Inkblots, or The Subjective Nature of the Game

Images of inkblots blink in and out on www.whoisstraka.com.  The images are interspersed with images containing words and numbers and the letter "S."  I thought it would be short wagtail and take a few minutes before I could drop it and pick back up on the Lovecraft thread.

Turns out the images are from the original set developed by Rorschach as a diagnostic tool. Card II (could these be the drifting twins?):

Klecksography was used by Justinus Kerner, a poet and medical writer and he was probably the first person to really use the technique extensively.  In 1857, he published Klesksographien, a book of his poetry and inkblot art. 

Inkblots next appear in a children's book by Albert Bigelow Paine and Ruth McEnery Stuart, Gobolinks(1896).  In,Gobolinks, the inkblots are a game.

"TO OLD FRIENDS WITH YOUNG HEARTS AND YOUNG HEARTS GROWING OLD.

Dear Friends of our youth, should you happen to look

At the curious things in this curious book,

And should you, with quizzical countenance, ask

The how and the why of our curious task—

We could truly replyTo the query of "why—"

To the smile on your lip, and your questioning eye,

That the work was begun

In a spirit of fun,

To amuse when the work of the daylight was done;

And continued, because we believed it would be

Amusement to such as were weary as we

To drift for awhile among goblins and elves,

Or haply make shadows and rhymes for themselves.

For though years have passed since we drifted apart,

We're all of us more or less children at heart.

And maybe yourselves and the youngsters 't will please

To dwell for an hour with such creatures as these.

Now, some one has said, in a moment of spleen,

We cannot make pictures of what we've not seen;

But such an assertion deserves only scorn,

For the shape of the Gobolink never was born.

He comes like the marvelous mimes of our dreams,

When one has been supping on salads and creams,

And curious changes of vision take place—

The horse may appear with an elephant face—

The goat with a cane, and the goose with a hat—

Six legs on the dog, and two tails on the cat;

We never can tell, though we're sorely perplexed,

What shape will be shown us, or what will come next;

And these are the things that our Gobolinks do—

Dear friends, and dear children, we give them to you.

The French pyschologist, Alfred Binet had used inkblots to test creativity.  The inkblots as a diagnostic tool are the invention of Hermann Rorschach, who developed the test as a diagnostic tool for schizophrenia.  He had never intended the test to be used for personality testing, but the use began in 1939 and peaked in the 1960's.  Even google used the blots to celebrate Rorschach's 129th birthday.  Unfortunately Rorschach died young at 37, probably of a ruptured appendix.  The test he developed gained so much traction in the mid-20th century, it became a familiar pop-culture reference. 

As an aside, Eugen Bleuler who was very well respected in the field of psychiatry, had both Carl Jung and Hermann Rorschach as students. 

So I leave you with the some goofiness from bygone days:

(8/3/14 edited for grammar and tags added)