76. Ibid.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid. (emphasis added).
79. Ibid., p. 33.
80. To be more precise, Lacan is using the term Wirklichkeitin two ways: (a) as “the whole
of what effectively happens,” everyday reality, which undoubtedly “happens,” together
with the Real-of-the-Symbolic; (b) the Real-of-the-Symbolic as that which normally
happens without being identified in reality. I will henceforth use Wirklichkeitin this sec-
ond, narrower sense.
81 .Le séminaire livre IV,p. 32.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., p. 33.
84. Ibid., pp.32‒33.
85. Ibid., p. 33.
86. Ibid., p. 46.
87. Ibid., p. 45.
88. Ibid., p. 44.
89. Ibid.
90. Ibid., p. 43.
91. Ibid., p. 46.
92. My inference is supported by the fact that Lacan adds that this “uncultivated character”
may end up thinking that “it is perhaps the sprite of the current who plays tricks... and
transforms the water into light” (ibid). This image cannot help reminding the reader of
Schreber’s trickster God.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid. (emphasis added).
95. See ibid. Lacan also hints that the power station can be built only—the Holy Spirit can
intervene only—if “the matter that will come into play when the machine comes on al-
ready presents itself in nature in a privileged manner, or to tell you everything, in a sig-
nifying manner” (ibid., p. 44 ): here I refer the reader to Section 3 of Chapter 3 above,
and my discussion of the phallic Gestaltas something which is already in nature, as well
as to the discussion in Chapter 1 of the “privilege” that a disadapted Imaginary is for hu-
mans. For the way in which each subject develops from being “an uncultivated charac-
ter” to becoming an “engineer” of the power plant (Lacan’s own words), the reader
should refer to my treatment of the Oedipus complex in Chapter 3.
96. Seminar VI, lesson of May 13 , 1959.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.notes to pages 126–132