Erewhon Revisited, A Psychoparable

Abstract

In the year 2072, 200 years after Erewhon was visited by Samuel Butler, a delegation from 1980 materialized through the time portal. The party revisiting this famous but mysterious country were, as it happens, particularly interested in the treatment of mental patients. They were welcomed as honored guests and referred to the Minister of Mental Health, Dr. Graham, a gentleman of indeterminate age, with gray hair, a rather erect and athletic bearing, and a presence that was at once humble and arresting. In his modest office, which was ten by fourteen feet and contained a small desk and several simple but very tasteful paintings, was a plaque that announced¹ “Psychiatry is the practice of neurology without physical signs.”

And was Jerusalem builded here, among these dark Satanic mills? —William Blake