The Delilah Complex

The second book in the Butterfield Institute series, 2006

To my wonderful agent and dear friend,

Loretta Barrett.

Delilah, n. The name of the woman who betrayed Samson to the Philistines, used allusively to mean a temptress or treacherous paramour.

“And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head;…and his strength went from him.” (Judges 16:19)

complex, n.psychol. A group of emotionally charged ideas or mental factors, unconsciously associated by the individual with a particular subject, arising from repressed instincts, fears, or desires and often resulting in mental abnormality; freq. with defining word prefixed, as inferiority complex, dipus complex, etc.; hence colloq., in vague use, a fixed mental tendency or obsession. Also attrib. and comb.

The use of the term was established by C. G. Jung in 1907 (Ueber die Psychologie der Dementia Praecox), but it originated with Neisser in 1906 (Individualität und Psychose).

’Tis not in the high stars alone,

Nor in the cups of budding flowers,

Nor in the redbreast‘s mellow tone,

Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,

But in the mud and scum of things

There always, always something sings.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson