputy. On 15th March 1938, on Laín’s work, see Gracia (2010, pp. 184-192, 369-371, 474-
now in the Franco-held area, he was reinstated in the system and 476).
two years later he was temporarily appointed Chair of Psychia- 11 At this point, it is interesting to note that Lopez Ibor also for-
try at the University of Madrid, a position he held until Vallejo mulated a very similar interpretation of the historical roots of
Nágera replaced him in 1942 (Mancebo, 1994, pp. 388-389; Gó- schizophrenia as a condition closely linked to the “internal rup-
mez-Santos, 2007, pp. 35-54). ture of modern man”. Just as through anguish, “the lifestyle of a
4 The Decline of the West (1918-1923), Spengler’s monumental contemporary mind that, having lost its faith in the clear light of
essay on the (inevitable) fate of the “Faustian civilization”, was reason, begins to obscure its vision of the world with the panora-
translated into Spanish by Manuel García Morente and published mas of internal chaos” would be expressed through it. Ultimate-
(with a prologue by Ortega) in four volumes between 1923 and ly, schizophrenia would be –like “the new artistic manifestations
1932. As Raúl Morodo (1985, p. 115) and José-Carlos Mainer of abstract painting and surrealism”– a consequence of modern
(2013, pp. 26, 51) have pointed out, this work was widely read man’s desperate attempts to “find again his vital source in pure
in the Falangist and Catholic circles in which López Ibor was subjectivity, which, when it wants to show itself so pure, even-
then active. tually gets sick” (López Ibor, 1954a, pp. 34-35). On the link be-
5 A great connoisseur of Max Scheler’s work (“the finest spirit since tween schizophrenia and the artistic avant-garde see Sass (2014)
Nietzsche to be found in Germany”), Marco Merenciano made and Novella (2018, pp. 106-124).
“resentment” the main axis of his essay production; in fact, this 12 López Ibor based himself fundamentally on Ortega’s famous
concept is at the root of his critique of the “bourgeois, capitalist, essay “Vitality, Soul, and Spirit” (1925), on Max Scheler (in this
democratic, liberal and Protestant spirit” (Marco Merenciano, case, through the work by German psychiatrist Kurt Schneider),
1941, p. 52), of his psychopathology of Marxism, and of his own and on German psychologist Philipp Lersch (whose Structure of
conception of mental hygiene (Marco Merenciano, 1958, pp. 97- Personality, with a prologue by Ramón Sarró, was widely read in
99). See Campos and Novella in this regard (2017, pp. 74-75). Spain in the 1950s and 1960s), to develop a “tectonic” conception
6 In a booklet published in Burgos in 1938, Vallejo Nágera ex- personality according to which it is constituted vertically through
plained the primum movens of the National Movement in the fol- a series of “layers or provinces” to which the different phenomena
lowing terms: “The Movement has a popular spiritual origin, [...] and types of psychic illness can be attributed. As opposed to the
and emerged from the desire of the true Spanish people to recover soul and spiritual layers, the vital layer (also called “endotymic
their universal values, hampered by Marxist materialism” (Valle- background”) involved what the classics defined as the “entrails
jo Nágera 1938c, p. 11). of the soul”, that is, the vegetative and emotional phenomena
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