Refitting Fantasy: Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity, and Talking to the Dead

This essay works toward an integration of psychoanalysis and rhetorical theory in response to the poststructural critique of mediation. I argue that the concept of communication, usually understood as the mediation or reconciliation of Self and Other, is based on what Lacan termed the “fundamental fantasy.” Distinct from the conscious fantasies usually analyzed by rhetorical critics, the fundamental fantasy is an underlying psychical structure that channels desire, usually a subject’s desire for the Other’s desire. I argue that conscious fantasies yield a sense of agency, but only as iterations of this more fundamental fantasy thriving in the unconscious. To illustrate this psychoanalytic understanding of fantasy and subjectivity, I examine the rhetoric of John Edward, a popular television psychic and medium who persuades people that he can talk to the dead.