First however, we have more to learn about the sejunction hypothesis and how to use it to understand other clinical phenomena that we observe every day among so-called old cases. This primarily involves correction of the contents of consciousness in the aftermath of mental disturbance—or retrospective explanatory delusions [Ed]. We see this process taking place, always in the same manner, during recovery, or at the beginning of a chronic mental illness, or finally in acute mental illnesses that have reached a chronic stage. The modified contents of consciousness must be reconciled, according to our prevailing notions of causality, with old, as-yet unchanged domains. The more that discernment can be regained or has been retained during chronic psychoses, the more mental activity takes place according to strict standards of logic, and the more imperative it is to restore some semblance of order in structures brought into disarray by illness. Normally, in a complex brain mechanism, there should not exist the remotest corner that is in discord with all other parts, and which does not function under their influence. An example will best illustrate this process. You will remember the patient, a Doctor of Philosophy, whose explanatory delusion was built on teachings about suggestion and hypnotism. This patient had already survived an episode of mental illness 8 years earlier, but had recovered from it to the extent that, for many years, he had full insight into the symptoms of his acute illness. When I met him recently during a new episode, to my great surprise I found a remarkable development that his insight into his illness was lost, so the patient now asserted that the basic symptoms of his first illness, namely phonemes, had not been the result of an illness, but of the effects of hypnosis induced by some adversary. However, he had accurate recall of the fact that for many years he had regarded his auditory hallucinations as signs of an illness; but now he noted quite correctly that such a conceivable insight into his illness could be explained as effects of suggestion. You will see from this example the ease with which judgments, which, for many years, he regarded as having ‘made his own’ [Ed], as hard-won products of complex thought processes, could be overturned by a supposedly new insight, itself aberrant. Nevertheless, if, as I do not doubt, we should regard this process not as aberrant in itself but only as a reaction of a normally functioning brain mechanism when challenged by a material change, you will not be surprised that often, a patient’s limited knowledge of the physical basis of most mental illnesses is overwhelmed by the testimony of their senses as they experience hallucinations, such that assumptions about supernatural effects, subterranean tunnels, hollow walls, and the like, used to explain alien, subjective perceptions, lose the outlandish and grotesque character they might have in the judgment of those same persons when they are in good health. Often, previous knowledge might have stood in the way of resolving a problem, for instance when belief in the principle of conservation of energy constrains acceptance of ‘perpetual motion’ [Ed]. Here, however, such knowledge is modified in such a way that the obstacle no longer applies, and can then explain many of the craziest inventions and discoveries.