Nietzsche, Freud and Tony De Mello

Keith passed an interesting remark while commenting on the Masters of Suspicion: it is well known that Freud had learned a lot from Nietzsche. It seems Freud said he had to stop reading Nietzsche, who seemed to be saying everything that Freud himself wanted to say, otherwise he would have nothing original left to say.

I thought of the novel I have been trying to read on Nietzsche and Freud: the impression I was getting was that Tony De Mello himself had taken a lot from Nietzsche. In the book, for example, Nietzsche says: No one really loves anyone else. All love is disguised self-interest. I remember Tony saying something like that. Might not be completely and absolutely true, but it does make one think, reflect, ask oneself about one's motives: why do I love this person? what am I getting out of it?

Aquinas' cogitativa, Freud's superego, and Lonergan

Lonergan never ceases to amaze. See, for example, this appropriation of Aquinas' (now little known) cogitativa:

“Incidentally, re anxiety, what the Freudians call the Super-Ego is Aquinas’ cogitativa: just as the little birds know that twigs are good for building nests and the little lambs know that wolves are bad, so little human beings develop a cogitativa about good and bad; it reflects their childish understanding of what papa and mamma say is good or bad and in adult life it can cause a hell of a lot of trouble” (quoted from the 13th of 129 written communications of Lonergan to Crowe, some as short as Christmas cards, some several pages long. This letter is dated 27th December 1955.)(From P. McShane, SURF 4: The Financial Crisis, note 57)