dependent on a material support than the notion of libido.”^87 But what about the
material support of the unconscious power plant? According to Lacan, the primi-
tive Stoffis definitely not interesting for psychoanalysis insofar as the Real as energy
necessarily involves a symbolic operation—“energy comes into play only when
you measure it”^88 —but is the current of the river, matter per se,some-thing? Is Lacan
here already considering the presymbolic Real as an “undead,” a “not-One,” or is
he granting it some kind of minimal consistency, as he will contradictorily do in
Seminar VII? He is rather evasive on this point: I think it is impossible to give a de-
finitive answer. However, when the audience pressures him to elucidate further
what seemed to be an omission in his account of the concept of potential energy,
Lacan comes up with another definition of the Real which should focus “on that
which is there at first,”^89 before the symbolic functioning has started. While it does
not clarify the status of the presymbolic Real—the Real (or the undead) from its
own standpoint—this new explanatory detour allows us to identify a “third per-
spective”^90 on the Real: the Real as that which is there at first, before the Symbolic
starts to function, from the standpoint of the Symbolicitself. Here we are at the level
of the power plant afterit has been constructed but beforeit has been put to work
(before it starts to produce energy, to have Wirkungen). This Real is nothing but the
Es,the unconscious as it is in itself, says Lacan. I suggest that we are dealing here
with the level of the letter, of “pure” signifiers. My supposition is confirmed by the
way in which Lacan further develops his simile: “What is the Es? What does the in-
troduction of the notion of the power plant allow us to compare it with?... With
the power plant itself... as it presents itself to somebody who does not know any-
thing about the way in which it functions”;^91 even though Lacan does not spell it
out, the latter subject may be identified with the psychotic subject.^92 He then ac-
counts for this comparison by reminding us that “the Esis not a raw reality,” since
it “is already organized, articulated, like... the signifier.”^93 We should finally ob-
serve that this apparently trivial definition of the unconscious is, ultimately, what
obliges Lacan to openly contradict what he had said a few minutes before: the Es
“is notsimply what is there at first”^94 (hence we are left to assume that there issome-
thing else which “is there at first,” and that Lacan parried his students’ question
about the precise status of the primordial Stoff.. .).
To recapitulate: the example of the power plant allows Lacan to distinguish
four different kinds of Real: ( 1 ) the primordial Stoff,which is not of interest for
psychoanalysis and whose status cannot be specified more precisely; ( 2 ) the Real-
of-the-Symbolic, the symbolic Wirklichkeit,which is the main concern of psycho-
analysis and should be understood in energetic, nonmaterial terms; ( 3 ) the
Real-of-language, the letter, which, strictly speaking, is not the same as the Real-
of-the-Symbolic; ( 4 ) everyday reality, which is itself the domain of a series of very
“effective” (perhaps the most effective) Wirkungen.At this stage, one might well ob-there is no other of the other