PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

DR. C. G. JUNG

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

ffi

PSYCHOLOGY OF

THE UNCONSCIOUS

A Study of the Transformations

and Symbolisms of the Libido

A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought

BY

DR. C. G. JUNG

Of the University of Zurich

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION, WITH INTRODUCTION, BY

BEATRICE M. HINKLE, M.D.

Of the Neurological Department of Cornell University Medical

School and of the New York Post Graduate Medical School

COLL. CHRISTI REGIS 8.J.

BIB. MAJOR

JOBONTO

MOFFAT, YAR'D AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

1916

Copyright, 1916, by

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

All rights reserved

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

THAT humanity is seeking a new message, a new light

upon the meaning of life, and something tangible, as it

were, with which it can work towards a larger under-

standing of itself and its relation to the universe, is a

fact I think none will gainsay. Therefore, it has

seemed to me particularly timely to introduce to the Eng-

lish-speaking world Dr. Jung's remarkable book, " Wand-

lungen und Symbole der Libido." In this work he has

plunged boldly into the treacherous sea of mythology and

folklore, the productions of the ancient mind and that of

the common people, and turned upon this vast material

the same scientific and painstaking method of psychologic

analysis that is applied to the modern mind, in order to

reveal the common bond of desire and longing which

unites all humanity, and thus bridge the gaps presumed

to exist between ancient and widely separated peoples and

those of our modern time. The discovery of this under-

current affecting and influencing ancient peoples as well

as modern serves as a foundation or platform from which

he proceeds to hold aloft a new ideal, a new goal of

attainment possible of achievement and which can be in-

tellectually satisfying, as well as emotionally appealing:

the goal of moral autonomy.

This book, remarkable for its erudition and the tre-

mendous labor expended upon it, as well as for the new

vi TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

light which it sheds upon human life, its motives, its

needs and its possibilities, is not one for desultory read-

ing or superficial examination. Such an approach will

prevent the reader from gaining anything of its real

value ; but for those who can bring a serious interest and

willingness to give a careful study to it the work will

prove to be a veritable mine capable of yielding the

greatest riches.

The difficulties in translating a book such as this are

almost insuperable, but I have tried faithfully to express

Dr. Jung's thought, keeping as close to the original text

as possible and, at the same time, rendering the difficult

material and complicated German phrasing as simply and

clearly as the subject-matter would allow. In all this

work I owe much to Miss Helen I. Brayton, without

whose faithful assistance the work would never have been

completed. I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to Mr.

Louis Untermeyer, whose help in rendering the poetic

quotations into English verse has been invaluable, and to

express as well my gratitude to other friends who have

assisted me in various ways from time to time.

B. M. H.

NEW YORK, 1915.

AN INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOANALYSIS

AND ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY

WHEN Professor Freud of Vienna made his early

discoveries in the realm of the neuroses, and announced

that the basis and origin of the various symptoms

grouped under the terms hysteria and neuroses lay in

unfulfilled desires and wishes, unexpressed and unknown

to the patient for the most part, and concerned chiefly

with the sexual instinct, it was not realized what far-

reaching influence this unpopular and bitterly attacked

theory would exert on the understanding of human life

in general.

For this theory has so widened in its scope that its

application has now extended beyond a particular group

of pathologic states. It has in fact led to a new evalua-

tion of the whole conduct of human life; a new compre-

hension has developed which explains those things which

formerly were unexplained, and there is offered an

understanding not only of the symptoms of a neurosis

and the phenomena of conduct but the product of the

mind as expressed in myths and religions.

This amazing growth has proceeded steadily in an

ever-widening fashion despite opposition as violent as

any of which we have knowledge in the past. The criti-

cism originally directed towards the little understood and

vii

viii INTRODUCTION

much disliked sexual conception now includes the further

teachings of a psychology which by the application to it

of such damning phrases as mystical, metaphysical and

sacrilegious, is condemned as unscientific.

To add to the general confusion and misundertanding

surrounding this new school of thought there has arisen

a division amongst the leaders themselves, so that there

now exist two schools led respectively by Professor

Sigmund Freud of Vienna and Dr. Carl Jung of Zurich,

referred to in the literature as the Vienna School and

the Zurich School.

It is very easy to understand that criticism and opposi-

tion should develop against a psychology so difficult of

comprehension, and so disturbing to the ideas which have

been held by humanity for ages; a psychology which

furthermore requires a special technique as well as an

observer trained to recognize and appreciate in psycho-

logic phenomena a verification of the statement that

there is no such thing as chance, and that every act and

every expression has its own meaning, determined by the

inner feelings and wishes of the individual.

It is not a simple matter to come out boldly and state

that every individual is to a large extent the determiner

of his own destiny, for only by poets and philosophers

has this idea been put forth not by science; and it is a

brave act to make this statement with full consciousness

of all its meaning, and to stand ready to prove it by

scientific reasoning and procedure.

Developed entirely through empirical investigation and

through an analysis of individual cases, Freudian psy-

INTRODUCTION - ix

chology seems particularly to belong to that conception

of Max Miiller's that u An empirical acquaintance with

facts rises to a scientific knowledge of facts as soon as

the mind discovers beneath the multiplicity of single

productions the unity of an organic system." *

Psychoanalysis is the name given to the method de-

veloped for reaching down into the hidden depths of the

individual to bring to light the underlying motives and

determinants of his symptoms and attitudes, and to reveal

the unconscious tendencies which lie behind actions and

reactions and which influence development and determine

the relations of life itself. The result of digging down

into the hidden psyche has been to produce a mass of

material from below the threshold of consciousness, so

astonishing and disturbing and out of relation with the

previously held values, as to arouse in any one unfamiliar

with the process the strongest antagonism and criticism.

Although originally studied only as a therapeutic

method for the sick it was soon realized through an

analysis of normal people how slight were the differences

in the content of the unconscious of the sick and of the

normal. The differences observed were seen to be rather

in the reactions to life and to the conflicts produced by

contending forces in the individual.

These conflicts, usually not fully perceived by the in-

dividual, and having to do with objectionable desires and

wishes that are not in keeping with the conscious idea of

self, produce marked effects which are expressed either

in certain opinions, prejudices, attitudes of conduct,

* " Science of Language," first series, p. 25.

x INTRODUCTION

faulty actions, or in some definite pathologic symptom.

As Dr. Jung says, he who remains healthy has to struggle

with the same complexes that cause the neurotic to fall ill.

In a valuable book called " The Neighbor," written

by the late Professor N. Shaler of Harvard University,

there occurs this very far-reaching statement: "It is

hardly too much to say that all the important errors of

conduct, all the burdens of men or of societies are caused

by the inadequacies in the association of the primal animal

emotions with those mental powers which have been so

rapidly developed in mankind."

This statement, reached by a process of reasoning

and a method of thought and study entirely different

from psychoanalysis, nevertheless so completely ex-

presses in brief form the very basis of the postulates

developed through psychoanalysis that I quote it here.

Such a statement made in the course of a general exam-

ination of human relations does not arouse opposition nor

seem to be so difficult of acceptance. It appears to be

the individual application of these conceptions that has

roused such bitter antagonism and violent denuncia-

tions.

Rightly understood and used, psychoanalysis may be

compared to surgery, for psychoanalysis stands in the

same relation to the personality as surgery does to the

body, and they aim at parallel results.

It is well recognized that in the last analysis nature is

the real physician, the healer of wounds ; but prior to the

development of our modern asepsis and surgical technique

the healing produced by nature was most often of a very

INTRODUCTION xi

faulty and imperfect type hideous scars, distorted and

crippled limbs, with functions impaired or incapacitated,

resulted from the wounds, or else nature was unable to

cope with the hurt and the injured one succumbed.

Science has been steadily working for centuries with

the aim of understanding nature and finding means to

aid and co-operate with her so that healing could take

place with the least possible loss of function or permanent

injury to the individual. Marvelous results have re-

warded these persistent efforts, as the brilliant achieve-

ments of surgery plainly indicate.

Meantime, however, little thought was given to the

possibility of any scientific method being available to help

man overcome the wounds and conflicts taking place in

his soul, hurts which retarded his development and prog-

ress as a personality, and which frequently in the struggle

resulted in physical pains and symptoms of the most

varied character. That was left solely to religion and

metaphysics. Now, however, this same assistance that

surgery has given to the physical body, psychoanalysis

attempts to give to the personality. That it cannot

always succeed is as much to be expected, and more,

than that surgery does not always succeed, for the

analytic work requires much of the individual. No

real result can be attained if he has not already

developed a certain quality of character and intelli-

gence which makes it possible for him to submit

himself to a facing of his naked soul, and to the pain and

suffering which this often entails. Here, as in no other

relation in life, an absolute truth and an absolute honesty

xii INTRODUCTION

are the only basis of action, since deception of any kind

deceives no one but the individual himself and acts as a

boomerang, defeating his own aims.

Such deep searching and penetrating into the soul is

not something to be undertaken lightly nor to be con-

sidered a trivial or simple matter, and the fact is that

where a strong compulsion is lacking, such as sickness

or a situation too difficult to meet, much courage is

required to undertake it.

In order to understand this psychology which is per-

vading all realms of thought and seems destined to be a

new psychological-philosophical system for the under-

standing and practical advancement of human life, it will

be necessary to go somewhat into detail regarding its

development and present status. For in this new direc-

tion lies its greatest value and its greatest danger.

The beginnings of this work were first published in

1895 ' m a book entitled " Studien iiber Hysteric," and

contained the joint investigations into hysteria of Dr.

Breuer of Vienna and his pupil Dr. Sigmund Freud. The

results of their investigations seemed to show that the

various symptoms grouped under the title of hysteria

were the result of emotionally colored reminiscences

which, all unknown to the conscious waking self, were

really actively expressing themselves through the surro-

gate form of symptoms and that these experiences, al-

though forgotten by the patient, could be reproduced

and the emotional content discharged.

Hypnosis was the means used to enable the physician

to penetrate deeply into the forgotten memories, for it

INTRODUCTION xiii

was found through hypnosis that these lost incidents and

circumstances were not really lost at all but only dropped

from consciousness, and were capable of being revived

when given the proper stimuli. The astonishing part

about it was that with the revival of these memories and

their accompanying painful and disturbing emotions, the

symptoms disappeared. This led naturally to the con-

clusion that these symptoms were dependent upon some

emotional disturbance or psychic trauma which had been

inadequately expressed, and that in order to cure the

patient one merely had to establish the connection be-

tween the memory and the emotions which properly

belonged to it, letting the emotion work itself out through

a reproduction of the forgotten scene.

With further investigation Freud found that hypnosis

was unnecessary for the revival of the forgotten experi-

ences, and that it was possible to obtain the lost emotional

material in the conscious and normal state. For this

purpose the patient was encouraged to assume a passive,

non-critical attitude and simply let his thoughts flow,

speaking of whatever came into his mind, holding nothing

back. During this free and easy discussion of his life

and conditions, directed by the law of association of

ideas, reference was invariably made to the experiences

or thoughts which were the most affective and disturbing

elements. It was seen to be quite impossible to avoid

this indirect revelation because of the strength of the

emotions surrounding these ideas and the effect of the

conscious wish to repress unpleasant feelings. This im-

portant group of ideas or impressions, with the feelings

xiv INTRODUCTION

and emotions clustered around them which are betrayed

through this process, was called by Jung a complex.

However, with the touching of the complex which

always contains feelings and emotions so painful or un-

pleasant as to be unacceptable to consciousness, and which

are therefore repressed and hidden, great difficulties ap-

peared, for very often the patient came to a sudden stop

and could apparently recall nothing more. Memory

gaps were frequent, relations twisted, etc. Evidently

some force banished these memories so that the person

was quite honest in saying that he could remember noth-

ing or that there was nothing to tell. This kind of for-

getfulness was called repression, and is the normal

mechanism by which nature protects the individual from

such painful feelings as are caused by unpleasant and un-

acceptable experiences and thoughts, the recognition of

his egoistic nature, and the often quite unbearable con-

flict of his weaknesses with his feelings of idealism.

At this early time great attention was given towards

developing a technique which would render more easy

the reproduction of these forgotten memories, for with

the abandonment of hypnosis it was seen that some un-

known active force was at work which not only banished

painful memories and feelings, but also prevented their

return; this was called resistance. This resistance

was found to be the important mechanism which inter-

fered with a free flow of thought and produced the

greatest difficulty in the further conduct of the analysis.

It appeared under various guises and frequently mani-

fested itself in intellectual objections based on reasoning

INTRODUCTION xv

ground, in criticism directed towards the analyst, or in

criticism of the method itself, and finally, often in a com-

plete blocking of expression, so that until the resistance

was broken nothing more could be produced.

It was necessary then to find some aid by which these

resistances could be overcome and the repressed memories

and feelings revived and set free. For it was proven

again and again that even though the person was not at

all aware of concealing within himself some emotionally

disturbing feeling or experience with which his symptoms

were associated, yet such was the fact, and that under

proper conditions this material could be brought into

consciousness. This realm where these unknown but dis-

turbing emotions were hidden was called the " Uncon-

scious " the " Unconscious " also being a name used

arbitrarily to indicate all that material of which the per-

son is not aware at the given time the not-conscious.

This term is used very loosely in Freudian psychology

and is not intended to provoke any academic discussion

but to conform strictly to the dictionary classification of

a " negative concept which can neither be described nor

defined." To say that an idea or feeling is unconscious

merely means to indicate that the individual is unaware

at that time of its existence, or that all the material of

which he is unaware at a given time is unconscious.

With the discovery of the significance in relation to

hysteria of these varied experiences and forgotten mem-

ories which always led into the erotic realm and usually

were carried far back into early childhood, the theory of

an infantile sexual trauma as a cause of this neurosis de-

xvi INTRODUCTION

veloped. Contrary to the usual belief that children have

no sexuality and that only at puberty does it suddenly

arise, it was definitely shown that there was a very marked

kind of sexuality among children of the most tender years,

entirely instinctive and capable of producing a grave effect

on the entire later life.

However, further investigations carried into the lives

of normal people disclosed quite as many psychic and

sexual traumas in their early childhood as in the lives of

the patients; therefore, the conception of the " infantile

sexual trauma " as the etiological factor was abandoned

in favor of " the infantilism of sexuality " itself. In

other words, it was soon realized that many of the sexual

traumas which were placed in their early childhood by

these patients, did not really exist except in their own

phantasies and probably were produced as a defence

against the memories of their own childish sexual activ-

ities. These experiences led to a deep investigation into

the nature of the child's sexuality and developed the

ideas which Freud incorporated in a work called " Three

Contributions to the Sexual Theory." He found so

many variations and manifestations of sexual activity

even among young children that he realized that this

activity was the normal, although entirely unconscious,

expression of the child's developing life, and while not

comparable to the adult sexuality, nevertheless pro-

duced a very definite influence and effect on the child's

life.

These childish expressions of this instinct he called

" polymorphous perverse," because in many ways they

INTRODUCTION xvii

resembled the various abnormalities called perversions

when found among adults under certain conditions.

In the light of these additional investigations Freud

was led to change his formulation, for instead of the

symptoms of the neurotic patient being due to definite

sexual experiences, they seemed to be determined by

his reactions towards his own sexual constitution and

the kind of repression to which these instincts were

subjected.

Perhaps one of the greatest sources of misunderstand-

ing and difficulty in this whole subject lies in the term

sexuality, for Freud's conception of this is entirely dif-

ferent from that of the popular sense. He conceives

sexuality to be practically synonymous with the word

love and to include under this term all those tender

feelings and emotions which have had their origin in a

primitive erotic source, even if now their primary aim is

entirely lost and another substituted for it. It must also

be borne in mind that Freud strictly emphasizes the

psychic side of sexuality and its importance, as well as

the somatic expression.

Therefore, to understand Freud's theories, his very

broad conception of the term sexual must never be for-

gotten.

Through this careful investigation of the psychic life

of the individual, the tremendous influence and impor-

tance of phantasy-making for the fate was definitely

shown. It was discovered that the indulgence in day-

dreams and phantasies was practically universal not only

among children but among adults, that even whole lives

xviii INTRODUCTION

were being lived out in a phantastic world created by the

dreamer, a world wherein he could fulfil all those wishes

and desires which were found to be too difficult or im-

possible to satisfy in the world of reality.

Much of this phantasy thinking was seen to be scarcely

conscious, but arose from unrealized wishes, desires and

strivings which could only express themselves through

.veiled symbols in the form of phantastic structures not

understood, nor fully recognized. Indeed, it is perhaps

one of the most common human experiences to find

" queer thoughts/' undesired ideas and images, forcing

themselves upon one's attention to such an extent that

the will has to be employed to push them out of mind.

It is not unusual to discover long-forgotten impressions

of childhood assuming a phantastic shape in memory, and

dwelt upon as though they were still of importance.

This material afforded a rich field for the searchers

into the soul, for through the operation of the law of

association of ideas these phantastic products, traced back

to their origin, revealed the fact that instead of being

meaningless or foolish, they were produced by a definite

process, and arose from distinct wishes and desires which

unconsciously veiled themselves in these mysterious forms

and pictures.

It is conceded that the most completely unconscious

product of an individual is his dream, and therefore Pro-

fessor Freud turned his attention from phantasies and

day-dreams to the investigation of the nightly dreams of

his patients to discover whether they would throw light

upon the painful feelings and ideas repressed out of

INTRODUCTION xix

consciousness, and therefore inaccessible to direct revela-

tion.

This brilliant idea soon led to a rich fruiting, for it

became evident that contrary to the usual conception that

the dream is a phantastic and absurd jumble of hetero-

geneous fragments, having no real relation to the life of

the individual, it is full of meaning. In fact, it is usually

concerned with the problem of life most pressing at the

time, which expresses itself not directly, but in symbolic

form so as to be unrecognized. In this way the individual

gains an expression and fulfilment of his unrealized wish

or desire.

This discovery of the symbolic nature of the dream

and the phantasy was brought about entirely through the

associative method and developed empirically through

investigations of the dreams of many people. In this

manner it became evident that certain ideas and objects

which recurred again and again in the dreams and phan-

tasies of different people were definitely associated with

certain unconscious or unrecognized wishes and desires,

and were repeatedly used by the mind to express these

meanings where a direct form was repressed and un-

allowed. Thus certain dream expressions and figures

were in a general way considered to be rather definite

symbols of these repressed ideas and feelings found in

the unconscious. Through a comparative and parallel

study it soon appeared that there was a similiar mechan-

ism at work in myths and fairy tales and that the rela-

tionship between the dreams and phantasies of an individ-

ual and the myths and folk tales of a people was so close

xx INTRODUCTION

that Abraham could say that the myth is a fragment

of the infantile soul life of the race and the dream is

the myth of the individual.

Thus through relating his dreams the patient himself

furnished the most important means of gaining access to

the unconscious and disturbing complexes with which his

symptoms were connected.

Besides the dream analysis the patient furnished other

means of revelation of his complexes his mannerisms

and unconscious acts, his opening remarks to his physician,

his emotional reactions to certain ideas ; in short the whole

behavior and verbal expressions of the individual reveal

his inner nature and problems.

Through all this work it became clear that in the

emotional nature lay the origin not only of the various

nervous illnesses themselves, but also of the isolated

symptoms and individual idiosyncrasies and peculiarities

which are the part of all humanity and that the patho-

genic cause of the disturbances lies not in the ignorance

of individuals, but in those inner resistances which are the

underlying basis of this ignorance.

Therefore the aim of the therapy became not merely

the relief of the ignorance but the searching out and com-

bating of these resistances.

It becomes evident from even this brief description

of the analytic procedure that we are dealing with a very

complex and delicate material, and with a technique which

needs to make definite use of all influences available for

the help of the patient. It has long been recognized

that the relation established between physician and pa-

INTRODUCTION xxi

tient has a great effect upon the medical assistance which

he is able to render in other words, if a confidence and

personal regard developed in the patient towards the

physician, the latter's advice was just so much more

efficacious. This personal feeling has been frankly recog-

nized and made of distinct service in psychoanalytic treat-

ment under the name of transference. It is through

the aid of this definite relationship which must be

established in the one being analyzed towards the analyst

that it is possible to deal with the unconscious and

organized resistances which so easily blind the individual

and render the acceptance of the new valuations very

difficult to the raw and sensitive soul.

Freud's emphasis upon the role of the sexual instinct

in the production of the neurosis and also in its determin-

ing power upon the personality of the normal individual

does not imply that he does not also recognize other

determinants at the root of human conduct, as for

instance, the instinct for preservation of life and the ego

principle itself. But these motives are not so violently

forbidden and repressed as the sexual impulse, and there-

fore, because of that repressive force and the strength

of the impulse he considers this primary in its influence

upon the human being.

The importance of this instinct upon human life is

clearly revealed by the great place given to it under the

name of love in art, literature, poetry, romance and all

beauty from the beginning of recorded time. Viewed in

this light it cannot seem extraordinary that a difficulty

or disturbance in this emotional field should produce such

xxii INTRODUCTION

far-reaching consequences for the individual. The sexual

impulse is often compared with that of hunger, and this

craving and need lying in all humanity is called by Freud

libido.

THE OEDIPUS PROBLEM

With further investigations into the nature of the

repressed complexes a very astonishing situation was

revealed. The parental influence on children is some-

thing so well recognized and understood that to call at-

tention to it sounds much like a banality. However, here

an extraordinary discovery was made, for in tracing out

the feelings and emotions of adults it became evident

that this influence was paramount not only for children

but for adults as well; that the entire direction of lives

was largely determined quite unconsciously by the pa-

rental associations, and that, although adults, the emo-

tional side of their nature was still infantile in type and

demanded unconsciously the infantile or childish rela-

tions.

Freud traces out the commencement of the infantile

attachment for the parents in this wise.

In the beginning the child derives its first satisfaction

and pleasure from the mother in the form of nutrition

and care for its wants. In this first act of suckling Freud

sees already a kind of sexual pleasure, for he apparently

identifies the pleasure principle and the sexual instinct

and considers that the former is primarily rooted in the

latter. At this early time commence such various infan-

tile actions unconnected with nutrition as thumbsucking,

INTRODUCTION xxiii

various movements of the body as rubbing, boring,

pulling and other manifestations of a definite interest in

its own body, a delight in nakedness, the pleasure ex-

hibited in inflicting pain on some object and its opposite,

the pleasure from receiving pain. All of these afford the

child pleasure and satisfaction, and because they seem

analogous to certain perversions in adults they are called

by Freud the " polymorphous perverse sexuality " of

childhood. The character of these instinctive actions

which have nothing to do with any other person, and

through which the child attains pleasure from its own

body, caused Freud to term this phase of life as auto-

erotic after Havelock Ellis. However, with the growth

of the child there is a parallel development of the psychic

elements of its sexual nature and now the mother, the

original object of its love, primarily determined by its

helplessness and need, acquires a new valuation. The

beginnings of the need for a love object to satisfy the

craving or libido of the child are early in evidence and,

following along sex lines in general, the little son prefers

the mother and the daughter the father after the usual

preference of the parents.

At this early time children feel deeply the enormous

importance of their parents and their entire world is

bounded by the family circle. All the elements of the

ego which the child possesses have now become manifest;

love, jealousy, curiosity, hate, etc., and those instincts

are directed in the greatest degree towards the objects

of their libido, namely the parents. With the growing

ego of the child there is a development of strong wishes

xxiv INTRODUCTION

and desires demanding satisfaction which can only be

gratified by the mother; therefore there is aroused in

the small son the feeling of jealousy and anger towards

the father in whom he sees a rival for the affection of

the mother and whom he would like to replace. This

desire in the soul of the child Freud calls the Oedipus

complex in recognition of its analogy to the tragedy

of King Oedipus who was drawn by his fate to kill his

father and win his mother for a wife. Freud presents

this as the nuclear complex of every neurosis.

At the basis of this complex, some trace of which can

be found in every person, Freud sees a definite incest wish

towards the mother which only lacks the quality of con-

sciousness. Because of moral reactions this wish is

quickly subjected to repression through the operation of

the " incest barrier," a postulate he compares to the incest

taboo found among inferior peoples. At this time the

child is beginning to develop its typical sexual curiosity

expressed by the question, " Where do I come from?"

The interest and investigation of the child into this prob-

lem, aided by observations and deductions from various

actions and attitudes of the parents, who have no idea

of the watchfulness of the child, lead him, because of his

imperfect knowledge and immature development, into

many false theories and ideas of, birth. These infantile

sexual theories are held by Freud to be determinative in

the development of the child's character and also for the

contents of the unconscious as expressed in a future

neurosis.

These various reactions of the child and his sexual curi-

INTRODUCTION xxv

osity are entirely normal and unavoidable, and if his

development proceeds in an orderly fashion then, at the

time of definite object choice he will pass smoothly over

from the limitations of the family attachment out into

the world and find therein his independent existence.

However, if the libido remains fixed on the first chosen

object so that the growing individual is unable to tear

himself loose from these familial ties, then the incestuous

bond is deepened with the developing sexual instinct and

its accompanying need of a love object, and the entire

future of the young personality endangered. For with

the development of the incestuous bond the natural re-

pressions deepen because the moral censor cannot allow

these disturbing relations to become clear to the individ-

ual. Therefore, the whole matter is repressed more

deeply into the unconscious, and even a feeling of posi-

tive enmity and repulsion towards the parents is often

developed in order to conceal and over-compensate for

the impossible situation actually present.

This persistence of the attachment of the libido to the

original object, and the inability to find in this a suitable

satisfaction for the adult need, interferes with the normal

development of the psycho-sexual character, and it is due

to this that the adult retains that " infantilism of sexual-

ity " which plays so great a role in determining the in-

stability of the emotional life which so frequently leads

into the definite neuroses.

These were the conclusions reached and the ground on

which Freudian psychology rested, regarding the etiology

xxvi INTRODUCTION

of the neurosis, and the tendencies underlying normal

human mechanisms, when Dr. Carl Jung, the most promi-

nent of Freud's disciples, and the leader of the Zurich

scho'ol, found himself no longer able to agree with

Freud's findings in certain particulars, although the

phenomena which Freud observed and the technique of

psychoanalysis developed by Freud were the material on

which Jung worked and the value of which he clearly

emphasizes. The differences which have developed lay

in his understanding and interpretation of the phenomena

observed.

Beginning with the conception of libido itself as a

term used to connote sexual hunger and craving, albeit

the meaning of the word sexual was extended by Freud

to embrace a much wider significance than common usage

has assigned it, Jung was unable to confine himself to

this limitation. He conceived this longing, this urge. or

push of life as something extending beyond sexuality even

in its wider sense. He saw in the term libido a concept

of unknown nature, comparable to Bergson's elan vital,

a hypothetical energy of life, which occupies itself not

only in sexuality but in various physiological and psycho-

logical manifestations such as growth, development,

hunger, and all the human activities and interests. This

cosmic energy or urge manifested in the human being he

calls libido and compares it with the energy of physics.

Although recognizing, in common with Freud as well as

with many others, the primal instinct of reproduction as

the basis of many functions and present-day activities of

mankind no longer sexual in character he repudiates the

INTRODUCTION xxvii

idea of still calling them sexual, even though their de-

velopment was a growth originally out of the sexual.

Sexuality and its various manifestations Jung sees as most

important channels occupied by libido, but not the ex-

clusive ones through which libido flows.

This is an energic concept of life ; and from this view-

point this hypothetical energy of life or libido is a living

power used instinctively by man in all the automatic

processes of his functioning; such very processes being

but different manifestations of this energy. By virtue

of its quality of mobility and change man, through his

understanding and intelligence, has the power consciously

to direct and use his libido in definite and desired ways.

In this conception of Jung will be seen an analogy to

Bergson, who speaks of " this change, this movement and

becoming, this self-creation, call it what you will, as the

very stuff and reality of our being." *

In developing the energic conception of libido and

separating it from Freud's sexual definition, Jung makes

possible the explanation of interest in general, and pro-

vides a working concept by which not only the specifically

sexual, but the general activities and reactions of man can

be understood.

If a person complains of no longer having interest in

his work or of losing interest in his surroundings, then one

understands that his libido is withdrawn from this object

and that in consequence the object itself seems no longer

attractive, whereas, as a matter of fact, the object itself

is exactly the same as formerly. In other words, it is

* " Creative Evolution."

xxviii INTRODUCTION

the libido that we bestow upon an object that makes it

attractive and interesting.

The causes for the withdrawal of libido may be various

and are usually quite different from those that the persons

offer in explanation. It is the task of psychoanalysis to

discover the real reasons, which are usually hidden and

unknown. On the other hand, when an individual ex-

hibits an exaggerated interest or places an over-emphasis

upon an idea or situation, then we know there is too much

libido here and that we may find as a consequence a corre-

sponding depletion elsewhere.

This leads directly into the second point of difference

between Jung's views and those of Freud. This is con-

cerned with those practically universal childish mani-

festations of sexuality called by Freud " polymorphous

perverse " because of their similarity to those abnormal-

ities of sexuality which occur in adults and are called

perversions.

Jung takes exception to this viewpoint. He sees in the

various manifestations of childhood the precursors or

forerunners of the later fully developed sexuality, and

instead of considering them perverse he considers them

preliminary expressions of sexual coloring. He divides

human life into three stages. The first stage up to about

the third or fourth year, generally speaking, he calls the

presexual stage, for there he sees the libido or life

energy occupied chiefly in the functions of nutrition and

growth, and he draws an analogy between this period and

that of the caterpillar stage of the butterfly.

The second stage includes the years from this time

INTRODUCTION xxix

until puberty, and this he speaks of as the prepubertal

stage.

The third period is that from puberty onward and can

be considered the time of maturity.

It is in the earliest stage, the period of which varies

greatly in different individuals, that are fully inaugurated

those various manifestations which have so marked a

sexual coloring that there can be no question of their

relationship, although at that time sexuality in the adult

meaning of the word does not exist.

Jung explains the polymorphism of these phenomena

as arising from a gradual movement of the libido from

exclusive service in the function of nutrition into new

avenues which successively open up with the development

of the child until the final inauguration of the sexual func-

tion proper at puberty. Normally these childish bad

habits are gradually relinquished until the libido is en-

tirely withdrawn from these immature phases and with

the ushering in of puberty for the first time " appears in

the form of an undifferentiated sexual primitive power,

clearly forcing the individual towards division, budding,

etc."

However, if in the course of its movement from the

function of nutrition to the sexual function the libido is

arrested or retarded at any phase, then a fixation may

result, creating a disturbance in the harmony of the

normal development. For, although the libido is re-

tarded and remains clinging to some childish manifesta-

tion, time goes on and the physical growth of the child

does not stand still. Soon a great contrast is created

xxx INTRODUCTION

between the infantile manifestations of the emotional

life and the needs of the more adult individual, and the

foundation is thus prepared for either the development

of a definite neurosis or else for those weaknesses of

character or symptomatic disturbances which are not

sufficiently serious to be called a neurosis.

One of the most active and important forms of childish

libido occupation is in phantasy making. The child's

world is one of imagery and make-believe where he can

create for himself that satisfaction and enjoyment which

the world of reality so often denies. As the child grows

and real demands of life are made upon him it becomes

increasingly necessary that his libido be taken away from

his phantastic world and used for the required adaptation

to reality needed by his age and condition, until finally

for the adult the freedom of the whole libido is necessary

to meet the biological and cultural demands of life.

Instead of thus employing the libido in the real world,

however, certain people never relinquish the seeking for

satisfaction in the shadowy world of phantasy and even

though they make certain attempts at adaptation they

are halted and discouraged by every difficulty and ob-

stacle in the path of life and are easily pulled back into

their inner psychic world. This condition is called a

state of introversion. It is concerned with the past and

the reminiscences which belong thereto. Situations and

experiences which should have been completed and fin-

ished long ago are still dwelt upon and lived with.

Images and matters which were once important but which

normally have no significance for their later age are still

INTRODUCTION xxxi

actively influencing their present lives. The nature and

character of these phantasy products are legion, and are

easily recognized in the emotional attitudes and preten-

sions, the childish illusions and exaggerations, the preju-

dices and inconsistencies which people express in mani-

fold forms. The actual situation is inadequately faced;

small matters are reacted towards in an exaggerated

manner; or else a frivolous attitude is maintained where

real seriousness is demanded. In other words, there is

clearly manifested an inadequate psychic adaptation to-

wards reality which is quite to be expected from the

child, but which is very discordant in the adult.

The most important o.f these past influences is that of

the parents. Because they are the first objects of the

developing childish love, and afford the first satisfaction

and pleasure to the child, they become the models for all

succeeding efforts, as Freud has worked out. This he

called the nuclear or root complex because this influence

was so powerful it seemed to be the determining factor

in all later difficulties in the life of the individual.

In this phase of the problem lies the third great dif-

ference between Jung's interpretation of the observed

phenomena and that of Freud.

Jung definitely recognizes that there are many neurotic

persons who clearly exhibited in their childhood the same

neurotic tendencies that are later exaggerated. Also that

an almost overwhelming effect on the destiny of these

children is exercised by the influence of the parents, the

frequent over-anxiety or tenderness, the lack of sympathy

or understanding, in other words, the complexes of the

xxxii INTRODUCTION

parent reacting upon the child and producing in him love,

admiration, fear, distrust, hate, revolt. The greater the

sensitiveness and impressionability of the child, the more

he will be stamped with the familial environment, and

the more he will unconsciously seek to find again in the

world of reality the model of his own small world with

all the pleasures and satisfactions, or disappointments

and unhappinesses with which it was filled.

This condition to be sure is not a recognized or a

conscious one, for the individual may think himself per-

fectly free from this past influence because he is living in

the real world, and because actually there is a great dif-

ference between the present conditions and that of his

childish past. He sees all this, intellectually, but there is

a wide gap between the intellectual grasp of a situation

and the emotional development, and it is the latter

realm wherein lies the disharmony. However, although

many ideas and feelings are connected with the parents,

analysis reveals very often that they are only subjective

and that in reality they bear little resemblance to the actual

past situation. Therefore, Jung speaks no longer of the

real father and mother but uses the term imago or image

to represent the father or mother, because the feelings

and phantasies frequently do not deal with the real

parents but with the distorted and subjective image

created by the imagination of the individual.

Following this distinction Jung sees in the Oedipus

complex of Freud only a symbol for the " childish de-

sire towards the parents and for the conflict which this

craving evokes," and cannot accept the theory that in this

INTRODUCTION xxxiii

early stage of childhood the mother has any real sexual

significance for the child.

The demands of the child upon the mother, the

jealousy so often exhibited, are at first connected with

the role of the mother as protector, caretaker and sup-

plier of nutritive wants, and only later, with the germinat-

ing eroticism, does the child's love become admixed with

the developing sexual quality. The chief love objects are

still the parents and he naturally continues to seek and

to find in them satisfaction for all his desires. In this

way the typical conflict is developed which in the son is

directed towards the father and in the daughter towards

the mother. This jealousy of the daughter towards the

mother is called the Electra complex from the myth of

Electra who took revenge on her mother for the murder

of the husband because she was in this way deprived of

her father.

Normally as puberty is attained the child gradually

becomes more or less freed from his parents, and upon

the degree in which this is accomplished depends his

health and future well-being.

This demand of nature upon the young individual to

free himself from the bonds of his childish dependency

and to find in the world of reality his independent exist-

ence is so imperious and dominating that it frequently

produces in the child the greatest struggles and severest

conflicts, the period being characterized symbolically as a

self -sacrifice by Jung.

It frequently happens that the young person is so

closely bound in the family relations that it is only with

xxxiv INTRODUCTION

the greatest difficulty that he can attain any measure of

freedom and then only very imperfectly, so that the libido

sexualis can only express itself in certain feelings and

phantasies which clearly reveal the existence of the com-

plex until then entirely hidden and unrealized. Now

commences the secondary struggle against the unfilial and

immoral feelings with a consequent development of

intense resistances expressing themselves in irritation,

anger, revolt and antagonism against the parents, or else

in an especially tender, submissive and yielding attitude

which over-compensates for the rebellion and reaction

held within.

This struggle and conflict gives rise to the unconscious

phantasy of self-sacrifice which really means the sacri-

ficing of the childish tendencies and love type in order to

free libido; for his nature demands that he attain the

capacity for the accomplishment of his own personal

fulfilment, the satisfaction of which belongs to the de-

veloped man and woman.

This conception has been worked out in detail by

Jung in the book which is herein presented to English

readers.

We now come to the most important of Jung's con-

ceptions in that it bears practically upon the treatment

of certain types of the neuroses and stands theoretically

in direct opposition to Freud's hypothesis. While recog-

nizing fully the influence of the parents and of the sexual

constitution of the child, Jung refuses to see in this in-

fantile past the real cause for the later development of

the illness. He definitely places the cause of the patho-

INTRODUCTION xxxv

genie conflict in the present moment and considers that in

seeking for the cause in the distant past one is only fol-

lowing the desire of the patient, which is to withdraw

himself as much as possible from the present important

period.

The conflict is produced by some important task or

duty which is essential biologically and practically for the

fulfilment of the ego of the individual, but before which

an obstacle arises from which he shrinks, and thus halted

cannot go on. With this interference in the path of

progression libido is stored up and a regression takes

place whereby there occurs a reanimation of past ways

of libido occupation which were entirely normal to the

child, but which for the adult are no longer of value.

These regressive infantile desires and phantasies now

alive and striving for satisfaction are converted into

symptoms, and in these surrogate forms obtain a certain

gratification, thus creating the external manifestations of

the neurosis. Therefore Jung does not ask from what

psychic experience or point of fixation in childhood the

patient is suffering, but what is the present duty or task

he is avoiding, or what obstacle in his life's path he is

unable to overcome ? What is the cause of his regression

to past psychic experiences?

Following this theory Jung expresses the view that the

elaborate phantasies and dreams produced by these pa-

tients arc really forms of compensation or artificial sub-

stitutes for the unfulfilled adaptation to reality. The

sexual content of these phantasies and dreams is only

apparently and not actually expressive of a real sexual

xxxvi INTRODUCTION

desire or incest wish, but is a regressive employment of

sexual forms to symbolically express a present-day need

when the attainment of the present ego demand seems

too difficult or impossible, and no adaptation is made to

what is possible for the individual's capability.*

With this statement Jung throws a new light on the

work of analytic psychology and on the conception of

the neurotic symptoms, and renders possible of under-

standing the many apparent incongruities and conflicting

observations which have been so disturbing to the critics.

It now becomes proper to ask what has been estab-

lished by all this mass of investigation into the soul, and

what is its value not only as a therapeutic measure for

the neurotic sufferer, but also for the normal human

being?

First and perhaps most important is the recognition of

a definite psychological determinism. Instead of human

life being filled with foolish, meaningless or purposeless

actions, errors and thoughts, it can be demonstrated that

no expression or manifestation of the psyche, however

trifling or inconsistent in appearance, is really lawless or

unmotivated. Only a possession of the technique is neces-

sary in order to reveal, to any one desirous of knowing,

the existence of the unconscious determinants of his man-

nerisms, trivial expressions, acts and behavior, their

purpose and significance.

*For a more complete presentation of Jung's views consult his

" Theory of Psychoanalysis " in the Nervous and Mental Disease Mono-

graph Series, No. 19.

INTRODUCTION xxxvii

This leads into the second fundamental conception,

which is perhaps even less considered than the foregoing,

and that is the relative value of the conscious mind and

thought. It is the general attitude of people to judge

themselves by their surface motives, to satisfy themselves

by saying or thinking " this is what I want to do or say "

or " I intended to do thus and so," but somehow what

one thought, one intended to say or expected to do is very

often the contrary of what actually is said or done.

Every one has had these experiences when the gap be-

tween the conscious thought and action was gross enough

to be observed. It is also a well known experience to

consciously desire something very much and when it is

obtained to discover that this in no wise satisfied or

lessened the desire, which was then transferred to some

other object. Thus one became cognizant of the fact

that the feeling and idea presented by consciousness as

the desire was an error. What is the difficulty in these

conditions? Evidently some other directing force than

that of which we are aware is at work.

Dr. G. Stanley Hall uses a very striking symbol when

he compares the mind to an iceberg floating in the ocean

with one-eighth visible above the water and seven-eighths

below the one-eighth above being that part called con-

scious and the seven-eighths below that which we call the

unconscious. The influence and controlling power of the

unconscious desires over our thoughts and acts are in this

relative proportion. Faint glimmers of other motives

and interests than those we accept or which we believe,

often flit into consciousness. These indications, if studied

xxxviii INTRODUCTION

or valued accurately, would lead to the realization that

consciousness is but a single stage and but one form of

expression of mind. Therefore its dictum is but one,

often untrustworthy, approach to the great question as

to what is man's actual psychic accomplishment, and as

to what in particular is the actual soul development of

the individual.

A further contribution of equal importance has been

the empiric development of a dynamic theory of life ; the

conception that life is in a state of flux movement lead-

ing either to construction or destruction. Through the

development man has reached he has attained the power

by means of his intelligence and understanding of defi-

nitely directing to a certain extent this life energy or

libido into avenues which serve his interest and bring a

real satisfaction for the present day.

When man through ignorance and certain inherent

tendencies fails to recognize his needs or his power to

fulfil them, or to adapt himself to the conditions of reality

of the present time, there is then produced that reanima-

tion of infantile paths by which an attempt is made to

gain fulfilment or satisfaction through the production of

symptoms or attitudes.

The acceptance of these statements demands the recog-

nition of the existence of an infantile sexuality and the

large part played by it in the later life of the individual.

Because of the power and imperious influence exerted by

the parents upon the child, and because of the unconscious

attachment of his libido to the original object, the mother, i

and the perseverance of this first love model in the

INTRODUCTION xxxix

psyche, he finds it very difficult, on reaching the stage

of adult development and the time for seeking a love

object outside of the family, to gain a satisfactory model.

It is exceedingly important for parents and teachers

to recognize the requirements of nature, which, beginning

with puberty, imperiously demand of the young indi-

vidual a separation of himself from the parent stem and

the development of an independent existence. In our

complex modern civilization this demand of nature is

difficult enough of achievement for the child who has the

heartiest and most intelligent co-operation of his parents

and environment but for the one who has not only to

contend with his own inner struggle for his freedom

but has in addition the resistance of his parents who

would hold him in his childhood at any cost, because they

cannot endure the thought of his separation from them,

the task becomes one of the greatest magnitude. It is

during this period when the struggle between the childish

inertia and nature's urge becomes so keen, that there occur

the striking manifestations of jealousy, criticism, irritabil-

ity all usually directed against the parents, of defiance

of parental authority, of runaways and various other

psychic and nervous disorders known to all.

This struggle, which is the first great task of mankind

and the one which requires the greatest effort, is that

which is expressed by Jung as the self-sacrifice motive

the sacrifice of the childish feelings and demands, and of

the irresponsibility of this period, and the assumption of

the duties and tasks of an individual existence.

It is this great theme which Jung sees as the real

xl INTRODUCTION

motive lying hidden in the myths and religions of man

from the beginning, as well as in the literature and

artistic creations of both ancient and modern time,

and which he works out with the greatest wealth of

detail and painstaking effort in the book herewith pre-

sented.

This necessitates a recognition and revaluation of the

enormous importance and influence of the ego and the

sexual instinct upon the thought and reaction of man,

and also predicates a displacement of the psychological

point of gravity from the will and intellect to the realm

of the emotions and feelings. The desired end is a

synthesis of these two paths or the use of the intellect

constructively in the service of the emotions in order to

gain for the best interest of the individual some sort of

co-operative reaction between the two.

No one dealing with analytic psychology can fail to

be struck by the tremendous and unnecessary burdens

which man has placed upon himself, and how greatly

he has increased the difficulties of adaptation by his rigid

intellectual .views and moral formulas, and by his inability

to admit to himself that he is actually just a human being

imperfect, and containing within himself all manner of

tendencies, good and bad, all striving for some satisfac-

tory goal. Further, that the refusal to see himself in

this light instead of as an ideal person in no way alters

the actual condition, and that in fact, through the cheap

pretense of being able only to consider himself as a very

virtuous person, or as shocked and hurt when observing

the " sins " of others, he actually is prevented from de-

INTRODUCTION xli

veloping his own character and bringing his own capac-

ities to their fullest expressions.

There is frequently expressed among people the idea

of how fortunate it is that we cannot see each other's

thoughts, and how disturbing it would be if our real

feelings could be read. But what is so shameful in these

secrets of the soul? They are in reality our own egoistic

desires all striving, longing, wishing for satisfaction, for

happiness; those desires which instinctively crave their

own gratification but which can only be really fulfilled by

adapting them to the real world and to the social group.

Why is it that it is so painful for man to admit that

the prime influence in all human endeavor is found in the

ego itself, in its desires, wishes, needs and satisfactions,

in short, in its need for self-expression and self-perpetua-

tion, the evolutionary impetus in life?

The basis for the unpleasantness of this idea may per-

haps be found in an inner resistance in nature itself which

forces man to include others in his scheme, lest his own

greedy desires should serve to destroy him. But even

with this inner demand and all the ethical and moral

teachings of centuries it is everywhere evident that man

has only very imperfectly learned that it is to his own

interest to consider his neighbor and that it is impossible

for him to ignore the needs of the body social of which

he is a part. Externally, the recognition of the strength

of the ego impulse is objectionable because of the ideal

conception that self-striving and so-called selfish seeking

are unworthy, ignoble and incompatible with a desirable

character and must be ignored at all cost.

xlii INTRODUCTION

The futility of this attitude is to be clearly seen in the

failure after all these centuries to even approximate it,

as evidenced in our human relations and institutions, and

is quite as ineffectual in this realm as in that of sexuality

where the effort to overcome this imperious domination

has been attempted by lowering the instinct, and seeing

in it something vile or unclean, something unspeakable

and unholy. Instead of destroying the power of sexuality

this struggle has only warped and distorted, injured and

mutilated the expression; for not without destruction of

the individual can these fundamental instincts be de-

stroyed. Life itself has needs and imperiously demands

expression through the forms created. All nature

answers to this freely and simply except man. His fail-

ure to recognize himself as an instrument through which

the life energy is coursing and the demands of which

must be obeyed, is the cause of his misery. Despite his

possession of intellect and self-consciousness, he cannot

without disaster to himself refuse the tasks of life and

the fulfilment of his own needs. Man's great task is

the adaptation of himself to reality and the recognition

of himself as an instrument for the expression of life

according to his individual possibilities.

It is in his privilege as a self-creator that his highest

purpose is found.

The value of self-consciousness lies in the fact that

man is enabled to reflect upon himself and learn to under-

stand the true origin and significance of his actions and

opinions, that he may adequately value the real level of

his development and avoid being self-deceived and there-

INTRODUCTION xliii

fore inhibited from finding his biological adaptation. He

need no longer be unconscious of the motives underlying

his actions or hide himself behind a changed exterior,

in other words, be merely a series of reactions to stimuli

as the mechanists have it, but he may to a certain extent

become a self-creating and self-determining being.

Indeed, there seems to be an impulse towards adapta-

tion quite as Bergson sees it, and it would seem to be a

task of the highest order to use intelligence to assist one's

self to work with this impulse.

Through the investigation of these different avenues

leading into the hidden depths of the human being and

through the revelation of the motives and influences at

work there, although astonishing to the uninitiated, a

very clear and definite conception of the actual human

relationship brotherhood of all mankind is obtained.

It is this recognition of these common factors basically

inherent in humanity from the beginning and still active,

which is at once both the most hopeful and the most

feared and disliked part of psychoanalysis.

It is disliked by those individuals who have prided

themselves upon their superiority and the distinction be-

tween their reactions and motives and those of ordinary

mankind. In other words, they attempt to become per-

sonalities through elevating themselves and lowering

others, and it is a distinct blow to discover that beneath

these pretensions lie the very ordinary elements shared

in common by all. On the other hand, to those who have

been able to recognize their own weaknesses and have

xliv INTRODUCTION

suffered in the privacy of their own souls, the knowledge

that these things have not set them apart from others,

but that they are the common property of all and that

no one can point the finger of scorn at his fellow, is one

of the greatest experiences of life and is productive

of the greatest relief.

It is feared by many who realize that in these painfully

acquired repressions and symptoms lie their safety and

their protection from directly facing and dealing with

tendencies and characteristics with which they feel unable

to cope. The repression and the accompanying symptoms

indicate a difficulty and a struggle, and in this way are

a sort of compromise or substitute formation which

permit, although only in a wasteful and futile manner,

the activity of the repressed tendencies. Nevertheless,

to analyze the individual back to his original tendencies

and reveal to him the meaning of these substitute forma-

tions would be a useless procedure in which truly " the

last state of that man would be worse than the first "

if the work ceased there. The aim is not to destroy

those barriers upon which civilized man has so painfully

climbed and to reduce him to his primitive state, but,

where these have failed or imperfectly succeeded, to help

him to attain his greatest possibilities with less expendi-

ture of energy, by less wasteful methods than nature

provides. In this achievement lies the hopeful and valu-

able side of this method the development of the syn-

thesis. It is hopeful because now a way is opened to

deal with these primitive tendencies constructively, and

render their effects not only harmless but useful, by

INTRODUCTION xlv

utilizing them in higher aims, socially and individually

valuable and satisfactory.

This is what has occurred normally in those individuals

who seem capable and constructive personalities ; in those

creative minds that give so much to the race. They have

converted certain psychological tendencies which could

have produced useless symptoms or destructive actions

into valuable productions. Indeed it is not uncommon

for strong, capable persons to state themselves that they

knew they could have been equally capable of a wasteful

or destructive life. This utilization of the energy or

libido freed by removing the repressions and the lifting

of infantile tendencies and desires into higher purposes

and directions suitable for the individual at his present

status is called sublimation.

It must not be understood by this discussion that

geniuses or wonderful personalities can be created

through analysis, for this is not the aim of the procedure.

Its purpose is to remove the inhibitions and restrictions

which interfere with the full development of the per-

sonality, to help individuals attain to that level where

they really belong, and to prepare people to better under-

stand and meet life whether they are neurotic sufferers

or so-called " normal people " with the difficulties and

peculiarities which belong to all.

This reasoning and method of procedure is only new

when the application is made to the human being. In

all improvements of plants and animals these general

principles have been recognized and their teachings con-

structively utilized.

xlvi INTRODUCTION

Luther Burbank, that plant wizard whose work is

known to all the world, says, u A knowledge of the battle

of the tendencies within a plant is the very basis of all

plant improvement," and " it is not that the work of plant

improvement brings with it, incidentally, as people mis-

takenly think, a knowledge of these forces, it is the knowl-

edge of these forces, rather, which makes plant improve-

ment possible. "

Has this not been also the mistake of man regarding

himself, and the cause, partly at least, of his failure to

succeed in actually reaching a more advanced and stable

development?

This recognition of man's biological relationship to

all life and the practical utilization of this recognition,

necessitates a readjustment of thought and asks for an

examination and reconsideration of the facts of human

conduct which are observable by any thoughtful person.

A quiet and progressive upheaval of old ideas has taken

place and is still going on. Analytic psychology attempts

to unify and value all of the various phenomena of man

which have been observed and noted at different times

by isolated investigators of isolated manifestations and

thus bring some orderly sequence into the whole. It

offers a method whereby the relations of the human being

biologically to all other living forms can be established,

the actual achievement of man himself adequately valued,

and opens a vista of the possibilities of improvement in

health, happiness and accomplishment for the human

being.

BEATRICE M. HINKLE.

10 Gramercy Park.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

MY task in this work has been to investigate an indi-

vidual phantasy system, and in the doing of it problems

of such magnitude have been uncovered, that my en-

deavor to grasp them in their entirety has necessarily

meant only a superficial orientation toward those paths,

the opening and exploration of which may possibly

crown the work of future investigators with success.

I am not in sympathy with the attitude which favors

the repression of certain possible working hypotheses

because they are perhaps erroneous, and so may possess

no lasting value. Certainly I endeavored as far as pos-

sible to guard myself from error, which might indeed

become especially dangerous upon these dizzy heights,

for I am entirely aware of the risks of these investiga-

tions. However, I do not consider scientific work as a

dogmatic contest, but rather as a work done for the in-

crease and deepening of knowledge.

This contribution is addressed to those having similar

ideas concerning science.

In conclusion, I must render thanks to those who have

assisted my endeavors with valuable aid, especially my

dear wife and my friends, to whose disinterested assist*

ance I am deeply indebted.

C. G. JUNG.

ZURICH.

CONTENTS

PAGE

AUTHOR'S NOTE . xlvii

PART I

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION .... 3

Relation of the Incest Phantasy to the Oedipus Legend

Moral revulsion over such a discovery The unity of the

antique and modern psychology Followers of Freud in this

field The need of analyzing historical material in rela-

tion to individual analysis.

I. CONCERNING THE TWO KINDS OF THINKING . . 8

Antiquity of the belief in dreams Dream-meanings psycho-

logical, not literal They concern wish-fulfilments A

typical dream: the sexual assault What is symbolic in our

everyday thinking? One kind of thinking: intensive and

deliberate, or directed Directed thinking and thinking in

words Origin of speech in primitive nature sounds The

evolution of speech Directed thinking a modern acquisition

Thinking, not directed, a thinking in images: akin to

dreaming Two kinds of thinking: directed and dream or

phantasy thinking Science an expression of directed thinking

The discipline of scholasticism as a forerunner Antique

spirit created not science but mythology Their world of

subjective phantasies similar to that we find in the child-

mind of to-day ; or in the savage The dream shows a simi-

lar type Infantile thinking and dreams a re-echo of the

prehistoric and the ancient The myths a mass-dream of

the people: the dream the myth of the individual Phantastic

thinking concerns wishes Typical cases, showing kinship

with ancient myths Psychology of man changes but slowly

Phantastic thinking tells us of mythical or other material

of undeveloped and no longer recognized wish tendencies

in the soul The sexual base The wish, because of its

disturbing nature, expressed not directly, but symbolically.

II. THE MILLER PHANTASIES 43

Miss Miller's unusual suggestibility Identifying herself

with others Examples of her autosuggestibility and sug-

gestive effect Not striking in themselves, but from analytic

viewpoint they afford a glance into the soul of the writer

Her phantasies really tell of the history of her love.

III. THE HYMN OF CREATION 49

Miss Miller's description of a sea-journey Really a de-

scription of " introversion " A retreat from reality into

xlix

1 CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

herself The return to the real world with erotic impres-

sion of officer singing in the night-watch The under-

valuing of such erotic impressions Their often deep effect

The succeeding dream, and poem The denied erotic im-

pression usurps an earlier transference: it expresses itself

through the Father-Imago Analysis of the poem Relation

to Cyrano, Milton and Job The attempt to escape the

problem by a religious and ethical pose Contrast with real

religion Escape from erotic by transference to a God or

Christ This made effective by mutual transference : " Love

one another " The erotic spiritualized, however The inner

conflict kept conscious by this method The modern, how-

ever, represses the conflict and so becomes neurotic The

function of Christianity Its biologic purpose fulfilled Its

forms of thought and wisdom still available.

IV. THE SONG OF THE MOTH 87

The double role of Faust: creator and destroyer "I came

not to send peace, but a sword " The modern problem of

choice between Scylla of world-renunciation and Charybdis

of world-acceptance The ethical pose of The Hymn of

Creation having failed, the unconscious projects a new

attempt in the Moth-Song The choice, as in Faust The

longing for the sun (or God) the same as that for the

ship's officer Not the object, however: the longing is im-

portant God is our own longing to which we pay divine

honors The failure to replace by a real compensation the

libido-object which is surrendered, produces regression to

an earlier and discarded object A return to the infantile

The use of the parent image It becomes synonymous with

God, Sun, Fire Sun and snake Symbols of the libido

gathered into the sun-symbol The tendency toward unity

and toward multiplicity One God with many attributes:

or many gods that are attributes of one Phallus and sun

The sun-hero, the well-beloved Christ as sun-god " Moth

and sun " then brings us to historic depths of the soul

The sun-hero creative and destructive Hence: Moth and

Flame: burning one's wings The destructiveness of being

fruitful Wherefore the neurotic withdraws from the con-

flict, committing a sort of self-murder Comparison with

Byron's Heaven and Earth.

PART II

I. ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO 127

A backward glance The sun the natural god Compari-

son with libido Libido, " sun-energy " The sun-image as

seen by the mystic in introversion The phallic symbol of

the libido Faust's key Mythical heroes with phallic at-

tributes These heroes personifications of the human libido

and its typical fates A definition of the word " libido "

Its etymological context.

CONTENTS li

CHAPTER PAGE

II. THE CONCEPTION AND THE GENETIC THEORY OF

LIBIDO v ..... . 139

A widening of the conception of libido New light from the

study of paranoia The impossibility of restricting the con-

ception of libido to the sexual A genetic definition The

function of reality only partly sexual Yet this, and other

functions, originally derivations from procreative impulse

The process of transformation Libido, and the conception

of will in general Examples in mythology The stages of

the libido: its desexualized derivatives and differentiations

Sublimation vs. repression Splittings off of the primal

libido Application of genetic theory of libido to intro-

version psychoses Replacing reality by archaic surrogates

Desexualizing libido by means of phantastic analogy

formations Possibly human consciousness brought to present

state in this manner The importance of the little phrase:

"Even as."

III. THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO. A POSSIBLE

SOURCE OF PRIMITIVE HUMAN DISCOVERIES . 157

An example of transition of the libido Act of boring with

forefinger: an infantile presexual activity Similar activities

in patient's early childhood Outcome in dementia praecox

Its phantasies related to mythological products: a reproduc-

tion of the creations of antiquity The freeing of libido

from the nutritive to enter the sexual function The epoch

of suckling and the epoch of displaced rhythmic activity

These followed by the beginnings of onanistic attempts

An obstacle in the sexual zone produces regression to a

previous mode These regressions easier in earlier stages of

humanity than now The ethnological phantasy of boring -

Examples The production of fire Its sexual significance

A substitute for coitus The invention of fire-making then

due to the need of supplying a symbol for the sexual act

The psychological compulsion for such transitions of the

libido based on an original division of the will Regres-

sion to incestuous Prohibition here sends incestuous com-

ponent of libido back to pre-sexual Character of its ap-

plication here The substitution of Mother-Earth for the

parent Also of infantile boring Leading then to discovery

of fire An example in Hindoo literature The sexual

significance of the mouth Its other function: the mating call

The regression which produced fire through boring also

elaborated the mating call The beginnings of speech

Example from the Hindoo Speech and fire the firstfruits

of transformation of libido The fire-preparation regarded

as forbidden, as robbery The forbidden thing onanism

Onanism a cheating of sexuality of its purpose The cere-

monial fire-production a substitute for the possibility of

onanistic regression Thus a transformation of libido

ensues.

lii CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

IV. THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO ... 191

The cause of introversion The forward and backward

flow of the libido The abnormal third The conflict rooted

in the incest problem The " terrible mother " Miss Miller's

introversion An internal conflict Its product of hypna-

gogic vision and poem The uniformity of the unconscious in

all men The unconscious the object of a true psychology

The individual tendency with its production of the hero

cult The love for the hero or god a love for the uncon-

scious A turning back to the mother of humanity Such

regressions act favorably within limits Miss Miller's men-

tion of the Sphinx Theriomorphic representations of the

libido Their tendency to represent father and mother

The Sphinx represents the fear of the mother Miss

Miller's mention of the Aztec Analysis of this figure The

significance of the hand symbolically The Aztec a substi-

tute for the Sphinx The name Chi-wan-to-pel The con-

nection of the anal region with veneration Chiwantopel and

Ahasver, the Wandering Jew The parallel with Chidher

Heroes generating themselves through their own mothers

Analogy with the Sun Setting and rising sun: Mithra and

Helios, Christ and Peter, Dhulqarnein and Chidher The

fish symbol The two Dadophores: the two thieves The

mortal and immortal parts of man The Trinity taken from

phallic symboli'sm Comparison of libido with phallus

Analysis of libido symbolism always leads back to the

mother incest The hero myth the myth of our own suffer-

ing unconscious Faust.

V. SYMBOLISM OF THE MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH . 233

The crowd as symbol of mystery The city as symbol of

the mother The motive of continuous " union " The

typical journey of the sun-hero Examples A longing for

rebirth through the mother The compulsion to symbolize

the mother as City, Sea, Source, etc. The city as terrible

mother and as holy mother The relation of the water-

motive to rebirth Of the tree-motive Tree of life a

mother-image The bisexual character of trees Such sym-

bols to be understood psychologically, not anatomically

The incestuous desire aims at becoming a child again,

not at incest It evades incest by creating myths of symbolic

rebirth The libido spiritualized through this use of sym-

bols To be born of the spirit This compulsion toward

symbolism brings a release of forces bound up in incest

This process in Christianity Christianity with its repres-

sion of the manifest sexual the negative of the ancient

sexual cult The unconscious transformation of the incest

wish into religious exercise does not meet the modern need

A conscious method necessary, involving moral autonomy

Replacing belief by understanding The history of the

symbolism of trees The rise of the idea of the terrible

mother a mask of the incest wish The myth of Osiris Re-

lated examples The motive of " devouring " The Cross of

CONTENTS liii

CHAPTER PAGE

Christ: tree of death and tree of life Lilith: the devouring

mother The Lamias The conquering of the mother Snake

and dragon: the resistance against incest The father rep-

resents the active repulse of the incest wish of the son He

frequently becomes the monster to be overcome by the hero

The Mithraic sacrificing of the incest wish an overcoming of

the mother A replacing of archaic overpowering by sac-

rifice of the wish The crucified Christ an expression of

this renunciation Other cross sacrifices Cross symbol

possesses significance of "union" Child in mother's womb:

or man and mother in union Conception of the soul a de-

rivative of mother imago The power of incest prohibition

created the self-conscious individual It was the coercion

to domestication The further visions of Miss Miller.

VI. THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE FROM THE

MOTHER 307

The appearance of the hero Chiwantopel on horseback

Hero and horse equivalent of humanity and its repressed

libido Horse a libido symbol, partly phallic, partly mater-

nal, like the tree It represents the libido repressed through

the incest prohibition The scene of Chiwantopel and the

Indian Recalling Cassius and Brutus: also delirium of

Cyrano Identification of Cassius with his mother His in-

fantile disposition Miss Miller's hero also infantile Her

visions arise from an infantile mother transference Her

hero to die from an arrow wound The symbolism of the

arrow The onslaught of unconscious desires The deadly

arrows strike the hero from within It means the state of

introversion A sinking back into the world of the child

The danger of this regression It may mean annihilation

or new life Examples of introversion The clash between

the retrogressive tendency in the individual unconscious

and the conscious forward strivingWilled introversion

The unfulfilled sacrifice in the Miller phantasy means an

attempt to renounce the mother: the conquest of a new life

through the death of the old The hero Miss Miller herself.

VII. THE DUAL MOTHER ROLE 34*

Chiwantopel's monologue His quest for the "one who

understands " A quest for the mother Also for the life-

companion The sexual element in the wish The battle

for independence from the mother Its peril Miss Miller's

use of Longfellow's Hiawatha An analysis of Hiawatha

A typical hero of the libido The miraculous birth The

hero's birth symbolic because it is really a rebirth from

the mother-spouse The twofold mother which in Christian

mythology becomes twofold birth The hero his own pro-

creator Virgin conception a mask for incestuous impregna-

tion Hiawatha's early life The identification of mother-

nature with the mother The killing of a roebuck a con-

quering of the parents He takes on their strength He

goes forth to slay the father in order to possess the mother

liv CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Minnehaha, the mother Hiawatha's introversion Hiding

in the lap of nature really a return to the mother's womb

The regression to the presexual revives the importance

of nutrition The inner struggle with the mother, to over-

power and impregnate her This fight against the longing

for the mother brings new strength The Mondamin motive

in other myths The Savior-hero the fruit of the entrance

of the libido into the personal maternal depths This is

to die, and be born again Hiawatha's struggle with the

fish-monster A new deliverance from the mother And

so again with Megissogwon, the Magician The hero must

again and again conquer the mother Then follows his

marriage with Minnehaha Other incidents, his death: the

sinking of the sun in the west Miss Miller also reminded

by Chiwantopel's longing of Wagner's Siegfried Analysis

of the Siegfried myth The treasure-guarding dragon

The dragon the son's repressed longing for the mother

Symbolism of the cave The separation from the mother, the

hero's conquering of the dragon The symbolism of the cup

Drinking from the mother Cup of the blood of Christ

The resultant mysterious union of man Profane interpre-

tations of this mystery The phallic significance of the

serpent The snake as representing the introverting libido

Self-procreation: or creation of the world through intro-

version The world thus an emanation of the libido The

hero himself a serpent The psychoanalytic treatment of

regression The hidden libido touched upon causes a strug-

, gle: that is, the hero fights the fight with the treasure-

guarding dragon The awakening of Brunhilda Siegfried

finding his mother: a symbol of his own libido The con-

quest of the terrible mother brings the love and life-

giving mother.

VIII. THE SACRIFICE 428

Miss Miller's vision again The paradoxical striving

of the libido away from the mother toward the mother

The destroying mother becomes beneficent on being con-

quered Chiwantopel a hero of words, not deeds He has

not that will to live which breaks the magic circle of the

incestuous His identification with the author, and her

wish for the parents The end is the devouring of the

daughter's libido by the mother Sexuality of the uncon-

scious merely a symbol Idle dreaming the mother of the

fear of death This downward path in the poetry of Hol-

derlin The estrangement from reality, the introversion

leading to death The necessity of freeing libido for a

complete devotion to life Otherwise bound by unconscious

compulsion: Fate Sublimation through voluntary work

Creati'on of the world through cosmic sacrifice Man dis-

covers the world when he sacrifices the mother The incest

barrier as the producer of thought Budding sexuality

drawing the individual from the family The mind dawns

at the moment the child begins to be free of the mother

CONTENTS Iv

CHAPTER PAGE

He seeks to win the world, and leave the mother Childish

regression to the presexual brings archaic phantasies The

incest problem not physical, but psychological Sacrifice of

of the horse: sacrifice of the animal nature The sacrifice

of the " mother libido " : of the son to the mother Su-

periority of Christian symbol: the sacrifice, not only of

lower nature, but the whole personality Miss Miller's

phantasy passes from sacrifice of the sexual, to sacrifice of

the infantile personality Problem of psychoanalysis, ex-

pressed mythologically, the sacrifice and rebirth of the

infantile hero The libido wills the destruction of its

creation: horse and serpent The end of the hero by means

of earthquake The one who understands him is the

mother.

" Therefore theory, which gives to facts their value and sig-

nificance, is often very useful, even if it is partially false, for it

throws light on phenomena which no one observed, it forces an

examination, from many angles, of facts which no one had hitherto

studied, and it gives the impulse for more extended and more pro-

ductive researches.

" It is, therefore, a moral duty for the man of science to expose

himself to the risk of committing error and to submit to criticism,

in order that science may continue to progress. A writer has

attacked the author for this very severely, saying, here is a scientific

ideal very limited and very paltry. But those who are endowed

with a mind sufficiently serious and impersonal as not to believe

that all that they write is the expression of truth absolute and

eternal, approve of this theory which places the aims of science well

above the miserable vanity and paltry ' amour propre ' of the

/'^GuGLiELMo FERRERO.

Les Lois Psychologiques du Symbolisms 1895. Preface, p. <viii.

PART I

INTRODUCTION

ANY ONE who can read Freud's " Interpretation of the

Dream " without scientific rebellion at the newness and

apparently unjustified daring of its analytical presenta-

tion, and without moral indignation at the astonishing

nudity of the dream interpretation, and who can allow

this unusual array of facts to influence his mind calmly

and without prejudice, will surely be deeply impressed at

that place where Freud calls to mind the fact that

an individual psychologic conflict, namely, the Incest

Phantasy, is the essential root of that powerful ancient

dramatic material, the Oedipus legend. The impression

made by this simple reference may be likened to that

wholly peculiar feeling which arises in us if, for example,

in the noise and tumult of a modern street we should

come across an ancient relic the Corinthian capital of a

walled-in column, or a fragment of inscription. Just a

moment ago we were given over to the noisy ephemeral

life of the present, when something very far away and

strange appears to us, which turns our attention to things

of another order; a glimpse away from the incoherent

multiplicity of the present to a higher coherence in his-

tory. Very likely it would suddenly occur to us that on

this spot where we now run busily to and fro a similar

life and activity prevailed two thousand years ago in

3

4 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

somewhat other forms ; similar passions moved mankind,

and man was likewise convinced of the uniqueness of his

existence. I would liken the impression which the first

acquaintance with the monuments of antiquity so easily

leaves behind to that impression which Freud's reference

to the Oedipus legend makes for while we are still en-

gaged with the confusing impressions of the variability of

the Individual Soul, suddenly there is opened a revelation

of the simple greatness of the Oedipus tragedy that

never extinguished light of the Grecian theatre.

This breadth of outlook carries in itself something of

revelation. For us, the ancient psychology has long since

been buried among the shadows of the past; in the school-

room one could scarcely repress a sceptical smile when

one indiscreetly reckoned the comfortable matronly age

of Penelope and the age of Jocasta, and comically com-

pared the result of the reckoning with the tragic-erotic

struggles in the legend and drama. We did not know at

that time (and who knows even today?) that the mother

can be the all-consuming passion of the son, which per-

haps undermines his whole life and tragically destroys

it, so that not even the magnitude of the Oedipus Fate

seems one jot overdrawn. Rare and pathologically under-

stood cases like Ninon de Lenclos and her son * lie too

far removed from most of us to give a living impression.

But when we follow the paths traced out by Freud, we

arrive at a recognition of the present existence of such

possibilities, which, although they are too weak to en-

force incest, are still strong enough to cause disturbances

of considerable magnitude in the soul. The admission

INTRODUCTION 5

of such possibilities to one's self does not occur without a

great burst of moral revulsion. Resistances arise which

only too easily dazzle the intellect, and, through that,

make knowledge of self impossible. Whenever we suc-

ceed, however, in stripping feelings from more scientific

knowledge, then that abyss which separates our age from

the antique is bridged, and, with astonishment, we see

that Oedipus is still a living thing for us. The importance

of such an impression should not be undervalued. We

are taught by this insight that there is an identity of

elementary human conflicts existing independent of time

and place. That which affected the Greeks with horror

still remains true, but it is true for us only when we give

up a vain illusion that we are different that is to say,

more moral, than the ancients. We of the present day

have nearly succeeded in forgetting that an indissoluble

common bond binds us to the people of antiquity. With

this truth a path is opened to the understanding of the

ancient mind; an understanding which so far has not

existed, and, on one side, leads to an inner sympathy, and,

on the other side, to an intellectual comprehension.

Through buried strata of the individual soul we come

indirectly into possession of the living mind of the ancient

culture, and, just precisely through that, do we win that

stable point of view outside our own culture, from which,

for the first time, an objective understanding of their

mechanisms would be possible. At least that is the hope

which we get from the rediscovery of the Oedipus

problem.

The enquiry made possible by Freud's work has al-

6 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

ready resulted fruitfully ; we are indebted to this stimula-

tion for some bold attacks upon the territory of the

history of the human mind. There are the works of

Riklin, 2 Abraham, 3 Rank, 4 Maeder, 5 Jones, 6 recently

Silberer has joined their ranks with a beautiful investiga-

tion entitled " Phantasie und Mythus." 7 We are in-

debted to Pfister 8 for a comprehensive work which

cannot be overlooked here, and which is of much impor-

tance for Christian religious psychology. The leading

purpose of these works is the unlocking of historical

problems through the application of psychoanalytic

knowledge; that is to say, knowledge drawn from the

activity of the modern unconscious mind concerning spe-

cific historical material.

I must refer the reader entirely to the specified works,

in order that he may gain information concerning the

extent and the kind of insight which has already been

obtained. The explanations are in many cases dubious

in particulars; nevertheless, this detracts in no way from

the total result. It would be significant enough if only

the far-reaching analogy between the psychologic struc-

ture of the historical relics and the structure of the recent

individual psychologic products alone were demonstrated.

This proof is possible of attainment for every intelligent

person through the work done up to this time. The

analogy prevails especially in symbolism, as Riklin, Rank,

Maeder, and Abraham have pointed out with illuminat-

ing examples; it is also shown in the individual mechan-

isms of unconscious work, that is to say in repression,

condensation, etc., as Abraham explicitly shows.

INTRODUCTION 7

Up to the present time the psychoanalytic investigator

has turned his interest chiefly to the analysis of the indi-

vidual psychologic problems. It seems to me, however,

that in the present state of affairs there is a more or less

imperative demand for the psychoanalyst to broaden

the analysis of the individual problems by a comparative

study of historical material relating to them, just as

Freud has already done in a masterly manner in his book

on u Leonardo da Vinci/' 9 For, just as the psycho-

analytic conceptions promote understanding of the his-

toric psychologic creations, so reversedly historical mate-

rials can shed new light upon individual psychologic

problems. These and similar considerations have caused

me to turn my attention somewhat more to the historical,

in the hope that, out of this, new insight into the founda-

tions of individual psychology might be won.

CHAPTER I

CONCERNING THE TWO KINDS OF

THINKING

IT is a well-known fact that one of the principles of

analytic psychology is that the dream images are to be

understood symbolically; that is to say, that they are not

to be taken literally just as they are presented in sleep,

but that behind them a hidden meaning has to be sur-

mised. It is this ancient idea of a dream symbolism which

has challenged not only criticism, but, in addition to that,

the strongest opposition. That dreams may be full of

import, and, therefore, something to be interpreted, is cer-

tainly neither a strange nor an extraordinary idea. This

has been familiar to mankind for thousands of years, and,

therefore, seems much like a banal truth. The dream

interpretations of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and the

story of Joseph who interpreted Pharaoh's dreams, are

known to every one, and the dream book of Artemidorus

is also familiar. From countless inscribed monuments of

all times and peoples we learn of foreboding dreams, of

significant, of prophetic and also of curative dreams

which the Deity sent to the sick, sleeping in the temple.

We know the dream of the mother of Augustus, who

dreamt she was to be with child by the Deity trans-

formed into a snake. We will not heap up references

and examples to bear witness to the existence of a belief

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 9

in the symbolism of dreams. When an idea is so old,

and is so generally believed, it is probably true in some

way, and, indeed, as is mostly the case, is not literally

true, but is true psychologically. In this distinction lies

the reason why the old fogies of science have from time

to time thrown away an inherited piece of ancient truth;

because it was not literal but psychologic truth. For such

discrimination this type of person has at no time had any

comprehension.

From our experience, it is hardly conceivable that a

God existing outside of ourselves causes dreams, or that

the dream, eo ipso, foresees the future prophetically.

When we translate this into the psychologic, however,

then the ancient theories sound much more reconcilable,

namely, the dream arises from a part of the mind un-

known to us, but none the less important, and is concerned

with the desires for the approaching day. This psycho-

logic formula derived from the ancient superstitious con-

ception of dreams, is, so to speak, exactly identified

with the Freudian psychology, which assumes a ris-

ing wish from the unconscious to be the source of the

dream.

As the old belief teaches, the Deity or the Demon

speaks in symbolic speech to the sleeper, and the dream

interpreter has the riddle to solve. In modern speech we

say this means that the dream is a series of images, which

are apparently contradictory and nonsensical, but arise in

reality from psychologic material which yields a clear

meaning.

Were I to suppose among my readers a far-reaching

io PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

ignorance of dream analysis, then I should be obliged to

illustrate this statement with numerous examples.

Today, however, these things are quite well known, so

that one must proceed carefully with every-day dream

material, out of consideration for a public educated in

these matters. It is a special inconvenience that no dream

can be recounted without being obliged to add to it half

a life's history which affords the individual foundations

of the dream, but there are some few typical dreams

which can be told without too great a ballast. One of

these is the dream of the sexual assault, which is especially

prevalent among women. A girl sleeping after an even-

ing happily spent in dancing, dreams that a robber breaks

open her door noisily and stabs through her body

with a lance. This theme, which explains itself, has

countless variations, some simple, some complicated.

Instead of the lance it is a sword, a dagger, a revolver,

a gun, a cannon, a hydrant, a watering pot; or the assault

is a burglary, a pursuit, a robbery, or it is some one

hidden in the closet or under the bed. Or the danger

may be illustrated by wild animals; for instance, a horse

which throws the dreamer to the ground and kicks her in

the body with his hind foot; lions, tigers, elephants with

threatening trunks, and finally snakes in endless variety.

Sometimes the snake creeps into the mouth, sometimes

it bites the breast like Cleopatra's legendary asp, some-

times it comes in the role of the paradisical snake, or in

the variations of Franz Stuck, whose pictures of snakes

bear the significant titles " Vice," " Sin," " Lust." The

mixture of lust and anxiety is expressed incomparably in

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING n

the very atmosphere of these pictures, and far more

brutally, indeed, than in Morike's charming poem.

The Maiden's First Love Song

What's in the net ?

Behold,

But I am afraid,

Do I grasp a sweet eel,

Do I seize a snake?

Love is a blind

Fisherwoman ;

Tell the child

Where to seize.

Already it leaps in my hands.

Oh, Pity, or delight!

With nestlings and turnings

It coils on my breast,

It bites me, oh, wonder!

Boldly through the skin,

It darts under my heart.

Oh, Love, I shudder!

What can I do, what can I begin ?

That shuddering thing;

There it crackles within

And coils in a ring.

It must be poisoned.

Here it crawls around.

Blissfully I feel as it worms

Itself into my soul

And kills me finally.

All these things are simple, and need no explanation

to be intelligible. Somewhat more complicated, but still

12 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

unmistakable, is the dream of a woman; she sees the

triumphal arch of Constantine. A cannon stands before

it, to the right of it a bird, to the left a man. A shot

flashes out of the tube; the projectile hits her; it goes

into her pocket, into her purse. There it remains, and

she holds her purse as if something very precious were

in it. The image disappears, and she continues to see

only the stock of the cannon, and over that Constantine's

motto, " In hoc signo vinces."

These few references to the symbolic nature of dreams

are perhaps sufficient. For whomsoever the proof may

appear insufficient, and it is certainly insufficient for a

beginner, further evidence may be found in the funda-

mental work of Freud, and in the works of Stekel and

Rank which are fuller in certain particulars. We must

assume here that the dream symbolism is an established

fact, in order to bring to our study a mind suitably pre-

pared for an appreciation of this work. We would not

be successful if we, on the contrary, were to be astonished

at the idea that an intellectual image can be projected

into our conscious psychic activity; an image which ap-

parently obeys such wholly other laws and purposes than

those governing the conscious psychic product.

fWhy are dreams symbolic? Every " why " in psychol-

Dgy is divided into two separate questions : first, for what

purpose are dreams symbolic? We will answer this

question only to abandon it at once. Dreams are symbolic

in order that they can not be understood; in order that

the wish, which is the source of the dream, may remain

unknown. The question why this is so and not otherwise,

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 13

leads us out into the far-reaching experiences and trains

of thought of the Freudian psychology.

Here the second question interests us, viz., How is it

that dreams are symbolic? That is to say, from where

does this capacity for symbolic representation come, of

which we, in our conscious daily life, can discover ap-

parently no traces?

Let us examine this more closely. Can we really dis-

cover nothing symbolic in our every-day thought? Let

us follow our trains of thought; let us take an example.

We think of the war of 1870 and 1871. We think about

a series of bloody battles, the siege of Strassburg, Bel-

fort, Paris, the Treaty of Peace, the foundation of the

German Empire, and so on. How have we been think-

ing? We start with an idea, or super-idea, as it is also

called, and without thinking of it, but each time merely

guided by a feeling of direction, we think about individual

reminiscences of the war. In this we can find nothing

symbolic, and our whole conscious thinking proceeds ac-

cording to this type. 1

If we observe our thinking very narrowly, and follow

an intensive train of thought, as, for example, the solu-

tion of a difficult problem, then suddenly we notice that

we are thinking in words, that in wholly intensive think-

ing we begin to speak to ourselves, or that we occasionally

write down the problem, or make a drawing of it so as to

be absolutely clear. It must certainly have happened

to any one who has lived for some time in a foreign

country, that after a certain period he has begun to think

in the language of the country. A very intensive train

H PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

of thinking works itself out more or less in word form;

that is, if one wants to express it, to teach it, or to con-

vince any one of it. Evidently it directs itself wholly to

the outside world. To this extent, this directed or logical

thinking is a reality thinking, 2 having a real existence for

us; that is to say, a thinking which adjusts itself to actual

conditions, 3 where we, expressed in other words, imitate

the succession of objectively real things, so that the

images in our mind follow after each other in the same

strictly causal succession as the historical events outside

of our mind. 4

We call this thinking, thinking with directed attention.

It has, in addition, the peculiarity that one is tired by it,

and that, on this account, it is set into action only for a

time. Our whole vital accomplishment, which is so ex-

pensive, is adaptation to environment; a part of it is the

directed thinking, which, biologically expressed, is noth-

ing but a process of psychic assimilation, which, as in

every vital accomplishment, leaves behind a correspond-

ing exhaustion.

The material with which we think is language and

speech concept, a thing which has been used from time

immemorial as something external, a bridge for thought,

and which has a single purpose that of communication.

As long as we think directedly, we think for others and

speak to others. 5

Speech is originally a system of emotional and imita-

tive sounds sounds which express terror, fear, anger,

love ; and sounds which imitate the noises of the elements,

the rushing and gurgling of water, the rolling of thunder,

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 15

the tumults of the winds, the tones of the animal world,

and so on; and, finally, those which represent a combina-

tion of the sounds of perception and of affective reaction. 6

Likewise in the more or less modern languages, large

quantities of onomatopoetic relics are retained; for ex-

ample, sounds for the movement of water,

Rauschen, risseln, riischen, rinnen, rennen, to rush, ruscello,

ruisseau, riyer, Rhein.

Wasser, wissen, wissern, pissen, piscis, fisch.

Thus language is orginally and essentially nothing but

a system of signs or symbols, which denote real occur-

rences, or their echo in the human soul.

Therefore one must decidedly agree with Anatole

France, 7 when he says,

"What is thought, and how do we think? We think with

words; that alone is sensual and brings us back to nature. Think

of it! The metaphysician has only the perfected cry of monkeys

and dogs with which to construct the system of the world. That

which he calls profound speculation and transcendent method is

to put end to end in an arbitrary order the natural sounds which

cry out hunger, fear, and love in the primitive forests, and to

which were attached little by little the meanings which one be-

lieved to be abstract, when they were only crude.

" Do not fear that the succession of small cries, feeble and

stifled, which compose a book of philosophy, will teach us so

much regarding the universe, that we can live in it no longer."

Thus is our directed thinking, and even if we were the

loneliest and furthest removed from our fellows, this

thinking is nothing but the first notes of a long-drawn-

out call to our companions that water had been found,

16 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

that we had killed the bear, that a storm was approach-

ing, or that wolves were prowling around the camp. A

striking paradox of Abelard's which expresses in a very

intuitive way the whole human limitation of our compli-

cated thinking process, reads, " Sermo generatur ab

intellectu et general intellectum" *

Any system of philosophy, no matter how abstract,

represents in means and purpose nothing more than an

extremely cleverly developed combination of original

nature sounds. 8 Hence arises the desire of a Schopen-

hauer or a Nietzsche for recognition and understanding,

and the despair and bitterness of their loneliness. One

might expect, perhaps, that a man full of genius could

pasture in the greatness of his own thoughts, and re-

nounce the cheap approbation of the crowd which he

despises; yet he succumbs to the more powerful impulse

of the herd instinct. His searching and his finding, his

call, belong to the herd.

When I said just now that directed thinking is properly

a thinking with words, and quoted that clever testimony

of Anatole France as drastic proof of it, a misunder-

standing might easily arise, namely, that directed thinking

is really only " word." That certainly would go too far.

Language should, however, be comprehended in a wider

sense than that of speech, which is in itself only the ex-

pression of the formulated thought which is capable of

being communicated in the widest sense. Otherwise, the

deaf mute would be limited to the utmost in his capacity

for thinking, which is not the case in reality. Without

* Speech is generated by the intellect and in turn generates intellect.

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 17

any knowledge of- the spoken word, he has his

" language." This language, considered from the stand-

point of history, or in other words, directed thinking,

is here a descendant of the primitive words, as, for in-

stance, Wundt 9 expresses it.

" A further important result of that co-operation of sound and

sign interchange consists in the fact that very many words gradu-

ally lose altogether their original concrete thought meaning, and

turn into signs for general ideas and for the expression of the

apperceptive functions of relation and comparison and their

products. In this manner abstract thought develops, which, because

it would not be possible without the change of meaning lying at

the root of it, is indeed a production of that psychic and psycho-

physical reciprocal action out of which the development of language

takes place."

Jodl 10 denies the identity of language and thought,

because, for one reason, one and the same psychic fact

might be expressed in different languages in different

ways. From that he draws the conclusion that a u super-

language thinking " exists. Certainly there is such a thing,

whether with Erdmann one considers it " hypologisch,"

or with Jodl as " super-language." Only this is not

logical thinking. My conception of it agrees with the

noteworthy contribution made by Baldwin, which I will

quote here word for word. 11

" The transmission from pre- judgmental to judgmental mean-

ing is just that from knowledge which has social confirmation

to that which gets along without it. The meanings utilized for

judgment are those already developed in their presuppositions

and applications through the confirmation of social intercourse.

Thus, the personal judgment, trained in the methods of social

i8 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

rendering, and disciplined by the interaction of its social world,

projects its content into that world again. In other words, the

platform for all movement into the assertion of individual judg-

ment the level from which new experience is utilized is already

and always socialized; and it is just this movement that we find

reflected in the actual results as the sense of the ' appropriateness '

or synomic character of the meaning rendered.

" Now the development of thought, as we are to see in more

detail, is by a method essentially of trial and error, of experi-

mentation, of the use of meanings as worth more than they are as

yet recognized to be worth. The individual must use his own

thoughts, his established knowledges, his grounded judgments, for

the embodiment of his new inventive constructions. He erects

his thought as we say ' schematically ' in logic terms, ' prob-

lematically,' conditionally, disjunctively; projecting into the

world an opinion still peculiar to himself, as if it were true. Thus

all discovery proceeds. But this is, from -the linguistic point of

view, still to use the current language, still to work by meanings

already embodied in social and conventional usage.

" Language grows, therefore, just as thought does, by never

losing its synomic or dual reference; its meaning is both personal

and social.

" It is the register of tradition, the record of racial conquest,

the deposit of all the gains made by the genius of individuals

. . . The social copy-system, thus established, reflects the

judgmental processes of the race, and in turn becomes the

training school of the judgment of new generations.

" Most of the training of the self, whereby the vagaries of

personal reaction to fact and image are reduced to the basis of

sound judgment, comes through the use of speech. When the

child speaks, he lays before the world his suggestion for a general

or common meaning. . The reception he gets confirms or refutes

him. In either case he is instructed. His next venture is now

from a platform of knowledge on which the newer item is more

nearly convertible into the common coin of effective intercourse.

The point to notice here is not so much the exact mechanism of

the exchange secondary conversion by which this gain is made,

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 19

as the training in judgment that the constant use of it affords.

In each case, effective judgment is the common judgment.

"Here the object is to point out that it is secured by the

development of a function whose rise is directly ad hoc, directly

for the social experimentation by which growth in personal com-

petence is advanced as well the function of speech.

" In language, therefore, to sum up the foregoing, we have the

tangible the actual the historical instrument of the develop-

ment and conservation of psychic meaning. It is the material

evidence and proof of the concurrence of social and personal judg-

ment. In it synomic meaning, judged as ' appropriate,' becomes

1 social ' meaning, held as socially generalized and acknowledged."

These arguments of Baldwin abundantly emphasize

the wide-reaching limitations of thinking caused by

language. 12 These limitations are of the greatest signifi-

cance, both subjectively and objectively; at least their

meaning is great enough to force one to ask one's self if,

after all, in regard to independence of thought, Franz

Mauthner, thoroughly sceptical, is not really correct in

his view that thinking is speech and nothing more.

Baldwin expresses himself more cautiously and reserv-

edly; nevertheless, his inner meaning is plainly in favor

of the primacy of speech (naturally not in the sense of

the spoken word) ; the directed thinking, or as we might

perhaps call it, the thinking in internal speech, is the

manifest instrument of culture, and we do not go astray

when we say that the powerful work of education which

the centuries have given to directed thinking has pro-

duced, just through the peculiar development of thinking

from the individual subjective into the social objective, a

practical application of the human mind to which we owe

20 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

modern empiricism and technic, and which occurs for ab-

solutely the first time in the history of the world. Inquisi-

tive minds have often tormented themselves with the

question why the undoubtedly extraordinary knowledge

of mathematics and principles and material facts

united with the unexampled art of the human hand in

antiquity never arrived at the point of developing those

known technical statements of fact, for instance, the

principles of simple machines, beyond the realm of the

amusing and curious to a real technic in the modern sense.

There is necessarily only one answer to this; the ancients

almost entirely, with the exception of a few extraordinary

minds, lacked the capacity to allow their interest to

follow the transformations of inanimate matter to the

extent necessary for them to be able to reproduce the

process of nature, creatively and through their own art,

by means of which alone they could have succeeded in

putting themselves in possession of the force of nature.

That which they lacked was training in directed thinking,

or, to express it psychoanalytically, the ancients did not

succeed in tearing loose the libido which might be subli-

mated, from the other natural relations, and did not

turn voluntarily to anthropomorphism. The secret of

the development of culture lies in the mobility of the

libido, and in its capacity for transference. It is, there-

fore, to be assumed that the directed thinking of our time

is a more or less modern acquisition, which was lacking

in earlier times.

But with that we come to a further question, viz., what

happens if we do not think directedly ? Then our thinking

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 21

lacks the major idea, and the feeling of direction which

emanates from that. 13 We no longer compel our

thoughts along a definite track, but let them float, sink

and mount according to their own gravity. According

to Kulpe 14 thinking is a kind of inner will action, the

absence of which necessarily leads to an automatic play

of ideas. James understands the non-directed thinking,

or " merely associative " thinking, as the ordinary one.

He expresses himself about that in the following

manner :

" Our thought consists for the great part of a series of images,

one of which produces the other; a sort of passive dream-state of

which the higher animals are also capable. This sort of thinking

leads, nevertheless, to reasonable conclusions of a practical as well

as of a theoretical nature.

" As a rule, the links of this sort of irresponsible thinking,

which are accidentally bound together, are empirically concrete

things, not abstractions."

We can, in the following manner, complete these defi-

nitions of William James. This sort of thinking does

not tire us; it quickly leads us away from reality into

phantasies of the past and future. Here, thinking in the

form of speech ceases, image crowds upon image, feel-

ing upon feeling; more and more clearly one sees a

tendency which creates and makes believe, not as it truly

is, but as one indeed might wish it to be. 15 The material

of these thoughts which turns away from reality, can

naturally be only the past with its thousand memory pic-

tures. The customary speech calls this kind of thinking

" dreaming."

22 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Whoever attentively observes himself will find the

general custom of speech very striking, for almost every

day we can see for ourselves how, when falling asleep,

phantasies are woven into our dreams, so that between

the dreams of day and night there is not so great a

difference. Thus we have two forms of thinking

directed thinking and dream or phantasy thinking. The

first, working for communication with speech elements,

is troublesome and exhausting; the latter, on the contrary,

goes on without trouble, working spontaneously, so to

speak, with reminiscences. The first creates innovations,

adaptations, imitates reality and seeks to act upon it.

The latter, on the contrary, turns away from reality, sets

free subjective wishes, and is, in regard to adaptation,

wholly unproductive. 16

Let us leave aside the query as to why we possess these

two different ways of thinking, and turn back to the

second proposition, namely, how comes it that we have

two different ways of thinking? I have intimated above

that history shows us that directed thinking was not

always as developed as it is at present. In this age the

most beautiful expression of directed thinking is science,

and the technic fostered by it. Both things are indebted

for their existence simply to an energetic education in

directed thinking. At the time, however, when a few

forerunners of the present culture, like the poet Petrarch,

first began to appreciate Nature understandingly 17 there

was already in existence an equivalent for our science, to

wit, scholasticism. 18 This took its objects from the phan-

tasies of the past, and it gave to the mind a dialectic

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 23

training in directed thinking. The only success which

beckoned the thinker was rhetorical victory in disputa-

tion, and not a visible transformation of reality.

The subjects of thinking were often astonishingly

phantastical; for example, questions were discussed, such

as how many angels could have a place on the point of

a needle? Whether Christ could have done his work

of redemption equally well if he had come into the

world as a pea? The possibility of such problems, to

which belong the metaphysical problems in general, viz.,

to be able to know the unknowable, shows us of what

peculiar kind that mind must have been which created

such things which to us are the height of absurdity.

Nietzsche had guessed, however, at the biological back-

ground of this phenomenon when he spoke of the " beau-

tiful tension " of the Germanic mind which the Middle

Ages created. Taken historically, scholasticism, in the

spirit of which persons of towering intellectual powers,

such as Thomas of Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Abelard, Wil-

liam of Occam and others, have labored, is the mother of

the modern scientific attitude, and a later time will see

clearly how and in what scholasticism still furnishes

living undercurrents to the science of today. Its whole

nature lies in dialectic gymnastics which have raised the

symbol of speech, the word, to an almost absolute mean-

ing, so that it finally attained to that substantiality which

expiring antiquity could lend to its logos only temporarily,

through attributes of mystical valuation. The great

work of scholasticism, however, appears to be the founda-

tion of firmly knitted intellectual sublimation, the conditio

24 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

sine qua non of the modern scientific and technical

spirit.

Should we go further back into history, we shall find

that which today we call science, dissolved into an indis-

tinct cloud. The modern culture-creating mind is inces-

santly occupied in stripping off all subjectivity from ex-

perience, and in finding those formulas which bring

Nature and her forces to the best and most fitting expres-

sion. It would be an absurd and entirely unjustified self-

glorification if we were to assume that we are more

energetic or more intelligent than the ancients our

materials for knowledge have increased, but not our in-

tellectual capacity. For this reason, we become imme-

diately as obstinate and insusceptible in regard to new

ideas as people in the darkest times of antiquity. Our

knowledge has increased but not our wisdom. The main

point of our interest is displaced wholly into material

reality; antiquity preferred a mode of thought which was

more closely related to a phantastic type. Except for a

sensitive perspicuity towards works of art, not attained

since then, we seek in vain in antiquity for that precise

and concrete manner of thinking characteristic of modern

science. We see the antique spirit create not science but

mythology. Unfortunately, we acquire in school only

a very paltry conception of the richness and immense

power of life of Grecian mythology.

Therefore, at first glance, it does not seem possible for

us to assume that that energy and interest which today

we put into science and technic, the man of antiquity gave

in great part to his mythology. That, nevertheless, gives

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 25

the explanation for the bewildering changes, the kaleido-

scopic transformations and new syncretistic groupings,

and the continued rejuvenation of the myths in the

Grecian sphere of culture. Here, we move in a world

of phantasies, which, little concerned with the outer

course of things, flows from an inner source, and, con-

stantly changing, creates now plastic, now shadowy

shapes. This phantastical activity of the ancient mind

created artistically par excellence. The object of the in-

terest does not seem to have been to grasp hold of the

" how " of the real world as objectively and exactly as

possibly, but to aesthetically adapt subjective phantasies

and expectations. There was very little place among

ancient people for the coldness and disillusion which

Giordano Bruno's thoughts on eternity and Kepler's dis-

coveries brought to modern humanity. The naive man

of antiquity saw in the sun the great Father of the heaven

and the earth, and in the moon the fruitful good Mother.

Everything had its demons; they animated equally a

human being and his brother, the animal. Everything

was considered according to its anthropomorphic or

theriomorphic attributes, as human being or animal.

Even the disc of the sun was given wings or four feet,

in order to illustrate its movement. Thus arose an idea

of the universe which was not only very far from reality,

but was one which corresponded wholly to subjective

phantasies.

We know, from our own experience, this state of mind.

It is an infantile stage. To a child the moon is a man or

a face or a shepherd of the stars. The clouds in the sky

26 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

seem like little sheep; the dolls drink, eat and sleep; the

child places a letter at the window for the Christ-child;

he calls to the stork to bring him a little brother or

sister; the cow is the wife of the horse, and the dog the

husband of the cat. We know, too, that lower races, like

the negroes, look upon the locomotive as an animal, and

call the drawers of the table the child of the table.

As we learn through Freud, the dream shows a similar

type. Since the dream is unconcerned with the real condi-

tion of things, it brings the most heterogeneous matter

together, and a world of impossibilities takes the place

of realities. Freud finds progression characteristic of

thinking when awake ; that is to say, the advancement of

the thought excitation from the system of the inner or

outer perception through the " endopsychic " work of

association, conscious and unconscious, to the motor end;

that is to say, towards innervation. In the dream he finds

the reverse, namely, regression of the thought excitation

from the pre-conscious or unconscious to the system of

perception, by the means of which the dream receives

its ordinary impression of sensuous distinctness, which

can rise to an almost hallucinating clearness. The dream

thinking moves in a retrograde manner towards the raw

material of memory. " The structure of the dream

thoughts is dissolved during the progress of regression

into its raw material." The reanimation of the original

perception is, however, only one side of regression. The

other side is regression to the infantile memory material,

which might also be understood as regression to the

original perception, but which deserves especial mention

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 27

on account of its independent importance. This regres-

sion might, indeed, be considered as " historical." The

dream, according to this conception, might also be de-

scribed as the substitute of the infantile scene, changed

through transference into the recent scene.

The infantile scene cannot carry through its revival;

it must be satisfied with its return as a dream. From

this conception of the historical side of regression, it fol-

lows consequently that the modes of conclusion of the

dream, in so far as one may speak of them, must show

at the same time an analogous and infantile character.

This is truly the case, as experience has abundantly

shown, so that today every one who is familiar with the

subject of dream analysis confirms Freud's proposition

that dreams are a piece of the conquered life of the

childish soul. Inasmuch as the childish psychic life is

undeniably of an archaic type, this characteristic belongs

to the dream in quite an unusual degree. Freud calls our

attention to this especially.

" The dream, which fulfils its wishes by a short, regressive

path, affords us only an example of the primary method of work-

ing of the psychic apparatus, which has been abandoned by us as

unsuitable. That which once ruled in the waking state, when the

psychical life was still young and impotent, appears to be banished

to the dream life, in somewhat the same way as the bow and

arrow, those discarded, primitive weapons of adult humanity, have

been relegated to the nursery." 19

All this experience suggests to us that we draw a

parallel between the phantastical, mythological thinking

of antiquity and the similar thinking of children, between

28 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

the lower human races and dreams. 20 This train of

thought is not a strange one for us, but quite familiar

through our knowledge of comparative anatomy and the

history of development, which show us how the structure

and function of the human body are the results of a series

of embryonic changes which correspond to similar

changes in the history of the race. Therefore, the sup-

position is justified that ontogenesis corresponds in

psychology to phylogenesis. Consequently, it would

be true, as well, that the state of infantile thinking in the

child's psychic life, as well as in dreams, is nothing but a

re-echo of the prehistoric and the ancient. 21

In regard to this, Nietzsche takes a very broad and re-

markable standpoint. 22

" In our sleep and in our dreams we pass through the whole

thought of earlier humanity. I mean, in the same way that man

reasons in his dreams, he reasoned when in the waking state many

thousands of years. The first causa which occurred to his mind in

reference to anything that needed explanation, satisfied him and

passed for truth. In the dream this atavistic relic of humanity

manifests its existence within us, for it is the foundation upon

which the higher rational faculty developed, and which is still

developing in every individual. The dream carries us back into

earlier states of human culture, and affords us a means of under-

standing it better. The dream thought is so easy to us now,

because we are so thoroughly trained to it through the interminable

stages of evolution during which this phantastic and facile form

of theorizing has prevailed. To a certain extent the dream is

a restorative for the brain, which during the day is called upon

to meet the severe demands for trained thought, made by the

conditions of a higher civilization.

" From these facts, we can understand how lately more acute

logical thinking, the taking seriously of cause and effect, has been

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 29

developed ; when our functions of reason and intelligence still reach

back involuntarily to those primitive forms of conclusion, and we

live about half our lives in this condition."

We have already seen that Freud, independently of

Nietzsche, has reached a similar standpoint from the

basis of dream analysis. The step from this established

proposition to the perception of the myths as familiar

dream images is no longer a great one. Freud has formu-

lated this conclusion himself. 23

" The investigation of this folk-psychologic formation, myths,

etc., is by no means finished at present. To take an example of

this, however, it is probable that the myths correspond to the

distorted residue of wish phantasies of whole nations, the secular-

ized dreams of young humanity."

Rank 24 understands the myths in a similiar manner, as

a mass dream of the people. 25 Riklin 26 has insisted

rightly upon the dream mechanism of the fables, and

Abraham 27 has done the same for the myths. He says :

" The myth is a fragment of the infantile soul-life of the people."

and

" Thus the myth is a sustained, still remaining fragment from

the infantile soul-life of the people, and the dream is the myth

, of the individual."

An unprejudiced reading of the above-mentioned

authors will certainly allay all doubts concerning the

intimate connection between dream psychology and myth

psychology. The conclusion results almost from itself,

that the age which created the myths thought childishly

30 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

that is to say, phantastically, as in our age is still done,

to a very great extent (associatively or analogically) in

dreams. The beginnings of myth formations (in the

child), the taking of phantasies for realities, which is

partly in accord with the historical, may easily be dis-

covered among children.

One might raise the objection that the mythological

inclinations of children are implanted by education. The

objection is futile. Has humanity at all ever broken

loose from the myths? Every man has eyes and all his

senses to perceive that the world is dead, cold and un-

ending, and he has never yet seen a God, nor brought to

light the existence of such from empirical necessity. On

the contrary, there was need of a phantastic, indestruc-

tible optimism, and one far removed from all sense of

reality, in order, for example, to discover in the shameful

death of Christ really the highest salvation and the re-

demption of the world. Thus one can indeed withhold

from a child the substance of earlier myths but not take

from him the need for mythology. One can say, that

should it happen that all traditions in the world were cut

off with a single blow, then with the succeeding genera-

tion, the whole mythology and history of religion would

start over again. Only a few individuals succeed in

throwing off mythology in a time of a certain intellectual

supremacy the mass never frees itself. Explanations

are of no avail; they merely destroy a transitory form

of manifestation, but not the creating impulse.

Let us again take up our earlier train of thought.

We spoke of the ontogenetic re-echo of the phylo-

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 31

genetic psychology among children, we saw that phan-

tastic thinking is a characteristic of antiquity, of the child,

and of the lower races; but now we know also that our

modern and adult man is given over in large part to

this same phantastic thinking, which enters as soon as the

directed thinking ceases. A lessening of the interest, a

slight fatigue, is sufficient to put an end to the directed

thinking, the exact psychological adaptation to the real

world, and to replace it with phantasies. We digress

from the theme and give way to our own trains of

thought; if the slackening of the attention increases, then

we lose by degrees the consciousness of the present, and

the phantasy enters into possession of the field.

Here the important question obtrudes itself : How are

phantasies created? From the poets we learn much about

it; from science we learn little. The psychoanalytic

method, presented to science by Freud, shed light upon

this for the first time. It showed us that there are

typical cycles. The stutterer imagines he is a great

orator. The truth of this, Demosthenes, thanks to his

energy, has proven. The poor man imagines himself to

be a millionaire, the child an adult. The conquered fight

out victorious battles with the conquerer; the unfit tor-

ments or delights himself with ambitious plans. We

imagine that which we lack. The interesting question of

the " why " of all this we must here leave unanswered,

while we return to the historic problem: From what

source do the phantasies draw their materials? 28 We

chose, as an example, a typical phantasy of puberty. A

child in that stage before whom the whole frightening

32 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

uncertainty of the future fate opens, puts back the uncer-

tainty into the past, through his phantasy, and says, u If

only I were not the child of my ordinary parents, but

the child of a rich and fashionable count, and had been

merely passed over to my parents, then some day a golden

coach would come, and the count would take his child

back with him to his wonderful castle," and so it goes

on, as in Grimm's Fairy Tales which the mother tells to

her children. 29 With a normal child, it stops with the

fugitive, quickly-passing idea which is soon covered over

and forgotten. However, at one time, and that was in

the ancient world of culture, the phantasy was an openly

acknowledged institution. The heroes, I recall Romu-

lus and Remus, Semiramis, Moses and many others,

have been separated from their real parents. 30 Others

are directly sons of gods, and the noble races derive their

family trees from heroes and gods. As one sees by this

example, the phantasy of modern humanity is nothing but

a re-echo of an old-folk-belief, which was very wide-

spread originally. 31 The ambitious phantasy chooses,

among others, a form which is classic, and which once

had a true meaning. The same thing holds good in

regard to the sexual phantasy. In the preamble we have

spoken of dreams of sexual assault: the robber who

breaks into the house and commits a dangerous act.

That, too, is a mythological theme, and in the prehistoric

era was certainly a reality too. 32 Wholly apart from the

fact that the capture of women was something general

in the lawless prehistoric times, it was also a subject of

mythology in cultivated epochs. I recall the capture of

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 33

Proserpina, Deianira, Europa, the Sabine women, etc.

We must not forget that, even today, marriage customs

exist in various regions which recall the ancient custom

of marriage by capture.

The symbolism of the instrument of coitus was an in-

exhaustible material for ancient phantasy. It furnished

a widespread cult that was designated phallic, the object

of reverence of which was the phallus. The companion

of Dionysus was Phales, a personification of the phallus

proceeding from the phallic Herme of Dionysus. The

phallic symbols were countless. Among the Sabines, the

custom existed for the bridegroom to part the bride's

hair with a lance. The bird, the fish and the snake were

phallic symbols. In addition, there existed in enormous

quantities theriomorphic representations of the sexual

instinct, in connection with which the bull, the he-goat,

the ram, the boar and the ass were frequently used. An

undercurrent to this choice of symbol was furnished by

the sodomitic inclination of humanity. When in the

dream phantasy of modern man, the feared man is re-

placed by an animal, there is recurring in the ontogenetic

re-echo the same thing which was openly represented by

the ancients countless times. There were he-goats which

pursued nymphs, satyrs with she-goats ; in still older times

in Egypt there even existed a shrine of a goat god, which

the Greeks called Pan, where the Hierodules prostituted

themselves with goats. 33 It is well known that this wor-

ship has not died out, but continues to live as a special

custom in South Italy and Greece. 34

Today we feel for such a thing nothing but the deepest

34 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

abhorrence, and never would admit it still slumbered in

our souls. Nevertheless, just as truly as the idea of the

sexual assault is there, so are these things there too ; which

we should contemplate still more closely, not through

moral eye-glasses, with horror, but with interest as a

natural science, since these things are venerable relics of

past culture periods. We have, even today, a clause in

our penal code against sodomy. But that which was once

so strong as to give rise to a worship among a highly

developed people has probably not wholly disappeared

from the human soul during the course of a few genera-

tions. We may not forget that since the symposium of

Plato, in which homo-sexuality faces us on the same level

with the so-called " normal sexuality," only eighty gen-

erations have passed. And what are eighty generations?

They shrink to an imperceptible period of time when

compared with the space of time which separates us from

the homo-Neandertalensis or Heidelbergensis. I might

call to mind, in this connection, some choice thoughts of

the great historian Guglielmo Ferrero : 35

" It is a very common belief that the further man is separated

from the present by time, the more does he differ from us in his

thoughts and feelings; that the psychology of humanity changes

from century to century, like fashions of literature. Therefore, no

sooner do we find in past history an institution, a custom, a law

or a belief a little different from those with which we are familiar,

than we immediately search for some complex meanings, which

frequently resolve themselves into phrases of doubtful significance.

" Indeed, man does not change so quickly ; his psychology at

bottom remains the same, and even if his culture varies much from

one epoch to another, it does not change the functioning of his

mind. The fundamental laws of the mind remain the same, at

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 35

least during the short historical period of which we have knowl-

edge, and all phenomena, even the most strange, must be capable

of explanation by those common laws of the mind which we can

recognize in ourselves."

The psychologist should accept this viewpoint without

reservation as peculiarly applicable to himself. Today,

indeed, in our civilization the phallic processions, the

Dionysian mysteries of classical Athens, the barefaced

Phallic emblems, have disappeared from our coins,

houses, temples and streets; so also have the theriomor-

phic representations of the Deity been reduced to small

remnants, like the Dove of the Holy Ghost, the Lamb of

God and the Cock of Peter adorning our church towers.

In the same way, the capture and violation of women

have shrunken away to crimes. Yet all of this does not

affect the fact that we, in childhood, go through a period

in which the impulses toward these archaic inclinations

appear again and again, and that through all our life we

possess, side by side with the newly recruited, directed

and adapted thought, a phantastic thought which corre-

sponds to the thought of the centuries of antiquity and

barbarism. Just as our bodies still keep the reminders

of old functions and conditions in many old-fashioned

organs, so our minds, too, which apparently have out-

grown those archaic tendencies, nevertheless bear the

marks of the evolution passed through, and the very

ancient re-echoes, at least dreamily, in phantasies.

The symbolism which Freud has discovered, is re-

vealed as an expression of a thinking and of an impulse

limited to the dream, to wrong conduct, and to derange-

36 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

ments of the mind, which form of thinking and impulse at

one time ruled as the mightiest influence in past culture

epochs.

The question of whence comes the inclination and

ability which enables the mind to express itself

symbolically, brings us to the distinction between the

two kinds of thinking the directed and adapted on

one hand, and the subjective, fed by our own egotistic

wishes, on the other. The latter form of thinking,

presupposing that it were not constantly corrected

by the adapted thinking, must necessarily produce an

overwhelmingly subjectively distorted idea of the world.

We regard this state of mind as infantile. It lies in our

individual past, and in the past of mankind.

With this we affirm the important fact that man in his

phantastic thinking has kept a condensation of the psychic

history of his development. An extraordinarily impor-

tant task, which even today is hardly possible, is to give a

systematic description of phantastic thinking. One may,

at the most, sketch it. While directed thinking is a phe-

nomenon conscious throughout, 36 the same cannot be as-

serted of phantastic thinking. Doubtless, a great part of

it still falls entirely in the realm of the conscious, but,

at least, just as much goes along in half shadows, and

generally an undetermined amount in the unconscious;

and this can, therefore, be disclosed only indirectly. 37 By

means of phantastic thinking, directed thinking is con-

nected with the oldest foundations of the human mind,

which have been for a long time beneath the threshold

of the consciousness. The products of this phantastic

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 37

thinking arising directly from the consciousness are,

first, waking dreams, or day-dreams, to which Freud,

Flournoy, Pick and others have given special attention;

then the dreams which offer to the consciousness, at first,

a mysterious exterior, and win meaning only through the

indirectly inferred unconscious contents. Lastly, there is

a so-called wholly unconscious phantasy system in the

split-off complex, which exhibits a pronounced tend-

ency towards the production of a dissociated person-

ality. 38

Our foregoing explanations show wherein the products

arising from the unconscious are related to the mythical.

From all these signs it may be concluded that the soul

possesses in some degree historical strata, the oldest

stratum of which would correspond to the unconscious.

The result of that must be that an introversion occurring

in later life, according to the Freudian teaching, seizes

upon regressive infantile reminiscences taken from the

individual past. That first points out the way; then, with

stronger introversion and regression (strong repressions,

introversion psychoses), there come to light pronounced

traits of an archaic mental kind which, under certain cir-

cumstances, might go as far as the re-echo of a once

manifest, archaic mental product.

This problem deserves to be more thoroughly dis-

cussed. As a concrete example, let us take the history of

the pious Abbe Oegger which Anatole France has com-

municated to us. 39 This priest was a hypercritical man,

and much given to phantasies, especially in regard to

one question, viz., the fate of Judas; whether he was

38 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

really damned, as the teaching of the church asserts, to

everlasting punishment, or whether God had pardoned

him after all. Oegger sided with the intelligent point of

view that God, in his all-wisdom, had chosen Judas as

an instrument, in order to bring about the highest point

of the work of redemption by Christ. 40 This necessary

instrument, without the help of which the human race

would not have been a sharer in salvation, could not

possibly be damned by the all-good God. In order to

put an end to his doubts, Oegger went one night to the

church, and made supplication for a sign that Judas was

saved. Then he felt a heavenly touch upon his shoulder.

Following this, Oegger told the Archbishop of his reso-

lution to go out into the world to preach God's unending

mercy.

Here we have a richly developed phantasy system be-

fore us. It is concerned with the subtle and perpetually

undecided question as to whether the legendary figure of

Judas is damned or not. The Judas legend is, in itself,

mythical material, viz., the malicious betrayal of a hero.

I recall Siegfried and Hagen, Balder and Loki. Siegfried

and Balder were murdered by a faithless traitor from

among their closest associates. This myth is moving and

tragic it is not honorable battle which kills the noble,

but evil treachery. It is, too, an occurrence which is his-

torical over and over again. One thinks of Caesar and

Brutus. Since the myth of such a deed is very old, and

still the subject of teaching and repetition, it is the

expression of a psychological fact, that envy does not

allow humanity to sleep, and that all of us carry, in a

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 39

hidden recess of our heart, a deadly wish towards the

hero. This rule can be applied generally to mythical

tradition. It does not set forth any account of the old

events, but rather acts in such a way that it always reveals

a thought common to humanity, and once more rejuve-

nated. Thus, for example, the lives and deeds of the

founders of old religions are the purest condensations

of typical, contemporaneous myths, behind which the

individual figure entirely disappears. 41

But why does our pious Abbe torment himself with the

old Judas legend ? He first went into the world to preach

the gospel of mercy, and then, after some time, he

separated from the Catholic church and became a Sweden-

borgian. Now we understand his Judas phantasy. He

was the Judas who betrayed his Lord. Therefore, first

of all, he had to make sure of the divine mercy, in order

to be Judas in peace.

This case throws a light upon the mechanism of the

phantasies in general. The known, conscious phantasy

may be of mythical or other material; it is not to be taken

seriously as such, for it has an indirect meaning. If we

take it, however, as important per se, then the thing is

not understandable, and makes one despair of the effi-

ciency of the mind. But we saw, in the case of Abbe

Oegger, that his doubts and his hopes did not turn upon

the historical problem of Judas, but upon his own per-

sonality, which wished to win a way to freedom for itself

through the solution of the Judas problem.

The conscious phantasies tell us of mythical or other

material of undeveloped or no longer recognized wish

40 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

tendencies in the soul. As is easily to be understood, an

innate tendency, an acknowledgment of which one re-

fuses to make, and which one treats as non-existent, can

hardly contain a thing that may be in accord with our

conscious character. It concerns the tendencies which are

considered immoral, and as generally impossible, and the

strongest resentment is felt towards bringing them into

the consciousness. What would Oegger have said had

he been told confidentially that he was preparing himself

for the Judas role? And what in ourselves do we con-

sider immoral and non-existent, or which we at least wish

were non-existent? It is that which in antiquity lay wide-

spread on the surface, viz., sexuality in all its various

manifestations. Therefore, we need not wonder in the

least when we find this at the base of most of our phan-

tasies, even if the phantasies have a different appearance.

Because Oegger found the damnation of Judas incom-

patible with God's goodness, he thought about the con-

flict in that way; that is the conscious sequence. Along

with this is the unconscious sequence ; because Oegger

himself wished to be a Judas, he first made sure of the

goodness of God. To Oegger, Judas was the symbol

of his own unconscious tendency, and he made use of this

symbol in order to be able to meditate over his uncon-

scious wish. The direct coming into consciousness of the

Judas wish would have been too painful for him. Thus,

there must be typical myths which are really the instru-

ments of a folk-psychological complex treatment. Jacob

Burckhardt seems to have suspected this when he once

said that every Greek of the classical era carried in him-

CONCERNING TWO KINDS OF THINKING 41

self a fragment of the Oedipus, just as every German

carries a fragment of Faust. 42

The problem which the simple story of the Abbe

Oegger has brought clearly before us confronts us again

when we prepare to examine phantasies which owe their

existence this time to an exclusively unconscious work.

We are indebted for the material which we will use in

the following chapters to the useful publication of an

American woman, Miss Frank Miller, who has given to

the world some poetical unconsciously formed phantasies

under the title, " Quelque faits d'imagination creatrice

subconsciente." Vol. V., Archives de Psychologic,

1906.**

CHAPTER II

THE MILLER PHANTASIES

WE know, from much psychoanalytic experience, that

whenever one recounts his phantasies or his dreams, he

deals not only with the most important and intimate of

his problems, but with the one the most painful at that

moment. 1

Since in the case of Miss Miller we have to do with a

complicated system, we must give our attention carefully

to the particulars which I will discuss, following as best

I can Miss Miller's presentation.

In the first chapter, " Phenomenes de suggestion pas-

sagere ou d'autosuggestion instantanee," Miss Miller

gives a list of examples of her unusual suggestibility,

which she herself considers as a symptom of her nervous

temperament; for example, she is excessively fond of

caviar, whereas some of her relatives loathe it. How-

ever, as soon as any one expresses his loathing, she her-

self feels momentarily the same loathing. I do not need

to emphasize especially the fact that such examples are

very important in individual psychology; that caviar is

a food for which nervous women frequently have an

especial predilection, is a fact well known to the psycho-

analysist.

Miss Miller has an extraordinary faculty for taking

42

THE MILLER PHANTASIES 43

other people's feelings upon herself, and of identifica-

tion; for example, she identifies herself to such a degree

in " Cyrano " with the wounded Christian de Neuvillette,

that she feels in her own breast a truly piercing pain at

that place where Christian received the deadly blow.

From the viewpoint of analytic psychology, the theatre,

aside from any esthetic value, may be considered as an

institution for the treatment of the mass complex. The

enjoyment of the comedy, or of the dramatic plot ending

happily is produced by an unreserved identification of

one's own complexes with the play. The enjoyment of

tragedy lies in the thrilling yet satisfactory feeling that

something which might occur to one's self is happening

to another. The sympathy of our author with the dying

Christian means that there is in her a complex awaiting

a similar solution, which whispers softly to her " hodie

tibi, eras mihi," and that one may know exactly what is

considered the effectual moment Miss Miller adds that

she felt a pain in her breast, " Lorsque Sarah Bernhardt

se precipite sur lui pour etancher le sang de sa blessure."

Therefore the effectual moment is when the love between

Christian and Roxane comes to a sudden end.

If we glance over the whole of Rostand's play, we

come upon certain moments, the effect of which one can-

not easily escape and which we will emphasize here be-

cause they have meaning for all that follows. Cyrano de

Bergerac, with the long ugly nose, on account of which

he undertakes countless duels, loves Roxane, who, for

her part unaware of it, loves Christian, because of the

beautiful verses which really originate from Cyrano's

44 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

pen, but which apparently come from Christian. Cyrano

is the misunderstood one, whose passionate love and

noble soul no one suspects; the hero who sacrifices him-

self for others, and, dying, just in the evening of life,

reads to her once more Christian's last letter, the verses

which he himself had composed.

" Roxane, adieu, je vais mourir!

C'est pour ce soir, je crois, ma bien-aimee!

J'ai Tame lourde encore d'amour inexprime.

Et je meurs! Jamais plus, jamais mes yeux grises,

Mes regards dont c'etait les fremissantes fetes,

Ne baiseront au vol les gestes que vous faites;

J'en revois un petit qui vous est familier

Pour toucher votre front et je voudrais crier .

Et je crie:

Adieu! Ma chere, ma cherie,

Mon tresor mon amour!

Mon coeur ne vous quitta jamais une seconde,

Et je suis et je serai jusque dans 1'autre monde

Celui qui vous aime sans mesure, celui "

Whereupon Roxane recognizes in him the real loved

one. It is already too late; death comes; and in agonized

delirium, Cyrano raises himself, and draws his sword:

" Je crois, qu'elle regarde. . . .

Qu'elle ose regarder mon nez, la camarde!

(II leve son epee.)

Que dites-vous? . . . C'est inutile!

Je le sais!

Mais on ne se bat pas dans 1'espoir du succes!

Non ! Non ! C'est bien plus beau, lorsque c'est inutile !

Qu'est-ce que c'est que tous ceux-la? Vous etes mille?

Ah! je vous reconnais, tous mes vieux ennemis!

Le mensonge!

(II frappe de son epee le vide.)

THE MILLER PHANTASIES 45

Tiens, tiens, ha! ha! les Compromis,

Les Prejuges, les Lachetes! . . .

(II frappe.)

Que je pactise?

Jamais, jamais! Ah, te voila, toi, la Sottise!

Je sais bien qu'a la fin vous me mettrez a has;

N'importe: je me bats! je me bats! je me bats!

Oui, vous m'arrachez tout, le laurier et la rose!

Arrachez ! II y a malgre vous quelque chose

Que j'emporte, et ce soir, quand j'entrerai chez Dieu,

Mon salut balaiera largement le seuil bleu.

Quelque chose que sans un pli, sans une tache,

J'emporte malgre vous, et c'est mon panache."

Cyrano, who under the hateful exterior of his body

hid a soul so much more beautiful, is a yearner and one

misunderstood, and his last triumph is that he departs,

at least, with a clean shield " Sans un pli et sans une

tache." The identification of the author with the dying

Christian, who in himself is a figure but little impressive

and sympathetic, expresses clearly that a sudden end is

destined for her love just as for Christian's love. The

tragic intermezzo with Christian, however, is played as

we have seen upon a background of much wider signifi-

cance, viz., the misunderstood love of Cyrano for

Roxane. Therefore, the identification with Christian

has only the significance of a substitute memory (" deck-

erinnerung"), and is really intended for Cyrano. That

this is just what we might expect will be seen in the

further course of our analysis.

Besides this story of identification with Christian, there

follows as a further example an extraordinarily plastic

46 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

memory of the sea, evoked by the sight of a photograph of

a steamboat on the high seas. ( u Je sentis les pulsations

des machines, le soulevement des vagues, le balancement

du navire.")

We may mention here the supposition that there are

connected with sea journeys particularly impressive and

strong memories which penetrate deeply into the soul

and give an especially strong character to the surface

memories through unconscious harmony. To what extent

the memories assumed here agree with the above men-

tioned problem we shall see in the following pages.

This example, following at this time, is singular : Once,

while in bathing, Miss Miller wound a towel around her

hair, in order to protect it from a wetting. At the same

moment she had the following strong impression:

" II me sembla que j'etais sur un piedestal, une veritable statue

egyptienne, avec tous ses details: membres raides, un pied en

avant, la main tenant des insignes," and so on.

Miss Miller identified herself, therefore, with an Egyp-

tian statue, and naturally the foundation for this was

a subjective pretension. That is to say, u I am like an

Egyptian statue, just as stiff, wooden, sublime and im-

passive," qualities for which the Egyptian statue is pro-

verbial. One does not make such an assertion to one's

self without an inner compulsion, and the correct formula

might just as well be, " as stiff, wooden, etc., as an Egyp-

tian statue I might indeed be." The sight of one's own

unclothed body in a bath has undeniable effects for the

phantasy, which can be set at rest by the above formula. 2

THE MILLER PHANTASIES 4 7

The example which follows this, emphasizes the

author's personal influence upon an artist:

" J'ai reussi a lui faire rendre des paysages, comme ceux du

lac Leman, ou il n'a jamais etc, et il pretendait que je pouvais

lui faire rendre des choses qu'il n'avait jamais vues, et lui donner

la sensation d'une atmosphere ambiante qu'il n'avait jamais sentie;

bref que je me servais de lui comme lui-meme se servait de son

crayon, c'est a dire comme d'un simple instrument."

This observation stands in abrupt contrast to the phan-

tasy of the Egyptian statue. Miss Miller had here the

unspoken need of emphasizing her almost magic effect

upon another person. This could not have happened,

either, without an unconscious need, which is particularly

felt by one who does not often succeed in making an

emotional impression upon a fellow being.

With that, the list of examples which are to picture

Miss Miller's autosuggestibility and suggestive effect, is

exhausted. In this respect, the examples are neither

especially striking nor interesting. From an analytical

viewpoint, on the contrary, they are much more impor-

tant, since they afford us a glance into the squl of the

writer. Ferenczi 3 has taught us in an excellent work

what is to be thought about suggestibility, that is to say,

that these phenomena win new aspects in the light of the

Freudian libido theory, in so much as their effects be-

come clear through " Libido-besetzungen." This was al-

ready indicated above in the discussion of the examples,

and in the greatest detail regarding the identification

with Christian. The identification becomes effective by

its receiving an influx of energy from the strongly accen-

48 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

tuated thought and emotional feeling underlying the

Christian motif. Just the reverse is the suggestive effect

of the individual in an especial capacity for concentrating

interest (that is to say, libido) upon another person, by

which the other is unconsciously compelled to reaction

(the same or opposed). The majority of the examples

concern cases where Miss Miller is put under the effects

of suggestion; that is to say, when the libido has spon-

taneously gained possession of certain impressions, and

this is impossible if the libido is dammed up to an un-

usual degree by the lack of application to reality. Miss

Miller's observations about suggestibility inform us,

therefore, of the fact that the author is pleased to tell

us in her following phantasies something of the history

of her love.

CHAPTER III

THE HYMN OF CREATION

THE second chapter in Miss Miller's work is entitled,

" Gloire a Dieu. Poeme onirique."

When twenty years of age, Miss Miller took a long

journey through Europe. We leave the description of it

to her:

" After a long and rough journey from New York to Stock-

holm, from there to Petersburg and Odessa, I found it a true

pleasure 1 to leave the world of inhabited cities and to enter

the world of waves, sky and silence I stayed hours long on deck

to dream, stretched out in a reclining chair. The histories, legends

and myths of the different countries which I saw in the distance,

came back to me indistinctly blended together in a sort of

luminous mist, in which things lost their reality, while the dreams

and thoughts alone took on somewhat the appearance of reality.

At first, I even avoided all company and kept to myself, lost

wholly in my dreams, where all that I knew of great, beautiful

and good came back into my consciousness with new strength and

new life. I also employed a great part of my time writing to my

distant friends, reading and sketching out short poems about the

regions visited. Some of these poems were of a very serious

character."

It may seem superfluous, perhaps, to enter intimately

into all these details. If we recall, however, the remark

made above, that when people let their unconscious

speak, they always tell us the most important things of

49

50 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

their intimate selves then even the smallest detail ap-

pears to have meaning. Valuable personalities invariably

tell us, through their unconscious, things that are gener-

ally valuable, so that patient interest is rewarded.

Miss Miller describes here a state of " introversion."

After the life of the cities with their many impressions

had been absorbing her interest (with that already dis-

cussed strength of suggestion which powerfully enforced

the impression) she breathed freely upon the ocean, and

after so many external impressions, became engrossed

wholly in the internal with intentional abstraction from

the surroundings, so that things lost their reality and

dreams became truth. We know from psychopathology

that certain mental disturbances 2 exist which are first

manifested by the individuals shutting themselves off

slowly, more and more, from reality and sinking into

their phantasies, during which process, in proportion as

the reality loses its hold, the inner world gains in reality

and determining power. 3 This process leads to a certain

point (which varies with the individual) when the pa-

tients suddenly become more or less conscious of their

separation from reality. The event which then enters

is the pathological excitation: that is to say, the patients

begin to turn towards the environment, with diseased

views (to be sure) which, however, still represent the

compensating, although unsuccessful, attempt at trans-

ference. 4 The methods of reaction are, naturally, very

different I will not concern myself more closely about

this here.

This type appears to be generally a psychological rule

THE HYMN OF CREATION 51

which holds good for all neuroses and, therefore, also

for the normal in a much less degree. We might, there-

fore, expect that Miss Miller, after this energetic and per-

severing introversion, which had even encroached for a

time upon the feeling of reality, would succumb anew to

an impression of the real world and also to just as sug-

gestive and energetic an influence as that of her dreams.

Let us proceed with the narrative :

" But as the journey drew to an end, the ship's officers outdid

themselves in kindness (tout ce qu'il y a de plus empresse et de plus

aimable) and I passed many amusing hours teaching them English.

On the Sicilian coast, in the harbor of Catania, I wrote a sailor's

song which was very similar to a song well known on the sea,

(Brine, wine and damsels fine). The Italians in general all sing

very well, and one of the officers who sang on deck during night

watch, had made a great impression upon me and had given me

the idea of writing some words adapted to his melody. Soon

after that, I was very nearly obliged to reverse the well-known

saying, ' Veder Napoli e poi morir,' that is to say, suddenly I

became very ill, although not dangerously so. I recovered to

such an extent, however, that I could go on land to visit the

sights of the city in a carriage. This day tired me very much,

and since we had planned to see Pisa the following day, I went

on board early in the evening and soon lay down to sleep without

thinking of anything more serious than the beauty of the officers

and the ugliness of the Italian beggars."

One is somewhat disappointed at meeting here, instead

of the expected impression of reality, rather a small inter-

mezzo, a flirtation. Nevertheless, one of the officers,

the singer, had made a great impression (il m'avait fait

beaucoup d'impression) . The remark at the close of the

description, " sans songer a rien de plus serieux qu'a la

52 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

beaute des officiers,' and so on, diminishes the seriousness

of the impression, it is true. The assumption, however,

that the impression openly influenced the mood very

much, is supported by the fact that a poem upon a subject

of such an erotic character came forth immediately,

" Brine, wine and damsels fine," and in the singer's honor.

One is only too easily inclined to take such an impression

lightly, and one admits so gladly the statements of the

participators when they represent everything as simple

and not at all serious. I dwell upon this impression at

length, because it is important to know that an erotic im-

pression after such an introversion, has a deep effect and

is undervalued, possibly, by Miss Miller. The suddenly

passing sickness is obscure and needs a psychologic inter-

pretation which cannot be touched upon here because of

lack of data. The phenomena now to be described can

only be explained as arising from a disturbance which

reaches to the very depths of her being.

" From Naples to Livorno, the ship travelled for a night,

during which I slept more or less well, my sleep, however, is

seldom deep or dreamless. It seemed to me as if my mother's

voice wakened me, just at the end of the following dream. At

first I had a vague conception of the words, ' When the morning

stars sang together,' which were the praeludium of a certain con-

fused representation of creation and of the mighty chorals re-

sounding through the universe. In spite of the strange, contra-

dictory and confused character which is peculiar to the dream,

there was mingled in it the chorus of an oratorio which has been

given by one of the foremost musical societies of New York, and

with that were also memories of Milton's ' Paradise Lost.' Then

from out of this whirl, there slowly emerged certain words, which

arranged themselves into three strophes and, indeed, they seemed

THE HYMN OF CREATION 53

to be in my own handwriting on ordinary blue-lined writing paper

on a page of my old poetry book which I always carried around with

me; in short, they appeared to me exactly as some minutes later

they were in reality in my book."

Miss Miller now wrote down the following poem,

which she rearranged somewhat a few months later, to

make it more nearly, in her opinion, like the dream

original.

" When the Eternal first made Sound

A myriad ears sprang out to hear,

And throughout all the Universe

There rolled an echo deep and clear:

All glory to the God of Sound!

"When the Eternal first made Light

A myriad eyes sprang out to look,

And hearing ears and seeing eyes

Once more a mighty choral took:

All glory to the God of Light!

" When the Eternal first gave Love

A myriad hearts sprang into life;

Ears filled with music, eyes with light;

Pealed forth with hearts with love all rife:

All glory to the God of Love ! "

Before we enter upon Miss Miller's attempt to bring

to light through her suppositions 5 the root of this sub-

liminal creation, we will attempt a short analytic survey

of the material already in our possession. The impres-

sion on the ship has already been properly emphasized,

so that we need have no further difficulty in gaining pos-

session of the dynamic process which brought about this

poetical revelation. It was made clear in the preceding

54 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

paragraphs that Miss Miller possibly had not inconsid-

erably undervalued the importance of the erotic impres-

sion. This assumption gains in probability through ex-

perience, which shows that, very generally, relatively

weak erotic impressions are greatly undervalued. One

can see this best in cases where those concerned, either

from social or moral grounds, consider an erotic relation

as something quite impossible; for example, parents and

children, brothers and sisters, relations (homosexual)

between older and younger men, and so on. If the im-

pression is relatively slight, then it does not exist at all

for the participators; if the impression is strong, then a

tragic dependence arises, which may result in some great

nonsense, or be carried to any extent. This lack of under-

standing can go unbelievably far; mothers, who see the

first erections of the small son in their own bed, a sister

who half-playfully embraces her brother, a twenty-year-

old daughter who still seats herself on her father's lap,

and then has " strange " sensations in her " abdomen."

They are all morally indignant to the highest degree if

one speaks of " sexuality." Finally, our whole education

is carried on with the tacit agreement to know as little

as possible of the erotic, and to spread abroad the deepest

ignorance in regard to it. It is no wonder, therefore,

that the judgment, in puncto, of the importance of an

erotic impression is generally unsafe and inadequate.

Miss Miller was under the influence of a deep erotic

impression, as we have seen. Because of the sum-total

of the feelings aroused by this, it does not seem that this

impression was more than dimly realized, for the dream

THE HYMN OF CREATION 55

had to contain a powerful repetition. From analytic ex-

perience, one knows that the early dreams which patients

bring for analysis are none the less of especial interest,

because of the fact that they bring out criticisms and

valuations of the physician's personality, which previ-

ously, would have been asked for directly in vain. They

enrich the conscious impression which the patient had of

his physician, and often concerning very important points.

They are naturally erotic observations which the uncon-

scious was forced to make, just because of the quite uni-

versal undervaluation and uncertain judgment of the

relatively weak erotic impression. In the drastic and

hyperbolic manner of expression of the dream, the impres-

sion often appears in almost unintelligible form on account

of the immeasurable dimension of the symbol. A further

peculiarity which seems to rest upon the historic strata of

the unconscious, is this that an erotic impression, to

which conscious acknowledgment is denied, usurps an

earlier and discarded transference and expresses itself

in that. Therefore, it frequently happens, for example,

that among young girls at the time of their first love,

remarkable difficulties develop in the capacity for erotic

expression, which may be reduced analytically to disturb-

ances through a regressive attempt at resuscitation of

the father image, or the " Father-Imago." 6

Indeed, one might presume something similar in Miss

Miller's case, for the idea of the masculine creative deity

is a derivation, analytically and historically psychologic,

of the " Father-Imago," 7 and aims, above all, to replace

the discarded infantile father transference in such a way

56 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

that for the individual the passing from the narrow circle

of the family into the wider circle of human society may

be simpler or made easier.

In the light of this reflection, we can see, in the poem

and its " Praeludium," the religious, poetically formed

product of an introversion depending upon the surrogate

of the " Father-Imago." In spite of the incomplete ap-

perception of the effectual impression, essential compo-

nent parts of this are included in the idea of compensa-

tion, as marks, so to speak, of its origin. (Pfister has

coined for this the striking expression, " Law of the Re-

turn of the Complex.") The effectual impression was

that of the officer singing in the night watch, u When the

morning stars sang together." The idea of this opened

a new world to the girl. (Creation.)

This creator has created tone, then light, and then

love. That the first to be created should have been tone,

can be made clear only individually, for there is no cos-

mogony except the Gnosis of Hermes, a generally quite

unknown system, which would have such tendencies. But

now we might venture a conjecture, which is already ap-

parent, and which soon will be proven thoroughly, viz.,

the following chain of associations : the singer the sing-

ing morning stars the God of tone the Creator the

God of Light (of the sun) (of the fire) and of Love.

The links of this chain are proven by the material, with

the exception of sun and fire, which I put in parentheses,

but which, however, will be proven through what follows

in the further course of the analysis. All of these expres-

sions, with one exception, belong to erotic speech. (" My

THE HYMN OF CREATION 57

God, star, light; my sun, fire of love, fiery love," etc.)

" Creator " appears indistinct at first, but becomes under-

standable through the reference to the undertone of Eros,

to the vibrating chord of Nature, which attempts to renew

itself in every pair of lovers, and awaits the wonder of

creation.

Miss Miller had taken pains to disclose the unconscious

creation of her mind to her understanding, and, indeed

through a procedure which agrees in principle with

psychoanalysis, and, therefore, leads to the same results

as psychoanalysis. But, as usually happens with laymen

and beginners, Miss Miller, because she had no knowl-

edge of psychoanalysis, left off at the thoughts which

necessarily bring the deep complex lying at the bottom

of it to light in an indirect, that is to say, censored man-

ner. More than this, a simple method, merely the carry-

ing out of the thought to its conclusion, is sufficient to dis-

cover the meaning. Miss Miller finds it astonishing that

her unconscious phantasy does not, following the Mosaic

account of creation, put light in the first place, instead of

tone.

Now follows an explanation, theoretically constructed

and correct ad hoc, the hollowness of which is, however,

characteristic of all similar attempts at explanation. She

says:

" It is perhaps interesting to recall that Anaxagoras also had

the Cosmos arise out of chaos through a sort of whirlwind, which

does not happen usually without producing sound. 8 But at this

time I had studied no philosophy, and knew nothing either of

Anaxagoras or of his theories about the ( rov?J which I, uncon-

sciously, was openly following. At that time, also, I was equally

58 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

in complete ignorance of Leibnitz, and, therefore, knew nothing

of his doctrine ' dum Deus calculat, fit mundus.' "

Miss Miller's references to Anaxagoras and to Leib-

nitz both refer to creation by means of thought; that is

to say, that divine thought alone could bring forth a new

material reality, a reference at first not intelligible, but

which will soon, however, be more easily understood.

We now come to those fancies from which Miss Miller

principally drew her unconscious creation.

" In the first place, there is the ' Paradise Lost ' by Milton,

which we had at home in the edition illustrated by Dore, and

which had often delighted me from childhood. Then the ( Book

of Job,' which had been read aloud to me since the time of my

earliest recollection. Moreover, if one compares the first words

of * Paradise Lost ' with my first verse, one notices that there

is the same verse measure.

" * Of man's first disobedience . . .

" ' When the Eternal first made sound.'

" My poem also recalls various passages in Job, and one or two

places in Handel's Oratorio ' The Creation,' which came out

very indistinctly in the first part of the dream." 9

The " Lost Paradise " which, as is well known, is so

closely connected with the beginning of the world, is

made more clearly evident by the verse

" Of man's first disobedience "

which is concerned evidently with the fall, the meaning

of which need not be shown any further. I know the

objection which every one unacquainted with psycho-

analysis will raise, viz., that Miss Miller might just as

well have chosen any other verse as an example, and that,

accidentally, she had taken the first one that happened

THE HYMN OF CREATION 59

to appear which had this content, also accidentally. As

is well known, the criticism which we hear equally from

our medical colleagues, and from our patients, is gener-

ally based on such arguments. This misunderstanding

arises from the fact that the law of causation in the

psychical sphere is not taken seriously enough ; that is to

say, there are no accidents, no u just as wells. " It is so,

and there is, therefore, a sufficient reason at hand why

it is so. It is moreover true that Miss Miller's poem is

connected with the fall, wherein just that erotic compo-

nent comes forth, the existence of which we have surmised

above.

Miss Miller neglects to tell which passages in Job

occurred to her mind. These, unfortunately, are there-

fore only general suppositions. Take first, the analogy

to the Lost Paradise. Job lost all that he had, and this

was due to an act of Satan, who wished to incite him

against God. In the same way mankind, through the

temptation of the serpent, lost Paradise, and was plunged

into earth's torments. The idea, or rather the mood

which is expressed by the reference to the Lost Paradise,

is Miss Miller's feeling that she had lost something

which was connected with satanic temptation. To her it

happened, just as to Job, that she suffered innocently, for

she did not fall a victim to temptation. Job's sufferings

are not understood by his friends ; 10 no one knows that

Satan has taken a hand in the game, and that Job is truly

innocent. Job never tires of avowing his innocence. Is

there a hint in that? We know that certain neurotic and

especially mentally diseased people continually defend

60 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

their innocence against non-existent attacks ; however, one

discovers at a closer examination that the patient, while

he apparently defends his innocence without reason, fulfils

with that a " Deckhandlung," the energy for which arises

from just those impulses, whose sinful character is re-

vealed by the contents of the pretended reproach and

calumny. 11

Job suffered doubly, on one side through the loss of his

fortune, on the other through the lack of understanding

in his friends ; the latter can be seen throughout the book.

The suffering of the misunderstood recalls the figure of

Cyrano de Bergerac he too suffered doubly, on one side

through hopeless love, on the other side through mis-

understanding. He falls, as we have seen, in the last hope-

less battle against " Le Mensonge, les Compromis, les

Prejuges, les Lachetes et la Sottise. Oui, Vous m'ar-

rachez tout le laurier et la rose ! "

Job laments

" God delivereth me to the ungodly,

And casteth me into the hands of the wicked,

I was at ease, and he brake me asunder ;

Yea, he hath taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces:

"He hath also set me up for his mark.

His archers compass me round about;

He cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare;

He poureth out my gall upon the ground.

He breaketh me with breach upon breach ;

He runneth upon me like a giant." Job xvi: 11-15.

The analogy of feeling lies in the suffering of the hope-

less struggle against the more powerful. It is as if this

conflict were accompanied from afar by the sounds of

THE HYMN OF CREATION 61

" creation, " which brings up a beautiful and mysterious

image belonging to the unconscious, and which has not

yet forced its way up to the light of the upper world.

We surmise, rather than know, that this battle has really

something to do with creation, with the struggles between

negations and affirmations. The references to Rostand's

" Cyrano " through the identification with Christian, to

Milton's " Paradise Lost," to the sorrows of Job, mis-

understood by his friends, betray plainly that in the soul

of the poet something was identified with these ideas. She

also has suffered like Cyrano and Job, has lost paradise,

and dreams of " creation," creation by means of thought

fruition through the whirlwind of Anaxagoras. 12

We once more submit ourselves to Miss Miller's

guidance :

" I remember that when fifteen years old, I was once very

much stirred up over an article, read aloud to me by my mother,

concerning the idea which spontaneously produced its object. I

was so excited that I could not sleep all night because of thinking

over and over again what that could mean.

" From the age of nine to sixteen, I went every Sunday to a

Presbyterian Church, in charge of which, at that time, was a very

cultured minister. In one of the earliest memories which I have

retained of him, I see myself as a very small girl sitting in a

very large pew, continually endeavoring to keep myself awake and

pay attention, without in the least being able to understand

what he meant when he spoke to us of Chaos, Cosmos and the

Gift of Love (don d'amour)."

There are also rather early memories of the awaken-

ing of puberty (nine to sixteen) which have connected

the idea of the cosmos springing from chaos with the

62 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

u don d'amour." The medium in which these associations

occur is the memory of a certain very much honored

ecclesiastic who spoke those dark words. From the same

period of time comes the remembrance of that excitement

about the idea of the " creative thought " which from

itself " produced its object." Here are two ways of crea-

tion intimated: the creative thought, and the mysterious

reference to the " don d'amour."

At the time when I had not yet understood the nature

of psychoanalysis, I had a fortunate opportunity of win-

ning through continual observation a deep insight into

the soul of a fifteen-year-old girl. Then I discovered,

with astonishment, what the contents of the unconscious

phantasies are, and how far removed they are from those

which a girl of that age shows outwardly. There are

wide-reaching phantasies of truly mythical fruitfulness.

The girl was, in the split-off phantasy, the race-mother

of uncounted peoples. 13 If we deduct the poetically

spoken phantasy of the girl, elements are left which at

that age are common to all girls, for the unconscious con-

tent is to an infinitely greater degree common to all man-

kind than the content of the individual consciousness.

For it is the condensation of that which is historically the

average and ordinary.

Miss Miller's problem at this age was the common

human problem: " How am I to be creative? " Nature

knows but one answer to that: " Through the child (don

d'amour!)." " But how is the child attained?" Here

the terrifying problem emerges, which, as our analytic

experience shows, is connected with the father, 14 where

THE HYMN OF CREATION 63

it cannot be solved; because the original sin of incest

weighs heavily for all time upon the human race. The

strong and natural love which binds the child to the

father, turns away in those years during which the

humanity of the father would be all too plainly recog-

nized, to the higher forms of the father, to the " Fathers "

of the church, and to the Father God, 15 visibly repre-

sented by them, and in that there lies still less possibility

of solving the problem. However, mythology is not lack-

ing in consolations. Has not the logos become flesh

too? Has not the divine pneuma, even the logos, en-

tered the Virgin's womb and lived among us as the son

of man? That whirlwind of Anaxagoras was precisely

the divine vovz which from out of itself has become

the world. Why do we cherish the image of the Virgin

Mother even to this day? Because it is always comfort-

ing and says without speech or noisy sermon to the one

seeking comfort, " I too have become a mother,"

through the " idea which spontaneously produces its

object."

I believe that there is foundation enough at hand for a

sleepless night, if those phantasies peculiar to the age of

puberty were to become possessed of this idea the results

would be immeasurable ! All that is psychologic has an

under and an over meaning, as is expressed in the pro-

found remark of the old mystic: ovparos avoo, ovpavot

Karoo, aidfpa avco, aidspa Karon, nav rovro avoo, ndv

rovro Karoo, rovro Xafie nai

* The heaven above, the heaven below, the sky above, the sky below,

all things above, all things below, decline and rise.

64 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

We would show but slight justice, however, to the in-

tellectual originality of our author, if we were satisfied

to trace back the commotion of that sleepless night abso-

lutely and entirely to the sexual problem in a narrow

sense. That would be but one-half, and truly, to make

use of the mystic's expression, only the under half. The

other half is the intellectual sublimation, which strives

to make true in its own way the ambiguous expression of

11 the idea which produces its object spontaneously,"

Ideal creation in place of the real.

In such an intellectual accomplishment of an evidently

very capable personality, the prospect of a spiritual fruit-

fulness is something which is worthy of the highest as-

piration, since for many it will become a necessity of life.

Also this side of the phantasy explains, to a great ex-

tent, the excitement, for it is a thought with a presenti-

ment of the future; one of those thoughts which arise,

to use one of Maeterlinck's expressions, 16 from the " in-

conscient superieur," that " prospective potency " of sub-

liminal combinations. 17

I have had the opportunity of observing certain cases

of neuroses of years' duration, in which, at the time of

the beginning of the illness or shortly before, a dream

occurred, often of visionary clarity. This impressed

itself inextinguishably upon the memory, and in analysis

revealed a hidden meaning to the patient which antici-

pated the subsequent events of life; that is to say, their

psychologic meaning. 18 I am inclined to grant this mean-

ing to the commotion of that restless night, because the

resulting events of life, in so far as Miss Miller con-

THE HYMN OF CREATION 65

sciously and unconsciously unveils them to us, are entirely

of a nature to confirm the supposition that that moment

is to be considered as the inception and presentiment of

a sublimated aim in life.

Miss Miller concludes the list of her fancies with the

following remarks :

11 The dream seemed to me to come from a mixture of the

representation of ' Paradise Lost,' * Job,' and * Creation/ with

ideas such as ' thought which spontaneously produces its object ' :

' the gift of love,' ' chaos, and cosmos.' "

In the same way as colored splinters of glass are com-

bined in a kaleidoscope, in her mind fragments of philos-

ophy, aesthetics and religion would seem to be combined

" under the stimulating influence of the journey, and the coun-

tries hurriedly seen, combined with the great silence and the inde-

scribable charm of the sea. ' Ce ne fut que cela et rien de plus.'

1 Only this, and nothing more ! ' '

With these words, Miss Miller shows us out, politely

and energetically. Her parting words in her negation,

confirmed over again in English, leave behind a curiosity;

viz., what position is to be negated by these words? " Ce

ne fut que cela et rien de plus " that is to say, really,

only " le charme impalpable de la mer " and the young

man who sang melodiously during the night watch is long

since forgotten, and no one is to know, least of all the

dreamer, that he was a morning star, who came before

the creation of a new day. 19 One should take care lest

he satisfy himself and the reader with a sentence such as

" ce ne fut que cela." Otherwise, it might immediately

66 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

happen that one would become disturbed again. This

occurs to Miss Miller too, since she allowed an English

quotation to follow, " Only this, and nothing more,"

without giving the source, it is true. The quotation comes

from an unusually effective poem, " The Raven " by Poe.

The line referred to occurs in the following:

" While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door

' 'Tis some visitor/ I muttered, ' tapping at my chamber door '

Only this, and nothing more."

The spectral raven knocks nightly at his door and

reminds the poet of his irrevocably lost " Lenore." The

raven's name is " Nevermore," and as a refrain to every

verse he croaks his horrible u Nevermore." Old mem-

ories come back tormentingly, and the spectre repeats in-

exorably " Nevermore." The poet seeks in vain to

frighten away the dismal guest; he calls to the raven:

" ' Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend,' I shrieked,

upstarting

' Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore !

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken !

Leave my loneliness unbroken, quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off

my door ! '

Quoth the raven, ' Nevermore.' "

That quotation, which, apparently, skips lightly over

the situation, " Only this, and nothing more," comes from

a text which depicts in an affecting manner the despair

over the lost Lenore. That quotation also misleads our

poet in the most striking manner. Therefore, she under-

THE HYMN OF CREATION 67

values the erotic impression and the wide-reaching effect

of the commotion caused by it. It is this undervaluation,

which Freud has formulated more precisely as " repres-

sion/' which is the reason why the erotic problem does

not attain directly conscious treatment, and from this

there arise u these psychologic riddles." The erotic im-

pression works in the unconscious, and, in its stead, pushes

symbols forth into consciousness. Thus, one plays hide-

and-seek with one's self. First, it is " the morning stars

which sing together"; then " Paradise Lost"; then the

erotic yearning clothes itself in an ecclesiastical dress and

utters dark words about " World Creation " and finally

rises into a religious hymn to find there, at last, a way out

into freedom, a way against which the censor of the moral

personality can oppose nothing more. The hymn con-

tains in its own peculiar character the marks of its origin.

It thus has fulfilled itself the " Law of the Return of

the Complex." The night singer, in this circuitous man-

ner of the old transference to the Father-Priest, has be-

come the " Eternal," the " Creator," the God of Tone,

of Light, of Love.

The indirect course of the libido seems to be a way

of sorrow; at least "Paradise Lost" and the parallel

reference to Job lead one to that conclusion. If we take,

in addition to this, the introductory intimation of the

identification with Christian, which we see concludes with

Cyrano, then we -are furnished with material which pic-

tures the indirect course of the libido as truly a way of

sorrow. It is the same as when mankind, after the sinful

fall, had the burden of the earthly life to bear, or like

68 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

the tortures of Job, who suffered under the power of

Satan and of God, and who himself, without suspecting it,

became a plaything of the superhuman forces which we

no longer consider as metaphysical, but as metapsycho-

logical. Faust also offers us the same exhibition of

God's wager.

Mephistopheles:

What will you bet? There's still a chance to gain him

If unto me full leave you give

Gently upon my road to train him!

Satan :

But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath,

and he will curse thee to thy face. Job i: n.

While in Job the two great tendencies are character-

ized simply as good and bad, the problem in Faust is a

pronouncedly erotic one; viz., the battle between sublima-

tion and eros, in which the Devil is strikingly character-

ized through the fitting role of the erotic tempter. The

erotic is lacking in Job ; at the same time Job is not con-

scious of the conflict within his own soul; he even con-

tinuously disputes the arguments of his friends who wish

to convince him of evil in his own heart. To this extent,

one might say that Faust is considerably more honor-

able since he openly confesses to the torments of his

soul.

Miss Miller acts like Job; she says nothing, and lets

the evil and the good come from the other world, from

the metapsychologic. Therefore, the identification with

Job is also significant in this respect. .A wider, and, in-

THE HYMN OF CREATION 69

deed, a very important analogy remains to be mentioned.

The creative power, which love really is, rightly con-

sidered from the natural standpoint, remains as the real

attribute of the Divinity, sublimated from the erotic im-

pression; therefore, in the poem God is praised through-

out as Creator.

Job offers the same illustration. Satan is the destroyer

of Job's fruitfulness. God is the fruitful one himself,

therefore, at the end of the book, he gives forth, as an

expression of his own creative power, this hymn, filled

with lofty poetic beauty. In this hymn, strangely enough,

two unsympathetic representatives of the animal king-

dom, behemoth and the leviathan, both expressive of the

crudest force conceivable in nature, are given chief con-

sideration; the behemoth being really the phallic attri-

bute of the God of Creation.

" Behold now behemoth, which I made as well as thee;

He eateth grass as an ox.

Lo, now; his strength is in his loins,

And his force is in the muscles of his belly.

He moveth his tail like a cedar :

The sinews of his thighs are knit together.

His bones are as tubes of brass;

His limbs are like bars of iron.

He is the chief of the ways of God:

He only that made him giveth him his sword. . . .

Behold, if a river overflow, he trembleth not;

He is confident though a Jordan swell even to his mouth.

Shall any take him when he is on the watch.

Or pierce through his nose with a snare?

Canst thou draw leviathan with a fish-hook?

Or press down his tongue with a cord? . . .

70 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Lay thy hand upon him;

Remember the battle and do no more.

None is so fierce that dare stir him up:

Who then is he that can stand before me?

Who hath first given unto me, that I should repay him?

Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine."

Job xl: 15-20, 23-24; xli: I, 8, 10-11.

God says this in order to bring his power and omnipo-

tence impressively before Job's eyes. God is like the

behemoth and the leviathan; the fruitful nature giving

forth abundance, the untamable wildness and bound-

lessness of nature, and the overwhelming danger of the

unchained power. 20

But what has destroyed Job's earthly paradise? The

unchained power of nature. As the poet lets it be seen

here, God has simply turned his other side outwards for

once; the side which man calls the devil, and which lets

loose all the torments of nature on Job, naturally for the

purpose of discipline and training. The God who cre-

ated such monstrosities, before whom the poor weak man

stiffens with anxiety, truly must hide qualities within him-

self which are food for thought. This God lives in the

heart, in the unconscious, in the realm of metapsychology.

There is the source of the anxiety before the unspeakably

horrible, and of the strength to withstand the horrors.

The person, that is to say his conscious " I," is like a play-

thing, like a feather which is whirled around by different

currents of air; sometimes the sacrifice and sometimes the

sacrificer, and he cannot hinder either. The Book of Job

shows us God at work both as creator and destroyer.

Who is this God? A thought which humanity in every

THE HYMN OF CREATION 71

part of the world and in all ages has brought forth from

itself and always again anew in similar forms; a power in

the other world to which man gives praise, a power which

creates as well as destroys, an idea necessary to life.

Since, psychologically understood, the divinity is nothing

else than a projected complex of representation which is

accentuated in feeling according to the degree of religious-

ness of the individual, so God is to be considered as the

representative of a certain sum of energy (libido).

This energy, therefore, appears projected (metaphysi-

cally) because it works from the unconscious outwards,

when it is dislodged from there, as psychoanalysis shows.

As I have earlier made apparent in the " Bedeutung des

Vaters," the religious instinct feeds upon the incestuous

libido of the infantile period. In the principal forms

of religion which now exist, the father transference seems

to be at least the moulding influence; in older religions,

it seems to be the influence of the mother transference

which creates the attributes of the divinity. The attri-

butes of the divinity are omnipotence, a sternly persecut-

ing paternalism ruling through fear (Old Testament)

and a loving paternalism (New Testament). These are

the attributes of the libido in that wide sense in which

Freud has conceived this idea empirically. In certain

pagan and also in certain Christian attributes of divinity

the maternal stands out strongly, and in the former the

animal also comes into the greatest prominence. 21 Like-

wise, the infantile, so closely interwoven with religious

phantasies, and from time to time breaking forth so vio-

lently, is nowhere lacking. 22 All this points to the sources

72 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

of the dynamic states of religious activity. These are

those impulses which in childhood are withdrawn from

incestuous application through the intervention of the

incest barrier and which, especially at the time of puberty,

as a result of affluxes of libido coming from the still in-

completely employed sexuality, are aroused to their own

peculiar activity. As is easily understood, that which is

valuable in the God-creating idea is not the form but

the power, the libido. The primitive power which Job's

Hymn of Creation vindicates, the unconditional and in-

exorable, the unjust and the superhuman, are truly and

rightly attributes of libido, which " lead us unto life,"

which u let the poor be guilty," and against which strug-

gle is in vain. Nothing remains for mankind but to work

in harmony with this will. Nietzsche's u Zarathustra "

teaches us this impressively.

We see that in Miss Miller the religious hymn arising

from the unconscious is the compensating amend for the

erotic; it takes a great part of its materials from the

infantile reminiscences which she re-awakened into life

by the introversion of the libido. Had this religious cre-

ation not succeeded (and also had another sublimated

application been eliminated) then Miss Miller would

have yielded to the erotic impression, either to its natural

consequence or to a negative issue, which would have

replaced the lost success in love by a correspondingly

strong' sorrow. It is well known that opinions are much

divided concerning the worth of this issue of an erotic

conflict, such as Miss Miller has presented to us. It is

thought to be much more beautiful to solve unnoticed an

THE HYMN OF CREATION 73

erotic tension, in the elevated feelings of religious poetry,

in which perhaps many other people can find joy and

consolation. One is wrong to storm against this con-

ception from the radical standpoint of fanaticism for

truth.

I think that one should view with philosophic admira-

tion the strange paths of the libido and should investi-

gate the purposes of its circuitous ways.

It is not too much to say that we have herewith dug up

the erotic root, and yet the problem remains unsolved.

Were there not bound up with that a mysterious purpose,

probably of the greatest biological meaning, then cer-

tainly twenty centuries would not have yearned for it

with such intense longing. Doubtless, this sort of libidian

current moves in the same direction as, taken in the widest

sense, did that ecstatic ideal of the Middle Ages and of

the ancient mystery cults, one of which became the later

Christianity. There is to be seen biologically in this

ideal an exercise of psychologic projection (of the para-

noidian mechanism, as Freud would express it). 23 The

projection consists in the repressing of the conflict into

the unconscious and the setting forth of the repressed

contents into seeming objectivity, which is also the for-

mula of paranoia. The repression serves, as is well

known, for the freeing from a painful complex from

which one must escape by all means because its compelling

and oppressing power is feared. The repression can lead

to an apparent complete suppression which corresponds

to a strong self-control. Unfortunately, however, self-

control has limits which are only too narrowly drawn.

74 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Closer observation of people shows, it is true, that calm

is maintained at the critical moment, but certain results

occur which fall into two categories.

First, the suppressed effect comes to the surface imme-

diately afterwards; seldom directly, it is true, but ordi-

narily in the form of a displacement to another object

(e. g. a person is, in official relations, polite, submissive,

patient, and so on, and turns his whole anger loose upon

his wife or his subordinates).

Second, the suppressed effect creates compensations

elsewhere. For example, people who strive for excessive

ethics, who try always to think, feel, and act altruistically

and ideally, avenge themselves, because of the impossi-

bility of carrying out their ideals, by subtle maliciousness,

which naturally does not come into their own conscious-

ness as such, but which leads to misunderstandings and

unhappy situations. Apparently, then, all of these are

only u especially unfortunate circumstances," or they are

the guilt and malice of other people, or they are tragic

complications.

One is, indeed, freed of the conscious conflict, never-

theless it lies invisible at one's feet, and is stumbled over

at every step. The technic of the apparent suppressing

and forgetting is inadequate because it is not possible of

achievement in the last analysis it is in reality a mere

makeshift. The religious projection offers a much more

effectual help. In this one keeps the conflict in sight

(care, pain, anxiety, and so on) and gives it over to a

personality standing outside of one's self, the Divinity.

The evangelical command teaches us this:

THE HYMN OF CREATION 75

" Cast all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for

you." / Peter v: 7.

" In nothing be anxious; but in every thing by prayer and sup-

plication ... let your requests be made known unto God."

Phil. iv:6.

One must give the burdening complex of the soul con-

sciously over to the Deity; that is to say, associate it with

a definite representation complex which is set up as ob-

jectively real, as a person who answers those questions,

for us unanswerable. To this inner demand belongs the

candid avowal of sin and the Christian humility presum-

ing such an avowal. Both are for the purpose of making

it possible for one to examine one's self and to know one's

self. 24 One may consider the mutual avowal of sins as

the most powerful support to this work of education

( u Confess, therefore, your sins one to another." James

v: 1 6). These measures aim at a conscious recognition

of the conflicts, thoroughly psychoanalytic, which is also

a conditio sine qua non of the psychoanalytic condition

of recovery. Just as psychoanalysis in the hands of the

physician, a secular method, sets up the real object of

transference as the one to take over the conflicts of the

oppressed and to solve them, so the Christian religion sets

up the Saviour, considered as real; " In whom we have

redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of

sins. . . ." (Eph. iry and Col. i: i 4 .) 25 He is the

deliverer and redeemer of our guilt, a God who stands

above sin, " who did no sin, neither was guile found in

his mouth " (Pet. ii: 22). " Who his own self bare our

sins in his body upon the tree " (Pet. ii: 24). "There-

76 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

fore Christ has been sacrificed once to take away the

sins of many" (Heb. ix:28). The God, thus thought

of, is distinguished as innocent in himself and as the

self-sacrificer. (These qualities are true also for that

amount of energy libido which belongs to the rep-

resentation complex designated the Redeemer.) The

conscious projection towards which the Christian educa-

tion aims, offers, therefore, a double benefit: first, one is

kept conscious of the conflict (sins) of two opposing

tendencies mutually resistant, and through this one pre-

vents a known trouble from becoming, by means of re-

pressing and forgetting, an unknown and therefore so

much more tormenting sorrow. Secondly, one lightens

one's burden by surrendering it to him to whom all solu-

tions are known. One must not forget that the individual

psychologic roots of the Deity, set up as real by the pious,

are concealed from him, and that he, although unaware

of this, still bears the burden alone and is still alone with

his conflict. This delusion would lead infallibly to the

speedy breaking up of the system, for Nature cannot in-

definitely be deceived, but the powerful institution of

Christianity meets this situation. The command in the

book of James is the best expression of the psychologic

significance of this : " Bear ye one another's burdens." 26

This is emphasized as especially important in order

to preserve society upright through mutual love (Trans-

ference) ; the Pauline writings leave no doubt about this:

"Through love be servants one to another." Gal. v: 13.

" Let love of the brethren continue." Heb. xiii: I.

" And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and

THE HYMN OF CREATION 77

good works. Not forgetting our own assembling together as

is the custom of some, but exhorting one another." Heb. x: 24-25.

We might say that the real transference taught in the

Christian community is the condition absolutely necessary

for the efficacy of the miracle of redemption; the first

letter of John comes out frankly with this :

" He that loveth his brother abideth in the light." / John

III IO.

" If we love one another, God abideth in us." / John iv: 12.

The Deity continues to be efficacious in the Christian

religion only upon the foundation of brotherly love.

Consequently, here too the mystery of redemption is the

unresisting real transference. 27 One may properly ask

one's self, for what then is the Deity useful, if his efficacy

consists only in the real transference? To this also the

evangelical message has a striking answer:

" Men are all brothers in Christ."

" So Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins

of many, shall appear a second time apart from sin to them

that wait for him unto salvation." Heb. ix: 28.

The condition of transference among brothers is to be

such as between man and Christ, a spiritual one. As the

history of ancient cults and certain Christian sects shows,

this explanation of the Christian religion is an especially

important one biologically, for the psychologic intimacy

creates certain shortened ways between men which lead

only too easily to that from which Christianity seeks to

release them, namely to the sexual relation with all those

78 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

consequences and necessities under which the really al-

ready highly civilized man had to suffer at the beginning

of our Christian era. For just as the ancient religious

experience was regarded distinctly as a bodily union with

the Deity, 28 just so was worship permeated with sexual-

ity of every kind. Sexuality lay only too close to the

relations of people with each other. The moral degen-

eracy of the first Christian century produced a moral re-

action arising out of the darkness of the lowest strata of

society which was expressed in the second and third cen-

turies at its purest in the two antagonistic religions, Chris-

tianity on the one side, and Mithracism on the other.

These religions strove after precisely that higher form

of social intercourse symbolic of a projected " become

flesh" idea (logos), whereby all those strongest impul-

sive energies of the archaic man, formerly plunging him

from one passion into another, 29 and which seemed to the

ancients like the compulsion of the evil constellations, as

etfAapjjerrj,* and which in the sense of later ages might

be translated as the driving force of the libido, 30 the

dvvapis HivrjrtH^\ of Zeno, could be made use of for

social preservation. 31

It may be assumed most certainly that the domestica-

tion of humanity has cost the greatest sacrifices. An age

which produced the stoical ideal must certainly have

known why and against what it was created. The age

of Nero serves to set off effectually the famous extracts

from the forty-first letter of Seneca to Lucilius:

* Destiny.

t Power for putting in motion.

THE HYMN OF CREATION

79

" One drags the other into error, and how can we attain to

salvation when no one bids us halt, when all the world drives

us in deeper? "

" Do you ever come across a man unafraid in danger, un-

touched by desires, happy in misfortune, peaceful in the midst

of a storm, elevated above ordinary mortals, on the same plane

as the gods, does not reverence seize you ? Are you not compelled

to say, ' Such an exalted being is certainly something different

from the miserable body which he inhabits ' ? A divine strength

rules there, such an excellent mind, full of moderation, raised above

all trivialities, which smiles at that which we others fear or strive

after: a heavenly power animates such a person, a thing of this

kind does not exist without the cooperation of a deity. The

largest part of such a being belongs to the region from which he

came. Just as the sun's rays touch the earth in reality and yet

are at home only there from whence they come, so an eminent

holy man associates with us. He is sent to us that we may

learn to know the divine better, and although with us, still really

belongs to his original home. He looks thither and reaches to-

wards it; among us he walks as an exalted being."

The people of this age had grown ripe for identifica-

tion with the Aoyos (word) "become flesh," for the

founding of a new fellowship, united by one idea, 32 in the

name of which people could love each other and call

each other brothers. 33 The old vague idea of a ^eair^

(Messiah), of a mediator in whose name new ways of

love would be created, became a fact, and with that hu-

manity made an immense step forward. This had not

been brought about by a speculative, completely sophisti-

cated philosophy, but by an elementary need in the mass of

people vegetating in spiritual darkness. The profoundest

necessities had evidently driven them towards that, since

humanity did not thrive in a state of dissoluteness. 34 The

8o PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

meaning of those cults I speak of Christianity and

Mithracism is clear; it is a moral restraint of animal

impulses. 35 The dynamic appearance of both religions

betrays something of that enormous feeling of redemp-

tion which animated the first disciples and which we to-

day scarcely know how to appreciate, for these old truths

are empty to us. Most certainly we should still under-

stand it, had our customs even a breath of ancient brutal-

ity, for we can hardly realize in this day the whirlwinds

of the unchained libido which roared through the ancient

Rome of the Caesars. The civilized man of the present

day seems very far removed from that. He has become

merely neurotic. So for us the necessities which brought

forth Christianity have actually been lost, since we no

longer understand their meaning. We do not know

against what it had to protect us. 36 For enlightened peo-

ple, the so-called religiousness has already approached

very close to a neurosis. In the past two thousand years

Christianity has done its work and has erected barriers

of repression, which protect us from the sight of our

own " sinfulness." The elementary emotions of the

libido have come to be unknown to us, for they are car-

ried on in the unconscious; therefore, the belief which

combats them has become hollow and empty. Let who-

ever does not believe that a mask covers our religion, ob-

tain an impression for himself from the appearance of

our modern churches, from which style and art have long

since fled.

With this we turn back to the question from which we

digressed, namely, whether or not Miss Miller has ere-

THE HYMN OF CREATION 81

ated something valuable with her poem. If we bear in

mind under what psychologic or moral conditions Chris-

tianity came into existence ; that is to say, at a time when

fierce brutality was an every-day spectacle, then we under-

stand the religious seizure of the whole personality and

the worth of that religion which defended the people of

the Roman culture against the visible storms of wicked-

ness. It was not difficult for those people to remain con-

scious of sin, for they saw it every day spread out before

their eyes. The religious product was at that time the

accomplishment of the total personality. Miss Miller not

only undervalues her " sins," but the connection between

the " depressing and unrelenting need " and her religious

product has even escaped her. Thus her poetical crea-

tion completely loses the. living value of a religious

product. It is not much more than a sentimental trans-

formation of the erotic which is secretly carried out close

to consciousness and principally possesses the same worth

as. the manifest content of the dream 37 with its uncertain

and delusive perishableness. Thus the poem is properly

only a dream become audible.

To the degree that the modern consciousness is eagerly

busied with things of a wholly other sort than religion,

religion and its object, original sin, have stepped into the

background; that is to say, into the unconscious in great

part. Therefore, today man believes neither in the one

nor in the other. Consequently the Freudian school is ac-

cused of an impure phantasy, and yet one might convince

one's self very easily with a rather fleeting glance at the

history of ancient religions and morals as to what kind

82 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

of demons are harbored in the human soul. With this

disbelief in the crudeness of human nature is bound up

the disbelief in the power of religion. The phenomenon,

well known to every psychoanalyst, of the unconscious

transformation of an erotic conflict into religious activity

is something ethically wholly worthless and nothing but

an hysterical production. Whoever, on the other hand,

to his conscious sin just as consciously places religion in

opposition, does something the greatness of which can-

not be denied. This can be verified by a backward glance

over history. Such a procedure is sound religion. The

unconscious recasting of the erotic into something re-

ligious lays itself open to the reproach of a sentimental

and ethically worthless pose.

By means of the secular practice of the naive projection

which is, as we have seen, nothing else than a veiled or

indirect real-transference (through the spiritual, through

the logos), Christian training has produced a widespread

weakening of the animal nature so that a great part of

the strength of the impulses could be set free for the

work of social preservation and fruitfulness. 38 This

abundance of libido, to make use of this singular ex-

pression, pursues with a budding renaissance (for ex-

ample Petrarch) a course which outgoing antiquity had

already sketched out as religious; viz., the way of the

transference to nature. 39 The transformation of this

libidinous interest is in great part due to the Mithraic

worship, which was a nature religion in the best sense of

the word ; 40 while the primitive Christians exhibited

throughout an antagonistic attitude to the beauties of this

THE HYMN OF CREATION 83

world. 41 I remember the passage of St. Augustine men-

tioned by J. Burkhardt :

" Men draw thither to admire the heights of the mountains

and the powerful waves of the sea and to turn away from

themselves."

The foremost authority on the Mithraic cult, Franz

Cumont, 42 says as follows:

" The gods were everywhere and mingled in all the events of

daily life. The fire which cooked the means of nourishment for

the believers and which warmed them ; the water which quenched

their thirst and cleansed them; also the air which they breathed,

and the day which shone for them, were the objects of their

homage. Perhaps no religion has given to its adherents in so

large a degree as Mithracism opportunity for prayer and motive

for devotion. When the initiated betook himself in the evening

to the sacred grotto concealed in the solitude of the forest, at

every step new sensations awakened in his heart some mystical

emotion. The stars that shone in the sky, the wind that whispered

in the foliage, the spring or brook which hastened -murmuring to

the valley, even the earth which he trod under his feet, were in

his eyes divine; and all surrounding nature a worshipful fear of

the infinite forces that swayed the universe."

These fundamental thoughts of Mithracism, which,

like so much else of the ancient spiritual life, arose again

from their grave during the renaissance are to be found

in the beautiful words of Seneca : 43

" When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher

than the ordinary, and whose boughs are so closely interwoven

that the sky cannot be seen, the stately shadows of the wood, the

privacy of the place, and the awful gloom cannot but strike you,

as with the presence of a deity, or when we see some cave at

the foot of a mountain penetrating the rocks, not made by human

84 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

hands, but hollowed out to great depths by nature; it fills the

mind with a religious fear; we venerate the fountain-heads of

great rivers; the sudden eruption of a vast body of water from

the secret places of the earth, obtains an altar : we adore likewise

the springs of warm baths, and either the opaque quality or

immense depths, hath made some lakes sacred."

All this disappeared in the transitory world of the

Christian, only to break forth much later when the

thought of mankind had achieved that independence of

the idea which could resist the aesthetic impression, so that

thought was no longer fettered by the emotional effects

of the impression, but could rise to reflective observation.

Thus man entered into a new and independent relation to

nature whereby the foundation was laid for natural science

and technique. With that, however, there entered in for

the first time a displacement of the weight of interest;

there arose again real-transference which has reached its

greatest development in our time. Materialistic interest

has everywhere become paramount. Therefore, the

realms of the spirit, where earlier the greatest conflicts

and developments took place, lie deserted and fallow; the

world has not only lost its God as the sentimentalists of

the nineteenth century bewail, but also to some extent has

lost its soul as well. One, therefore, cannot wonder that

the discoveries and doctrines of the Freudian school, with

their wholly psychologic views, meet with an almost uni-

versal disapproval. Through the change of the centre of

interest from the inner to the outer world, the knowledge

of nature has increased enormously in comparison with

that of earlier times. By this the anthropomorphic con-

ception of the religious dogmas has been definitely thrown

THE HYMN OF CREATION 85

open to question; therefore, the present-day religions

can only with the greatest difficulty close their eyes to this

fact; for not only has the intense interest been diverted

from the Christian religion, but criticism and the neces-

sary correction have increased correspondingly. The

Christian religion seems to have fulfilled its great bio-

logical purpose, in so far as we are able to judge. It has

led human thought to independence, and has lost its sig-

nificance, therefore, to a yet undetermined extent; in any

case its dogmatic contents have become related to Mith-

racism. In consideration of the fact that this religion

has rendered, nevertheless, inconceivable service to edu-

cation, one cannot reject it " eo ipso " today. It seems

to me that we might still make use in some way of its

form of thought, and especially of its great wisdom of

life, which for two thousand years has been proven to

be particularly efficacious. The stumbling block is the

unhappy combination of religion and morality. That

must be overcome. There still remain traces of this strife

in the soul, the lack of which in a human being is re-

luctantly felt. It is hard to say in what such things con-

sist; for this, ideas as well as words are lacking. If, in

spite of that, I attempt to say something about it, I do

it parabolically, using Seneca's words : 44

" Nothing can be more commendable and beneficial if you per-

severe in the pursuit of wisdom. It is what would be ridiculous

to wish for when it is in your power to attain it. There is no

need to lift up your hands to Heaven, or to pray the servant of

the temple to admit you to the ear of the idol that your prayers

may be heard the better. God is near thee; he is with thee.

Yes, Lucilius, a holy spirit resides within us, the observer of

86 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

good and evil, and our constant guardian. And as we treat

him, he treats us; no good man is without a God. Could any one

ever rise above the power of fortune without his assistance? It

is he that inspires us with thoughts, upright, just and pure. We

do not, indeed, pretend to say what God; but that a God dwells

in the breast of every good man is certain."

CHAPTER IV

THE SONG OF THE MOTH

A LITTLE later Miss Miller travelled from Geneva to

Paris. She says:

" My weariness on the railway was so great that I could

hardly sleep an hour. It was terrifically hot in the ladies'

carriage."

At four o'clock in the morning she noticed a moth that

flew against the light in her compartment. She then tried

to go to sleep again. Suddenly the following poem took

possession of her mind.

The Moth to the Sun

" I longed for thee when first I crawled to consciousness.

My dreams were all of thee when in the chrysalis I lay.

Oft myriads of my kind beat out their lives

Against some feeble spark once caught from thee.

And one hour more and my poor life is gone;

Yet my last effort, as my first desire, shall be

But to approach thy glory; then, having gained

One raptured glance, I'll die content.

For I, the source of beauty, warmth and life

Have in his perfect splendor once beheld."

Before . we go into the material which Miss Miller

offers us for the understanding of the poem, we will

again cast a glance over the psychologic situation in which

the poem originated. Some months or weeks appear to

8.7

88 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

have elapsed since the last direct manifestation of the

unconscious that Miss Miller reported to us; about this

period we have had no information. We learn nothing

about the moods and phantasies of this time. If one

might draw a conclusion from this silence it would be

presumably that in the time which elapsed between the

two poems, really nothing of importance had happened,

and that, therefore, this poem is again but a voiced frag-

ment of the unconscious working of the complex stretch-

ing out over months and years. It is highly probable that

it is concerned with the same complex as before. 1 The

earlier product, a hymn of creation full of hope, has,

however, but little similarity to the present poem. The

poem lying before us has a truly hopeless, melancholy

character; moth and sun, two things which never meet.

One must in fairness ask, is a moth really expected to

rise to the sun? We know indeed the proverbial saying

about the moth that flew into the light and singed its

wings, but not the legend of the moth that strove towards

the sun. Plainly, here, two things are connected in her

thoughts that do not belong together; first, the moth

which fluttered around the light so long that it burnt

itself; and then, the idea of a small ephemeral being,

something like the day fly, which, in lamentable contrast

to the eternity of the stars, longs for an imperishable

daylight. This idea reminds one of Faust:

" Mark how, beneath the evening sunlight's glow

The green-embosomed houses glitter;

The glow retreats, done is the day of toil,

It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 89

Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil

Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!

Then would I see eternal Evening gild

The silent world beneath me glowing. . . .

Yet, finally, the weary god is sinking;

The new-born impulse fires my mind,

I hasten on, his beams eternal drinking,

The day before me and the night behind,

Above me heaven unfurled, the floor of waves beneath me,

A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.

Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid

Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me."

Not long afterwards, Faust sees " the black dog roving

there through cornfields and stubble," the dog who is the

same as the devil, the tempter, in whose hellish fires

Faust has singed his wings. When he believed that he

was expressing his great longing for the beauty of the

sun and the earth, " he went astray thereover " and fell

into the hands of " the Evil One. 1 '

" Yes, resolute to reach some brighter distance,

On earth's fair sun I turn my back."

This is what Faust had said shortly before, in true

recognition of the state of affairs. The honoring of the

beauty of nature led the Christian of the Middle Ages to

pagan thoughts which lay in an antagonistic relation to

his conscious religion, just as once Mithracism was in

threatening competition with Christianity, for Satan often

disguises himself as an angel of light. 2

The longing of Faust became his ruin. The longing

for the Beyond had brought as a consequence a loathing

for life, and he stood on the brink of self-destruction. 8

90 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

The longing for the beauty of this world led him anew

to ruin, into doubt and pain, even to Marguerite's tragic

death. His mistake was that he followed after both

worlds with no check to the driving force of his libido,

like a man of violent passion. Faust portrays once more

the folk-psychologic conflict of the beginning of the

Christian era, but what is noteworthy, in a reversed

order.

Against what fearful powers of seduction Christ had

to defend himself by means of his hope of the absolute

world beyond, may be seen in the example of Alypius in

Augustine. If any of us had been living in that period

of antiquity, he would have seen clearly that that culture

must inevitably collapse because humanity revolted

against it. It is well known that even before the spread

of Christianity a remarkable expectation of redemption

had taken possession of mankind. The following

eclogue of Virgil might well be a result of this mood:

" Ultima Cumasi venit jam carminis aetas;*

Magnus ab integro Saeclorum nascitur ordo,

Jam redit et Virgo, 4 redeunt Saturnia regna;

* " The last age of Cumean prophecy has come already!

Over again the great series of the ages commences:

Now too returns the Virgin, return the Saturnian kingdoms;

Now at length a new progeny is sent down from high Heaven.

Only, chaste Lucina, to the boy at his birth be propitious,

In whose time first the age of iron shall discontinue,

And in the whole world a golden age arise: now rules thy Apollo.

Under thy guidance, if any traces of our guilt continue,

Rendered harmless, they shall set the earth free from fear forever,

He shall partake of the life of the gods, and he shall see

Heroes mingled with gods, and he too shall be seen by them.

And he shall rule a peaceful world with his father's virtues."

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 91

Jam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto.

Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum

Desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo,

Casta fave Lucina: tuus jam regnat Apollo.

" Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,

Inrita perpetua solvent formidine terras.

Ille deum vitam accipiet divisque videbit

Permixtos heroas et ipse videbitur illis,

Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem." 5

The turning to asceticism resulting from the general

expansion of Christianity brought about a new misfortune

to many: monasticism and the life of the anchorite. 6

Faust takes the reverse course; for him the ascetic

ideal means death. He struggles for freedom and wins

life, at the same time giving himself over to the Evil One;

but through this he becomes the bringer of death to her

whom he loves most, Marguerite. He tears himself

away from pain and sacrifices his life in unceasing useful

work, through which he saves many lives. 7 His double

mission as saviour and destroyer has already been hinted

in a preliminary manner:

Wagner:

With what a feeling, thou great man, must thou

Receive the people's honest veneration !

Faust:

Thus we, our hellish boluses compounding,

Among these vales and hills surrounding,

Worse than the pestilence, have passed.

Thousands were done to death from poison of my giving ;

And I must hear, by all the living,

The shameless murderers praised at last!

92 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

A parallel to this double role is that text in the Gospel

of Matthew which has become historically significant:

" I came not to send peace, but a sword." Matt, x: 34.

Just this constitutes the deep significance of Goethe's

Faust, that he clothes in words a problem of modern

man which has been turning in restless slumber since the

Renaissance, just as was done by the drama of Oedipus

for the Hellenic sphere of culture. What is to be the way

out between the Scylla of renunciation of the world and

the Charybdis of the acceptance of the world?

The hopeful tone, voiced in the u Hymn to the God

of Creation," cannot continue very long with our author.

The pose simply promises, but does not fulfil. The old

longing will come again, for it is a peculiarity of all com-

plexes worked over merely in the unconscious 8 that they

lose nothing of their original amount of affect. Mean-

while, their outward manifestations can change almost

endlessly. One might therefore consider the first poem

as an unconscious longing to solve the conflict through

positive religiousness, somewhat in the same manner as

they of the earlier centuries decided their conscious con-

flicts by opposing to them the religious standpoint. This

wish does not succeed. Now with the second poem there

follows a second attempt which turns out in a decidedly

more material way; its thought is unequivocal. Only

once u having gained one raptured glance . . ." and

then to die.

From the realms of the religious world, the attention,

just as in Faust, 9 turns towards the sun of this world,

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 93

and already there is something mingled with it which

has another sense, that is to say, the moth which fluttered

so long around the light that it burnt its wings.

We now pass to that which Miss Miller offers for the

better understanding of the poem. She says :

" This small poem made a profound impression upon me. I

could not, of course, find immediately a sufficiently clear and di-

rect explanation for it. However, a few days later when I once

more read a certain philosophical work, which I had read in

Berlin the previous winter, and which I had enjoyed very much,

(I was reading it aloud to a friend), I came across the following

words: 'La meme aspiration passionnee de la mite vers 1'etoile,

de Fhomme vers Dieu.' (The same passionate longing of the

moth for the star, of man for God. ) I had forgotten this sentence

entirely, but it seemed very clear to me that precisely these words

had reappeared in my hypnagogic poem. In addition to that it

occurred to me that a play seen some years previously, ' La Mite

et La Flamme,' was a further possible cause of the poem. It is

easy to see how often the word ' moth ' had been impressed upon

me."

The deep impression made by the poem upon the

author shows that she put into it a large amount of love.

In the expression " aspiration passionnee " we meet the

passionate longing of the moth for the star, of man for

God, and indeed, the moth is Miss Miller herself. Her

last observation that the word " moth " was often im-

pressed upon her shows how often she had noticed the

word u moth " as applicable to herself. Her longing for

God resembles the longing of the moth for the "star"

The reader will recall that this expression has already had

a place in the earlier material, " when the morning stars

sang together," that is to say, the ship's officer who sings

94 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

on deck in the night watch. The passionate longing for

God is the same as that longing for the singing morning

stars. It was pointed out at great length in the fore-

going chapter that this analogy is to be expected: " Sic

parvis componere magna solebam."

It is shameful or exalted just as one chooses, that the

divine longing of humanity, which is really the first thing

to make it human, should be brought into connection with

an erotic phantasy. Such a comparison jars upon the finer

feelings. Therefore, one is inclined in spite of the un-

deniable facts to dispute the connection. An Italian

steersman with brown hair and black moustache, and the

loftiest, dearest conception of humanity! These two

things cannot be brought together; against this not only

our religious feelings revolt, but our taste also rebels.

It would certainly be unjust to make a comparison of

the two objects as concrete things since they are so hetero-

geneous. One loves a Beethoven sonata but one loves

caviar also. It would not occur to any one to liken the

sonata to caviar. It is a common error for one to judge

the longing according to the quality of the object. The

appetite of the gourmand which is only satisfied with

goose liver and quail is no more distinguished than the

appetite of the laboring man for corned beef and cabbage.

The longing is the same; the object changes. Nature is

beautiful only by virtue of the longing and love given

her by man. The aesthetic attributes emanating from

that has influence primarily on the libido, which alone

constitutes the beauty of nature. The dream recognizes

this well when it depicts a strong and beautiful feeling by

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 95

means of a representation of a beautiful landscape.

Whenever one moves in the territory of the erotic it

becomes altogether clear how little the object and how

much the love means. The " sexual object " is as a rule

overrated far too much and that only on account of the

extreme degree to which libido is devoted to the object.

Apparently Miss Miller had but little left over for

the officer, which is humanly very intelligible. But in

spite of that a deep and lasting effect emanates from

this connection which places divinity on a par with the

erotic object. The moods which apparently are produced

by these objects do not, however, spring from them, but

are manifestations of her strong love. When Miss

Miller praises either God or the sun she means her love,

that deepest and strongest impulse of the human and

animal being.

The reader will recall that in the preceding chapter the

following chain of synonyms was adduced: the singer

God of sound singing morning star creator God of

Light sun fire God of Love.

At that time we had placed sun and fire in parentheses.

Now they are entitled to their right place in the chain of

synonyms. With the changing of the erotic impression

from the affirmative to the negative the symbols of light

occur as the paramount object. In the second poem where

the longing is clearly exposed it is by no means the ter-

restrial sun. Since the longing has been turned away from

the real object, its object has become, first of all, a sub-

jective one, namely, God. Psychologically, however, God

is the name of a representation-complex which is grouped

96 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

around a strong feeling (the sum of libido). Properly,

the feeling is what gives character and reality to the com-

plex. 10 The attributes and symbols of the divinity must

belong in a consistent manner to the feeling (longing, love,

libido, and so on). If one honors God, the sun or the

fire, then one honors one's own vital force, the libido.

It is as Seneca says : " God is near you, he is with you, in

you." God is our own longing to which we pay divine

honors. 11 If it were not known how tremendously sig-

nificant religion was, and is, this marvellous play with

one's self would appear absurd. There must be something

more than this, however, because, notwithstanding its

absurdity, it is, in a certain sense, conformable to the

purpose in the highest degree. To bear a God within

one's self signifies a great deal; it is a guarantee of hap-

piness, of power, indeed even of omnipotence, as far as

these attributes belong to the Deity. To bear a God

within one's self signifies just as much as to be God one's

self. In Christianity, where, it is true, the grossly sensual

representations and symbols are weeded out as carefully

as possible, which seems to be a continuation of the pov-

erty of symbols of the Jewish cult, there are to be found

plain traces of this psychology. There are even plainer

traces, to be sure, in the " becoming-one with God " in

those mysteries closely related to the Christian, where the

mystic himself is lifted up to divine adoration through

initiatory rites. At the close of the consecration into the

Isis mysteries the mystic was crowned with the palm

crown, 12 he was placed on a pedestal and worshipped as

Helios. 13 In the magic papyrus of the Mithraic liturgy

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 9 7

published by Dieterich there is the ispos \6yo$* of the

consecrated one:

eijti ffvjATrhavo? vpiv affrrfp nal ex. rov

The mystic in religious ecstasies put himself on a plane

with the stars, just as a saint of the Middle Ages put

himself by means of the stigmata on a level with Christ.

St. Francis of Assisi expressed this in a truly pagan man-

ner, 14 even as far as a close relationship with the brother

sun and the sister moon. These representations of " be-

coming-one with God " are very ancient. The old belief

removed the becoming-one with God until the time after

death; the mysteries, however, suggest this as taking

place already in this world. A very old text brings most

beautifully before one this unity with God; it is the song

of triumph of the ascending soul. 15

" I am the God Atum, I who alone was.

I am the God Re at his first splendor.

I am the great God, self -created, God of Gods,

To whom no other God compares."

" I was yesterday and know tomorrow ; the battle-ground of

Gods was made when I spoke. I know the name of that

great God who tarries therein.

" I am that great Phoenix who is in Heliopolis, who there

keeps account of all there is, of all that exists.

" I am the God Min, at his coming forth, who placed the

feathers upon my head. 16

" I am in my country, I come into my city. Daily I am to-

gether with my father Atum. 17

* Sacred word.

1 1 am a star wandering about with you, and flaming up from the depths.

98 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

" My impurity is driven away, and the sin which was in me

is overcome. I washed myself in those two great pools of water

which are in Heracleopolis, in which is purified the sacrifice of

mankind for that great God who abideth there.

" I go on my way to where I wash my head in the sea of the

righteous. I arrive at this land of the glorified, and enter

through the splendid portal.

" Thou, who standest before me, stretch out to me thy hands,

it is I, I am become one of thee. Daily am I together with my

Father A turn."

The identification with God necessarily has as a result

the enhancing of the meaning and power of the indi-

vidual. 18 That seems, first of all, to have been really its

purpose: a strengthening of the individual against his

all too great weakness and insecurity in real life. This

great megalomania thus has a genuinely pitiable back-

ground. The strengthening of the consciousness of

power is, however, only an external result of the " becom-

ing-one with God." Of much more significance are the

deeper-lying disturbances in the realm of feeling. Who-

ever introverts libido that is to say, whoever takes it

away from a real object without putting in its place a real

compensation is overtaken by the inevitable results of

introversion. The libido, which is turned inward into the

subject, awakens again from among the sleeping remem-

brances one which contains the path upon which earlier

the libido once had come to the real object. At the

very first and in foremost position it was father and

mother who were the objects of the childish love. They

are unequalled and imperishable. Not many difficulties

are needed in an adult's life to cause those memories to

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 99

reawaken and to become effectual. In religion the re-

gressive reanimation of the father-and-mother imago is

organized into a system. The benefits of religion are the

benefits of parental hands; its protection and its peace

are the results of parental care upon the child; its mystic

feelings are the unconscious memories of the tender

emotions of the first childhood, just as the hymn ex-

presses it:

" I am in my country, I come into my city. Daily am I to-

gether with my father Atum." 19

The visible father of the world is, however, the sun,

the heavenly fire; therefore, Father, God, Sun, Fire are

d^ythologically synonymous. The well-known fact* that

tthe sun's strength the great generative power of nature

honored shows plainly, very plainly, to any one to whom

as yet it may not be clear that in the Deity man honors

his own libido, and naturally in the form of the image or

symbol of the present object of transference. This

symbol faces us in an especially marked manner in the

third Logos of the Dieterich papyrus. After the second

prayer 20 stars come from the disc of the sun to the mystic,

u five-pointed, in quantities, filling the whole air. If the

sun's disc has expanded, you will see an immeasurable

circle, and fiery gates which are shut off." The mystic

utters the following prayer :

'EnaKOVGov jtov, OLKOVGOV fjiov o GvvSrfGa? nvevfian

ra nvpiva nteWpa rov ovpavov, SiGoojJiaroZ 7tvpi7ro\,

(pGOTOZ HTlffTOi 7tVpl7tVOy TtVpiQvfjie, 71 'VeVfJLOttO $)(&)$, TtVpl-

X<*pijy HaXhicpcjZ, cpoor OH par copy TrvpiffcojAare, (pooToSoTaty

TrvpiGTtope, Ttvpiiikovs, (pooro/Sie, nvpidiva, q)G3TOKivfJTa,

ioo PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

HfpavvoH\6ve, (pooro?

The invocation is, as one sees, almost inexhaustible in

light and fire attributes, and can be likened in its extrava-

gance only to the synonymous attributes of love of the

mystic of the Middle Ages. Among the innumerable

texts which might be used as an illustration of this, I

select a passage from the writings of Mechtild von

Magdeburg (1212-1277):

" O Lord, love me excessively and love me often and long ;

the oftener you love me, so much the purer do I become; the

more excessively you love me, the more beautiful I become;

the longer you love me, the more holy will I become here upon

earth."

God answered: "That I love you often, that I have from my

nature, for I myself am love. That I love you excessively, that

I have from my desire, for I too desire that men love me exces-

sively. That I love you long, that I have from my everlastingness,

for I am without end." '

The religious regression makes use indeed of the

parent image without, however, consciously making it an

object of transference, for the incest horror 22 forbids

that. It remains rather as a synonym, for example, of the

father or of God, or of the more or less personified

symbol of the sun and fire. 23 Sun and fire that is to say,

* Hear me, grant me my prayer Binding together the fiery bolts of

heaven with spirit, two-bodied fiery sky, creator of humanity, fire-breathing,

fiery-spirited, spiritual being rejoicing in fire, beauty of humanity, ruler of

humanity of fiery body, light-giver to men, fire-scattering, fire-agitated, life

of humanity, fire^whirled, mover of men who confounds with thunder,

famed among men, increasing the human race, enlightening humanity, con-

queror of stars.

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 101

the fructifying strength and heat are attributes of the

libido. In Mysticism the inwardly perceived, divine

vision is often merely sun or light, and is very little, or

not at all, personified. In the Mithraic liturgy there is

found, for example, a significant quotation :

'H 6e nopei'a t&v opajjievaov Bewv 6ia rov SitiHOV, ita-

rpoS fjiov, Beov (pavrf<jerai.*

Hildegarde von Bingen (1100-1178) expresses herself

in the following manner : 24

" But the light I see is not local, but far off, and brighter than

the cloud which supports the sun. I can in no way know the

form of this light since I cannot entirely see the sun's disc. But

within this light I see at times, and infrequently, another light

which is called by me the living light, but when and in what

manner I see this I do not know how to say, and when I see it

all weariness and need is lifted from me, then too, I feel like a

simple girl and not like an old woman."

Symeon, the New Theologian (970-1040), says the

following :

" My tongue lacks words, and what happens in me my spirit

sees clearly but does not explain. It sees the invisible, that

emptiness of all forms, simple throughout, not complex, and in

extent infinite. For it sees no beginning, and it sees no end. It

is entirely unconscious of the meanings, and does not know what

to call that which it sees. Something complete appears, it seems

to me, not indeed through the being itself, but through a participa-

tion. For you enkindle fire from fire, and you receive the whole

fire; but this remains undiminished and undivided, as before.

Similarly, that which is divided separates itself from the first; and

like something corporeal spreads itself into several lights. This,

*The path of the visible Gods will appear through the sun, the God

my father.

102 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

however, is something spiritual, immeasurable, indivisible, and in-

exhaustible. For it is not separated when it becomes many, but

remains undivided and is in me, and enters within my poor heart

like a sun or circular disc of the sun, similar to the light,

for it is a light." 26

That that thing, perceived as inner light, as the sun of

the other world, is longing, is clearly shown by Symeon's

words : 26

" And following It my spirit demanded to embrace the splendor

beheld, but it found It not as creature and did not succeed in

coming out from among created beings, so that it might embrace

that uncreated and uncomprehended splendor. Nevertheless it

wandered everywhere, and strove to behold It. // penetrated the

air, it wandered over the Heavens, it crossed over the abysses, it

searched, as it seemed to it, the ends of the world." But in all

of that it found nothing, for all was created. And I lamented

and was sorrowful, and my breast burned, and I lived as one

distraught in mind. But It came, as It would, and descending

like a luminous mystic cloud, It seemed to envelop my whole head so

that dismayed I cried out. But flying away again It left me alone.

And when I, troubled, sought for It, I realized suddenly that It

was in me, myself, and in the midst of my heart It appeared as

the light of a spherical sun!'

In Nietzsche's " Glory and Eternity " we meet with an

essentially similar symbol:

" Hush ! I see vastness ! and of vasty things

Shall man be done, unless he can enshrine

Them with his words? Then take the night which brings

The heart upon thy tongue, charmed wisdom mine!

" I look above, there rolls the star-strewn sea.

O night, mute silence, voiceless cry of stars!

And lo! A sign! The heaven its verge unbars

A shining constellation falls towards me." *

* Translated by Dr. T. G. Wrench.

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 103

It is not astonishing if Nietzsche's great inner loneli-

ness calls again into existence certain forms of thought

which the mystic ecstasy of the old cults has elevated to

ritual representation. In the visions of the Mithraic

liturgy we have to deal with many similar representations

which we can now understand without difficulty as the

ecstatic symbol of the libido :

Msra 6e TO sineiv ffs rov devrspov \6yov, OTTOV Gtyrf

6iZ nal rot dnohovBa, ffvpiffov diZ nal nonnvGov #k Hal

v6eGo? oipei onto rov diGnov dffrepa? Tfpoffspxo^vov? irev-

radaHTvXiaiov? nheiGrovS Hal nm\<avra$ Q\OV rov aepa.

2v 6e na\iv Xsys: Giyrj, Giyij. Kal rov diffnov avoiyevros

oipei aTceipor HVH\oo^a Hal Ovpa$ TtvpivaS d

*

Silence is commanded, then the vision of light is re-

vealed. The similarity of the mystic's condition and

Nietzsche's poetical vision is surprising. Nietzsche says

" constellation." It is well known that constellations are

chiefly therio- or anthropo-morphic symbols.

The papyrus says, affrepae 7tvra6aHrv\iaiovs\ (sim-

ilar to the "rosy-fingered" Eos), which is nothing else

than an anthropomorphic image. Accordingly, one may

expect from that, that by long gazing a living being

would be formed out of the " flame image," a " star

constellation " of therio- or anthropo-morphic nature, for

the symbolism of the libido does not end with sun, light

* After you have said the second prayer, when silence is twice com-

manded; then whistle twice and snap twice, 28 and straightway you will

see many five-pointed stars coming down from the sun and filling the whole

lower air. But say once again Silence! Silence! and you, Neophyte, will

see the Circle and fiery doors cut off from the opening disc of the sun.

t Five-fingered stars.

104 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

and fire, but makes use of wholly other means of expres-

sion. I yield precedence to Nietzsche:

The Beacon *

" Here, where the island grew amid the seas,

A sacrificial rock high-towering,

Here under darkling heavens,

Zarathustra lights his mountain-fires.

" These flames with grey-white belly,

In cold distances sparkle their desire,

Stretches its neck towards ever purer heights

A snake upreared in impatience:

" This signal I set up there before me.

This flame is mine own soul,

Insatiable for new distances,

Speeding upward, upward its silent heat.

"At all lonely ones I now throw my fishing rod.

Give answer to the flame's impatience,

Let me, the fisher on high mountains,

Catch my seventh, last solitude! "

Here libido becomes fire, flame and snake. The

Egyptian symbol of the "living disc of the sun," the disc

with the two entwining snakes, contains the combination

of both the libido analogies. The disc of the sun with

its fructifying warmth is analogous to the fructifying

warmth of love. The comparison of the libido with sun

and fire is in reality analogous.

There is also a " causative " element in it, for sun and

fire as beneficent powers are objects of human love; for

example, the sun-hero Mithra is called the u well-

* " Ecce Homo," translated by A. M. Ludovici.

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 105

beloved." In Nietzsche's poem the comparison is also a

causative one, but this time in a reversed sense. The

comparison with the snake is unequivocally phallic, cor-

responding completely with the tendency in antiquity,

which was to see in the symbol of the phallus the quintes-

sence of life and fruitfulness. The phallus is the source

of life and libido, the great creator and worker of

miracles, and as such it received reverence everywhere.

We have, therefore, three designating symbols of the

libido: First, the comparison by analogy, as sun and

fire. Second, the comparisons based on causative rela-

tions, as A : Object comparison. The libido is designated

by its object, for example, the beneficent sun. B : The sub-

ject comparison, in which the libido is designated by its

place of origin or by analogies of this, for example, by

phallus or (analogous) snake.

To these two fundamental forms of comparison still a

third is added, in which the " tertium comparationis " is

the activity; for example, the libido is dangerous when

fecundating like the bull through the power of its pas-

sion like the lion, like the raging boar when in heat, like

the ever-rutting ass, and so on.

This activity comparison can belong equally well to the

category of the analogous or to the category of the causa-

tive comparisons. The possibilities of comparison mean

just as many possibilities for symbolic expression, and

from this basis all the infinitely varied symbols, so far

as they are libido images, may properly be reduced to a

very simple root, that is, just to libido and its fixed

primitive qualities. This psychologic reduction and sim-

io6 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

plification is in accordance with the historic efforts of civil-

ization to unify and simplify, to syncretize, the endless

number of the gods. We come across this desire as far

back as the old Egyptians, where the unlimited polytheism

as exemplified in the numerous demons of places finally

necessitated simplification. All the various local gods,

Amon of Thebes, Horus of Edfu, Horus of the East,

Chnum of Elephantine, Atum of Heliopolis, and others, 29

became identified with the sun God Re. In the hymns to

the sun the composite being Amon-Re-Harmachis-Atum

was invoked as " the only god which truly lives." 30

Amenhotep IV (XVIII dynasty) went the furthest

in this direction. He replaced all former gods by the

" living great disc of the sun," the official title reading:

" The sun ruling both horizons, triumphant in the horizon in

his name; the glittering splendor which is in the sun's disc."

" And, indeed," Erman adds, 31 " the sun, as a God,

should not be honored, but the sun itself as a planet which

imparts through its rays 32 the infinite life which is in it

to all living creatures."

Amenhotep IV by his reform completed a work which

is psychologically important. He united all the bull, 33

ram, 34 crocodile 35 and pile-dwelling ' 36 gods into the disc

of the sun, and made it clear that their various attributes

were compatible with the sun's attributes. 37 A similar

fate overtook the Hellenic and Roman polytheism

through the syncretistic efforts of later centuries. The

beautiful prayer of Lucius 38 to the queen of the Heavens

furnishes an important proof of this:

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 107

" Queen of Heaven, whether thou art the genial Ceres, the

prime parent of fruits; or whether thou art celestial Venus; or

whether thou art the sister of Phoebus ; or whether thou art Pros-

erpina, terrific with midnight howlings with that feminine

brightness of thine illuminating the walls of every city." '

This attempt to gather again into a few units the re-

ligious thoughts which were divided into countless varia-

tions and personified in individual gods according to

their polytheistic distribution and separation makes clear

the fact that already at an earlier time analogies had

formally arisen. Herodotus is rich in just such refer-

ences, not to mention the systems of the Hellenic-Roman

world. Opposed to the endeavor to form a unity there

stands a still stronger endeavor to create again and again

a multiplicity, so that even in the so-called severe mono-

theistic religions, as Christianity, for example, the polythe-

istic tendency is irrepressible. The Deity is divided into

three parts at least, to which is added the feminine Deity

of Mary and the numerous company of the lesser gods,

the angels and saints, respectively. These two tendencies

are in constant warfare. There is only one God with

countless attributes, or else there are many gods who are

then simply known differently, according to locality, and

personify sometimes this, sometimes that attribute of the

fundamental thought, an example of which we have seen

above in the Egyptian gods.

With this we turn once more to Nietzsche's poem,

" The Beacon." We found the flame there used as an

image of the libido, theriomorphically represented as a

snake (also as an image of the soul: 40 "This flame is

io8 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

mine own soul "). We saw that the snake is to be taken

as a phallic image of the libido (upreared in impatience) ,

and that this image, also an attribute of the conception of

the sun (the Egyptian sun idol), is an image of the

libido in the combination of sun and phallus. It is not

a wholly strange conception, therefore, that the sun's

disc is represented with a penis, as well as with hands and

feet. We find proof for this idea in a peculiar part of

the Mithraic liturgy : o^oioa? 6e nal 6 HaXovpevoS avko?,

rf dpxrj *ov \eirovpyovvro? avejuov. "Otyei yap dno rov

diffKOV (&? av\ov jtpenajJLevov.*

This extremely important vision of a tube hanging

down from the sun would produce in a religious text, such

as that of the Mithraic liturgy, a strange and at the same

time meaningless effect if it did not have the phallic mean-

ing. The tube is the place of origin of the wind. The

phallic meaning seems very faint in this idea, but one

must remember that the wind, as well as the sun, is a

fructifier and creator. This has already been pointed out

in a footnote. 41 There is a picture by a Germanic painter

of the Middle Ages of the " conceptio immaculata "

which deserves mention here. The conception is repre-

sented by a tube or pipe coming down from heaven and

passing beneath the skirt of Mary. Into this flies the

Holy Ghost in the form of a dove for the impregnation

of the Mother of God. 42

Honegger discovered the following hallucination in an

insane man (paranoid dement) : The patient sees in the

* In like manner the so-called tube, the origin of the ministering wind,

will become visible. For it will appear to you as a tube hanging down

from the sun.

THE SONG OF THE MOTH

109

sun an " upright tail " similar to an erected penis. When

he moves his head back and forth, then, too, the sun's

penis sways back and forth in a like manner, and out of

that the wind arises. This strange hallucination remained

unintelligible to us for a long time until I became ac-

quainted with the Mithraic liturgy and its visions. This

hallucination threw an illuminating light, as it appears to

me, upon a very obscure place in the text which immedi-

ately follows the passage previously cited :

fis 6 tot pepfj ra xpoS Xifia dxepavrov oiov

*Edv q HBH\.rjp(a^vo? si? tie ra fiiprj rov aitrj^iaorov 6

Zrepos, opoi&S ei? ra peprj ra eneivov oipei rrjv dnopopav

rov

Mead translates this very clearly : 43

"And towards the regions westward, as though it were an

infinite Eastwind. But if the other wind, towards the regions

of the East, should be in service, in the like fashion shalt thou

see towards the regions of that side the converse of the sight"

In the original opajjia is the vision, the thing seen.

drtoipopd means properly the carrying away. The

sense of the text, according to this, might be: the thing

seen may be carried or turned sometimes here, sometimes

there, according to the direction of the wind. The

opafia is the tube, " the place of origin of the wind,"

which turns sometimes to the east, sometimes to the west,

and, one might add, generates the corresponding wind.

The vision of the insane man coincides astonishingly with

this description of the movement of the tube. 44

i io PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

The various attributes of the sun, separated into a

series, appear one after the other in the Mithraic

liturgy. According to the vision of Helios, seven

maidens appear with the heads of snakes, and seven gods

with the heads of black bulls.

It is easy to understand the maiden as a symbol of the

libido used in the sense of causative comparison. The

snake in Paradise is usually considered as feminine, as the

seductive principle in woman, and is represented as femi-

nine by the old artists, although properly the snake has a

phallic meaning. Through a similar change of meaning

the snake in antiquity becomes the symbol of the earth,

which on its side is always considered feminine. The bull

is the well-known, symbol for the fruitfulness of the

sun. The bull gods in the Mithraic liturgy were called

Hvoo6aKO(pvXaH?y " guardians of the axis of the earth,"

by whom the axle of the orb of the heavens was turned.

The divine man, Mithra, also had the same attributes;

he is sometimes called the " Sol invictus " itself, some-

times the mighty companion and ruler of Helios ; he holds

in his right hand the " bear constellation, which moves

and turns the heavens." The bull-headed gods, equally

tepol nal aXm/toi veaviai with Mithra himself, to

whom the attribute veatTepos, " young one," " the new-

comer," is given, are merely attributive components of

the same divinity. The chief god of the Mithraic liturgy

is himself subdivided into Mithra and Helios; the attri-

butes of each of these are closely related to the other.

Of Helios it is said: oipei Otov veaorepov eveitifj nvpivo-

THE SONG OF THE MOTH

in

Of Mithra it is said: o^ei 6eov V7teppeye8rj, cpconvrjv

nai xpv<f<p ffrscpdvcp HOI dvagvpiai, Harfyovra rfj Ssgia

X*tpt j*6ffX ov &JAOV xpuffzov, oZ lanv dpnro? rf nivovaa

Hal dvriffTpetpovffa rov ovpavov, Hard Spar avartoXev-

nai Haranokevovffa. STteira otpsi avrov IK rear

dffrpajfd? nal SH rov Goj^aroS affrepa? dA.\oj*e-

. f

If we place fire and gold as essentially similar, then a

great accord is found in the attributes of the two gods.

To these mystical pagan ideas there deserve to be added

the probably almost contemporaneous vision of Revela-

tion:

" And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks. And

in the midst of the candlesticks 45 one like unto the son of man,

clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about at the

breasts with a golden girdle. And his head and his hair were

white as white wool, white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame

of fire. And his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been

refined in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

And he had in his right hand seven stars, 46 and out of his mouth

proceeded a sharp two-edged sword, 47 and his countenance was

as the sun shineth in his strength." Rev. i: 12 if.

" And I looked, and beheld a white cloud, and upon the cloud

* " You will see the god youthful, graceful, with glowing locks, in a

white garment and a scarlet cloak, with a fiery helmet."

t"You will see a god very powerful, with a shining countenance,

young, with golden hair, clothed in white vestments, with a golden

crown, holding in his right hand a bullock's golden shoulder, that is, the

bear constellation, which wandering hourly up and down, moves and

turns the heavens: then out of his eyes you will see lightning spring forth

and from his body, stars."

ii2 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

I saw one sitting like unto the son of man, having on his head a

golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle." 48 Rev. xiv: 14.

" And his eyes were as a flame of fire, and upon his head were

many diadems. And he was arrayed in a garment 49 sprinkled

with blood. . . . And the armies which were in heaven followed

him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, 50 white and pure.

And out of his mouth proceeded a sharp sword." Rev. xix:

12-15.

One need not assume that there is a direct dependency

between the Apocalypse and the Mithraic liturgy. The

visionary images of both texts are developed from a

source, not limited to one place, but found in the soul

of many divers people, because the symbols which arise

from it are too typical for it to belong to one individual

only. I put these images here to show how the primitive

symbolism of light gradually developed, with the increas-

ing depth of the vision, into the idea of the sun-hero, the

" well-beloved." 51 The development of the symbol of

light is thoroughly typical. In addition to this, perhaps

I might call to mind the fact that I have previously

pointed out this course with numerous examples, 52 and,

therefore, I can spare myself the trouble of returning to

this subject. 53 These visionary occurrences are the psy-

chological roots of the sun-coronations in the mysteries.

Its rite is religious hallucination congealed into liturgical

form, which, on account of its great regularity, could be-

come a generally accepted outer form. After all this, it

is easily understood how the ancient Christian Church, on

one side, stood in an especial bond to Christ as " sol

novus," and, on the other side, had a certain difficulty in

freeing itself from the earthly symbols of Christ. Indeed

THE SONG OF THE MOTH

113

Philo of Alexandria saw in the sun the image of the divine

logos or of the Deity especially (" De Somniis," i : 85).

In an Ambrosian hymn Christ is invoked by " O sol

salutis," and so on. At the time of Marcus Aurelius,

Meliton, in his work, 54 nepl hovrpov, called Christ the

"HXioS dvaroXrjS . . . jtovoS ri\io$ ovroZ avereikev art 1

ovpavov.*

Still more important is a passage from Pseudo-Cyp-

rian: 55

" O quam praeclara providentia ut illo die quo factus est sol,

in ipso die nasceretur Christus, v. Kal. Apr. feria IV, et ideo

de ipso ad plebem dicebat Malachias propheta: * Orietur vobis

sol iustitiae et curatio est in pennis ejus,' hie est sol iustitiae cuis

in pennis curatio praeostendebatur." f 66

In a work nominally attributed to John Chrysostomus,

" De Solstitiis et Aequinoctiis," 5T occurs this passage:

" Sed et dominus nascitur mense Decembri hiemis tempore,

VIII. Kal. Januarias, quando oleae maturae praemuntur ut unctio,

id est Chrisma, nascatur sed et Invicti natalem appellant. Quis

utique tarn invictus nisi dominus noster qui mortem subactam

devicit? Vel quod dicant Solis esse natalem, ipse est sol iustitiae,

de quo Malachias propheta dixit: * Dominus lucis ac noctis con-

ditor et discretor qui a phopheta Sol iustitiae cognominatus est.' " J

* Helios, the rising sun the only sun rising from heaven!

t " O, how remarkable a providence that Christ should be born on the

same day on which the sun moves onward, V. Kal. of April the fourth

holiday, and for this reason the prophet Malachi spoke to the people

concerning Christ: 'Unto you shall the sun of righteousness arise with

healing in his wings, this is the sun of righteousness in whose wings heal-

ing shall be displayed.'"

$ Moreover the Lord is born in the month of December in the winter on

the 8th Kal. of January when the ripe olives are gathered, so that the oil,

that is the chrism, may be produced, moreover they call it the birthday of

the Unconquered One. Who in any case is as unconquered as our Lord,

who conquered death itself? Or why should they call it the birthday of

n 4 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

According to the testimony of Eusebius of Alexandria,

the Christians also shared in the worship of the rising

sun, which lasted into the fifth century :

ovai roi? TfpoffHVvovfft rov faiov Hal rrjv ffs\^vrfv Hal

rovS dffrepa?. JZoAAoi)? yap oida rovZ itpoGHVvovvra? Hal

evxofASvovZ sis rov TJ\IOV. "Hdrj yap avarsiXavro? rov

rj\iov, TtpoGsvxovrai Hai hfyovffiv "'EXerjffov rjfjiaS" Hal ov

fjLovov t H\ioyvGo<srai nal aiperiHol rovro Ttoiovffiv aX\.a

nal xpiGnavol nai dcpevres rrjv nienv roiS aipennois

Augustine preached emphatically to the Christians:

" Non est Dominus Sol factus sed per quern Sol factus est ne

quis carnaliter sapiens Solem istum (Christum) intelligendum

putaret."

Art has preserved much of the remnants of sun-

worship, 58 thus the nimbus around the head of Christ and

the halo of the saints in general. The Christian legends

also attribute many fire and light symbols to the saints. 59

The twelve apostles, for example, are likened to the

twelve signs of the zodiac, and are represented, there-

fore, with a star over the head. 60

It is not to be wondered at that the heathen, as Ter-

tullian avows, considered the sun as the Christian God.

the sun ; he himself is the sun of righteousness, concerning whom Malachi,

the prophet, spoke: 'The Lord is the author of light and of darkness, he

is the judge spoken of by the prophet as the Sun of righteousness.' "

* " Ah ! woe to the worshippers of the sun and the moon and the stars.

For I know many worshippers and prayer sayers to the sun. For now

at the rising of the sun, they worship and say, ' Have mercy on us,' and

not only the sun-gnostics and the heretics do this, but also Christians

who leave their faith and mix with the heretics."

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 115

Among the Manichaeans God was really the sun. One

of the most remarkable works extant, where the Pagan,

Asiatic, Hellenic and Christian intermingle, is the

ErjyrjGiS Tie pi TGOV ev IlepGidi TfpaxOsrtoov^ edited .by

Wirth. 61 This is a book of fables, but, nevertheless^ a

mine for near-Christian phantasies, which gives a pro-

found insight into Christian symbolism. In this is found

the following magical dedication : 4il 'Hhicp 6e& peydXcp

fiaGiXfi 'IrjGov * In certain parts of Armenia the

rising sun is still worshipped by Christians, that " it

may let its foot rest upon the faces of the wor-

shippers." 62 The foot occurs as an anthropomorphic at-

tribute, and we have already met the theriomorphic

attribute in the feathers and the sun phallus. Other com-

parisons of the sun's ray, as knife, sword, arrow, and so

on, have also, as we have learned from the psychology

of the dream, a phallic meaning at bottom. This mean-

ing is attached to the foot as I here point out, 63 and also

to the feathers, or hair, of the sun, which signify the

power or strength of the sun. I refer to the story of

Samson, and to that of the Apocalypse of Baruch, con-

cerning the phoenix bird, which, flying before the sun, loses

its feathers, and, exhausted, is strengthened again in an

ocean bath at evening.

Under the symbol of " moth and sun " we have dug

down into the historic depths of the soul, and in doing

this we have uncovered an old buried idol, the youthful,

beautiful, fire-encircled and halo-crowned sun-hero, who,

forever unattainable to the mortal, wanders upon the

*"To Zeus, the Great Sun God, the King, the Saviour."

n6 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

earth, causing night to follow day; winter, summer; death,

life; and who returns again in rejuvenated splendor and

gives light to new generations. The longing of the

dreamer concealed behind the moth stands for him.

The ancient pre-Asiatic civilizations were acquainted

with a sun-worship having the idea of a God dying and

rising again (Osiris, Tammuz, Attis-Adonis), 64 Christ,

Mithra and his bull, 65 Phoenix and so on. The beneficent

power as well as the destroying power was worshipped in

fire. The forces of nature always have two sides, as we

have already seen in the God of Job. This reciprocal

bond brings us back once more to Miss Miller's poem.

Her reminiscences support our previous supposition, that

the symbol of moth and sun is a condensation of two

ideas, about one of which we have just spoken ; the other

is the moth and the flame. As the title of a play, about

the contents of which the author tells us absolutely noth-

ing, " Moth and Flame " may easily have the well-known

erotic meaning of flying around the flame of passion until

one's wings are burned. The passionate longing, that is

to say, the libido, has its two sides; it is power which

beautifies everything, and which under other circum-

stances destroys everything. It often appears as if one

could not accurately understand in what the destroying

quality of the creative power consists. A woman who

gives herself up to passion, particularly under the present-

day condition of culture, experiences the destructive side

only too soon. One has only to imagine one's self a little

away from the every-day moral conditions in order to

understand what feelings of extreme insecurity overwhelm

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 117

the individual who gives himself unconditionally over to

Fate.

To be fruitful means, indeed, to destroy one's self, be-

cause with the rise of the succeeding generation the pre-

vious one has passed beyond its highest point; thus our

descendants are our most dangerous enemies, whom we

cannot overcome, for they will outlive us, and, there-

fore, without fail, will take the power from our en-

feebled hands. The anxiety in the face of the erotic fate

is wholly understandable, for there is something immeas-

urable therein. Fate usually hides unknown dangers, and

the perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to venture upon

life is easily explained by his desire to be allowed to stand

still, so as not to take part in the dangerous battle of life. 66

Whoever renounces the chance to experience must stifle

in himself the wish for it, and, therefore, commits a sort

of self-murder. From this the death phantasies which

readily accompany the renunciation of the erotic wish

are made clear. In the poem Miss Miller has voiced

these phantasies.

She adds further to the material with the following:

" I had been reading a selection from one of Byron's poems

which pleased me very much and made a deep and lasting im-

pression. Moreover, the rhythm of my last two verses, * For I

the source, etc.,' and the two lines of Byron's are very similar.

' Now let me die as I have lived in faith,

Nor tremble though the universe should quake.' "

This reminiscence with which the series of ideas is

closed confirms the death phantasies which follow from

n8 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

renunciation of the erotic wish. The quotation comes

which Miss Miller did not mention from an uncompleted

poem of Byron's called " Heaven and Earth." 67 The

whole verse follows:

" Still blessed be the Lord,

For what is passed,

For that which is;

For all are His,

From first to last

Time Space Eternity Life Death

The vast known and immeasurable unknown

He made and can unmake,

And shall I for a little gasp of breath

Blaspheme and groan?

No, let me die as I have lived in faith,

Nor quiver though the universe may quake ! "

The words are included in a kind of praise or prayer,

spoken by a " mortal " who is in hopeless flight before

the mounting deluge. Miss Miller puts herself in the

same situation in her quotation ; that is to say, she readily

lets it be seen that her feeling is similar to the despond-

ency of the unhappy ones who find themselves hard

pressed by the threatening mounting waters of the deluge.

With this the writer allows us a deep look into the dark

abyss of her longing for the sun-hero. We see that her

longing is in vain; she is a mortal, only for a short time

borne upwards into the light by means of the highest

longing, and then sinking to death, or, much more, urged

upwards by the fear of death, like the people before the

deluge, and in spite of the desperate conflict, irretriev-

ably given over to destruction. This is a mood which re-

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 119

calls vividly the closing scene in " Cyrano de Ber-

gerac": 68

Cyrano :

Oh, mais . . . puisqu'elle est en chemin,

Je Tattendrai debout . . . et Tepee a la main.

Que dites-vous? . . . C'est inutile? Je le sais.

Mais on ne se bat pas dans Fespoir du succes.

Non, non. C'est bien plus beau lorsque c'est inutile.

Je sais bien qu'a la fin vous me mettrez a has. . . .

We already know sufficiently well what longing and

what impulse it is that attempts to clear a way for itself

to the light, but that it may be realized quite clearly and

irrevocably, it is shown plainly in the quotation " No, let

me die/' which confirms and completes all earlier remarks.

The divine, the " much-beloved," who is honored in the

image of the sun, is also the goal of the longing of our

poet.

Byron's " Heaven and Earth " is a mystery founded on

the following passage from Genesis, chapter vi : 2 :

" And it came to pass . . . that the sons of God saw the

daughters of men that they were fair, and they took

them wives of all that they chose." Byron offers as a

further motif for his poem the following passage from

Coleridge : " And woman walling for her Demon lover."

Byron's poem is concerned with two great events, one

psychologic and one telluric; the passion which throws

down all barriers; and all the terrors of the unchained

powers of nature : a parallel which has already been in-

troduced into our earlier discussion. The angels Samiasa

120 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

and Azaziel burn with sinful love for the beautiful

daughters of Cain, Anah and Aholibama, and force a

way through the barrier which is placed between mortal

and immortal. They revolt as Lucifer once did against

God, and the archangel Raphael raises his voice warn-

ingly :

" But man hath listened to his voice

And ye to woman's beautiful she is,

The serpent's voice less subtle than her kiss.

The snake but vanquished dust; but she will draw

A second host from heaven to break heaven's law."

The power of God is threatened by the seduction of

passion; a second fall of angels menaces heaven. Let us

translate this mythologic projection back into the psycho-

logic, from whence it originated. Then it would read:

the power of the good and reasonable ruling the world

wisely is threatened by the chaotic primitive power of pas-

sion; therefore passion must be exterminated; that is to

say, projected into mythology. The race of Cain and

the whole sinful world must be destroyed from the roots

by the deluge. It is the inevitable result of that sinful

passion which has broken through all barriers. Its coun-

terpart is the sea and the waters of the deep and the

floods of rain, 69 the generating, fructifying and u mater-

nal waters," as the Indian mythology refers to them.

Now they leave their natural bounds and surge over the

mountain tops, engulfing all living things ; for passion de-

stroys itself. The libido is God and Devil. With the

destruction of the sinfulness of the libido an essential

THE SONG OF THE MOTH 121

portion of the libido would be destroyed. Through the

loss of the Devil, God himself suffered a considerable loss,

somewhat like an amputation upon the body of the

Divinity. The mysterious hint in Raphael's lament con-

cerning the two rebels, Samiasa and Azaziel, suggests

this.

". . . . Why,

Cannot this earth be made, or be destroyed,

Without involving ever some vast void

In the immortal ranks? . . ."

Love raises man, not only above himself, but also

above the bounds of his mortality and earthliness, up to

divinity itself, and in the very act of raising him it de-

stroys him. Mythologically, this self-presumption finds

its striking expression in the building of the heaven-high

tower of Babel, which brings confusion to mankind. 70

In Byron's poem it is the sinful ambition of the race of

Cain, for love of which it makes even the stars sub-

servient and leads away the sons of God themselves. If,

indeed, longing for the highest things if I may speak

so is legitimate, then it lies in the circumstances that it

leaves its human boundaries, that of sinfulness, and,

therefore, destruction. The longing of the moth for the

star is not absolutely pure and transparent, but glows in

sultry mist, for man continues to be man. Through the

excess of his longing he draws down the divine into the

corruption of his passion; 71 therefore, he seems to raise

himself to the Divine ; but with that his humanity is de-

stroyed. Thus the love of Anah and Aholibama for their

angels becomes the ruin of gods and men. The invoca-

122 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

tion with which Cain's daughters implore their angels is

psychologically an exact parallel to Miss Miller's poem.

Anah:

Seraph!

From thy sphere!

Whatever star 7S contains thy glory.

In the eternal depths of heaven

Albeit thou watchest with the ' seven,'

Though through space infinite and hoary

Before thy bright wings worlds will be driven,

Yet hear!

Oh! think of her who holds thee dear!

And though she nothing is to thee,

Yet think that thou art all to her.

Eternity is in thy years,

Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes;

With me thou canst not sympathize,

Except in love, and there thou must

Acknowledge that more loving dust

Ne'er wept beneath the skies.

Thou walkest thy many worlds, 74 thou seest

The face of him who made thee great,

As he hath made of me the least

Of those cast out from Eden's gate;

Yet, Seraph, dear!

Oh hear!

For thou hast loved me, and I would not die

Until I know what I must die in knowing,

That thou forgettest in thine eternity

Her whose heart death could not keep from o'erflowing

For thee, immortal essence as thou art, 76

Great is their love who love in sin and fear;

And such, I feel, are waging in my heart

A war unworthy: to an Adamite

THE SONG OF THE MOTH

Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts appear.

For sorrow is our element. .

123

The hour is near

Which tells me we are not abandoned quite.

Appear ! Appear !

Seraph !

My own Azaziel ! be but here,

And leave the stars to their own light.

Aholibama:

I call thee, I await thee and I love thee.

Though I be formed of clay,

And thou of beams 76

More bright than those of day on Eden's streams,

Thine immortality cannot repay

With love more warm than mine

My love. There is a ray "

In me, which though forbidden yet to shine,

I feel was lighted at thy God's and mine. 78

It may be hidden long: death and decay

Our mother Eve bequeathed us but my heart

Defies it: though this life must pass away,

Is that a cause for thee and me to part?

I can share all things, even immortal sorrow;

For thou hast ventured to share life with me,

And shall I shrink from thine eternity?

No, though the serpent's sting 79 should pierce me through,

And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil

Around me still. 80 And I will smile

And curse thee not, but hold

Thee in as warm a fold

As but descend and prove

A mortal's love

For an immortal. . . .

124 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

The apparition of both angels which follows the invo-

cation is, as always, a shining vision of light.

Aholibama:

The clouds from off their pinions flinging

As though they bore to-morrow's light.

Anah:

But if our father see the sight!

Aholibama:

He would but deem it was the moon

Rising unto some sorcerer's tune

An hour too soon.

Anah:

Lo ! They have kindled all the west,

Like a returning sunset. . . .

On Ararat's late secret crest

A wild and many colored bow,

The remnant of their flashing path,

Now shines ! . . .

At the sight of this many-colored vision of light, where

both women are entirely filled with desire and expecta-

tion, Anah makes use of a simile full of presentiment,

which suddenly allows us to look down once more into

the dismal dark depths, out of which for a moment the

terrible animal nature of the mild god of light emerges.

"... and now, behold ! it hath

Returned to night, as rippling foam,

Which the leviathan hath lashed

From his unfathomable home,

When sporting on the face of the calm deep,

Subsides soon after he again hath dash'd

Down, down to where the ocean's fountains sleep."

THE SONG OF THE MOTH

125

Thus like the leviathan ! We recall this overpowering

weight in the scale of God's justice in regard to the man

Job. There, where the deep sources of the ocean are, the

leviathan lives; from there the all-destroying flood

ascends, the all-engulfing flood of animal passion. That

stifling, compressing feeling 81 of the onward-surging im-

pulse is projected mythologically as a flood which, rising

up and over all, destroys all that exists, in order to allow

a new and better creation to come forth from this de-

struction.

Japhet:

The eternal will

Shall deign to expound this dream

Of good and evil; and redeem

Unto himself all times, all things;

And, gather'd under his almighty wings,

Abolish hell!

And to the expiated Earth

Restore the beauty of her birth.

Spirits :

And when shall take effect this wondrous spell ?

Japhet:

When the Redeemer cometh ; first in pain

And then in glory.

Spirits:

New times, new climes, new arts, new men, but still

The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill,

Shall be amongst your race in different forms;

But the same mortal storms

Shall oversweep the future, as the waves

In a few hours the glorious giants' graves.

126 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

The prophetic visions of Japhet have almost prophetic

meaning for our poetess; with the death of the moth in

the light, evil is once more laid aside; the complex has

once again, even if in a censored form, expressed itself.

With that, however, the problem is not solved; all sor-

row and every longing begins again from the beginning,

but there is " Promise in the Air " the premonition of

the Redeemer, of the " Well-beloved," of the Sun-hero,

who again mounts to the height of the sun and again

descends to the coldness of the winter, who is the light of

hope from race to race, the image of the libido.

PART II

CHAPTER I

ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO

BEFORE I enter upon the contents of this second part, it

seems necessary to cast a backward glance over the sin-

gular train of thought which the analysis of the poem

" The Moth to the Sun " has produced. Although this

poem is very different from the foregoing Hymn of Crea-

tion, closer investigation of the " longing for the sun "

has carried us into the realm of the fundamental ideas of

religion and astral mythology, which ideas are closely

related to those considered in the first poem. The crea-

tive God of the first poem, whose dual nature, moral and

physical, was shown especially clearly to us by Job, has

in the second poem a new qualification of astral-mytho-

logical, or, to express it better, of astrological character.

The God becomes the sun, and in this finds an adequate

natural expression quite apart from the moral division of

the God idea into the heavenly father and the devil.

The sun is, as Renan remarked, really the only rational

representation of God, whether we take the point of

view of the barbarians of other ages or that of the modern

physical sciences. In both cases the sun is the parent God,

mythologically predominantly the Father God, from

whom all living things draw life; He is the fructifier and

127

128 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

creator of all that lives, the source of energy of our

world. The discord into which the soul of man has fallen

through the action of moral laws * can be resolved

into complete harmony through the sun as the natural

object which obeys no human moral law. The sun is not

only beneficial, but also destructive; therefore the zodi-

acal representation of the August heat is.the herd-devour-

ing lion whom the Jewish hero Samson 2 killed in order to

free the parched earth from this plague. Yet it is the

harmonious and inherent nature of the sun to scorch, and

its scorching power seems natural to men. It shines

equally on the just and on the unjust, and allows useful

living objects to flourish as well as harmful ones. There-

fore, the sun is adapted as is nothing else to represent

the visible God of this world. That is to say, that driving

strength of our own soul, which we call libido, and

whose nature it is to allow the useful and injurious, the

good and the bad to proceed. That this comparison is no

mere play of words is taught us by the mystics. When

by looking inwards (introversion) and going down into

the depths of their own being they find " in their heart "

the image of the Sun, they find their own love or libido,

which with reason, I might say with physical reason, is

called the Sun; for our source of energy and life is the

Sun. Thus our life substance, as an energic process, is

entirely Sun. Of what special sort this " Sun energy "

seen inwardly by the mystic is, is shown by an example

taken from the Hindoo mythology. 3 From the explana-

tion of Part III of the u Shvetashvataropanishad " we

take the following quotation, which relates to the Rudra : 4

ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO

129

(2) "Yea, the one Rudra who all these worlds with ruling

power doth rule, stands not for any second. Behind those that

are born he stands; at ending time ingathers all the worlds he

hath evolved, protector (he).

(3) " He hath eyes on all sides, on all sides surely hath faces,

arms surely on all sides, on all sides feet. With arms, with wings

he tricks them out, creating heaven and earth, the only God.

(4) " Who of the gods is both the source and growth, the Lord

of all, the Rudra. Mighty seer; who brought the shining germ

of old into existence may he with reason pure conjoin us." 5

These attributes allow us clearly to discern the all-

creator and in him the Sun, which has wings and with a

thousand eyes scans the world. 6

The following passages confirm the text and join to it

the idea most important for us, that God is also contained

in the individual creature :

(7) "Beyond this (world) the Brahman beyond, the mighty

one, in every creature hid according to its form, the one encircling

Lord of all, Him having known, immortal they become.

(8) "I know this mighty man, Sun-like, beyond the darkness,

Him (and him) only knowing, one crosseth over death; no other

path (at all) is there to go.

(11) ". . . spread over the universe is He the Lord there-

fore as all-pervader, He's benign."

The powerful God, the equal of the Sun, is in that

one, and whoever knows him is immortal. 7 Going on

further with the text, we come upon a new attribute,

which informs us in what form and manner Rudra lived

in men.

(12) "The mighty monarch, He, the man, the one who doth

the essence start towards that peace of perfect stainlessness, lordly,

exhaustless light.

130 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

(13) "The Man, the size of a thumb, the inner self, sits

ever in the heart of all that's born, by mind, mind ruling in the

heart, is He revealed. That they who know, immortal they be-

come.

(14) "The Man of the thousands of heads (and) thousands

of eyes (and) thousands of feet, covering the earth on all sides,

He stands beyond, ten finger-breadths.

(15) "The Man is verily this all, (both) what has been and

what will be, Lord (too) of deathlessness which far all else

surpasses."

Important parallel quotations are to be found in the

" Kathopanishad," section 2, part 4.

(12) "The Man of the size of a thumb, resides in the midst

within the self, of the past and the future, the Lord.

(13) "The Man of the size of a thumb like flame free from

smoke, of past and of future the Lord, the same is to-day, to-

morrow the same will He be."

Who this Tom-Thumb is can easily be divined the

phallic symbol of the libido. The phallus is this hero

dwarf, who performs great deeds; he, this ugly god

in homely form, who is the great doer of wonders,

since he is the visible expression of the creative strength

incarnate in man. This extraordinary contrast is also

very striking in " Faust" (the mother scene) :

Mephistopheles:

I'll praise thee ere we separate: I see

Thou knowest the devil thoroughly:

Here take this key.

Faust:

That little thing!

Mephistopheles:

Take hold of it, not undervaluing!

ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO 131

Faust:

It glows, it shines, increases in my hand!

Mephistopheles:

How much it is worth, thou soon shalt understand,

The key will scent the true place from all others!

Follow it down ! 'twill lead thee to the Mothers ! *

Here the devil again puts into Faust's hand the mar-

vellous tool, a phallic symbol of the libido, as once before

in the beginning the devil, in the form of the black dog,

accompanied Faust, when he introduced himself with the

words :

" Part of that power, not understopd,

Which always wills the bad and always creates the good."

United to this strength, Faust succeeded in accomplish-

ing his real life task, at first through evil adventure and

then for the benefit of humanity, for without the evil

there is no creative power. Here in the mysterious

mother scene, where the poet unveils the last mystery of

the creative power to the initiated, Faust has need of the

phallic magic wand (in the magic strength of which he

has at first no confidence), in order to perform the

greatest of wonders, namely, the creation of Paris and

Helen. With that Faust attains the divine power of

working miracles, and, indeed, only by means of this

small, insignificant instrument. This paradoxical impres-

sion seems to be very ancient, for even the Upanishads

could say the following of the dwarf god :

* Bayard Taylor's translation of "Faust" is used throughout this book.

TRANSLATOR.

132 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

(19) "Without hands, without feet, He moveth, He graspeth:

Eyeless He seeth, (and) earless He heareth: He knoweth what is

to be known, yet is there no knower of Him. Him call the first,

mighty the Man.

(20) " Smaller than small, (yet) greater than great in the

heart of this creature the self doth repose . . . etc."

The phallus is the being, which moves without limbs,

which sees without eyes, which knows the future; and as

symbolic representative of the universal creative power

existent everywhere immortality is vindicated in it. It is

always thought of as entirely independent, an idea cur-

rent not only in antiquity, but also apparent in the porno-

graphic drawings of our children and artists. It is a seer,

an artist and a worker of wonders; therefore it should

not surprise us when certain phallic characteristics are

found again in the mythological seer, artist and sorcerer.

Hephaestus, Wieland the smith, and Mani, the founder

of Manicheism, whose followers were also famous, have

crippled feet. The ancient seer Melampus possessed a

suggestive name (Blackfoot), 8 and it seems also to be

typical for seers to be blind. Dwarfed stature, ugliness

and deformity have become especially typical for those

mysterious chthonian gods, the sons of Hephaestus, the

Cabiri, 9 to whom great power to perform miracles was

ascribed. The name signifies " powerful," and the Samo-

thracian cult is most intimately united with that of the ithy-

phallic Hermes, who, according to the account of Herodo-

tus, was brought to Attica by the Pelasgians. They are

also called ftsyaXoi Osoi, the great gods. Their near

relations are the " Idaean dactyli " (finger or Idaean

ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO 133

thumb) , 10 to whom the mother of the gods had taught the

blacksmith's art. ("The key will scent the true place

from all others ! follow it down ! 't will lead thee to the

Mothers ! ") They were the first leaders, the teachers of

Orpheus, and invented the Ephesian magic formulas and

the musical rhythms. 11 The characteristic disparity

which is shown above in the Upanishad text, and in

" Faust," is also found heje, since the gigantic Hercules

passed as an Idaean dactyl.

The colossal Phrygians, the skilled servants of Rhea, 12

were also Dactyli. The Babylonian teacher of wisdom,

Oannes, 13 was represented in a phallic fish form. 1 * The

two sun heroes, the Dioscuri, stand in relation to the

Cabiri; 15 they also wear the remarkable pointed head-

covering (Pileus) which is peculiar to these mysterious

gods, 16 and which is perpetuated from that time on as a

secret mark of identification. Attis (the elder brother of

Christ) wears the pointed cap, just as does Mithra. It

has also become traditional for our present-day chthonian

infantile gods, 17 the brownies (Penates), and all the

typical kind of dwarfs. Freud 18 has already called our at-

tention to the phallic meaning of the hat in modern phan-

tasies. A further significance is that probably the pointed

cap represents the foreskin. In order not to go too far

afield from my theme, I must be satisfied here merely

to present the suggestion. But at a later opportunity I

shall return to this point with detailed proof.

The dwarf form leads to the figure of the divine boy,

the pner eternus, the young Dionysus, Jupiter Anxurus,

Tages, 19 and so on. In the vase painting of Thebes,

134 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

already mentioned, a bearded Dionysus is represented

as KABEIPO2, together with a figure of a boy as Hois,

followed by a caricatured boy's figure designated as

IIPATOAAO2 and then again a caricatured man, which

is represented as MIT02. Mho? really means thread,

but in orphic speech it stands for semen. It was con-

jectured that this collection corresponded to a group of

statuary in the sanctuary of a cult. This supposition is

supported by the history of the cult as far as it is known;

it is an original Phenician cult of father and son ; 21 of

an old and young Cabir who were more or less assimi-

lated with the Grecian gods. The double figures of the

adult and the child Dionysus lend themselves particularly

to this assimilation. One might also call this the cult

of the large and small man. Now, under various aspects,

Dionysus is a phallic god in whose worship the phallus

held an important place ; for example, in the cult of the

Argivian Bull Dionysus. Moreover, the phallic herme

of the god has given occasion for a personification of the

phallus of Dionysus, in the form of the god Phales,

who is nothing else but a Priapus. He is called eraipos

or ffvyH&jtoZ Bdnxov*. 22 Corresponding to this state

of affairs, one cannot very well fail to recognize in the pre-

viously mentioned Cabiric representation, and in the

added boy's figure, the picture of man and his penis. 23 The

previously mentioned paradox in the Upanishad text

of large and small, of giant and dwarf, is expressed more

mildly here by man and boy, or father and son. 24 The

motive of deformity which is used constantly by the

* Comrade fellow-reveller.

.ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO 135

Cabiric cult is present also in the vase picture, while the

parallel figures to Dionysus and Hods are the carica-

tured Miros and TlparoXaos. Just as formerly the dif-

ference in size gave occasion for division, so does the

deformity here. 25

Without first bringing further proof to bear, I may

remark that from this knowledge especially strong side-

lights are thrown upon the original psychologic meaning

of the religious heroes. Dionysus stands in an intimate

relation with the psychology of the early Asiatic God

who died and rose again from the dead and whose mani-

fold manifestations have been brought together in the

figure of Christ into a firm personality enduring for cen-

turies. We gain from our premise the knowledge that

these heroes, as well as their typical fates, are personi-

fications of the human libido and its typical fates. They

are imagery, like the figures of our nightly dreams the

actors and interpreters of our secret thoughts. And since

we, in the present day, have the power to decipher the

symbolism of dreams and thereby surmise the myste-

rious psychologic history of development of the indi-

vidual, so a way is here opened to the understanding of

the secret springs of impulse beneath the psychologic

development of races. Our previous trains of thought,

which demonstrate the phallic side of the symbolism of

the libido, also show how thoroughly justified is the term

" libido." 26 Originally taken from the sexual sphere,

this word has become the most frequent technical expres-

sion of psychoanalysis, for the simple reason that its

significance is wide enough to cover all the unknown and

136 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

countless manifestations of the Will in the sense of Scho-

penhauer. It is sufficiently comprehensive and rich in

meaning to characterize the real nature of the psychical

entity which it includes. The exact classical significance

of the word libido qualifies it as an entirely appro-

priate term. Libido is taken in a very wide sense in

Cicero : 27

"(Volunt ex duobus opinatis) bonis (nasci) Libidinem et

Laetitiam; ut sit laetitia praesentium bonorum: libido futurorum.

Laetitia autem et Libido in bonorum opinione versantur, cum

Libido ad id, quod videtur bonum, illecta et inflammata rapiatur.

Natura enim omnes ea, quae bona videntur, sequuntur, fugi-

untque contraria. Quamobrem simul objecta species cuiuspiam

est, quod bonum videatur, ad id adipiscendum impellit ipsa natura.

Id cum constanter prudenterque fit, ejusmodi appetitionem stoici

fiovhrjaiv appellant, nos appellamus voluntatem; earn illi putant

in solo esse sapiente, quam sic definiunt; voluntas est quae quid

cum ratione desiderat : quae autem ratione adversa incitata est

vehementius, ea libido est, vel cupiditas effrenata, quae in omnibus

stultis invenitur." *

The meaning of libido here is u to wish," and in the

stoical distinction of will, dissolute desire. Cicero 28 used

"libido" in a corresponding sense:

* From the good proceed desire and joy joy having reference to some

present good, and desire to some future one but joy and desire depend

upon the opinion of good ; as desire being inflamed and provoked is carried

on eagerly toward what has the appearance of good, and joy is trans-

ported and exults on obtaining what was desired: for we naturally pursue

those things that have the appearance of good, and avoid the con-

trary wherefore as soon as anything that has the appearance of good

presents itself, nature incites us to endeavor to obtain it. Now where this

strong desire is consistent and founded on prudence, it is by the stoics

called Bulesis and the name which we give it is volition, and this they

allow to none but their wise men, and define it thus; volition is a reason-

able desire; but whatever is incited too violently in opposition to reason,

that is a lust or an unbridled desire which is discoverable in all fools.

The Tusculan Disputation, Cicero, page 403.

ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO 137

" Agere rem aliquam libidine, non ratione." *

In the same sense Sallust says:

" Iracundia pars est libidinis."

In another place in a milder and more general sense,

which completely approaches the analytical use :

" Magisque in decoris armis et militaribus equis, quam in

scortis et conviviis libidinem habebant." *

Also:

" Quod si tibi bona libido fuerit patriae, etc."

The use of libido is so general that the phrase " libido

est scire " merely had the significance of " I will, it pleases

me." In the phrase " aliquam libido urinae lacessit "

libido had the meaning of urgency. The significance of

sexual desire is also present in the classics.

This general classical application of the conception

agrees with the corresponding etymological context of

the word, libido or lubido (with libet, more ancient

lubet) , it pleases me, and libens or lubens = gladly, will-

ingly. Sanskrit, lubhyati = to experience violent longing,

lobhayati = excites longing, lubdha-h = eager, lobha-h

longing, eagerness. Gothic = liufs, and Old High Ger-

man Hob = love. Moreover, in Gothic, lubains was rep-

resented as hope ; and Old High German, lobon = to

praise, lob = commendation, praise, glory; Old Bulga-

rian, ljubiti = to love, ljuby = love ; Lithuanian, lidup-

* Libido is used for arms and military horses rather than for dissipations

and banquets.

138 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

sintl to praise. 29 It can be said that the conception

of libido as developed in the new work of Freud and of

his school has functionally the same significance in the

biological territory as has the conception of energy since

the time of Robert Mayer in the physical realm. 80 It

may not be superfluous to say something more at this

point concerning the conception of libido after we have

followed the formation of its symbol to its highest ex-

pression in the human form of the religious hero.

CHAPTER II

THE CONCEPTION AND THE GENETIC

THEORY OF LIBIDO

THE chief source of the history of the analytic con-

ception of libido is Freud's " Three Contributions to the

Sexual Theory." There the term libido is conceived by

him in the original narrow sense of sexual impulse, sexual

need. Experience forces us to the assumption of a

capacity for displacement of the libido, because functions

or localizations of non-sexual force are undoubtedly

capable of taking up a certain amount of libidinous sexual

impetus, a libidinous afflux. 1 Functions or objects could,

therefore, obtain sexual value, which under normal cir-

cumstances really have nothing to do with sexuality. 2

From this fact results the Freudian comparison of the

libido with a stream, which is divisible, which can be

dammed up, which overflows into branches, and so on. 3

Freud's original conception does not interpret " every-

thing sexual," although this has been asserted by critics,

but recognizes the existence of certain forces, the nature

of which are not well known; to which Freud, however,

compelled by the notorious facts which are evident to

any layman, grants the capacity to receive " affluxes of

libido." The hypothetical idea at the basis is the symbol

of the " Triebbiindel " 4 (bundle of impulses), wherein

the sexual impulse figures as a partial impulse of the whole

139

i 4 o PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

system, and its encroachment into the other realms of

impulse is a fact of experience. The theory of Freud,

branching off from this interpretation, according to which

the motor forces of a neurotic system correspond pre-

cisely to their libidinous additions to other (non-sexual)

functional impulses, has been sufficiently proven as cor-

rect, it seems to me, by the work of Freud and his school. 6

Since the appearance of the " Three Contributions," in

1905, a change has taken place 6 in the libido conception;

its field of application has been widened. An extremely

clear example of this amplification is this present work.

However, I must state that Freud, as well as myself,

saw the need of widening the conception of libido. It

was paranoia, so closely related to dementia praecox,

which seemed to compel Freud to enlarge the earlier

limits of the conception. The passage in question, which

I will quote here, word for word, reads : 7

" A third consideration which presents itself, in regard to the

views developed here, starts the query as to whether we should

accept as sufficiently effectual the universal receding of the libido

from the outer world, in order to interpret from that, the end of

the world: or whether in this case, the firmly rooted possession

of the ' I ' must not suffice to uphold the rapport with the outer

world. Then one must either let that which we call possession

of the libido (interest from erotic sources) coincide with interest

in general, or else take into consideration the possibility that great

disturbance in the disposition of the libido can also induce a corre-

sponding disturbance in the possession of the ' I.' Now, these are

the problems, which we are still absolutely helpless and unfitted

to answer. Things would be different could we proceed from a

safe fund of knowledge of instinct. But the truth is, we have

nothing of that kind at our disposal. We understand instinct

as the resultant of the reaction of the somatic and the psychic.

CONCEPTION AND THEORY OF LIBIDO 141

We see in it the psychical representation of organic forces and

take the popular distinction between the ' I ' impulse and the

sexual impulse, which appears to us to be in accord with the

biological double role of the individual being who aspires to his

own preservation as well as to the preservation of the species.

But anything beyond this is a structure, which we set up, and

also willingly let fall again in order to orient ourselves in the

confusion of the dark processes of the soul ; we expect particularly,

from the psychoanalytic investigations into diseased soul processes,

to have certain decisions forced upon us in regard to questions of

the theory of instinct. This expectation has not yet been fulfilled

on account of the still immature and limited investigations in these

fields. At present the possibility of the reaction of libido dis-

turbance upon the possession of the ' I ' can be shown as little

as the reverse; the secondary or induced disturbances of the

libido processes through abnormal changes in the ' I.' It is prob-

able that processes of this sort form the distinctive character of

the psychoses. The conclusions arising from this, in relation to

paranoia, are at present uncertain. One cannot assert that the

paranoiac has completely withdrawn his interest from the outer

world, nor withdrawn into the heights of repression, as one some-

times sees in certain other forms of hallucinatory psychoses. He

takes notice of the outer world, he takes account of its changes, he

is stirred to explanations by their influence, and therefore I con-

sider it highly probable that the changed relation to the world is

to be explained, wholly or in great part, by the deficiency of the

libido interest."

In this passage Freud plainly touches upon the ques-

tion whether the well-known longing for reality of the

paranoic dement (and the dementia praecox patients), 8

to whom I have especially called attention in my book,

" The Psychology of Dementia Praecox," 9 is to be traced

back to the withdrawal of the " libidinous affluxes "

alone, or whether this coincides with the so-called ob-

jective interest in general. It is hardly to be assumed

i 4 2 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

that the normal " fonction du reel " (Janet)

tained only through affluxes of libido or erotic interest.

The fact is that in very many cases reality disappears

entirely, so that not a trace of psychological adaptation

or orientation can be recognized. Reality is repressed

under these circumstances and replaced by the contents

of the complex. One must of necessity say that not only

the erotic interest but the interest in general has disap-

peared, that is to say, the whole adaptation to reality has

ceased. To this category belong the stuporose and cata-

tonic automatons.

I have previously made use of the expression " psychic

energy " in my " Psychology of Dementia Praecox " be-

cause I was unable to establish the theory of this psy-

chosis upon the conception of the displacement of the

affluxes of libido. My experience, at that time chiefly

psychiatric, did not enable me to understand this theory.

However, the correctness of this theory in regard to

neuroses, strictly speaking the transference neuroses, was

proven to me later after increased experience in the field

of hysteria and compulsion neuroses. In the territory

of these neuroses it is mainly a question whether any

portion of the libido which is spared through the specific

repression becomes introverted and regressive into

earlier paths of transference; for example, the path of

the parental transference. 11 With that, however, the

former non-sexual psychologic adaptation to the environ-

ment remains preserved so far as it does not concern the

erotic and its secondary positions (symptoms). The

reality which is lacking to the patients is just that portion

CONCEPTION AND THEORY OF LIBIDO 143

of the libido to be found in the neurosis. In dementia

praecox, on the contrary, not merely that portion of libido

which is saved in the well-known specific sexual repression

is lacking for reality, but much more than one could write

down to the account of sexuality in a strict sense. The

function of reality is lacking to such a degree that even

the motive power must be encroached upon in the loss.

The sexual character of this must be disputed absolutely, 12

for reality is not understood to be a sexual function.

Moreover, if that were so, the introversion of the libido

in the strict sense must have as a result a loss of reality

in the neuroses, and, indeed, a loss which could be com-

pared with that of dementia praecox. These facts have

rendered it impossible for me to transfer Freud's theory

of libido to dementia praecox, and, therefore, I am of

the opinion that Abraham's investigation 13 is hardly ten-

able theoretically, from the standpoint of the Freudian

theory of libido. If Abraham believes that through the

withdrawal of the libido from the outer world the para-

noid system or the schizophrenic symptomatology results,

then this assumption is not justified from the standpoint

of the knowledge of that time, because a mere libido in-

troversion and regression leads, speedily, as Freud has

clearly shown, into the neuroses, and, strictly speaking,

into the transference neuroses, and not into dementia

praecox. Therefore, the transference of the libido theory

to dementia praecox is impossible, because this illness

produces a loss of reality which cannot be explained by

the deficiency of the libido defined in this narrow sense.

It affords me especial satisfaction that our teacher also,

H4 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

when he laid his hand on the delicate material of the para-

noic psychology, was forced to doubt the applicability of

the conception of libido held by him at that time. The

sexual definition of this did not permit me to understand

those disurbances of function, which affect the vague ter-

ritory of the hunger instinct just as much as that of the

sexual instinct. For a long time the theory of libido

seemed to me inapplicable to dementia praecox. With

increasing experience in analytical work, however, I be-

came aware of a gradual change in my conception of

libido. In place of the descriptive definition of the

" Three Contributions " there gradually grew up a genetic

definition of the libido, which rendered it possible for me

to replace the expression " psychic energy " by the term

" libido." I was forced to ask myself whether indeed the

function of reality to-day does not consist only in its

smaller part of libido sexualis and in the greater part of

other impulses? It is still a very important question

whether phylogenetically the function of reality is not, at

least in great part, of sexual origin. To answer this ques-

tion directly in regard to the function of reality is not

possible, but we shall attempt to come to an understand-

ing indirectly.

A fleeting glance at the history of evolution is sufficient

to teach us that countless complicated functions to which

to-day must be denied any sexual character were orig-

inally pure derivations from the general impulse of

propagation. During the ascent through the animal king-

dom an important displacement in the fundamentals of

the procreative instinct has taken place. The mass of

CONCEPTION AND THEORY OF LIBIDO 145

the reproductive products with the uncertainty of fer-

tilization has more and more been replaced by a controlled

impregnation and an effective protection of the offspring.

In this way part of the energy required in the production

of eggs and sperma has been transposed into the creation

of mechanisms for allurement and for protection of the

young. Thus we discover the first instincts of art in ani-

mals used in the service of the impulse of creation, and

limited to the breeding season. The original sexual char-

acter of these biological institutions became lost in their

organic fixation and functional independence. Even if

there can be no doubt about the sexual origin of music,

still it would be a poor, unaesthetic generalization if one

were to include music in the category of sexuality. A

similar nomenclature would then lead us to classify the

cathedral of Cologne as mineralogy because it is built

of stones. It can be a surprise only to those to whom the

history of evolution is unknown to find how few things

there really are in human life which cannot be reduced in

the last analysis to the instinct of procreation. It includes

very nearly everything, I think, which is beloved and dear

to us. We spoke just now of libido as the creative im-

pulse and at the same time we allied ourselves with the

conception which opposes libido to hunger in the same way

that the instinct of the preservation of the species is

opposed to the instinct of self-preservation. In nature,

this artificial distinction does not exist. Here we see only

a continuous life impulse, a will to live which will attain

the creation of the whole. species through the preservation

of the individual. Thus far this conception coincides with

146 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

the idea of the Will in Schopenhauer, for we can conceive

Will objectively, only as a manifestation of an internal

desire. This throwing of psychological perceptions into

material reality is characterized philosophically as u in-

trojection." (Ferenczi's conception of " introjection "

denoted the reverse, that is, the taking of the outer world

into the inner world.) 14 Naturally, the conception of the

world was distorted by introjection. Freud's conception

of the principle of desire is a voluntary formulation of the

idea of introjection, while his once more voluntarily con-

ceived " principle of reality " corresponds functionally to

that which I designate as " corrective of reality," and R.

Avenarius 15 designates as " empiriokritische Prinzipial-

koordination." The conception of power owes its exist-

ence to this very introjection; this has already been said

expressively by Galileo in his remark that its origin is

to be sought in the subjective perception of the muscular

power of the individual. Because we have already arrived

at the daring assumption that the libido, which was em-

ployed originally in the exclusive service of egg and seed

production, now appears firmly organized in the function

of nest-building, and can no longer be employed other-

wise; similarly this conception forces us to relate it to

every desire, including hunger. For now we can no longer

make any essential distinction between the will to build a

nest and the will to eat. This view brings us to a con-

ception of libido, which extends over the boundaries of the

physical sciences into a philosophical aspect to a con-

ception of the will in general. I must give this bit of

psychological " Voluntarismus " into the hands of the

CONCEPTION AND THEORY OF LIBIDO 147

philosophers for them to manage. For the rest I refer

to the words of Schopenhauer 16 relating to this. In con-

nection with the psychology of this conception (by which

I understand neither metapsychology nor metaphysics) I

am reminded here of the cosmogenic meaning of Eros in

Plato and Hesiod, 17 and also of the orphic figure of

Phanes, the " shining one," the first created, the " father

of Eros." Phanes has also orphically the significance of

Priapus; he is a god of love, bisexual and similar to the

Theban Dionysus Lysios. 18 The orphic meaning of

Phanes is similar to that of the Indian Kama, the god of

love, which is also the cosmogenic principle. To Plotinus,

of the Neo-Platonic school, the world-soul is the energy

of the intellect. 19 Plotinus compares " The One," the crea-

tive primal principle, with light in general; the intellect

with the Sun ( $ ) , the world-soul with the moon ( $ ) .

In another comparison Plotinus compares u The One "

with the Father, the intellect with the Son. 20 The " One "

designated as Uranus is transcendent. The son as Kronos

has dominion over the visible world. The world-soul

(designated as Zeus) appears as subordinate to him. The

" One," or the Usia of the whole existence is designated

by Plotinus as hypostatic, also as the three forms of ema-

nation, also jJLia ovffia sv rpiaiv vnoGrdaeGtv* As Drews

observed, this is also the formula of the Christian

Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy

Ghost) as it was decided upon at the councils of Nicea

and Constantinople. 21 It may also be noticed that certain

early Christian sectarians attributed a maternal signifi-

*One substance in three forms.

i 4 8 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

cance to the Holy Ghost (world-soul, moon). (See what

follows concerning Chi of Timaeus.) According to Plo-

tinus, the world-soul has a tendency toward a divided

existence and towards divisibility, the conditio sine qua

non of all change, creation and procreation (also a ma-

ternal quality). It is an " unending all of life" and

wholly energy; it is a living organism of ideas, which

attain in it effectiveness and reality. 22 The intellect is

its procreator, its father, which, having conceived it,

brings it to development in thought. 23

" What lies enclosed in the intellect, comes to development in

the world-soul as logos, fills it with meaning and makes it as if

intoxicated with nectar." 24

Nectar is analogous to soma, the drink of fertility and

of life, also to sperma. The soul is fructified by the

intellect; as oversoul it is called heavenly Aphrodite, as

the undersoul the earthly Aphrodite. " It knows the birth

pangs," 25 and so on. The bird of Aphrodite, the dove,

is not without good cause the symbol of the Holy Ghost.

This fragment of the history of philosophy, which may

easily be enlarged, shows the significance of the endo-

psychic perception of the libido and of its symbolism in

human thought.

In the diversity of natural phenomena we see the de-

sire, the libido, in the most diverse applications and forms.

We see the libido in the stage of childhood almost wholly

occupied in the instinct of nutrition, which takes care of

the upbuilding of the body. With the development of the

body there are successively opened new spheres of appli-

CONCEPTION AND THEORY OF LIBIDO 149

cation for the libido. The last sphere of application, and

surpassing all the others in its functional significance, is

sexuality, which seems at first almost bound up with the

function of nutrition. ( Compare with this the influence on

procreation of the conditions of nutrition in lower ani-

mals and plants.) In the territory of sexuality, the libido

wins that formation, the enormous importance of which

has justified us in the use of the term libido in general.

Here the libido appears very properly as an impulse of

procreation, and almost in the form of an undifferentiated

sexual primal libido, as an energy of growth, which

clearly forces the individual towards division, budding,

etc. (The clearest distinction between the two forms of

libido is to be found among those animals in whom the

stage of nutrition is separated from the sexual stage by

a chrysalis stage.)

From that sexual primal libido which produced millions

of eggs and seeds from one small creature derivatives

have been developed with the great limitation of the

fecundity; derivatives in which the functions are main-

tained by a special differentiated libido. This differen-

tiated libido is henceforth desexualized because it is dis-

sociated from its original function of egg and sperma

production; nor is there any possibility of restoring it to

its original function. Thus, in general, the process of

development consists in an increasing transformation of

the primal libido which only produced products of

generation to the secondary functions of allurement and

protection of the young. This now presupposes a very

different and very complicated relation to reality, a true

150 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

function of reality, which, functionally inseparable, is

bound up with the needs of procreation. Thus the altered

mode of procreation carries with it as a correlate a cor-

respondingly heightened adaptation to reality. 26

In this way we attain an insight into certain primitive

conditions of the function of reality. It would be radically

wrong to say that its compelling power is a sexual one.

It was a sexual one to a large extent. The process of

transformation of the primal libido into secondary im-

pulses always took place in the form of affluxes of sexual

libido, that is to say, sexuality became deflected from its

original destination and a portion of it turned, little by

little, increasing in amount, into the phylogenetic impulse

of the mechanisms of allurement and of protection of the

young. This diversion of the sexual libido from the

sexual territory into associated functions is still taking

place. 27 Where this operation succeeds without injury to

the adaptation of the individual it is called sublimation.

Where the attempt does not succeed it is called repression.

The descriptive standpoint of psychology accepts the

multiplicity of instincts, among which is the sexual instinct,

as a special phenomenon; moreover, it recognizes certain

affluxes of libido to non-sexual instincts.

Quite otherwise is the genetic standpoint. It regards

the multiplicity of instincts as issuing from a relative

unity, the primal libido ; 28 it recognizes that definite

amounts of the primal libido are split off, as it were, asso-

ciated with the newly formed functions and finally merged

in them. As a result of this it is impossible, from the

genetic standpoint, to hold to the strictly limited concep-

CONCEPTION AND THEORY OF LIBIDO 151

tion of libido of the descriptive standpoint; it leads in-

evitably to a broadening of the conception. With this we

come to the theory of libido that I have surreptitiously

introduced into the first part of this work for the pur-

pose of making this genetic conception familiar to the

reader. The explanation of this harmless deceit I have

saved until the second part.

For the first time, through this genetic idea of libido,

which in every way surpasses the descriptive sexual, the

transference was made possible of the Freudian libido

theory into the psychology of mental disease. The pas-

sage quoted above shows how the present Freudian con-

ception of libido collides with the problem of the

psychoses. 29 Therefore, when I speak of libido, I asso-

ciate with it the genetic conception which contains not

only the immediate sexual but also an amount of desexual-

ized primal libido. When I say a sick person takes his

libido away from the outer world, in order to take pos-

session of the inner world with it, I do not mean that

he takes away merely the affluxes from the function of

reality, but he takes energy away, according to my view,

from those desexualized instincts which regularly and

properly support the function of reality.

With this alteration in the libido conception, certain

parts of our terminology need revision as well. As we

know, Abraham has undertaken the experiment of trans-

ferring the Freudian libido theory to dementia praecox

and has conceived the characteristic lack of rapport and

the cessation of the function of reality as autoerotism.

This conception needs revision. Hysterical introversion

152 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

of the libido leads to autoerotism, since the patient's erotic

afflux of libido designed for the function of adaptation

is introverted, whereby his ego is occupied by the corre-

sponding amount of erotic libido. The schizophrenic,

however, shuns reality far more than merely the erotic

afflux would account for; therefore, his inner condition is

very different from that of the hysteric. He is more than

autoerotic, he builds up an intra-psychic equivalent for

reality, for which purpose he has necessarily to employ

other dynamics than that afforded by the erotic afflux.

Therefore, I must grant to Bleuler the right to reject the

conception of autoerotism, taken from the study of hys-

terical neuroses, and there legitimate, and to replace it

by the conception of autismus. 30 I am forced to say that

this term is better fitted to facts than autoerotism. With

this I acknowledge my earlier idea of the identity of

autismus (Bleuler) and autoerotism (Freud) as unjusti-

fied, and, therefore, retract it. al This thorough revision

of the conception of libido has compelled me to this.

From these considerations it follows necessarily that

the descriptive psychologic conception of libido must be

given up in order for the libido theory to be applied to

dementia praecox. That it is there applicable is best

shown in Freud's brilliant investigation of Schreber's

phantasies. The question now is whether this genetic

conception of libido proposed by me is suitable for the

neuroses. I believe that this question may be answered

affirmatively. u Natura non fecit saltum " it is not merely

to be expected but it is also probable that at least tem-

porary functional disturbances of various degrees appear

CONCEPTION AND THEORY OF LIBIDO 153

in the neuroses, which transcend the boundaries of the

immediate sexual; in any case, this occurs in psychotic

episodes. I consider the broadening of the conception of

libido which has developed through the most recent an-

alytic work as a real advance which will prove of especial

advantage in the important field of the introversion psy-

choses. Proofs of the correctness of my assumption are

already at hand. It has become apparent through a series

of researches of the Zurich School, which are now pub-

lished in part, 32 that the phantastic substitution products

which take the place of the disturbed function of reality

bear unmistakable traces of archaic thought. This con-

firmation is parallel to the postulate asserted above, ac-

cording to which reality is deprived, not merely of an

immediate (individual) amount of libido, but also of an

already differentiated or desexualized quantity of libido,

which, among normal people, has belonged to the function

of reality ever since prehistoric times. A dropping away

of the last acquisition of the function of reality (or adapta-

tion) must of necessity be replaced by an earlier mode of

adaptation. We find this principle already in the doc-

trines of the neuroses, that is, that a repression resulting

from the failure of the recent transference is replaced by

an old way of transference, namely, through a regressive

revival of the parent imago. In the transference neurosis

(hysterical), where merely a part of the immediate

sexual libido is taken away from reality by the specific

sexual repression, the substituted product is a phantasy

of individual origin and significance, with only a trace

of those archaic traits found in the phantasies of those

154 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

mental disorders in which a portion of the general human

function of reality organized since antiquity has broken

off. This portion can be replaced only by a generally

valid archaic surrogate. We owe a simple and clear ex-

ample of this proposition to the investigation of Honeg-

ger. 33 A paranoic of good intelligence who has a clear

idea of the spherical form of the earth and its rotation

around the sun replaces the modern astronomical views

by a system worked out in great detail, which one must

call archaic, in which the earth is a flat disc over which

the sun travels. 34 (I am reminded of the sun-phallus

mentioned in the first part of this book, for which we are

also indebted to Honegger.) Spielrein has likewise fur-

nished some very interesting examples of archaic defini-

tions which begin in certain illnesses to overlay the real

meanings of the modern word. For example, Spielrein's

patient had correctly discovered the mythological signifi-

cance of alcohol, the intoxicating drink, to be " an effusion

of seed." 35 She also had a symbolism of boiling which I

must place parallel to the especially important alchemistic

vision of Zosimos, 36 who found people in boiling water

within the cavity of the altar. 37 This patient used earth

in place of mother, and also water to express mother. 38 I

refrain from further examples because future work of the

Zurich School will furnish abundant evidence of this sort.

My foregoing proposition of the replacement of the

disturbed function of reality by an archaic surrogate is

supported by an excellent paradox of Spielrein's. She

says: " I often had the illusion that these patients might

CONCEPTION AND THEORY OF LIBIDO 155

be simply victims of a folk superstition." As a matter of

fact, patients substitute phantasies for reality, phantasies

similar to the actually incorrect mental products of the

past, which, however, were once the view of reality. As

the Zosimos vision shows, the old superstitions were sym-

bols 39 which permitted transitions to the most remote

territory. This must have been very expedient for cer-

tain archaic periods, for by this means convenient bridges

were offered to lead a partial amount of libido over into

the mental realm. Evidently Spielrein thinks of a similar

biological meaning of the symbols when she says : 40

" Thus a symbol seems to me to owe its origin in general to

the tendency of a complex for dissolution in the common totality

of thought. . . . The complex is robbed by that of the personal

element. . . . This tendency towards dissolution (transforma-

tion) of every individual complex is the motive for poetry, paint-

ing, for every sort of art."

When here we replace the formal conception " com-

plex " by the conception of the quantity of libido (the

total effect of the complex) , which, from the standpoint of

the libido theory, is a justified measure, then does Spiel-

rein's view easily agree with mine. When primitive man

understands in general what an act of generation is, then,

according to the principle of the path of least resistance,

he never can arrive at the idea of replacing the generative

organs by a sword-blade or a shuttle ; but this is the case

with certain Indians, who explain the origin of mankind

by the union of the two transference symbols. He then

must be compelled to devise an analogous thing in order to

bring a manifest sexual interest upon an asexual expres-

156 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

sion. The propelling motive of this transition of the

immediate sexual libido to the non-sexual representation

can, in my opinion, be found only in a resistance which

opposes primitive sexuality.

It appears as if, by this means of phantastic analogy

formation, more libido would gradually become desexual-

ized, because increasingly more phantasy correlates were

put in the place of the primitive achievement of the sexual

libido. With this an enormous broadening of the world

idea was gradually developed because new objects were

always assimilated as sexual symbols. It is a question

whether the human consciousness has not been brought

to its present state entirely or in great part in this man-

ner. It is evident, in any case, that an important signifi-

cance in the development of the human mind is due to

the impulse towards the discovery of analogy. We must

agree thoroughly with Steinthal when he says that an

absolutely overweening importance must be granted to

the little phrase " Gleich wie " (even as) in the history

of the development of thought. It is easy to believe that

the carryover of the libido to a phantastic correlate has

led primitive man to a number of the most important

discoveries.

CHAPTER III

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO.

A POSSIBLE SOURCE OF PRIMITIVE HUMAN

DISCOVERIES

IN the following pages I will endeavor to picture a

concrete example of the transition of the libido. I once

treated a patient who suffered from a depressive cata-

tonic condition. The case was one of only a slight intro-

version psychosis; therefore, the existence of many

hysterical features was not surprising. In the beginning

of the analytic treatment, while telling of a very painful

occurrence she fell into a hysterical-dreamy state, in which

she showed all signs of sexual excitement. For obvious

reasons she lost the knowledge of my presence during this

condition. The excitement led to a masturbative act

(frictio femorum). This act was accompanied by a

peculiar gesture. She made a very violent rotary motion

with the forefinger of the left hand on the left temple,

as if she were boring a hole there. Afterwards there was

complete amnesia for what had happened, and there was

nothing to be learned about the queer gesture with her

hand. Although this act can easily be likened to a boring

into the mouth, nose or ear, now transferred to the

temple, it belongs in the territory of infantile ludus sexu-

alis 1 to the preliminary exercise preparatory to sexual

activity. Without really understanding it, this gesture,

157

158 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

nevertheless, seemed very important to me. Many weeks

later I had an opportunity to speak to the patient's

mother, and from her I learned that her daughter had

been a very exceptional child. When only two years old

she would sit with her back to an open cupboard door for

hours and rhythmically beat her head against the door 2

to the distraction of the household. A little later, instead

of playing as other children, she began to bore a hole with

her finger in the plaster of the wall of the house. She

did this with little turning and scraping movements, and

kept herself busy at this occupation for hours. She was

a complete puzzle to her parents. From her fourth year

she practised onanism. It is evident that in this early

infantile activity the preliminary stage of the later trouble

may be found. The especially remarkable features in this

case are, first, that the child did not carry out the action

on its own body, and, secondly, the assiduity with which

it carried on the action. 3 One is tempted to bring these

two facts into a causal relationship and to say, because the

child does not accomplish this action on her own body,

perhaps that is the reason of the assiduity, for by boring

into the wall she never arrives at the same satisfaction as

if she executed the activity onanistically on her own body.

The very evident onanistic boring of the patient can be

traced back to a very early stage of childhood, which is

prior to the period of local onanism. That time is still

psychologically very obscure, because individual reproduc-

tions and memories are lacking to a great extent, the same

as among animals. The race characteristics (manner of

life) predominate during the entire life of the animal,

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 159

whereas among men the individual character asserts itself

over the race type. Granting the correctness of this

remark, we are struck with the apparently wholly incom-

prehensible individual activity of this child at this early

age. We learn from her later life history that her de-

velopment, which is, as is always the case, intimately inter-

woven with parallel external events, has led to that mental

disturbance which is especially well known on account of

its individuality and the originality of its productions, i. e.

dementia praecox. The peculiarity of this disturbance, as

we have pointed out above, depends upon the predomi-

nance of the phantastic form of thought of the infantile

in general. From this type of thinking proceed all those

numerous contacts with mythological products, and that

which we consider as original and wholly individual crea-

tions are very often creations which are comparable with

nothing but those of antiquity. I believe that this com-

parison can be applied to all formations of this remark-

able illness, and perhaps also to this special symptom of

boring. We have already seen that the onanistic boring

of the patient dated from a very early stage of childhood,

that is to say, it was reproduced from that period of the

past. The sick woman fell back for the first time into

the early onanism only after she had been married many

years, and following the death of her child, with whom

she had identified herself through an overindulgent love.

When the child died the still healthy mother was over-

come by early infantile symptoms in the form of scarcely

concealed fits of masturbation, which were associated with

this very act of boring. As already observed, the primary

160 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

boring appeared at a time which preceded the infantile

onanism localized in the genitals. This fact is of signifi-

cance in so far as this boring differs thereby from a similar

later practice which appeared after the genital onanism.

The later bad habits represent, as a rule, a substitution

for repressed genital masturbation, or for an attempt in

this direction. As such these habits (finger-sucking, biting

the nails, picking at things, boring into the ears and nose,

etc.) may persist far into adult life as regular symptoms

of a repressed amount of libido.

As has already been shown above, the libido in youth-

ful individuals at first manifests itself in the nutritional

zone, when food is taken in the act of suckling with

rhythmic movements and with every sign of satisfaction.

With the growth of the individual and the development

of his organs the libido creates for itself new avenues to

supply its need of activity and satisfaction. The primary

model of rhythmic activity, producing pleasure and satis-

faction, must now be transferred to the zone of other

functions, with sexuality as its final goal. A considerable

part of the " hunger libido " is transferred into the

" sexual libido. " This transition does not take place sud-

denly at the time of puberty, as is generally supposed, but

very gradually in the course of the greater part of child-

hood. The libido can free itself only with difficulty and

very slowly from that which is peculiar to the function of

nutrition, in order to enter into the peculiarity of the

sexual function. Two periods are to be distinguished in

this state of transition, so far as I can judge the epoch of

suckling and the epoch of the displaced rhythmic activity.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 161

Suckling still belongs to the function of nutrition, but

passes beyond it, however, in that it is no longer the func-

tion of nutrition, but rhythmic activity, with pleasure and

satisfaction as a goal, without the taking of nourishment.

Here the hand enters as an auxiliary organ. In the

period of the displaced rhythmic activity the hand appears

still more clearly as an auxiliary organ; the gaining of

pleasure leaves the mouth zone and turns to other regions.

The possibilities are now many. As a rule, other openings

of the body become the objects of the libido interest;

then the skin, and special portions of that. The activity

expressed in these parts, which can appear as rubbing,

boring, picking, and so on, follows a certain rhythm and

serves to produce pleasure. After longer or shorter tarry-

ings of the libido at these stations, it passes onward until

it reaches the sexual zone, and there, for the first time,

can be occasion for the beginning of onanistic attempts.

In its migration the libido takes more than a little of the

function of nutrition with it into the sexual zone, which

readily accounts for the numerous and innate correla-

tions between the functions of nutrition and sexuality. If,

after the occupation of the sexual zone, an obstacle arises

against the present form of application of the libido, then

there occurs, according to the well-known laws, a regres-

sion to the nearest station lying behind, to the two above-

mentioned periods. It is now of special importance that

the epoch of the displaced rhythmic activity coincides in

a general way with the time of the development of the

mind and of speech. I might designate the period from

birth until the occupation of the sexual zone as the pre-

162 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

sexual stage of development. This generally occurs be-

tween the third and fifth year, and is comparable to the

chrysalis stage in butterflies. It is distinguished by the

irregular commingling of the elements of nutrition and of

sexual functions. Certain regressions follow directly back

to the presexual stage, and, judging from my experience,

this seems to be the rule in the regression of dementia

praecox. I will give two brief examples. One case con-

cerns a young girl who developed a catatonic state during

her engagement. When she saw me for the first time, she

came up suddenly, embraced me, and said, " Papa, give

me something to eat." The other case concerns a young

maidservant who complained that people pursued her

with electricity and that this caused a queer feeling in her

genitals, " as if it ate and drank down there."

These regressive phenomena show that even from the

distance of the modern mind those early stages of the

libido can be regressively reached. One may assume,

therefore, that in the earliest states of human develop-

ment this road was much more easily travelled than it is

to-day. It becomes then a matter of great interest to

learn whether traces of this have been preserved in

history.

We owe our knowledge of the ethnologic phantasy of

boring to the valuable work of Abraham, 4 who also refers

us to the writings of Adalbert Kuhn. 5 Through this in-

vestigation we learn that Prometheus, the fire-bringer,

may be a brother of the Hindoo Pramantha, that is to

say, of the masculine fire-rubbing piece of wood. The

Hindoo fire-bringer is called Matarigvan, and the activity

THE TRANSFORMATION OF .THE LIBIDO 163

of the fire preparation is always designated in the hieratic

text by the verb " manthami," 6 which means shaking,

rubbing, bringing forth by rubbing. Kuhn has put this

verb in connection with the Greek pavQavod, which means

" to learn," and has explained this conceptual relation-

ship. 7 The " tertium comparationis " might lie in the

rhythm, the movement to and fro in the mind. According

to Kuhn, the root "manth" or "math" must be traced

from pavOdvK) (^.dOtj^a, udOrjffit) to Trpo-fiirjOsoj^ai to

npojttjOev?,* who is the Greek fire-robber. Through

an unauthorized Sanskrit word " pramathyus," which

comes by way of " pramantha," and which possesses

the double meaning of " Rubber " and " Robber/'

the transition to Prometheus was effected. With that,

however, the prefix " pra " caused special difficulty,

so that the whole derivation was doubted by a series

of authors, and was held, in part, as erroneous. On

the other hand, it was pointed out that as the Thuric Zeus

bore the especially interesting cognomen Ilpo-fiiavOevZ,

thus npo-iirjOev? might not be an original Indo-Germanic

stem word that was related to the Sanskrit " pramantha,"

but might represent only a cognomen. This interpreta-

tion is supported by a gloss of Hesychius, 'I0a$: 6 rear

Tirdvcov nrfpvZ npo}jirj6ev?.\ Another gloss of Hesychius

explains iOaivojjiai (iaivco) as Qsp}iaivo}jiai, through which

'Was attains the meaning of " the flaming one," analogous

to AiOwv or Qheyva? . 8 The relation of Prometheus to

*I learn (that which is learned, knowledge; the act of learning), to

take thought beforehand, to Prometheus (forethought),

t Prometheus, the herald of the Titans.

1 64 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

pramantha could scarcely be so direct as Kuhn conjec-

tures. The question of an indirect relation is not decided

with that. Above all, npoprjOevt is of great significance

as a surname for 'Wat, since the " flaming one " is the

" f ore-thinker. " (Pramati = precaution is also an attri-

bute of Agni, although pramati is of another derivation.)

Prometheus, however, belongs to the line of Phlegians

which was placed by Kuhn in uncontested relationship to

the Indian priest family of Bhrgu. 9 The Bhrgu are like

Matarigvan (the "one swelling in the mother"), also

fire-bringers. Kuhn quotes a passage, according to which

Bhrgu also arises from the flame like Agni. ("In the

flame Bhrgu originated. Bhrgu roasted, but did not

burn.") This view leads to a root related to Bhrgu,

that is to say, to the Sanskrit bhray = to light, Latin

fulgeo and Greek cpMyw (Sanskrit bhargas = splendor,

Latin fulgur). Bhrgu appears, therefore, as "the shin-

ing one." QXeyvas means a certain species of eagle, on

account of its burnished gold color. The connection

with cp\eyeiv, which signifies " to burn," is clear. The

Phlegians are also the fire eagles. 10 Prometheus also be-

longs to the Phlegians. The path from Pramantha to

Prometheus passes not through the word, but through the

idea, and, therefore, we should adopt this same meaning

for Prometheus as that which Pramantha attains from the

Hindoo fire symbolism. 11

The Pramantha, as the tool of Manthana (the fire

sacrifice), is considered purely sexual in the Hindoo; the

Pramantha as phallus, or man; the bored wood under-

neath as vulva, or woman. 12 The resulting fire is the

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 165

child, the divine son Agni. The two pieces of wood are

called in the cult Pururavas and Urvagi, and were thought

of personified as man and woman. The fire was born

from the genitals of the woman. 13 An especially inter-

esting representation of fire production, as a religious

ceremony (manthana), is given by Weber: 14

"A certain sacrificial fire was lit by the rubbing together of

two sticks ; one piece of wood is taken up with the words : ' Thou

art the birthplace of the fire/ and two blades of grass are placed

upon it; 'Ye are the two testicles,' to the * adhararani ' (the

underlying wood) : ' Thou art Urvac.i '; then the utararani (that

which is placed on top) is anointed with butter. ' Thou art

Power.' This is then placed on the adhararani. * Thou art

Pururavas ' and both are rubbed three times. ' I rub thee with

the Gayatrimetrum : I rub thee with the Trishtubhmetrum : I rub

thee with the Jagatimetrum.' "

The sexual symbolism of this fire production is unmis-

takable. We see here also the rhythm, the metre in its

original place as sexual rhythm, rising above the mating

call into music. A song of the Rigveda 15 conveys the

same interpretation and symbolism :

t

" Here is the gear for function, here tinder made ready for the

spark.

Bring thou the matron : 16 we will rub Agni in ancient fashion

forth.

In the two fire-sticks Jatavedas lieth, even as the well-formed

germ in pregnant women;

Agni who day by day must be exalted by men who watch and

worship with oblations;

Lay this with care on that which lies extended: straight hath

she borne the steer when made prolific.

1 66 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

With his red pillar radiant in his splendor in our skilled

task is born the son of Ila." 17 Book III. xxix: 1-3.

Side by side with the unequivocal coitus symbolism we

see that the Pramantha is also Agni, the created son.

The Phallus is the son, or the son is the Phallus. There-

fore, Agni in the Vedic mythology has the threefold char-

acter. With this we are once more connected with the

above-mentioned Cabiric Father-Son-Cult. In the modern

German language we have preserved echoes of the primi-

tive symbols. A boy is designated as " bengel " (short,

thick piece of wood) . In Hessian as " stift " or " bol-

zen " (arrow, 18 wooden peg or stump). The Artemisia

Abrotanum, which is called in German " Stabwurz "

(stick root), is called in English " Boy's Love." (The

vulgar designation of the penis as " boy " was remarked

even by Grimm and others.) The ceremonial production

of fire was retained in Europe as late as the nineteenth

century as a superstitious custom. Kuhn mentions such a

case even in the year 1828, which occurred in Germany.

The solemn, magic ceremony was called the u Nodfyr "

" The fire of need " 19 and the charm was chiefly used

against cattle epidemics. Kuhn cites from the chronicle

of Lanercost of the year 1268 an especially noteworthy

case of the " Nodfyr," 20 the ceremonies of which plainly

reveal the fundamental phallic meaning:

" Pro fidei divinae integritate servanda recolat lector, quod cum

hoc anno in Laodonia pestis grassaretur in pecudes armenti, quam

vocant usetati Lungessouht, quidam bestiales, habitu claustrales

non animo, docebant idiotas patriae ignem confrictione de lignis

educere et simulacrum Priapi statuere, et per haec bestiis succur-

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 167

rere. Quod cum unus laicus Cisterciensis apud Fentone fecisset

ante atrium aulae, ac intinctis testiculis canis in aquam benedictam

super animalis sparsisset, etc." *

These examples, which allow us to recognize a clear

sexual symbolism in the generation of fire, prove, there-

fore, since they originate from different times and differ-

ent peoples, the existence of a universal tendency to credit

to fire production not only a magical but also a sexual

significance. This ceremonial or magic repetition of this

very ancient, long-outlived observance shows how insist-

ently the human mind clings to the old forms, and how

deeply rooted is this very ancient reminiscence of fire

boring. One might almost be inclined to see in the sexual

symbolism of fire production a relatively late addition to

the priestly # lore. This may, indeed, be true for the cere-

monial elaboration of the fire mysteries, but whether

originally the generation of fire was in general a sexual

action, that is to say, a " coitus-play," is still a ques-

tion. That similar things occur among very primitive

people we learn from the Australian tribe of the Wat-

schandies, 21 who in the spring perform the following

magic ceremonies of fertilization: They dig a hole in

the ground, so formed and surrounded with bushes as to

Instead of preserving the divine faith in its purity, the reader will

call to mind the fact that in this year when the plague, usually called

Lung sickness, attacked the herds of cattle in Laodonia, certain bestial men,

monks in dress but not in spirit, taught the ignorant people of their country

to make fire by rubbing wood together and to set up a statue of Priapus, and

by that method to succor the cattle. After a Cistercian lay brother had

done this near Fentone, in front of the entrance of the " Court," he

sprinkled the animals with holy water and with the preserved testicles of

a dog, etc.

i68 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

counterfeit a woman's genitals. They dance the night

long around this hole; in connection with this they hold

spears in front of themselves in a manner to recall the

penis in erection. They dance around the hole and thrust

their spears into the ditch, while they cry to it, " Pulli

nira, pulli nira, wataka ! " (non fossa, non fossa, sed

cunnus !) Such obscene dances appear among other primi-

tive races as well. 22

In this spring incantation are contained the elements

of the coitus play. 23 This play is nothing but a coitus

game, that is to say, originally this play was simply a

coitus in the form of sacramental mating, which for a

long time was a mysterious element among certain cults,

and reappeared in sects. 24 In the ceremonies of Zinzen-

dorf's followers echoes of the coitus sacrament may be

recognized; also in other sects.

One can easily think that just as the above-mentioned

Australian bushmen perform the coitus play in this man-

ner the same performance could be enacted in another

manner, and, indeed, in the form of fire production. In-

stead of through two selected human beings, the coitus

was represented by two substitutes, by Pururavas and

Urvac.i, by Phallus and Vulva, by borer and opening.

Just as the primitive thought behind other customs is

really the sacramental coition so here the primal tendency

is really the act itself. For the act of fertilization is the

climax the true festival of life, and well worthy to be-

come the nucleus of a religious mystery. If we are justi-

fied in concluding that the symbolism of the hole in the

earth used by the Watschandies for the fertilization of

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 169

the earth takes the place of the coitus, then the genera-

tion of fire could be considered in the same way as a

substitute for coitus ; and, indeed, it might be further con-

cluded as a consequence of this reasoning that the inven-

tion of fire-making is also due to the need of supplying a

symbol for the sexual act. 25

Let us return, for a moment, to the infantile symptom

of boring. Let us imagine a strong adult man carrying

on the boring with two pieces of wood with the same per-

severance and the energy corresponding to that of this

child. He may very easily create fire by this play. But

of greatest significance in this work is the rhythm. 26 This

hypothesis seems to me psychologically possible, although

it should not be said with this that only in this way could

the discovery of fire occur. It can result just as well by

the striking together of flints. It is scarcely possible that

fire was created in only one way. All I want to establish

here is merely the psychologic process, the symbolic indi-

cations of which point to the possibility that in such a

way was fire invented or prepared.

The existence of the primitive coitus play or rite seems

to me sufficiently proven. The only thing that is obscure

is the energy and emphasis of the ritual play. It is well

known that those primitive rites were often of very bloody

seriousness, and were performed with an extraordinary

display of energy, which appears as a great contrast to

the well-known indolence of primitive humanity. There-

fore, the ritual activity entirely loses the character of play,

and wins that of purposeful effort. If certain Negro

races can dance the whole night long to three tones in

i;o PSYCHOLOGY OF- THE UNCONSCIOUS

the most monotonous manner, then, according to our idea,

there is in this an absolute lack of the character of play

pastime; it approaches nearer to exercise. There seems

to exist a sort of compulsion to transfer the libido into

such ritual activity. If the basis of the ritual activity is

the sexual act, we may assume that it is really the under-

lying thought and object of the exercise. Under these

circumstances, the question arises why the primitive man

endeavors to represent the sexual act symbolically and

with effort, or, if this wording appears to be too hypo-

thetical, why does he exert energy to such a degree only

to accomplish practically useless things, which apparently

do not especially amuse him? 27 It may be assumed that

the sexual act is more desirable to primitive man than

such absurd and, moreover, fatiguing exercises. It is

hardly possible but that a certain compulsion conducts the

energy away from the original object and real purpose,

inducing the production of surrogates. The existence of

a phallic or orgiastic cult does not indicate eo ipso a par-

ticularly lascivious life any more than the ascetic sym-

bolism of Christianity means an especially moral life.

One honors that which one does not possess or that which

one is not. This compulsion, to speak in the nomenclature

formulated above, removes a certain amount of libido

from the real sexual activity, and creates a symbolic and

practically valid substitute for what is lost This psy-

chology is confirmed by the above-mentioned Watschandie

ceremony; during the entire ceremony none of the men

may look at a woman. This detail again informs us

from whence the libido is to be diverted. But this gives

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 171

rise to the pressing question, Whence comes this compul-

sion? We have already suggested above that the primi-

tive sexuality encounters a resistance which leads to a

side-tracking of the libido on to substitution actions

(analogy, symbolism, etc.). It is unthinkable that it is a

question of any outer opposition whatsoever, or of a real

obstacle, since it occurs to no savage to catch his elusive

quarry with ritual charms; but it is a question of an in-

ternal resistance; will opposes will; libido opposes libido,

since a psychologic resistance as an energic phenomenon

corresponds to a certain amount of libido. The psycho-

logic compulsion for the transformation of the libido is

based on an original division of the will. I will return

to this primal splitting of the libido in another place.

Here let us concern ourselves only with the problem of

the transition of the libido. The transition takes place,

as has been repeatedly suggested by means of shifting to

an analogy. The libido is taken away from its proper

place and transferred to another substratum.

The resistance against sexuality aims, therefore, at

preventing the sexual act; it also seeks to crowd the libido

away from the sexual function. We see, for example, in

hysteria, how the specific repression blocks the real path

of transference; therefore, the libido is obliged to take

another path, and that an earlier one, namely, the in-

cestuous road which ultimately leads to the parents. Let

us speak, however, of the incest prohibition, which hin-

dered the very first sexual transference. Then the situa-

tion changes in so far that no earlier way of transference

is left, except that of the presexual stage of development,

172 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

where the libido was still partly in the function of nutri-

tion. By a regression to the presexual material the libido

becomes quasi-desexualized. But as the incest prohibition

signifies only a temporary and conditional restriction of

the sexuality, thus only that part of the libido which is

best designated as the incestuous component is now

pushed back to the presexual stage. The repression,

therefore, concerns only that part of the sexual libido

which wishes to fix itself permanently upon the parents.

The sexual libido is only withdrawn from the incestuous

component, repressed upon the presexual stage, and

there, if the operation is successful, desexualized, by

which this amount of libido is prepared for an asexual

application. However, it is to be assumed that this opera-

tion is accomplished only with difficulty, because the

incestuous libido, so to speak, must be artificially sepa-

rated from the sexual libido, with which, for ages, through

the whole animal kingdom, it was indistinguishably united.

The regression of the incestuous component must, there-

fore, take place, not only with great difficulty, but also

carry with it into the presexual stage a considerable

sexual character. The consequence of this is that the re-

sulting phenomena, although stamped with the character

of the sexual act, are, nevertheless, not really sexual acts

de facto; they are derived from the presexual stage, and

are maintained by the repressed sexual libido, therefore

possess a double significance. Thus the fire boring is a

coitus (and, to be sure, an incestuous one), but a desexu-

alized one, which has lost its immediate sexual worth, and

is, therefore, indirectly useful to the propagation of the

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 173

species. The presexual stage is characterized by count-

less possibilities of application, because the libido has not

yet formed definite localizations. It therefore appears

intelligible that an amount of libido which reaches this

stage through regression is confronted with manifold pos-

sibilities of application. Above all, it is met with the

possibility of a purely onanistic activity. But as the mat-

ter in question in the regressive component of libido is

sexual libido, the ultimate object of which is propagation,

therefore it goes to the external object (Parents) ; it will

also introvert with this destination as its essential char-

acter. The result, therefore, is that the purely onanistic

activity turns out to be insufficient, and another object

must be sought for, which takes the place of the incest

object. The nurturing mother earth represents the ideal

example of such an object. The psychology of the pre-

sexual stage contributes the nutrition component; the

sexual libido the coitus idea. From this the ancient sym-

bols of agriculture arise. In the work of agriculture

hunger and incest intermingle. The ancient cults of

mother earth and all the superstitions founded thereon

saw in the cultivation of the earth the fertilization of the

mother. The aim of the action is desexualized, however,

for it is the fruit of the field and the nourishment con-

tained therein. The regression resulting from the incest

prohibition leads, in this case, to the new valuation of the

mother; this time, however, not as a sexual object, but

as a nourisher.

The discovery of fire seems to be due to a very similar

regression to the pre-sexual stage, more particularly to the

174 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

nearest stage of the displaced rhythmic manifestation.

The libido, introverted from the incest prohibition (with

the more detailed designation of the motor components

of coitus), when it reaches the presexual stage, meets

the related infantile boring, to which it now gives, in ac-

cordance with its realistic destination, an actual material.

(Therefore the material is fittingly called " materia,"

as the object is the mother as above.) As I sought to

show above, the action of the infantile boring requires

only the strength and perseverance of an adult man and

suitable u material " in order to generate fire. If this is

so, it may be expected that analogous to our foregoing

case of onanistic boring the generation of fire originally

occurred as such an act of quasi-onanistic activity, ob-

jectively expressed. The demonstration of this can never

be actually furnished, but it is thinkable that somewhere

traces of this original onanistic preliminary exercise of

fire production have been preserved. I have succeeded in

finding a passage in a very old monument of Hindoo

literature which contains this transition of the sexual

libido through the onanistic phase in the preparation of

'fire. This passage is found in Brihadaranyaka-Upani-

shad: 28

" In truth, he (Atman) 29 was as large as a woman and a man,

when they embrace each other. This, his own self, he divided

into two parts, out of which husband and wife were formed. 30

With her, he copulated; from this humanity sprang. She, how-

ever, pondered : * How may he unite with me after he has created

me from himself ? Now I shall hide ! ' Then she became a cow ;

he, however, became a bull and mated with her. From that

sprang the horned cattle. Then she became a mare; he, however,

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 175

became a stallion ; she became a she-ass ; he, an ass, and mated with

her. From these sprang the whole-hoofed animals. She became

a goat; he became a buck; she became an ewe; he became a ram,

and mated with her. Thus were created goats and sheep. Thus

it happened that all that mates, even down to the ants, he created

then he perceived : ' Truly I myself am Creation, for I have

created the whole world! ' Thereupon he rubbed his hands (held

before the mouth) so that he brought forth fire from his mouth,

as from the mother womb, and from his hands."

We meet here a peculiar myth of creation which re-

quires a psychologic interpretation. In the beginning the

libido was undifferentiated and bisexual; 31 this was fol-

lowed by differentiation into a male and a female com-

ponent. From then on man knows what he is. Now

follows a gap in the coherence of the thought where

belongs that very resistance which we have postulated

above for the explanation of the urge for sublimation.

Next follows the onanistic act of rubbing or boring (here

finger-sucking) transferred from the sexual zone, from

which proceeds the production of fire. 32 The libido here

leaves its characteristic manifestation as sexual function

and regresses to the presexual stage, where, in conformity

with the above explanation, it occupies one of the pre-

liminary stages of sexuality, thereby producing, in the

view expressed in the Upanishad, the first human art,

and from there, as suggested by Kuhn's idea of the root

" manth," perhaps the higher intellectual activity in gen-

eral. This course of development is not strange to the

psychiatrist, for it is a well-known psychopathological fact

that onanism and excessive activity of phantasy are very

closely related. (The sexualizing-autonomizing of the

176 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

mind through autoerotism 33 is so familiar a fact that

examples of that are superfluous.) The course of the

libido, as we may conclude from these studies, originally

proceeded in a similar manner as in the child, only in a

reversed sequence. The sexual act was pushed out of its

proper zone and was transferred into the analogous

mouth zone 34 the mouth receiving the significance of the

female genitals; the hand and the fingers, respectively, re-

ceiving the phallic meaning. 35 In this manner the regress-

ive^ reoccupied activity of the presexual stage is invested

with the sexual significance, which, indeed, it already

possessed, in part, before, but in a wholly different sense.

Certain functions of the presexual stage are found to be

permanently suitable, and, therefore, are retained later

on as sexual functions. Thus, for example, the mouth

zone is retained as of erotic importance, meaning that its

valuation is permanently fixed. Concerning the mouth,

we know that it also has a sexual meaning among animals,

inasmuch as, for example, stallions bite mares in the sexual

act; also, cats, cocks, etc. A second significance of the

mouth is as an instrument of speech, it serves essentially

in the production of the mating call, which mostly repre-

sents the developed tones of the animal kingdom. As to

the hand, we know that it has the important significance

of the contrectation organ (for example, among frogs).

The frequent erotic use of the hand among monkeys is

well known. If there exists a resistance against the real

sexuality, then the accumulated libido is most likely to

cause a hyperfunction of those collaterals which are most

adapted to compensate for the resistance, that is to say,

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 177

the nearest functions which serve for the introduction of

the act; 36 on one side the function of the hand, on the

other that of the mouth. The sexual act, however, against

which the opposition is directed is replaced by a similar

act of the presexual stage, the classic case being either

finger-sucking or boring. Just as among apes the foot

can on occasions take the place of the hand, so the child

is often uncertain in the choice of the object to suck, and

puts the big toe in the mouth instead of the finger. This

last movement belongs to a Hindoo rite, only the big toe

was not put in the mouth, but held against the eye. 37

Through the sexual significance of the hand and mouth

these organs, which in the presexual stage served to ob-

tain pleasure, are invested with a procreating power

which is identical with the above-mentioned destination,

which aims at the external object, because it concerns the

sexual or creating libido. When, through the actual

preparation of fire, the sexual character of the libido em-

ployed in that is fulfilled, then the mouth zone remains

without adequate expression; only the hand has now

reached its real, purely human goal in its first art.

The mouth has, as we saw, a further important func-

tion, which has just as much sexual relation to the object

as the hand, that is to say, the production of the mating

call. In opening up the autoerotic ring (hand-mouth), 38

where the phallic hand became the fire-producing tool,

the libido which was directed to the mouth zone was

obliged to seek another path of functioning, which natu-

rally was found in the already existing love call. The

excess of libido entering here must have had the usual

178 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

results, namely, the stimulation of the newly possessed

function; hence an elaboration of the mating call.

We know that from the primitive sounds human speech

has developed. Corresponding to the psychological situa-

tion, it might be assumed that language owes its real

origin to this moment, when the impulse, repressed into

the presexual stage, turns to the external in order to find

an equivalent object there. The real thought as a con-

scious activity is, as we saw in the first part of this book,

a thinking with positive determination towards the ex-

ternal world, that is to say, a " speech thinking. 1 ' This

sort of thinking seems to have originated at that moment.

It is very remarkable that this view, which was won by

the path of reasoning, is again supported by old tradition

and other mythological fragments.

In Aitareyopanishad 39 the following quotation is to

be found in the doctrine of the development of man:

" Being brooded-o'er, his mouth hatched out, like as an

egg; from out his mouth (came) speech, from speech, the

fire." In Part II, where it is depicted how the newly

created objects entered man, it reads: u Fire, speech be-

coming, entered in the mouth." These quotations allow

us to plainly recognize the intimate connection between

fire and speech. 40 In Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad is to be

found this passage :

" ' Yaynavalkya/ thus he spake, ' when after the death of this

man his speech entereth the fire, his breath into the wind, his eye

into the sun, etc.' "

A further quotation from the Brihadaranyaka-Upani-

shad reads :

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 179

" But when the sun is set, O Yaynavalkya, and the moon has

set, and the fire is extinguished, what then serves man as light?

Then speech serves him as light; then, by the light of speech

he sits, and moves, he carries on his work, and he returns home.

But when the sun is set, O Yaynavalkya, and the moon is set,

and the fire extinguished, and the voice is dumb, what then serves

man as light? Then he serves himself (Atman) as light; then,

by the light of himself, he sits and moves, carries on his work

and returns home."

In this passage we notice that fire again stands in the

closest relation to speech. Speech itself is called a

" light," which, in its turn, is reduced to the " light " of

the Atman, the creating psychic force, the libido. Thus

the Hindoo metapsychology conceives speech and fire

as emanations of the inner light from which we know

that it is libido. Speech and fire are its forms of mani-

festation, the first human arts, which have resulted from

its transformation. This common psychologic origin

seems also to be indicated by certain results of philology.

The Indo-Germanic root bhd designates the idea of " to

lighten, to shine." This root is found in Greek, (pctoo,

(pair, (pdos *, in old Icelandic ban = white, in New

High German bohnen = to make shining. The same root

bhd also designates " to speak"; it is found in Sanskrit

bhan = to speak, Armenian ban = word, in New High

German bann to banish, Greek cpa-pl, i'cpav,(pari$.\

Latin fd-ri t fdnum.

The root bhelso, with the meanings " to ring, to bark,"

is found in Sanskrit bhas = to bark and bhds to talk,

* To shine; to show forth; reveal; light.

tl said; they said; a saying; an oracle.

i8o PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

to speak; Lithuanian balsas voice, tone. Really bhel-so

to be bright or luminous. Compare Greek cpdho? =

bright, Lithuanian bdlti = to become white, Middle High

German blasz pale.

The root Id, with the meaning of " to make sound, to

bark," is found in Sanskrit las, Idsati = to resound; and

las, Idsati = to radiate, to shine.

The related root leso, with the meaning " desire," is

also found in Sanskrit las, Idsati = to play; lash, lashati

= to desire. Greek Xdcrravpo? = lustful, Gothic lustus,

New High German Lust, Latin lascivus.

A further related root, Idso = to shine, to radiate, is

found in las, Idsati = to radiate, to shine.

This group unites, as is evident, the meanings of " to

desire, to play, to radiate, and to sound." A similar

archaic confluence of meanings in the primal libido sym-

bolism (as we are perhaps justified in calling it) is found

in that class of Egyptian words which are derived from

the closely related roots ben and bel and the reduplication

benben and belbel. The original significance of these

roots is " to burst forth, to emerge, to extrude, to well

out," with the associated idea of bubbling, boiling and

roundness. Belbel, accompanied by the sign of the obe-

lisk, of originally phallic nature, means source of light.

The obelisk itself had besides the names of techenu and

men also the name benben, more rarely berber and

belbel.^ The libido symbolism makes clear this connec-

tion, it seems to me.

The Indo-Germanic root vel, with the meaning " to

wave, to undulate" (fire), is found in Sanskrit ulunka

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 181

= burning, Greek a\ea, Attic akea = warmth of the

sun, Gothic vulan = to undulate, Old High German and

Middle High German walm = heat, glow.

The related Indo-Germanic root velko, with the mean-

ing of " to lighten, to glow," is found in Sanskrit ulka =

firebrand, Greek Fe\xdv* Vulcan. This same root

vel means also " to sound " ; in Sanskrit vdni tone, song,

music. Tschech volati = to call.

The root sveno to sound, to ring, is found in San-

skrit svan, svdnati = to rustle, to sound ; Zend qanant,

Latin sondre, Old Iranian senm, Cambrian sain, Latin

sonus, Anglo-Saxon svinsian = to resound. The related

root svenos = noise, sound, is found in Vedic svdnas

noise, Latin sonor, sonorus. A further related root is

svonos = tone, noise ; in Old Iranian son word.

The root sve (n), locative sveni, dative sunei, means

sun; in Zend qeng = sun. (Compare above sveno, Zend

qanant); Gothic sun-na, sunno. 42 Here Goethe has pre-

ceded us :

" The sun orb sings in emulation,

'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round:

His path predestined through Creation,

He ends with step of thunder sound."

Faust. Part I.

"Hearken! Hark! the hours careering!

Sounding loud to spirit-hearing,

See the new-born Day appearing!

Rocky portals jarring shatter,

Phoebus' wheels in rolling clatter,

With a crash the Light draws near!

Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes,

Eye is blinded, ear amazes;

182 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

The Unheard can no one hear!

Slip within each blossom-bell,

Deeper, deeper, there to dwell,

In the rocks, beneath the leaf!

If it strikes you, you are deaf."

Faust. Part II.

We also must not forget the beautiful verse of Hol-

derlin :

" Where art thou ? Drunken, my soul dreams

Of all thy rapture. Yet even now I hearken

As full of golden tones the radiant sun youth

Upon his heavenly lyre plays his even song

To the echoing woods and hills."

Just as in archaic speech fire and the speech sounds

(the mating call, music) appear as forms of emanation

of the libido, thus light and sound entering the psyche be-

come one : libido.

Manilius expresses it in his beautiful verses:

" Quid mirum noscere mundum

Si possunt homines, quibus est et mundus in ipsis

Exemplumque dei quisque est in imagine parva?

An quoquam genitos nisi caelo credere fas est

Esse homines?

Stetit unus in arcem

Erectus capitis victorque ad sidera mittit sidereos oculos." *

The idea of the Sanskrit tejas suggests the fundamental

significance of the libido for the conception of the world

in general. I am indebted to Dr. Abegg, in Zurich, a

* Why is it wonderful to understand the universe, if men are able ? i.e.,

men in whose very being the universe exists and each one (of whom) is

a representative of God in miniature? Or is it right to believe that men

have sprung in any way except from heaven He alone stands in the

midst of the citadel, a conqueror, his head erect and his shining eyes fixed

on the stars.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 183

thorough Sanskrit scholar, for the compilation of the

eight meanings of this word.

Tejas signifies :

1. Sharpness, cutting edge.

2. Fire, splendor, light, glow, heat.

3. Healthy appearance, beauty.

4. The fiery and color-producing power of the human

organism (thought to be in the bile).

5. Power, energy, vital force.

6. Passionate nature.

7. Mental, also magic, strength; influence, position,

dignity.

8. Sperma.

This gives us a dim idea of how, for primitive

thought, the so-called objective world was, and had to be,

a subjective image. To this thought must be applied the

words of the " Chorus Mysticus " :

" All that is perishable

Is only an allegory."

The Sanskrit word for fire is agnis (the Latin ignis) ; 4S

the fire personified is the god Agni, the divine mediator, 44

whose symbol has certain points of contact with that of

Christ. In Avesta and in the Vedas the fire is the mes-

senger of the gods. In the Christian mythology certain

parts are closely related with the myth of Agni. Daniel

speaks of the three men in the fiery furnace:

" Then Nebuchadnezar, the King, was astonished, and rose

up in haste and spake, and said unto his counsellors : ' Did not

we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire ? '

1 84 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

"They answered and said: 'True, O King!'

" He answered and said : ' Lo, I see four men loose, walking

in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of

the fourth is like the Son of God.' "

In regard to that the " Biblia pauperum " observes

(according to an old German incunabulum of 1471) :

" One reads in the third chapter of the prophet Daniel that

Nebuchadnezar, the King, caused three men to be placed in a

glowing furnace and that the king often went there, looked in,

and that he saw with the three, a fourth, who was like the Son

of God. The three signify for us, the Holy Trinity and the

fourth, the unity of the being. Christ, too, in His explanation

designated the person of the Trinity and the unity of the being."

According to this mystic interpretation, the legend of

the three men in the fiery furnace appears as a magic

fire ceremony by means of which the Son of God reveals

himself. The Trinity is brought together with the unity,

or, in other words, through coitus a child is produced.

The glowing furnace (like the glowing tripod in

"Faust") is a mother symbol, where the children are

produced. 45 The fourth in the fiery furnace appears as

Christ, the Son of God, who has become a visible God

in the fire. The mystic trinity and unity are sexual sym-

bols. ( Compare with that the many references in Inman :

" Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism.") It

is said of the Saviour of Israel (the Messiah) and of his

enemies, Isaiah x: 17:

" And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One

for a flame."

In a hymn of the Syrian Ephrem it is said of Christ:

" Thou who art all fire, have mercy upon me."

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 185

Agni is the sacrificial flame, the sacrificer, and the sac-

rificed, as Christ himself. Just as Christ left behind his

redeeming blood, cpdpfJiaHov adavaaiaSy* in the stimu-

lating wine, so Agni is the Soma, the holy drink of in-

spiration, the mead of immortality. 46 Soma and Fire

are entirely identical in Hindoo literature, so that in

Soma we easily rediscover the libido symbol, through

which a series of apparently paradoxical qualities of the

Soma are immediately explained. As the old Hindoos

recognized in fire an emanation of the inner libido fire,

so too they recognized, in the intoxicating drink (Fire-

water, Soma-Agni, as rain and fire), an emanation of

libido. The Vedic definition of Soma as seminal fluid

confirms this interpretation. 47 The Soma significance of

fire, similar to the significance of the body of Christ in the

Last Supper (compare the Passover lamb of the Jews,

baked in the form of a cross), is explained by the psy-

chology of the presexual stage, where the libido was still

in part the function of nutrition. The " Soma " is the

" nourishing drink," the mythological characterization of

which runs parallel to fire in its origin; therefore, both are

united in Agni. The drink of immortality was stirred by

the Hindoo gods like fire. Through the retreat of the

libido into the presexual stage it becomes clear why so

many gods were either defined sexually or were devoured.

As was shown by our discussion of fire preparation, the

fire tool did not receive its sexual significance as a later

addition, but the sexual libido was the motor power which

led to its discovery, so that the later teachings of the

* A potion of immortality.

1 86 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

priests were nothing but confirmations of its actual origin.

Other primitive discoveries probably have acquired their

sexual symbolism in the same manner, being also derived

from the sexual libido.

In the previous statements, which were based on the

Pramantha of the Agni sacrifice, we have concerned our-

selves only with one significance of the word manthami

or mathnami, that is to say, with that which expresses

the movement of rubbing. As Kuhn shows, however, this

word also possesses the meaning of tearing off, taking

away by violence, robbing. 48 As Kuhn points out, this

significance is already extant in the Vedic text. The

legend of its discovery always expresses the production of

fire as a robbery. (In this far it belongs to the motive

widely spread over the earth of the treasure difficult to

attain.) The fact that in many places and not alone in

India the preparation of fire is represented as having its

origin in robbery, seems to point to a widely spread

thought, according to which the preparation of fire was

something forbidden, something usurped or criminal,

which could be obtained only through stratagem or deeds

of violence (mostly through stratagem). 49 When onan-

ism confronts the physician as a symptom it does so fre-

quently under the symbol of secret pilfering, or crafty

imposition, which always signifies the concealed fulfil-

ment of a forbidden wish. 50 Historically, this train of

thought probably implies that the ritual preparation of

fire was employed with a magic purpose, and, therefore,

was pursued by official religions; then it became a ritual

mystery, 51 guarded by the priests and surrounded with

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 187

secrecy. The ritual laws of the Hindoos threaten with

severe punishment him who prepares fire in an incorrect

manner. The fact alone that something is mysterious

means the same as something done in concealment; that

which must remain secret, which one may not see nor do;

also something which is surrounded by severe punish-

ment of body and soul; therefore, presumably, something

forbidden which has received a license as a religious rite.

After all has been said about the genesis of the prepara-

tion of fire, it is no longer difficult to guess what is the

forbidden thing; it is onanism. When I stated before

that it might be lack of satisfaction which breaks up the

autoerotic ring of the displaced sexual activity transferred

to the body itself, and thus opens wider fields of culture,

I did not mention that this loosely closed ring of the dis-

placed onanistic activity could be much more firmly closed,

when man makes the other great discovery, that of true

onanism. 52 With that the activity is started in the proper

place, and this, under certain circumstances, may mean a

satisfaction sufficient for a long time, but at the expense

of cheating sexuality of its real purpose. It is a fraud

upon the natural development of things, because all the

dynamic forces which can and should serve the develop-

ment of culture are withdrawn from it through onanism,

since, instead of the displacement, a regression to the local

sexual takes place, which is precisely the opposite of that

which is desirable. Psychologically, however, onanism is

a discovery of a significance not to be undervalued. One

is protected from fate, since no sexual need then has the

power to give one up to life. For with onanism one has

1 88 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

the greatest magic in one's hands; one needs only to

phantasy, and with that to masturbate, then one possesses

all the pleasure of the world, and is no longer compelled

to conquer the world of one's desires through hard labor

and wrestling with reality. 53 Aladdin rubs his lamp and

the obedient genii stand at his bidding; thus the fairy tale

expresses the great psychologic advantage of the easy re-

gression to the local sexual satisfaction. Aladdin's sym-

bol subtly confirms the ambiguity of the magic fire

preparation.

The close relation of the generation of fire to the onan-

istic act is illustrated by a case, the knowledge of which I

owe to Dr. Schmid, in Cery, that of an imbecile peasant

youth who set many incendiary fires. At one of these

conflagrations he drew suspicion to himself by his be-

havior. He stood with his hands in his trouser pockets

in the door of an opposite house and gazed with apparent

delight at the fire. Under examination in the insane

asylum, he described the fire in great detail, and made

suspicious movements in his , trouser pockets with his

hands. The physical examination undertaken at once

showed that he had masturbated. Later he confessed

that he had masturbated at the time when he had enjoyed

the fire which he had enkindled himself.

The preparation of fire in itself is a perfectly ordinary

useful custom, employed everywhere for many centuries,

which in itself involved nothing more mysterious than

eating and drinking. However, there was always a tend-

ency from time to time to prepare fire in a ceremonious

and mysterious manner (exactly as with ritual eating and

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO 189

drinking) , which was to be carried out in an exactly pre-

scribed way and from which no one dared differ. This

mysterious tendency associated with the technique is the

second path in the onanistic regression, always present

by the side of culture. The strict rules applied to it,

the zeal of the ceremonial preparations and the religious

awe of the mysteries next originate from this source;

the ceremonial, although apparently irrational, is an ex-

tremely ingenious institution from the psychologic stand-

point, for it represents a substitute for the possibility of

onanistic regression accurately circumscribed by law.

The law cannot apply to the content of the ceremony, for

it is really quite indifferent for the ritual act, whether it

is carried out in this way or in that way. On the con-

trary, it is very essential whether the restrained libido is

discharged through a sterile onanism or transposed into

the path of sublimation. These severe measures of pro-

tection apply primarily to onanism. 54

I am indebted to Freud for a further important refer-

ence to the onanistic nature of the fire theft, or rather

the motive of the treasure difficult of attainment (to

which fire theft belongs). Mythology contains repeated

formulas which read approximately as follows: The

treasure must be plucked or torn off from a taboo tree

(Paradise tree, Hesperides) ; this is a forbidden and dan-

gerous act. The clearest example of this is the old bar-

baric custom in the service of Diana of Aricia: only he

can become a priest of the goddess who, in her sacred

grove, dares to tear off (" abzureissen ") a bough. The

tearing off has been retained in vulgar speech (besides

i go PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

" abreiben," rubbing) as a symbol of the act of onanism.

Thus u reiben," to rub, is like " reissen," to break off,

both of which are contained in manthami and united

apparently only through the myth of the fire theft bound

up in the act of onanism in a deeper stratum wherein

" reiben," properly speaking, " reissen," is employed, but

in a transferred sense. Therefore, it might perhaps be

anticipated that in the deepest stratum, namely, the in-

cestuous, which precedes the autoerotic stage, 55 the two

meanings coincide, which, through lack of mythological

tradition, can perhaps be traced through etymology only.

CHAPTER IV

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO

PREPARED by the previous chapters, we approach the

personification of the libido in the form of a conqueror,

a hero or a demon. With this, symbolism leaves the im-

personal and neuter realm, which characterizes the astral

and meteorologic symbol, and takes human form: the

figure of a being changing from sorrow to joy, from joy

to sorrow, and which, like the sun, sometimes stands in

its zenith, sometimes is plunged in darkest night, and

arises from this very night to new splendor. 1 Just as the

sun, guided by its own internal laws, ascends from morn

till noon, and passing beyond the noon descends towards

evening, leaving behind its splendor, and then sinks com-

pletely into the all-enveloping night, thus, too, does man-

kind follow his course according to immutable laws, and

also sinks, after his course is completed, into night, in

order to rise again in the morning to a new cycle in his

children. The symbolic transition from sun to man is

easy and practicable. The third and last creation of

Miss Miller's also takes this course. She calls this piece

" Chiwantopel," a " hypnagogic poem." She gives us the

following information about the circumstances surround-

ing the origin of this phantasy :

" After an evening of care and anxiety, I lay down to sleep

at about half past eleven. I felt excited and unable to sleep,

191

192 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

although I was very tired. There was no light in the room. I

closed my eyes, and then I had the feeling that something was

about to happen. The sensation of a general relaxation came

over me, and I remained as passive as possible. Lines appeared

before my eyes, sparks and shining spirals, followed by a kaleido-

scopic review of recent trivial occurrences."

The reader will regret with me that we cannot know

the reason for her cares and anxieties. It would have

been of great importance for what follows to have infor-

mation on this point. This gap in our knowledge is the

more to be deplored because, between the first poem in

1898 and the time of the phantasy here discussed (1902),

four whole years have passed. All information is lacking

regarding this period, during which the great problem

surely survived in the unconscious. Perhaps this lack has

its advantages in that our interest is not diverted from

the universal applicability of the phantasy here produced

by sympathy in regard to the personal fate of the author.

Therefore, something is obviated which often prevents

the analyst in his daily task from looking away from the

tedious toil of detail to that wider relation which reveals

each neurotic conflict to be involved with human fate as a

whole.

The condition depicted by the author here corresponds

to such a one as usually precedes an intentional somnam-

bulism 2 often described by spiritualistic mediums. A cer-

tain inclination to listen to these low nocturnal voices

must be assumed; otherwise such fine and hardly per-

ceptible inner experiences pass unnoticed. We recognize

in this listening a current of the libido leading inward

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 193

and beginning to flow towards a still invisible, mysterious

goal. It seems that the libido has suddenly discovered an

object in the depths of the unconscious which powerfully

attracts it. The life of man, turned wholly to the external

by nature, does not ordinarily permit such introversion;

there must, therefore, be surmised a certain exceptional

condition, that is to say, a lack of external objects, which

compels the individual to seek a substitute for them in his

own soul. It is, however, difficult to imagine that this

rich world has become too poor to offer an object for

the love of human atoms; nor can the world and its

objects be held accountable for this lack. It offers bound-

less opportunities for every one. It is rather the inca-

pacity to love which robs mankind of his possibilities.

This world is empty to him alone who does not under-

stand how to direct his libido towards objects, and to

render them alive and beautiful for himself, for Beauty

does not indeed lie in things, but in the feeling that we

give to them. That which compels us to create a sub-

stitute for ourselves is not the external lack of objects,

but our incapacity to lovingly include a thing outside of

ourselves. Certainly the difficulties of the conditions of

life and the adversities of the struggle for existence may

oppress us, yet even adverse external situations would not

hinder the giving out of the libido ; on the contrary, they

may spur us on to the greatest exertions, whereby we

bring our whole libido into reality. Real difficulties alone

will never be able to force the libido back permanently

to such a degree as to give rise, for example, to a neu-

rosis. The conflict, which is the condition of every neu-

194 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

rosis, is lacking. The resistance, which opposes its un-

willingness to the will, alone has the power to produce

that pathogenic introversion which is the starting point of

every psychogenic disturbance. The resistance against

loving produces the inability to love. Just as the normal

libido is comparable to a steady stream which pours its

waters broadly into the world of reality, so the resistance,

dynamically considered, is comparable, not so much to a

rock rearing up in the river bed which is flooded over

or surrounded by the stream, as to a backward flow

towards the source. A part of the soul desires the outer

object; another part, however, harks back to the sub-

jective world, where the airy and fragile palaces of

phantasy beckon. One can assume the dualism of the

human will for which Bleuler, from the psychiatric point

of view, has coined the word " ambitendency" 3 as some-

thing generally present, bearing in mind that even

the most primitive motor impulse is in opposition; as,

for example, in the act of extension, the flexor muscles

also become innervated. This normal ambitendency,

however, never leads to an inhibition or prevention of the

intended act, but is the indispensable preliminary require-

ment for its perfection and coordination. For a resist-

ance disturbing to this act to arise from this harmony of

finely attuned opposition an abnormal plus or minus

would be needed on one or the other side. The resist-

ance originates from this added third. 4 This applies also

to the duality of the will, from which so many difficulties

arise for mankind. The abnormal third frees the pair

of opposites, which are normally most intimately united,

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 195

and causes their manifestation in the form of separate

tendencies; it is only thus that they become willingness

and unwillingness, which interfere with each other. The

Bhagavad-Gita says, " Be thou free of the pairs of

opposites." 5 The harmony thus becomes disharmony.

It cannot be my task here to investigate whence the un-

known third arises, and what it is. Taken at the roots

in the case of our patients, the " nuclear complex "

(Freud) reveals itself as the incest problem. The sexual

libido regressing to the parents appears as the incest tend-

ency. The reason this path is so easily travelled is due

to the enormous indolence of mankind, which will relin-

quish no object of the past, but will hold it fast forever.

The " sacrilegious backward grasp " of which Nietzsche

speaks reveals itself, stripped of its incest covering,

as an original passive arrest of the libido in its first object

of childhood. This indolence is also a passion, as La

Rochefoucauld 6 has brilliantly expressed it:

" Of all passions, that which is least known to ourselves is

indolence: it is the most ardent and malignant of them all, al-

though its violence may be insensible, and the injuries it causes

may be hidden; if we will consider its power attentively, we will

see that it makes itself, upon all occasions, mistress of our senti-

ments, of our interests, and of our pleasures; it is the anchor,

which has the power to arrest the largest vessels ; it is a calm more

dangerous to the most important affairs than rocks and the worst

tempest. The repose of indolence is a secret charm of the soul

which suddenly stops the most ardent pursuits and the firmest

resolutions; finally to give the true idea of this passion, one

must say that indolence is like a beatitude of the soul which

consoles it for all its losses and takes the place of all its posses-

sions."

196 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

This dangerous passion, belonging above all others to

primitive man, appears under the hazardous mask of the

incest symbol, from which the incest fear must drive us

away, and which must be conquered, in the first place,

under the image of the u terrible mother." 7 It is the

mother of innumerable evils, not the least of which are

neurotic troubles. For, especially from the fogs of the

arrested remnants of the libido, arise the harmful phan-

tasmagoria which so veil reality that adaptation becomes

almost impossible. However, we will not investigate any

further in this place the foundations of the incest phan-

tasies. The preliminary suggestion of my purely psycho-

logic conception of the incest problem may suffice. We

are here only concerned with the question whether resist-

ance which leads to introversion in our author signifies

a conscious external difficulty or not. If it were an ex-

ternal difficulty, then, indeed, the libido would be violently

dammed back, and would produce a flood of phantasies,

which can best be designated as schemes, that is to say,

plans as to how the obstacles could be overcome. They

would be very concrete ideas of reality which seek to pave

the way for solutions. It would be a strenuous medita-

tion, indeed, which would be more likely to lead to any-

thing rather than to a hypnagogic poem. The passive

condition depicted above in no way fits in with a real ex-

ternal obstacle, but, precisely through its passive submis-

sion, it indicates a tendency which doubtless scorns real

solutions and prefers phantastic substitutes. Ultimately

and essentially we are, therefore, dealing with an internal

conflict, perhaps after the manner of those earlier con-

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 197

flicts which led to the two first unconscious creations.

We, therefore, are forced to conclude that the external

object cannot be loved, because a predominant amount

of libido prefers a phantastic object, which must be

brought up from the depths of the unconscious as a com-

pensation for the missing reality.

The visionary phenomena, produced in the first stages

of introversion, are grouped among the well-known phe-

nomena 8 of hypnagogic vision. They form, as I ex-

plained in an earlier paper, the foundation of the true

visions of the symbolic autorevelations of the libido, as

we may now express it.

Miss Miller continues:

" Then I had the impression that some communication was

immediately impending. It seemed to me as if there were re-

echoed in me the words, ' Speak, O Lord, for Thy servant listens ;

open Thou mine ears ! ' :

This passage very clearly describes the intention; the

expression " communication " is even a current term in

spiritualistic circles. The Biblical words contain a clear

invocation or " prayer," that is to say, a wish (libido)

directed towards divinity (the unconscious complex).

The prayer refers to Samuel, i: 3, where Samuel at night

was three times called by God, but believed that it was Eli

calling, until the latter informed him that it was God

himself who spoke, and that he must answer if his name

was called again " Speak, O Lord, for Thy Servant

hears ! " The dreamer uses these words really in an in-

verse sense, namely, in order to produce God with them.

198 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

With that she directs her desires, her libido, into the

depths of her unconscious.

We know that, although individuals are widely sepa-

rated by the differences in the contents of their conscious-

ness, they are closely alike in their unconscious psy-

chology. It is a significant impression for one working in

practical psychoanalysis when he realizes how uniform

are the typical unconscious complexes. Difference first

arises from individualization. This fact gives to an es-

sential portion of the Schopenhauer and Hartmann

philosophies a deep psychologic justification. 9 The very

evident uniformity of the unconscious mechanism serves

as a psychologic foundation for these philosophic views.

The unconscious contains the differentiated remnants of

the earlier psychologic functions overcome by the indi-

vidual differentiation. The reaction and products of the

animal psyche are of a generally diffused uniformity and

solidity, which, among men, may be discovered appar-

ently only in traces. Man appears as something extraordi-

narily individual in contrast with animals.

This might be a tremendous delusion, because we have

the appropriate tendency always to recognize only the

difference of things. This is demanded by the psycho-

logic adaptation which, without the most minute differ-

entiation of the impressions, would be absolutely impos-

sible. In opposition to this tendency we have ever the

greatest difficulty in recognizing in their common rela-

tions the things with which we are occupied in every-

day life. This recognition becomes much easier with

things which are more remote from us. For example, it

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 199

is almost impossible for a European to differentiate the

faces in a Chinese throng, although the Chinese have just

as individual facial formations as the Europeans, but the

similarity of their strange facial expression is much more

evident to the remote onlooker than their individual dif-

ferences. But when we live among the Chinese then the

impression of their uniformity disappears more and

more, and finally the Chinese become individuals also.

Individuality belongs to those conditional actualities which

are greatly overrated theoretically on account of their

practical significance. It does not belong to those over-

whelmingly clear and therefore universally obtrusive gen-

eral facts upon which a science must primarily be founded.

The individual content of consciousness is, therefore, the

most unfavorable object imaginable for psychology, be-

cause it has veiled the universally valid until it has become

unrecognizable. The essence of consciousness is the

process of adaptation which takes place in the most

minute details. On the other hand, the unconscious is the

generally diffused, which not only binds the individuals

among themselves to the race, but also unites them back-

wards with the peoples of the past and their psychology.

Thus the unconscious, surpassing the individual in its

generality, is, in the first place, the object of a true psy-

chology, which claims not to be psychophysical.

Man as an individual is a suspicious phenomenon, the

right of whose existence from a natural biological stand-

point could be seriously contested, because, from this

point of view, the individual is only a race atom, and

has a significance only as a mass constituent. The ethical

200 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

standpoint, however, gives to the human being an indi-

vidual tendency separating him from the mass, which, in

the course of centuries, led to the development of per-

sonality, hand in hand with which developed the hero

cult, and has led to the modern individualistic cult of

personages. The attempts of rationalistic theology to

keep hold of the personal Jesus as the last and most

precious remnant of the divinity which has vanished be-

yond the power of the imagination corresponds to this

tendency. In this respect the Roman Catholic Church

was more practical, because she met the general need of

the visible, or at least historically believed hero, through

the fact that she placed upon the throne of worship a

small but clearly perceptible god of the world, namely,

the Roman Pope, the Pater patrum, and at the same time

the Pontifex Maximus of the invisible upper or inner God.

The sensuous demonstrability of God naturally supports

the religious process of introversion, because the human

figure essentially facilitates the transference, for it is not

easy to imagine something lovable or venerable in a spir-

itual being. This tendency, everywhere present, has been

secretly preserved in the rationalistic theology with its

Jesus historically insisted upon. This does not mean that

men loved the visible God; they love him, not as he is,

for he is merely a man, and when the pious wished to

love humanity they could go to their neighbors and their

enemies to love them. Mankind wishes to love in God

only their ideas, that is to say, the ideas which they pro-

ject into God. By that they wish to love their unconscious,

that is, that remnant of ancient humanity and the cen-

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 26!

turies-old past in all people, namely, the common property

left behind from all development which is given to all

men, like the sunshine and the air. But in loving this

inheritance they love that which is common to all. Thus

they turn back to the mother of humanity, that is to say,

to the spirit of the race, and regain in this way some-

thing of that connection and of that mysterious and irre-

sistible power which is imparted by the feeling of belong-

ing to the herd. It is the problem of Antaeus, who

preserves his gigantic strength only through contact with

mother earth. This temporary withdrawal into one's self,

which, as we have already seen, signifies a regression to

the childish bond to the parent, seems to act favorably,

within certain limits, in its effect upon the psychologic

condition of the individual. It is in general to be ex-

pected that the two fundamental mechanisms of the psy-

choses, transference and introversion, are to a wide

extent extremely appropriate methods of normal reaction

against complexes; transference as a means of escaping

from the complex into reality; introversion as a means of

detaching one's self from reality through the complex.

After we have informed ourselves about the general

purposes of prayer, we are prepared to hear more about

the vision of our dreamer. After the prayer, " the head

of a sphinx with an Egyptian headdress " appeared, only

to vanish quickly. Here the author was disturbed, so

that for a moment she awoke. This vision recalls the

previously mentioned phantasy of the Egyptian statue,

whose rigid gesture is entirely in place here as a phe-

nomenon of the so-called functional category. The light

202 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

stages of the hypnosis are designated technically as

" Engourdissement " (stiffening). The word Sphinx in

the whole civilized world signifies the same as riddle : a

puzzling creature who proposes riddles, like the Sphinx

of Oedipus, standing at the portal of his fate like a

symbolic proclamation of the inevitable. The Sphinx is

a semi-theriomorphic representation of that " mother

image " which may be designated as the " terrible

mother," of whom many traces are found in mythology.

This interpretation is correct for Oedipus. Here the

question is opened. The objection will be raised that

nothing except the word " Sphinx " justifies the allusion

to the Sphinx of Oedipus. On account of the lack of

subjective materials, which in the Miller text are wholly

lacking in regard to this vision, an individual inter-

pretation would also be excluded. The suggestion

of an "Egyptian" phantasy (Part I, Chapter II) is

entirely insufficient to be employed here. Therefore we

are compelled, if we wish to venture at all upon an

understanding of this vision, to direct ourselves perhaps

in all too daring a manner to the available ethnographic

material under the assumption that the unconscious of the

present-day man coins its symbols as was done in the most

remote past. The Sphinx, in its traditional form, is a half-

human, half-animal creature, which we must, in part,

interpret in the way that is applicable to such phantastic

products. The reader is directed to the deductions in

the first part of this volume where the theriomorphic rep-

resentations of the libido were discussed. This manner

of representation is very familiar to the analyst, through

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 203

the dreams and phantasies of neurotics (and of normal

men). The impulse is readily represented as an animal,

as a bull, horse, dog, etc. One of my patients, who had

questionable relations with women, and who began the

treatment with the fear, so to speak, that I would surely

forbid him his sexual adventures, dreamed that I (his

physician) very skilfully speared to the wall a strange

animal, half pig, half crocodile. Dreams swarm with such

theriomorphic representations of the libido. Mixed

beings, such as are in this dream, are not rare. A series

of very beautiful illustrations, where especially the lower

half of the animal was represented theriomorphically,

has been furnished by Bertschinger. 10 The libido which

was represented theriomorphically is the u animal " sex-

uality which is in a repressed state. The history of re-

pression, as we have seen, goes back to the incest problem,

where the first motives for moral resistance against sexu-

ality display themselves. The objects of the repressed

libido are, in the last degree, the images of father and

mother; therefore the theriomorphic symbols, in so far

as they do not symbolize merely the libido in general,

have a tendency to present father and mother (for ex-

ample, father represented by a bull, mother by a cow).

From these roots, as we pointed out earlier, might prob-

ably arise the theriomorphic attributes of the Divinity.

In as far as the repressed libido manifests itself under

certain conditions, as anxiety, these animals are generally

of a horrible nature. In consciousness we are attached

by all sacred bonds to the mother; in the dream she pur-

sues us as a terrible animal. The Sphinx, mythologically

204 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

considered, is actually a fear animal, which reveals dis-

tinct traits of a mother derivate. In the Oedipus legend

the Sphinx is sent by Hera, who hates Thebes on account

of the birth of Bacchus; because Oedipus conquers the

Sphinx, which is nothing but fear of the mother, he must

marry Jocasta, his mother, for the throne and the hand

of the widowed queen of Thebes belonged to him who

freed the land from the plague of the Sphinx. The

genealogy of the Sphinx is rich in allusions to the problem

touched upon here. She is a daughter of Echnida, a mixed

being; a beautiful maiden above, a hideous serpent below.

This double creature corresponds to the picture of the

mother; above, the human, lovely and attractive half;

below, the horrible animal half, converted into a fear

animal through the incest prohibition. Echnida is de-

rived from the All-mother, the mother Earth, Gaea, who,

with Tartaros, the personified underworld (the place of

horrors), brought her forth. Echnida herself is the

mother of all terrors, of the Chimaera, Scylla, Gorgo, of

the horrible Cerberus, of the Nemean Lion, and of the

eagle who devoured the liver of Prometheus; besides this

she gave birth to a number of dragons. One of her sons

is Orthrus, the dog of the monstrous Geryon, who was

killed by Hercules. With this dog, her son, Echnida, in

incestuous intercourse, produced the Sphinx. These ma-

terials will suffice to characterize that amount of libido

which led to the Sphinx symbol. If, in spite of the lack

of subjective material, we may venture to draw an infer-

ence from the Sphinx symbol of our author, we must say

that the Sphinx represents an original incestuous amount

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 205

of libido detached from the bond to the mother. Per-

haps it is better to postpone this conclusion until we have

examined the following visions.

After Miss Miller had concentrated herself again, the

vision developed further:

" Suddenly an Aztec appeared, absolutely clear in every detail ;

the hands spread open, with large fingers, the head in profile,

armored, headdress similar to the feather ornaments of the Amer-

ican Indian. The whole was somewhat suggestive of Mexican

sculpture."

The ancient Egyptian character of the Sphinx is re-

placed here by American antiquity by the Aztec. The

essential idea is neither Egypt nor Mexico, for the two

could not be interchanged; but it is the subjective factor

which the dreamer produces from her own past. I have

frequently observed in the analysis of Americans that

certain unconscious complexes, i.e. repressed sexuality,

are represented by the symbol of a Negro or an Indian;

for example, when a European tells in his dream, " Then

came a ragged, dirty individual," for Americans and for

those who live in the tropics it is a Negro. When with

Europeans it is a vagabond or a criminal, with Americans

it is a Negro or an Indian which represents the indi-

vidual's own repressed sexual personality, and the one

considered inferior. It is also desirable to go into the

particulars of this vision, as there are various things

worthy of notice. The feather cap, which naturally had

to consist of eagles' feathers, is a sort of magic charm.

The hero assumes at the same time something of the sun-

like character of this bird when he adorns himself with

206 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

its feathers, just as the courage and strength of the enemy

are appropriated in swallowing his heart or taking his

scalp. At the same time, the feather crest is a crown

which is equivalent to the rays of the sun. The historical

importance of the Sun identification has been seen in the

first part. 11

Especial interest attaches to the hand, which is de-

scribed as " open," and the fingers, which are described

as " large." It is significant that it is the hand upon which

the distinct emphasis falls. One might rather have ex-

pected a description of the facial expression. It is well

known that the gesture of the hand is significant; unfor-

tunately, we know nothing about that here. Nevertheless,

a parallel phantasy might be mentioned, which also puts

the emphasis upon hands. A patient in a hypnagogic

condition saw his mother painted on a wall, like a painting

in a Byzantine church. She held one hand up, open wide,

with fingers spread apart. The fingers were very large,

swollen into knobs on the ends, and each surrounded by

a small halo. The immediate association with this pic-

ture was the fingers of a frog with sucking discs at the

ends. Then the similarity to the penis. The ancient set-

ting of this mother picture is also of importance. Evi-

dently the hand had, in this phantasy, a phallic meaning.

This interpretation was confirmed by a further very

remarkable phantasy of the same patient. He saw some-

thing like a u sky-rocket " ascending from his mother's

hand, which at a closer survey becomes a shining bird

with golden wings, a golden pheasant, as it then occurs

to his mind. We have seen in the previous chapter that

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 207

the hand has actually a phallic, generative meaning, and

that this meaning plays a great part in. the production

of fire. In connection with this phantasy, there is but one

observation to make : fire was bored with the hand; there-

fore it comes from the hand; Agni, the fire, was wor-

shipped as a golden-winged bird. 12 It is extremely sig-

nificant that it is the mother's hand. I must deny myself

the temptation to enter more deeply into this. Let it be

sufficient to have pointed out the possible significance of

the hand of the Aztec by means of these parallel hand

phantasies. We have mentioned the mother suggestively

with the Sphinx. The Aztec taking the place of the

Sphinx points, through his suggestive hand, to parallel

phantasies in which the phallic hand really belongs to the

mother. Likewise we encounter an antique setting in

parallel phantasies. The significance of the antique,

which experience has shown to be the symbol for " infan-

tile," is confirmed by Miss Miller in this connection in the

annotation to her phantasies, for she says :

" In my childhood, I took a special interest in the Aztec frag-

ments and in the history of Peru and of the Incas."

Through the two analyses of children which have been

published we have attained an insight into the child's

small world, and have seen what burning interests and

questions secretly surround the parents, and that the par-

ents are, for a long time, the objects of the greatest in-

terest. 13 We are, therefore, justified in suspecting that

the antique setting applies to the " ancients," that is to

say, the parents, and that consequently this Aztec has

208 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

something of the father or mother in himself. Up to this

time indirect hints point only to the mother, which is

nothing remarkable in an American girl, because Ameri-

cans, as a result of the extreme detachment from the

father, are characterized by a most enormous mother

complex, which again is connected with the especial social

position of woman in the United States. This position

brings about a special masculinity among capable women,

which easily makes possible the symbolizing into a mas-

culine figure. 14

After this vision, Miss Miller felt that a name formed

itself " bit by bit," which seemed to belong to this Aztec

" the son of an Inca of Peru." The name is " Chi-wan-

to-pel." As the author intimated, something similar to

this belonged to her childish reminiscences. The act of

naming is, like baptism, something exceedingly important

for the creation of a personality, because, since olden

times, a magic power has been attributed to the name,

with which, for example, the spirit of the dead can be

conjured. To know the name of any one means, in

mythology, to have power over that one. As a well-known

example I mention the fairy tale of " Rumpelstilzchen."

In an Egyptian myth, Isis robs the Sun god Re perma-

nently of his power by compelling him to tell her his real

name. Therefore, to give a name means to give power,

invest with a definite personality. 15 The author observed,

in regard to the name itself, that it reminded her very

much of the impressive name Popocatepetl, a name which

belongs to unforgettable school memories, and, to the

greatest indignation of the patient, very often emerges

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 209

in an analysis in a dream or phantasy and brings with it

that same old joke which one heard in school, told one-

self and later again forgot. Although one might hesitate

to consider this unhallowed joke as of psychologic im-

portance, still one must inquire for the reason of its being.

One must also put, as a counter question, Why is it always

Popocatepetl and not the neighboring Iztaccihuatl, or

the even higher and just as clear Orizaba ? The last has

certainly the more beautiful and more easily pronounced

name. Popocatepetl is impressive because of its onoma-

topoetic name. In English the word is " to pop " (pop-

gun), which is here considered as onomatopoesy; in Ger-

man the words are Hinterpommern, Pumpernickel;

Bombe; Petarde (le pet = flatus) . The frequent German

word Popo (Podex) does not indeed exist in English,

but flatus is designated as " to poop " in childish speech.

The act of defecation is often designated as " to pop."

A joking name for the posterior part is " the bum."

(Poop also means the rear end of a ship.) In French,

pouf! is onomatopoetic; pouffer = platzen (to explode),

la poupe = rear end of ship, le poupard the baby in

arms, la poupee doll. Poupon is a pet name for a

chubby-faced child. In Dutch pop, German Puppe and

Latin puppis doll ; in Plautus, however, it is also used

jokingly for the posterior part of the body; pupus means

child; pupula = g\r\, little dollie. The Greek word

TtonnvZoa designates a cracking, snapping or blowing

sound. It is used of kissing; by Theocritus also of the as-

sociated noise of flute blowing. The etymologic parallels

show a remarkable relationship between the part of the

2io PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

body in question and the child. This relationship we will

mention here, only to let it drop at once, as this question

will claim our attention later.

One of my patients in his childhood had always con-

nected the act of defecation with a phantasy that his pos-

terior was a volcano and a violent eruption took place,

explosion of gases and gushings forth of lava. The

terms for the elemental occurrences of nature are

originally not at all poetical; one thinks, for example, of

the beautiful phenomenon of the meteor, which the Ger-

man language most unpoetically calls " Sternschnuppe "

(the smouldering wick of a star). Certain South Ameri-

can Indians call the shooting star the " urine of the stars."

According to the principle of the least resistance, expres-

sions are taken from the nearest source available. (For

example, the transference of the metonymic expression

of urination as Schiffens, " to rain.")

Now it seems to be very obscure why the mystical

figure of Chiwantopel, whom Miss Miller, in a note,

compares to the control spirit of the spiritualistic me-

dium, 16 is found in such a disreputable neighborhood that

his nature (name) was brought into relation with this

particular part of the body. In order to understand this

possibility, we must realize that when we produce from

the unconscious the first to be brought forth is the infan-

tile material long lost in memory. One must, therefore,

take the point of view of that time in which this infantile

material was still on the surface. If now a much-honored

object is related in the unconscious to the anus, then one

must conclude that something of a high valuation was

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 211

expressed thereby. The question is only whether this

corresponds to the psychology of the child. Before we

enter upon this question, it must be stated that the anal

region is very closely connected with veneration. One

thinks of the traditional faeces of the Great Mogul. An

Oriental tale has the same to say of Christian knights,

who anointed themselves with the excrement of the pope

and cardinals in order to make themselves formidable.

A patient who is characterized by a special veneration

for her father had a phantasy that she saw her father

sitting upon the toilet in a dignified manner, and people

going past greeted him effusively. 17 The association of

the anal relations by no means excludes high valuation or

esteem, as is shown by these examples, and as is easily

seen from the intimate connection of faeces and gold. 18

Here the most worthless comes into the closest relation

with the most valuable. This also happens in religious

valuations. I discovered (at that time to my great aston-

ishment) that a young patient, very religiously trained,

represented in a dieam the Crucified on the bottom of a

blue-flowered chamber pot, namely, in the form of excre-

ments. The contrast is so enormous that one must assume

that the valuations of childhood must indeed be very

different from ours. This is actually the truth. Children

bring to the act of defecation and the products of this

an esteem and interest 19 which later on is possible only

to the hypochondriac. We do not comprehend this in-

terest until we learn that the child very early connects

with it a theory of propagation. 20 The libido afflux prob-

ably accounts for the enormous interest in this act. The

212 THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO

child sees that this is the way in which something is pro-

duced, in which something comes out. The same child

whom I reported in the little brochure " Uber Konflicte

der kindlichen Seele," and who had a well-developed anal

theory of birth, like little Hans, whom Freud made known

to us, later contracted a habit of staying a long time on

the toilet. Once the father grew impatient, went to the

toilet and called, " Do come out of there; what are you

making?" Whereupon the answer came from within,

" A little wagon and two ponies." The child was making

a little wagon and two ponies, that is to say, things which

at that time she especially wished for. In this way one

can make what one wishes, and the thing made is the

thing wished for. The child wishes earnestly for a doll

or, at heart, for a real child. (That is, the child prac-

tised for his future biological task, and in the way in

which everything in general is produced he made the

doll 21 himself as representative of the child or of the

thing wished for in general. 22 ) From a patient I have

learned a parallel phantasy of her childhood. In the

toilet there was a crevice in the wall. She phantasied that

from this crevice a fairy would come out and present

her with everything for which she wished. The " locus "

is known to be the place of dreams where much was

wished for and created which later would no longer be

suspected of having this place of origin. A pathological

phantasy in place here is told us by Lombroso, 23 concern-

ing two insane artists. Each of them considered himself

God and the ruler of the world. They created or pro-

duced the world by making it come forth from the rectum,

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 213

just as the egg of birds originates in the egg canal. One

of these two artists was endowed with a true artistic

sense. He painted a picture in which he was just in the

act of creation ; the world came forth from his anus ; the

membrum was in full erection ; he was naked, surrounded

by women, and with all insignia of his power. The excre-

ment is in a certain sense the thing wished for, and on that

account it receives the corresponding valuation. When I

first understood this connection, an observation made

long ago, and which disturbed me greatly because I never

rightly understood it, became clear to me. It concerned

an educated patient who, under very tragic circumstances,

had to be separated from her husband and child, and was

brought into the insane asylum. She exhibited a typical

apathy and slovenliness which was considered as

affective mental deterioration. Even at that time I

doubted this deterioration, and was inclined to regard

it as a secondary adjustment. I took especial pains to

ascertain how I could discover the existence of the affect

in this case. Finally, after more than three hours' hard

work, I succeeded in finding a train of thought which sud-

denly brought the patient into a completely adequate and

therefore strongly emotional state. At this moment the

affective connection with her was completely reestab-

lished. That happened in the forenoon. When I re-

turned at the appointed time in the evening to the ward to

see her she had, for my reception, smeared herself from

head to foot with excrement, and cried laughingly, " Do I

please you so? " She had never done that before; it was

plainly destined for me. The impression which I received

214 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

was one of a personal affront and, as a result of

this, I was convinced for years after of the affective de-

terioration of such cases. Now we understand this act

as an infantile ceremony of welcome or a declaration of

love.

The origin of Chiwantopel, that is to say, an uncon-

scious personality, therefore means, in the sense of the

previous explanation, " I make, produce, invent him my-

self." It is a sort of human creation or birth by the anal

route. The first people were made from excrement, pot-

ter's earth, or clay. The Latin lutum, which really means

" moistened earth," also has the transferred meaning of

dirt. In Plautus it is even a term of abuse, something

like " You scum." The birth from the anus also reminds

us of the motive of u throwing behind oneself." A well-

known example is the oracular command, which Deu-

calion and Pyrrha, who were the only survivors from the

great flood, received. They were to throw behind them

the bones of the great mother. They then threw behind

them stones, from which mankind sprang. According to

a tradition, the Dactyli in a similar manner sprang from

dust, which the nymph Anchiale threw behind her. There

is also humorous significance attached to the anal prod-

ucts. The excrements are often considered in popular

humor as a monument or memorial (which plays a special

part in regard to the criminal in the form of grumus

merdtf); every one knows the humorous story of the man

who, led by the spirit through labyrinthian passages to a

hidden treasure, after he had shed all his pieces of cloth-

ing, deposited excrement as a last guide post on his road.

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 215

In a more distant past a sign of this kind possessed as

great a significance as the dung of animals to indicate

the direction taken. Simple monuments ("little stone

figures ") have taken the place of this perishable mark.

It is noteworthy that Miss Miller quotes another case,

where a name suddenly obtruded itself, parallel to the

emerging into consciousness of Chiwantopel, namely, A-ha-

ma-ra-ma, with the feeling that it dealt with something

Assyrian. 24 As a possible source of this, there occurred

to her " Asurabama, who made cuneiform bricks," 25

those imperishable documents made from clay : the monu-

ments of the most ancient history. If it were not empha-

sized that the bricks are " cuneiform," then it might mean

ambiguously " wedged-shaped bricks," which is more

suggestive of our interpretation than that of the

author.

Miss Miller remarks that besides the name " Asura-

bama " she also thought of " Ahasuerus " or " Ahasve-

rus." This phantasy leads to a very different aspect of

the problem of the unconscious personality. While the

previous materials betrayed to us something of the infan-

tile theory of creation, this phantasy opens up a vista into

the dynamics of the unconscious creation of personality.

Ahasver is, as is well known, the Wandering Jew; he is

characterized by endless and restless wanderings until the

end of the world. The fact that the author has thought

of this particular name justifies us in following this trail.

The legend of Ahasver, the first literary traces of which

belong to the thirteenth century, seems to be of Occidental

origin, and belongs to those ideas which possess inde-

216 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

4

structible vital energy. The figure of the Wandering Jew

has undergone more literary elaboration than the figure

of Faust, and nearly all of this work belongs to the last

century. If the figure is not called Ahasver, still it is there

under another name, perhaps as Count of St. Germain,

the mysterious Rosicrucian, whose immortality was as-

sured, and whose temporary residence (the land) was

equally known. 26 Although the stories about Ahasver

cannot be traced back any earlier than the thirteenth cen-

tury, the oral tradition can reach back considerably

further, and it is not an impossibility that a bridge to the

Orient exists. There is the parallel figure of Chidr, or

" al Chadir, n the " ever-youthful Chidher " celebrated in

song by Rueckert. The legend is purely Islamitic. The

peculiar feature, however, is that Chidher is not only a

saint, but in Sufic circles 27 rises even to divine significance.

In view of the severe monotheism of Islam, one is in-

clined to think of Chidher as a pre-Islamitic Arabian

divinity who would hardly be officially recognized by the

new religion, but might have been tolerated on political

grounds. But there is nothing to prove that. The first

traces of Chidher are found in the commentaries of the

Koran, Buchari and Tabare and in a commentary to a

noteworthy passage of the eighteenth sura of the Koran.

The eighteenth sura is entitled " the cave," that is, after

the cave of the seven sleepers, who, according to the

legend, slept there for 309 years, and thus escaped perse-

cution, and awoke in a new era. Their legend is re-

counted in the eighteenth sura, and divers reflections were

associated with it. The wish-fulfilment idea of the legend

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 217

is very clear. The mystic material for it is the immutable

model of the Sun's course. The Sun sets periodically,

but does not die. It hides in the womb of the sea or in a

subterranean cave, 28 and in the morning is " born again,"

complete. The language in which this astronomic occur-

rence is clothed is one of clear symbolism; the Sun returns

into the mother's womb, and after some time is again

born. Of course, this event is properly an incestuous

act, of which, in mythology, clear traces are still re-

tained, not the least of which is the circumstance that the

dying and resurrected gods are the lovers of their own

mothers or have generated themselves through their own

mothers. Christ as the " God becoming flesh " has gen-

erated himself through Mary; Mithra has done the

same. These Gods are unmistakable Sun-gods, for the

Sun also does this, in order to again renew himself.

Naturally, it is not to be assumed that astronomy came

first and these conceptions of gods afterwards; the process

was, as always, inverted, and it is even true that primitive

magic charms of rebirth, baptism, superstitious usages

of all sorts, concerning the cure of the sick, etc., were

projected into the heavens. These youths were born

from the cave (the womb of mother earth), like the Sun-

gods, in a new era, and this was the way they vanquished

death. In this far they were immortal. It is now inter-

esting to see how the Koran comes, after long ethical

contemplations in the course of the same sura, to the fol-

lowing passage, which is of especial significance for the

origin of the Chidher myth. For this reason I quote

the Koran literally :

2i8 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

" Remember when Moses said to his servant, ' I will not stop

till I reach the confluence of the two seas, or for eighty years will

I journey on.'

" But when they reached their confluence they forgot their

fish, and it took its way in the sea at will.

" And when they had passed on, Moses said to his servant,

1 Bring us our morning meal, for now we have incurred weariness

from this our journey.'

" He said, 'What thinkest thou? When we repaired to the

rock for rest, then verily I forgot the fish; and none but Satan

made me forget it, so as not to mention it; and it hath taken its

way in the sea in a wondrous sort.'

" He said, ' It is this we were in quest of.' So they both went

back retracing their footsteps.

" Then found they one of our servants to whom we had vouch-

safed our mercy, and whom we had instructed with our knowl-

edge;"

" Moses said to him, ' Shall I follow thee that thou teach me,

for guidance of that which thou hast been taught ? '

" He said, ' Verily, thou canst by no means have patience with

me ; and how canst thou be patient in matters whose meaning thou

comprehendest not?'" Trans. Rodwell, page 188.

Moses now accompanies the mysterious servant of God,

who does divers things which Moses cannot comprehend;

finally, the Unknown takes leave of Moses, and speaks to

him as follows :

"They will ask thee of Dhoulkarnein (the two-horned). 80

Say: ' I will recite to you an account of him.'

" Verily, we established his power upon the earth and we gave

him a means to accomplish every end, so he followed his way;

" Until when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it

to set in a miry forest ; and hard by, he found a people. . . ."

Now follows a moral reflection; then the narrative con-

tinues :

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 219

" Then he followed his course further until he came to the place

where the sun rises. ..."

If now we wish to know who is the unknown servant

of God, we are told in this passage he is Dhulqarnein,

Alexander, the Sun; he goes to the place of setting and

he goes to the place of rising. The passage about the

unknown servant of God is explained by the commentaries

in a well-defined legend. The servant is Chidher, " the

verdant one/' the never-tiring wanderer, who roams for

hundreds and thousands of years over lands and seas, the

teacher and counsellor of pious men; the one wise in

divine knowledge the immortal. 31 The authority of the

Tabari associates Chidher with Dhulqarnein; Chidher is

said to have reached the " stream of life " as a follower

of Alexander, and both unwittingly had drunk of it, so

that they became immortal. Moreover, Chidher is iden-

tified by the old commentators with Elias, who also did

not die, but who was taken to Heaven in a fiery chariot.

Elias is Helios. 32 It is to be observed that Ahasver also

owes his existence to an obscure place in the holy Christian

scriptures. This place is to be found in Matthew xvi : 28.

First comes the scene where Christ appoints Peter as the

rock of his church, and nominates him the governor of

his power. 33 After that follows the prophecy of his

death, and then comes the passage :

" Verily, I say unto you, there be some standing here, which

shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his

kingdom."

Here follows the scene of the transfiguration :

220 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

" And was transfigured before them : and his face did shine

as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

" And behold there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talk-

ing with him.

" Then answered Peter and said unto Jesus, * Lord, it is good

for us to be here ; if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles ;

one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias.' " 34

From these passages it appears that Christ stands on

the same plane as Elias, without being identified with

him, 35 although the people consider him as Elias. The

ascension places Christ as identical with Elias. The

prophecy of Christ shows that there exist aside from

himself one or more immortals who shall not die until

Parousai. According to John xxi:22nd verse, the boy

John was considered as one of these immortals, and in

the legend he is, in fact, not dead but merely sleeping

in the ground until Parousai, and breathes so that the

dust swirls round his grave. 36 As is evident, there are

passable bridges from Christ by way of Elias to Chidher

and Ahasuerus. It is said in an account of this legend 3T

that Dhulqarnein led his friend Chidher to the " source

of life " in order to have him drink of immortality. 38

Alexander also bathed in the stream of life and per-

formed the ritual ablutions. As I previously mentioned in

a footnote, according to Matthew xvii: I2th verse, John

the Baptist is Elias, therefore primarily identical with

Chidher. Now, however, it is to be noted that in the

Arabian legend Chidher appears rather as a companion

or accompanied (Chidher with Dhulqarnein or with Elias,

" like unto them " ; or identified with them 39 ) . There are

therefore, two similar figures who resemble each other,

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 221

but who, nevertheless, are distinct. The analogous situ-

ation in the Christian legend is found in the scene by

the Jordan where John leads Christ to the " source of

life." Christ is there, the subordinate, John the superior,

similar to Dhulqarnein and Chidher, or Chidher and

Moses, also Elias. The latter relation especially is such

that Vollers compares Chidher and Elias, on the one

side, with Gilgamesh and his mortal brother Eabani;

on the other side, with the Dioscuri, one of whom is im-

mortal, the other mortal. This relation is also found in

Christ and John the Baptist, 40 on the one hand, and Christ

and Peter, on the other. The last-named parallel only

finds its explanation through comparison with the Mith-

raic mysteries, where the esoteric contents are revealed

to us through monuments. Upon the Mithraic marble

relief of Klagenfurt 41 it is represented how with a halo

Mithra crowns Helios, who either kneels before him or

else floats up to him from below. Mithra is represented

on a Mithraic monument of Osterburken as holding in

his right hand the shoulder of the mystic ox above Helios,

who stands bowed down before him, the left hand rest-

ing on a sword hilt. A crown lies between them on the

ground. Cumont observes about this scene that it prob-

ably represents the divine prototype of the ceremony of

the initiation into the degree of Miles, in which a sword

and a crown were conferred upon the mystic. Helios is,

therefore, appointed the Miles of Mithra. In a general

way, Mithra seems to occupy the role of patron to Helios,

which reminds us of the boldness of Hercules towards

Helios. Upon his journey towards Geryon, Helios burns

222 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

too hotly; Hercules, full of anger, threatens him with his

never-failing arrows. Therefore, Helios is compelled to

yield, and lends to the hero his Sun ship, with which he

was accustomed to journey across the sea. Thus Hercules

returns to Erythia, to the cattle herds of Geryon. 42 On

the monument at Klagenfurt, Mithra is furthermore rep-

resented pressing Helios's hand, either in farewell or as

a ratification. In a further scene Mithra mounts the

Chariot of Helios, either for the ascension or the u Sea

Journey." 43 Cumont is of the opinion that Mithra gives

to Helios a sort of ceremonious investiture and conse-

crates him with his divine power by crowning him with

his own hands. This relation corresponds to tha.t of

Christ to Peter. Peter, through his symbol, the cock, has

the character of a sun-god. After the ascension (or

sea journey) of Christ, he is the visible pontiff of the

divinity; he suffers, therefore, the same death (cruci-

fixion) as Christ, and becomes the great Roman

deity (Sol invictus), the conquering, triumphant Church

itself, embodied in the Pope. In the scene of Malchus

he is always shown as the miles of Christ, to whom the

sword is granted, and as the rock upon which the Church

is founded. The crown 44 is also given to him who pos-

sesses the power to bind and to set free, Thus, Christ,

like the Sun, is the visible God, whereas the Pope, like

the heir of the Roman Caesars, is soils invicti comes.

The setting sun appoints a successor whom he invests

with the power of the sun. 45 Dhulqarnein gives Chidher

eternal life. Chidher communicates his wisdom to

Moses. 46 There even exists a report according to which

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 223

the forgetful servant of Joshua drinks from the well of

life, whereupon he becomes immortal, and is placed in a

ship by Chidher and Moses, as a punishment, and is cast

out to sea, once more a fragment of a sun myth, the

motive of the u sea journey." 4T

The primitive symbol, which designates that portion

of the Zodiac in which the Sun, with the Winter Solstice,

again enters upon the yearly course, is the goat, fish sign,

the aiyGOHspcoS. The Sun mounts like a goat to the

highest mountain, and later goes into the water as a fish.

The fish is the symbol of the child, 48 for the child before

his birth lives in the water like a fish, and the Sun, because

it plunges into the sea, becomes equally child and fish.

The fish, however, is also a phallic symbol, 49 also a sym-

bol for the woman. 50 Briefly stated, the fish is a libido

symbol, and, indeed, as it seems predominately for the

renewal of the libido.

The journey of Moses with his servant is a life-journey

(eighty years). They grow old and lose their life force

(libido), that is, they lose the fish which "pursues its

course in a marvellous manner to the sea," which means

the setting of the sun. When the two notice their loss,

they discover at the place where the " source of life " is

found (where the dead fish revived and sprang into the

sea) Chidher wrapped in his mantle, 51 sitting on the

ground. According to another version, he sat on an

island in the sea, or " in the wettest place on earth," that

is, he was just born from the maternal depths. Where

the fish vanished Chidher, " the verdant one," was born

as a " son of the deep waters," his head veiled, a Cabir,

224 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

a proclaimer of divine wisdom; the old Babylonian

Oannes-Ea, who was represented in the form of a fish,

and daily came from the sea as a fish to teach the people

wisdom. 52 His name was brought into connection with

John's. With the rising of the renewed sun all that lived

in darkness, as water-animal or fish, surrounded by all*

terrors of night and death, 53 became as the shining fiery

firmament of the day. Thus the words of John the Bap-

tist 54 gain especial meaning:

" I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that

cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy

to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

With Vollers we may also compare Chidher and Elias

(Moses and his servant Joshua) with Gilgamesh and

his brother Eabani. Gilgamesh wandered through the

world, driven by anxiety and longing, to find immortality.

His path led him across the seas to the wise Utnapishtim

(Noah), who knew how to cross the waters of death.

There Gilgamesh had to dive down to the bottom of the

sea for the magical herb which was to lead him back to

the land of men. When he had come again to his native

land a serpent stole the magic plant from him (the fish

again slid into the sea). But on the return from the

land of the blessed an immortal mariner accompanied

him, who, banished by a curse of Utnapishtim, was for-

bidden to return to the land of the blessed. Gilgamesh's

journey had lost its purpose on account of the loss of the

magic herb; instead he is accompanied by an immortal,

whose fate, indeed, we cannot learn from the fragments

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 225

of the epic. This banished immortal is the model for

Ahasver, as Jensen 55 aptly remarked.

Again we encounter the motive of the Dioscuri, mortal

and immortal, setting and rising sun. This motive is also

represented as if projected from the hero.

The Sacrificium Mithriacum (the sacrifice of the bull)

is in its religious representation very often flanked by

the two Dadophores, Cautes and Cautopates, one with

a raised and the other with a lowered torch. They repre-

sent brothers who reveal their character through the sym-

bolic position of the torch. Cumont connects them, not

without meaning, with the sepulchral " erotes " who as

genii with the reversed torches have traditional meaning.

The one is supposed to stand for death and the other for

life. I cannot refrain from mentioning the similarity be-

tween the Sacrificium Mithriacum (where the sacrificed

bull in the centre is flanked on both sides by Dadophores)

to the Christian sacrifice of the lamb (ram). The

Crucified is also traditionally flanked by the two thieves,

one of whom ascends to Paradise, while the other de-

scends to Hell. 56 The idea of the mortal and the im-

mortal seems to have passed also into the Christian

worship. Semitic gods are often represented as flanked

by two Paredroi; for example, Baal of Edessa, accom-

panied by Aziz and Monimoz (Baal as the Sun, accom-

panied by Mars and Mercury, as expressed in astro-

nomical teachings). According to the Chaldean view,

the gods are grouped into triads. In this circle of ideas

belongs also the Trinity, the idea of the triune God, in

which Christ must be considered in his unity with the

226 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Father and the Holy Ghost. So, too, do the two thieves

belong inwardly to Christ. The two Dadophores are, as

Cumont points out, nothing but offshoots 57 from the chief

figure of Mithra, to whom belongs a mysterious three-

fold character. According to an account of Dionysus

Areopagita, the magicians celebrated a festival, "rov

rpin\aaiov MiBpov." * 58 An observation likewise refer-

ring to the Trinity is made by Plutarch concerning Or-

muzd: rptt eavrov avgrfGaS dnearrjae rov rfkiov.\ The

Trinity, as three different states of the unity, is also a

Christian thought. In the very first place this suggests

a sun myth. An observation by Macrobius i : 18 seems to

lend support to this idea :

" Hae autem aetatum diversitates ad solem referuntur, ut par-

vulus videatur hiemali solstitio, qualem Aegyptii proferunt ex

adyto die certa, . . . aequinoctio vernali figura iuvenis ornatur.

Postea statuitur aetas ejus plenissima effigie barbae solstitio aestivo

. . . exunde per diminutiones veluti senescenti quarta forma deus

figuratur." J "

As Cumont observes, Cautes and Cautapates occasion-

ally carry in their hands the head of a bull, and a scor-

pion. 60 Taurus and Scorpio are equinoctial signs, which

clearly indicate that the sacrificial scene refers primarily

to the Sun cycle; the rising Sun, which sacrifices itself at

*Of the threefold Mithra.

f Having expanded himself threefold, he departed from the sun.

\ Now these differences in the seasons refer to the Sun, which seems at

the winter solstice an infant, such as the Egyptians on a certain day bring

out of their sanctuaries; at the vernal equinox it is represented as a youth.

Later, at the summer solstice, its age is represented by a full growth of

beard, while at the last, the god is represented by the gradually diminish-

ing form of an old man.

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 227

the summer solstice, and the setting Sun. In the sacri-

ficial scene the symbol of the rising and setting Sun was

not easily represented; therefore, this idea was removed

from the sacrificial image.

We have pointed out above that the Dioscuri represent

a similar idea, although in a somewhat different form;

the one sun is always mortal, the other immortal. As

this entire sun mythology is merely a psychologic pro-

jection to the heavens, the fundamental thesis probably is

as follows; just as man consists of a mortal and immortal

part, so the sun is a pair of brothers, 61 one being mortal,

the other immortal. This thought lies at the basis of all

theology in general. Man is, indeed, mortal, but there

are some who are immortal, or there is something in us

which is immortal. Thus the gods, " a Chidher or a St.

Germain," are our immortal part, which, though incom-

prehensible, dwells among us somewhere.

Comparison with the sun teaches us over and over

again that the gods are libido. It is that part of us

which is immortal, since it represents that bond through

which we feel that in the race we are never extinguished. 62

It is life from the life of mankind. Its springs, which well

up from the depths of the unconscious, come, as does our

life in general, from the root of the whole of humanity,

since we are indeed only a twig broken off from the

mother and transplanted.

Since the divine in us is the libido, 63 we must not won-

der that we have taken along with us in our theology

ancient representations from olden times, which give the

triune figure to the God. We have taken this rpm\a0iov

228 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

0foV* from the phallic symbolism, the originality of

which may well be uncontested. 64 The male genitals are

the basis for this Trinity. It is an anatomical fact that

one testicle is generally placed somewhat higher than

the other, and it is also a very old, but, nevertheless,

still surviving, superstition that one testicle generates a

boy and the other a girl. 65 A late Babylonian bas-relief

from Lajard's 66 collection seems to be in accordance with

this view. In the middle of the image stands an androgy-

nous god (masculine and feminine face 67 ) ; upon the

right, male side, is found a serpent, with a sun halo round

its head; upon the left, female side, there is also a ser-

pent, with the moon above its head. Above the head of

the god there are three stars. This ensemble would seem

to confirm the Trinity 68 of the representation. The Sun

serpent at the right side is male; the serpent at the left

side is female (signified by the moon). This image pos-

sesses a symbolic sexual suffix, which makes the sexual

significance of the whole obtrusive. Upon the male side

a rhomb is found a favorite symbol of the female geni-

tals; upon the female side there is a wheel or felly. A

wheel always refers to the Sun, but the spokes are thick-

ened and enlarged at the ends, which suggests phallic

symbolism. It seems to be a phallic wheel, which was

not unknown in antiquity. There are obscene bas-reliefs

where Cupid turns a wheel of nothing but phalli. 69 It is

not only the serpent which suggests the phallic significance

of the Sun; I quote one especially marked case, from an

abundance of proof. In the antique collection at Verona

* Threefold God.

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 229

I discovered a late Roman mystic inscription in which are

the following representations :

'

These symbols are easily read : Sun Phallus, Moon

Vagina (Uterus). This interpretation is confirmed by

another figure of the same collection. There the same

representation is found, only the vessel 70 is replaced by

the figure of a woman. The impressions on coins, where

in the middle a palm is seen encoiled by a snake, flanked

by two stones (testicles), or else in the middle a stone

encircled by a snake; to the right a palm, to the left a

shell (female genitals 71 ), should be interpreted in a

similar manner. In Lajard's " Researches " (" The Cult

of Venus ") there is a coin of Perga, where Artemis of

Perga is represented by a conical stone (phallic) flanked

by a man (claimed to be Men) and by a female figure

(claimed to be Artemis). Men (the so-called Lunus) is

found upon an Attic bas-relief apparently with the spear

but fundamentally a sceptre with a phallic significance,

flanked by Pan with a club (phallus) and a female

figure. 72 The traditional representation of the Crucified

flanked by John and Mary is closely associated with this

circle of ideas, precisely as is the Crucified with the

thieves. From this we see how, beside the Sun, there

emerges again and again the much more primitive com-

230 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

parison of the libido with the phallus. An especial trace

still deserves mention here. The Dadophor Cautapates,

who represents Mithra, is also represented with the cock 73

and the pineapple. But these are the attributes of the

Phrygian god Men, whose cult was widely diffused. Men

was represented with Pileus, 74 the pineapple and the cock,

also in the form of a boy, just as the Dadophores are

boyish figures. (This last-named property relates them

with Men to the Cabiri.) Men has a very close connec-

tion with Attis, the son and lover of Cybele. In the time

of the Roman Caesars, Men and Attis were entirely iden-

tified, as stated above. Attis also wears the Pileus like

Men, Mithra and the Dadophores. As the son and lover

of his mother he again leads us to the source of this

religion-creating incest libido, namely, to the mother.

Incest leads logically to ceremonial castration in thd

Attic-Cybele cult, for the Hero, driven insane by his

mother, mutilates himself. 75 I must at present forego

entering more deeply into this matter, because the incest

problem is to be discussed at the close. Let this sugges-

tion suffice that from different directions the analysis

of the libido symbolism always leads back again to the

mother incest. Therefore, we may surmise that the long-

ing of the libido raised to God (repressed into the un-

conscious) is a primitive, incestuous one which concerns

the mother. Through renouncing the virility to the first

beloved, the mother, the feminine element becomes ex-

tremely predominant; hence the strongly androgynous

character of the dying and resurrected Redeemer. That

these heroes are nearly always wanderers 76 is a psycho-

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 231

logically clear symbolism. The wandering is a repre-

sentation of longing, 77 of the ever-restless desire, which

nowhere finds its object, for, unknown to itself, it seeks

the lost mother. The wandering association renders the

Sun comparison easily intelligible ; also, under this aspect,

the heroes always resemble the wandering Sun, which

seems to justify the fact that the myth of the hero is a

sun myth. But the myth of the hero, however, is, as it

appears to me, the myth of our own suffering uncon-

scious, which has an unquenchable longing for all the

deepest sources of our own being; for the body of the

mother, and through it for communion with infinite life

in the countless forms of existence. Here I must intro-

duce the words of the Master who has divined the deep-

est roots of Faustian longings :

" Unwilling, I reveal a loftier mystery.

In solitude are throned the Goddesses,

No Space around them, Place and Time still less:

Only to speak of them embarrasses.

They are THE MOTHERS!

" Goddesses unknown to ye,

The Mortals, named by us unwillingly.

Delve in the deepest depths must thou to reach them:

Tis thine own fault that we for help beseech them.

"Where is the way?

" No way ! To the Unreachable,

Ne'er to be trodden ! A way to the Unbeseechable,

Never to be besought ! Art thou prepared ?

There are no locks, no latches to be lifted !

Through endless solitudes shalt thou be drifted!

Hast thou through solitudes and deserts dared?

232 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

And hadst them swum to farthest verge of ocean

And there the boundless space beheld,

Still hadst thou seen wave after wave in motion,

Even though impending doom thy fear compelled.

Thou hadst seen something in the beryl dim

Of peace-lulled seas, the sportive dolphins swim ;

Hadst seen the flying clouds, sun, moon and star;

Nought shalt thou see in endless Void afar

Not hear thy footstep fall, nor meet

A stable spot to rest thy feet.

"Here, take this key!

The Key will scent the true place from all others;

Follow it down ! 'Twill lead thee to the Mothers.

" Descend then ! I could also say : Ascend !

'Twere all the same. Escape from the Created

To shapeless forms in liberated spaces!

Enjoy what long ere this was dissipated!

There whirls the press, like clouds on clouds unfolding;

Then with stretched arm swing high the key thou'rt holding!

" At last a blazing tripod, 78 tells thee this,

That there the utterly deepest bottom is.

Its light to thee will then the Mothers show,

Some in their seats, the others stand or go,

At their own will: Formation, Transformation,

The Eternal Mind's eternal recreation,

Forms of all Creatures, there are floating free.

They'll see thee not! for only wraiths they see.

So pluck up heart, the danger then is great.

Go to the tripod ere thou hesitate,

And touch it with the key."

CHAPTER V

SYMBOLISM OF THE MOTHER AND OF

REBIRTH

THE vision following the creation of the hero is de-

scribed by Miss Miller as a " throng of people." This

representation is known to us from dream interpretation

as being, above all, the symbol of mystery. 1 Freud

thinks that this choice of symbol is determined on ac-

count of its possibility of representing the idea. The

bearer of the mystery is placed in opposition to the multi-

tude of the ignorant. The possession of the mystery cuts

one off from intercourse with the rest of mankind. For

a very complete and smooth rapport with the surround-

ings is of great importance for the management of the

libido and the possession of a subjectively important

secret generally creates a great disturbance. It may be

said that the whole art of life shrinks to the one problem

of how the libido may be freed in the most harmless way

possible. Therefore, the neurotic derives special benefit

in treatment when he can at last rid himself of his various

secrets. The symbol of the crowd of people, chiefly the

streaming and moving mass, is, as I have often seen,

substituted for the great excitement in the unconscious,

especially in persons who are outwardly calm.

233

234 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

The vision of the "throng" develops further; horses

emerge; a battle is fought. With Silberer, I might accept

the significance of this vision as belonging, first of all, in

the " functional category," because, fundamentally, the

conception of the intermingling crowds is nothing but the

symbol of the present onrush of the mass of thought;

likewise the battle, and possibly the horses, which illus-

trate the movement. The deeper significance of the ap-

pearance of the horses will be seen for the first time in

the further course of our treatment of the mother sym-

bolism. The following vision has a more definite and

significantly important character. Miss Miller sees a

City of Dreams (" Cite de Reves"). The picture is

similar to one she saw a short time before on the cover

of a magazine. Unfortunately, we learn nothing further

about it. One can easily imagine under this " Cite de

Reves " a fulfilled wish dream, that is to say, something

very beautiful and greatly longed for; a sort of heavenly

Jerusalem, as the poet of the Apocalypse has dreamed it.

The city is a maternal symbol, a woman who fosters the

inhabitants as children. It is, therefore, intelligible that

the two mother goddesses, Rhea and Cybele, both

wear the wall crown. The Old Testament treats the

cities of Jerusalem, Babel, etc., as women (Isaiah

xlvii: 1-5) :

" Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon,

sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chal-

deans ; for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take

the millstones and grind meal; uncover thy locks, make bare the

leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. That thy nakedness

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 235

shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen; sit thou silent,

and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for

thou shalt no more be called the lady of the kingdoms."

Jeremiah says of Babel (1: 12) :

" Your mother shall be sore confounded ; she that bare you shall

be ashamed."

Strong, unconquered cities are virgins; colonies are

sons and daughters. Cities are also whores. Isaiah says

of Tyre (xxiii: 16) :

" Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot; thou hast been

forgotten."

And:

" How does it come to pass that the virtuous city has become

an harlot? "

We come across a similar symbolism in the myth of

Ogyges, the mythical king who rules in Egyptian Thebes

and whose wife was appropriately named Thebe. The

Boeotian Thebes founded by Cadmus received on that

account a surname, u Ogygian." This surname was also

given to the great flood, as it was called u Ogygian " be-

cause it occurred under Ogyges. This coincidence will be

found later on to be hardly accidental. The fact that

the city and the wife of Ogyges bear the same name indi-

cates that somewhere a relation must exist between the

city and the woman, which is not difficult to understand,

for the city is identical with the woman. We meet a

similar idea in Hindoo lore where Indra appears as the

236 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

husband of Urvara, but Urvara means- " the fertile

land." In a similar way the occupancy of a country by

the king was understood as marriage with the ploughed

land. Similar representations must have prevailed in

Europe as well. Princes had to guarantee, for example,

a good harvest at their accession. The Swedish King

Domaldi was actually killed on account of the failure of

the harvest (Ynglinga saga 18). In the Rama saga the

hero Rama marries Sita, the furrow of the field. 2 To

the same group of ideas belongs the Chinese custom of

the Emperor ploughing a furrow at his ascension to the

throne. This idea of the soil being feminine also em-

braces the idea of continual companionship with the

woman, a physical communication. Shiva, the Phallic

God, is, like Mahadeva and Parwati, male and female.

He has even given one-half of his body to his consort

Parwati as a dwelling place. 3 Inman 4 gives us a drawing

of a Pundite of Ardanari-Iswara; one-half of the god

is masculine, the other half feminine, and the genitals

are in continuous cohabitation. The motive of continu-

ous cohabitation is expressed in a well-known lingam

symbol, which is to be found everywhere in Indian

temples; the base is a female symbol, and within that is

the phallus. 5 The symbol approaches very closely the

Grecian mystic phallic basket and chests. (Compare with

this the Eleusinian mysteries.) The chest or box is here

a female symbol, that is, the mother's womb. This is a

very well-known conception in the old mythologies. 6 The

chest, basket or little basket, with its precious contents,

was thought of as floating on the water; a remarkable

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 237

inversion of the natural fact that the child floats in the

amniotic fluid and that this is in the uterus.

This inversion brings about a great advantage for sub-

limation, for it creates enormous possibilities of appli-

cation for the myth-weaving phantasy, that is to say, for

the annexation to the sun cycle. The Sun floats over the

sea like an immortal god, which every evening is im-

mersed in the maternal water and is born again renewed

in the morning. Frobenius says:

" Perhaps in connection with the blood-red sunrise, the idea

occurs that here a birth takes place, the birth of a young son ; the

question then arises inevitably, whence comes the paternity? How

has the woman become pregnant? And since this woman sym-

bolizes the same idea as the fish, which means the sea, (because

we proceed from the assumption that the Sun descends into the

sea as well as arises from it) thus the curious primitive answer

is that this sea has previously swallowed the old Sun. Conse-

quently the resulting myth is, that the woman (sea) has formerly

devoured the Sun and now brings a new Sun into the wprld, and

thus she has become pregnant."

All these sea-going gods are* sun symbols. They are

enclosed in a chest or an ark for the " night journey on

the sea" (Frobenius), often together with a woman

(again an inversion of the actual situation, but in sup-

port of the motive of continuous cohabitation, which we

have met above). During the night journey on the sea

the Sun-god is enclosed in the mother's womb, often-

times threatened by dangers of all kinds. Instead of

many individual examples, I will content myself with re-

238 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

producing the scheme which Frobenius has constructed

from numberless myths of this sort :

f Heat-hair

, *rut _ East \ TO slip out

To devour < TQ

___

*ocment (sea j

To land

,

Frobenius gives the following legend to illustrate this :

"A hero is devoured by a water monster in the West (to

devour). The animal carries him within him to the East (sea

journey). Meanwhile, he kindles a fire in the belly of the

monster (to set on fire) and since he feels hungry he cuts off a piece

of the hanging heart (to cut off the heart). Soon after he notices

that the fish glides upon the dry land (to land) ; he immediately

begins to cut open the animal from within outwards (to open)

then he slides out (to slip out). In the fish's belly, it had been

so hot, that all his hair had fallen out (heat-hair). The hero

frequently frees all who were previously devoured (to devour all)

and all now slide out (slip out)."

A very close parallel is Noah's journey during the

flood, in which all living creatures die ; only he and the life

guarded by him are brought to a new birth. In a Mela-

polynesian legend (Frobenius) it is told that the hero in

the belly of the King Fish took his weapon and cut open

the fish's belly. " He slid out and saw a splendor, and

he sat down and reflected. * I wonder where I am,' he

said. Then the sun rose with a bound and turned from

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 239

one side to the other." The Sun has again slipped out

Frobenius mentions from the Ramayana the myth of

the ape Hanuman, who represents the Sun-hero. The

sun in which Hanuman hurries through the air throws a

shadow upon the sea. The sea monster notices this and

through this draws Hanuman toward itself ; when the latter

sees that the monster is about to devour him, he stretches

out his figure immeasurably; the monster assumes the

same gigantic proportions. As he does that Hanuman

becomes as small as a thumb, slips into the great body

of the monster and comes out on the other side. In an-

other part of the poem it is said that he came out from

the right ear of the monster (like Rabelais' Gargantua,

who also was born from the mother's ear). " Hanuman

thereupon resumes his flight, and finds a new obstacle in

another sea monster, which is the mother of Rahus, the

sun-devouring demon. The latter draws Hanuman's

shadow 7 to her in the same way. Hanuman again has

recourse to the earlier stratagem, becomes small and slips

into her body, but hardly is he there than he grows to a

gigantic mass, swells up, tears her, kills her, and in that

way makes his escape."

Thus we understand why the Indian fire-bringer Ma-

tariqvan is called " the one swelling in the mother "; the

ark (little box, chest, cask, vessel, etc.) is a symbol of

the womb, just as is the sea, into which the Sun sinks

for rebirth. From this circle of ideas we understand the

mythologic statements about Ogyges; he it is who pos-

sesses the mother, the City, who is united with the mother;

therefore under him came the great flood, for it is a

240 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

typical fragment of the sun myth that the hero, when

united with the woman attained with difficulty, is exposed

in a cask and thrown into the sea, and then lands for a

new life on a distant shore. The middle part, the " night

journey on the sea " in the ark, is lacking in the tradition

of Ogyges. 8 But the rule in mythology is that the typical

parts of a myth can be united in all conceivable varia-

tions, which adds greatly to the extraordinary difficulty

of the interpretation of a particular myth without knowl-

edge of all the others. The meaning of this cycle of

myths mentioned here is clear; it is the longing to attain

rebirth through the return to the mother's womb, that is

to say, to become as immortal as the sun. This longing

for the mother is frequently expressed in our holy scrip-

tures. 9 I recall, particularly the place in the epistle

to the Galatians, where it is said (iv: 26) :

(26) "But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the

mother of us all.

(27) " For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that beareth not:

break forth and cry, thou that travailest not : for the desolate hath

many more children than she which hath an husband.

(28) " Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of

promise.

(29) " But as he that was born after the flesh persecuted him

that was born after the spirit, even so it is now.

(30) " Nevertheless, what sayeth the scripture? Cast out the

bondwoman and her son; for the son of a bondwoman shall not

be heir with the son of a freewoman.

(31) "So, then, brethren, we are not children of the bond-

woman, but of the free."

Chapter v:

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 241

( I ) " Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ

has made us free."

The Christians are the children of the City Above, a

symbol of the mother, not sons of the earthly city-mother,

who is to be cast out; for those born after the flesh are

opposed to those born after the spirit, who are not born

from the mother in the flesh, but from a symbol for

the mother. One must again think of the Indians at this

point, who say the first people proceeded from the sword-

hilt and a shuttle. The religious thought is bound up with

the compulsion to call the mother no longer mother, but

City, Source, Sea, etc. This compulsion can be derived

from the need to manifest an amount of libido bound up

with the mother, but in such a way that the mother is

represented by or concealed in a symbol. The symbolism

of the city we find well-developed in the revelations of

John, where two cities play a great part, one of which

is insulted and cursed by him, the other greatly desired.

We read in Revelation (xvii: i) :

1 i ) " Come hither : I will shew unto thee the judgment of

the great whore that sitteth on many waters.

(2) " With whom the kings of the earth have committed forni-

cation and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk

with the wine of her fornication.

(3) " So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness:

and I saw a woman sit on a scarlet colored beast, full of the

names of blasphemy, and having seven heads and ten horns.

(4) " And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colors,

and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a

golden cup 10 in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of

her fornication.

(5) "And upon her forehead was a name written: Mystery.

242 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Babylon the great. The Mother of Harlots and Abominations

of the Earth.

(6) " And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of saints,

and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her

I wondered with a great admiration."

Here follows an interpretation of the vision unintel-

ligible to us, from which we can only emphasize the point

that the seven heads 1J of the dragon means the seven

hills upon which the woman sits. This is probably a dis-

tinct allusion to Rome, the city whose temporal power

oppressed the world at the time of the Revelation. The

waters upon which the woman u the mother " sits are

" peoples and throngs and nations and tongues." This

also seems to refer to Rome, for she is the mother of

peoples and possessed all lands. Just as in common

speech, for example, colonies are called daughters, so

the people subject to Rome are like members of a family

subject to the mother. In another version of the picture,

the kings of the people, namely, the fathers, commit

fornication with this mother. Revelation continues

(xviii: 2) :

(2) " And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Baby-

lon the Great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of

devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every

unclean and hateful bird.

(3) "For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath

of her fornication."

Thus this mother does not only become the mother of

all abominations, but also in truth the receptacle of all

that is wicked and unclean. The birds are images of

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 243

souls; 12 therefore, this means all souls of the condemned

and evil spirits. Thus the mother becomes Hecate, the

underworld, the City of the damned itself. We recog-

nize easily in the ancient idea of the woman on the

dragon, 13 the above-mentioned representation of Echnida,

the mother of the infernal horrors. Babylon is the idea

of the " terrible " mother, who seduces all people to

whoredom with devilish temptation, and makes them

drunk with her wine. The intoxicating drink stands in

the closest relation to fornication, for it is also a libido

symbol, as we have already seen in the parallel of fire

and sun. After the fall and curse of Babylon, we find in

Revelation (xix:6-7) the hymn which leads from the

under half to the upper half of the mother, where now

everything is possible which would be impossible without

the repression of incest:

(6) "Alleluia, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

(7) " Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for

the marriage of the Lamb is come, 14 and his wife hath made

herself ready.

(8) "And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in

fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness

of saints.

(9) " And he saith unto me, ' Write, Blessed are they which

are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.' "

The Lamb is the son of man who celebrates his mar-

riage with the " woman." Who the " woman " is re-

mains obscure at first. But Revelation (xxi: 9) shows us

which " woman " is the bride, the Lamb's wife:

(9) " Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's

wife. 15

244 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

( 10) " And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and

high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem,

descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God."

It is evident from this quotation, after all that goes be-

fore, that the City, the heavenly bride, who is here

promised to the Son, is the mother. 16 In Babylon the

impure maid was cast out, according to the Epistle to the

Galatians, so that here in heavenly Jerusalem the mother-

bride may be attained the more surely. It bears witness

to the most delicate psychologic perception that the

fathers of the church who formulated the canons pre-

served this bit of the symbolic significance of the Christ

mystery. It is a treasure house for the phantasies and

myth materials which underlie primitive Christianity. 17

The further attributes which were heaped upon the heav-

enly Jerusalem make its significance as mother over-

whelmingly clear :

1 i ) " And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear

as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

(2) "In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of

the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner

of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of

the tree were for the healing of nations.

(3) "And there shall be no more curse."

In this quotation we come upon the symbol of the

waters, which we found in the mention of Ogyges in con-

nection with the city. The maternal significance of water

belongs to the clearest symbolism in the realm of my-

thology, 18 so that the ancients could say: rj BdXaGGa

rrjs yevtffe&g avpftoXov.* From water comes life ; 19

*The sea is the symbol of birth.

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 245

therefore, of the two gods which here interest us the most,

Christ and Mithra, the latter was born beside a river,

according to representations, while Christ experienced his

new birth in the Jordan; moreover, he is born from the

Tlriyrt the " sempiterni fons amoris," the mother of

God, who by the heathen-Christian legend was made a

nymph of the Spring. The " Spring " is also found in

Mithracism. A Pannonian dedication reads, " Fonti

perenni." An inscription in Apulia is dedicated to the

" Fons Aeterni." In Persia, Ardvigura is the well of the

water of life. Ardvicjara-Anahita is a goddess of water

and love (just as Aphrodite is born from foam). The

neo-Persians designate the Planet Venus and a nubile girl

by the name " Nahid." In the temples of Anaitis there

existed prostitute Hierodules (harlots). In the Sakaeen

(in honor of Anaitis) there, occurred ritual combats as

in the festival of the Egyptian Ares and his mother. In

the Vedas the waters are called Matritamah the most

maternal. 20 All that is living rises as does the sun, from

the water, and at evening plunges into the water. Born

from the springs, the rivers, the seas, at death man arrives

at the waters of the Styx in order to enter upon the

" night journey on the sea." The wish is that the black

water of death might be the water of life; that death,

with its cold embrace, might be the mother's womb, just

as the sea devours the sun, but brings it forth again out

of the maternal womb (Jonah motive 21 ). Life believes

not in death.

" In the flood of life, in the torrent of deeds,

I toss up and down,

246 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

I am blown to and fro!

Cradle and grave,

An eternal sea;

A changing web,

A glowing life." Goethe: Faust.

That Zv\ov 2Goi??,the wood of life, or the tree of life, is

a maternal symbol would seem to follow from the pre-

vious deductions. The etymologic connection of vco,

v^rf, vws, in the Indo-Germanic root suggests the blend-

ing of the meanings in the underlying symbolism of

mother and of generation. The tree of life is probably,

first of all, a fruit-bearing genealogical tree, that is, a

mother-image. Countless myths prove the derivation of

man from trees; many myths show how the hero is en-

closed in the maternal tree thus dead Osiris in the

column, Adonis in the myrtle, etc. Numerous female

divinities were worshipped as trees, from which resulted

the cult of the holy groves and trees. It is of transparent

significance when Attis castrates himself under a pine

tree, i. e. he does it because of the mother. Goddesses

were often worshipped in the form of a tree or of a

wood. Thus Juno of Thespiae was a branch of a tree,

Juno of Samos was a board. Juno of Argos was a

column. The Carian Diana was an uncut piece of wood.

Athene of Lindus was a polished column. Tertullian

calls Ceres of Pharos- " rudis palus et informe lignum

sine effigie." Athenaeus remarks of Latona at Dalos that

she is gvXivov ajjiopcpov, a shapeless piece of wood. 22

Tertullian calls an Attic Pallas " crucis stipes," a wooden

pale or mast. The wooden pale is phallic, as the name

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 247

suggests, (pdhrfS, Pallus. The (pa\\6$ is a pale, a cere-

monial lingam carved out of figwood, as are all Roman

statues of Priapus. Qahos means a projection or centre-

piece on the helmet, later called H&VOS, just as dva-

<pa\-arTiaffi? signifies baldheadedness on the forepart

of the head, and (paXaxpoz signifies baldheadedness in re-

gard to the (pakoS-K&vos of the helmet; a semi-phallic

meaning is given to the upper part of the head as well. 25

$ak\r)vos has, besides (pak\os, the significance of

." wooden "ipaX-dyyat/JUx," cylinder "i<pdXay 9 " a round

beam/' The Macedonian battle array, distinguished by

its powerful impetus, is called (pdhay$ moreover, the

finger-joint 24 is called cpdXayZ. <pd\\aiv a or (pdXaiva

is a whale. Now tpdkot appears with the meaning

" shining, brilliant." The Indo-Germanic root is bhale

= to bulge, to swell. 25 Who does not think of Faust?

" It grows, it shines, increases in my hand ! "

That is primitive libido symbolism, which shows how

immediate is the connection between phallic libido and

light. The same relations are found in the Rigveda in

Rudra's utterances.

Rigveda I, 114, 3:

"May we obtain your favor, thou man ruling, Oh urinating

Rudra."

I refer here to the previously mentioned phallic sym-

bolism of Rudra in the Upanishads :

(4) "We call for help below to the flaming Rudra, to the

one bringing the sacrifice; him who encircles and wanders (wan-

dering in the vault of Heaven) to the seer."

248 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

2, 33, 5:

" He who opens up the sweet, who listens to our calls, the

ruddy one, with the beautiful helmet, may he not give us over

to the powers of jealousy.

(6) "I have been rejoiced by the bull connected with Marut,

the supplicating one with strong force of life.

(8) " Sound the powerful song of praise to the ruddy bull to

the white shining one; worship the flaming one with honor, we

sing of the shining being Rudra.

" May Rudra's missile (arrow) not be used on us, may the

great displeasure of the shining one pass us by: Unbend the firm

(bow or hard arrow?) for the princes, thou who blessest with

the waters of thy body (generative strength), be gracious to our

children and grandchildren." 26

In this way we pass from the realm of mother sym-

bolism imperceptibly into the realm of male phallic

symbolism. This element also lies in the tree, even in

the family tree, as is distinctly shown by the mediaeval

family trees. From the first ancestor there grows up-

ward, in the place of the " membrum virile," the trunk

of the great tree. The bisexual symbolic character of the

tree is intimated by the fact that in Latin trees have a

masculine termination and a feminine gender. 27 The

feminine (especially the maternal) meaning of the forest

and the phallic significance of trees in dreams is well

known. I mention an example.

It concerns a woman who had always been nervous,

and who, after many years of marriage, became ill as a

result of the typical retention of the libido. She had the

following dream after she had learned to know a young

man of many engaging free opinions who was very pleas-

ing to her: She found herself in a garden where stood

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 249

a remarkable exotic tree with strange red fleshy flowers

or fruits. She picked them and ate them. Then, to her

horror, she felt that she was poisoned. This dream idea

may easily be understood by means of the antique or

poetic symbolism, so I can spare information as to the

analytic material.

The double significance of the tree is readily explained

by the fact that such symbols are not to be understood

" anatomically " but psychologically as libido symbols;

therefore, it is not permissible to interpret the tree on

account of its similar form as directly phallic; it can also

be called a woman or the uterus of the mother. The

uniformity of the significance lies alone in the similarity

to the libido. 28 One loses one's way in one " cul de sac "

after another by saying that this is the symbol substituted

for the mother and that for the penis. In this realm

there is no fixed significance of things. The only reality

here is the libido, for which " all that is perishable is

merely a symbol." It is not the physical actual mother,

but the libido of the son, the object of which was once

the mother. We take mythologic symbols much too con-

cretely and wonder at every step about the endless con*

tradictions. These contradictions arise only because we

constantly forget that in the realm of phantasy " feeling

is all." Whenever we read, therefore, t( his mother was

a wicked sorcerer," the translation is as follows: The

son is in love with her, namely, he is unable to detach his

libido from the mother-imago; he therefore suffers from

incestuous resistance.

The symbolism of water and trees, which are met with

250 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

as further attributes in the symbol of the City, also refer

to that amount of libido which unconsciously is fastened

to the mother-imago. In certain parts of Revelation

the unconscious psychology of religious longing is re-

vealed, namely, the longing for the mother. 29 The ex-

pectation of Revelation ends in the mother: nal nav

Haradejjia OVH elffrai STI. (" and there shall be no more

curse "). There shall be no more sins, no repression, no

disharmony with one's self, no guilt, no fear of death and

no pain of separation more !

Thus Revelation echoes that same radiant mystical

harmony which was caught again 2,000 years later and

expressed poetically in the last prayer of Dr. Marianus :

" Penitents, look up, elate,

Where she beams salvation;

Gratefully to blessed fate

Grow, in recreation!

Be our souls, as they have been,

Dedicate to thee!

Virgin Holy, Mother, Queen,

Goddess, gracious be!" Goethe: Faust.

One principal question arisec at the sight of this beauty

and greatness of feeling, that is, whether the primary

tendency compensated by religion is not too narrowly

understood as incestuous. I have previously observed in

regard to this that I consider the " resistance opposed to

libido " as in a general way coincident with the incest pro-

hibition. I must leave open for the present the definition

of the psychological incest conception. However, I will

here emphasize the point that it is most especially the

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 251

totality of the sun myth which proves to us that the

fundamental basis of the " incestuous " desire does not

aim at cohabitation, but at the special thought of becom-

ing a child again, of turning back to the parent's protec-

tion, of coming into the mother once more in order to be

born again. But incest stands in the path to this goal,

that is to say, the necessity of in some way again gaining

entrance into the mother's womb. One of the simplest

ways would be to impregnate the mother, and to repro-

duce one's self identically. But here the incest prohibition

interferes; therefore, the myths of the sun or of rebirth

teem with all possible proposals as to how incest can be

evaded. A very simple method of avoidance is to trans-

form the mother into another being or to rejuvenate 30

her after birth has occurred, to have her disappear again

or have her change back. It is not incestuous cohabita-

tion which is desired, but the rebirth, which now is at-

tained most readily through cohabitation. But this is

not the only way, although perhaps the original one. The

resistance to the incest prohibition makes the phantasy

inventive; for example, it was attempted to impregnate

the mother by means of a magic charm of fertility (to

wish for a child). Attempts in this respect remain in

the stage of mythical phantasies; but they have one re-

sult, and that is the exercise of the phantasy which

gradually produces paths through the creation of phan-

tastic possibilities, in which the libido, taking an active

part, can flow off. Thus the libido becomes spiritualized

in an imperceptible manner. The power " which always

wishes evil " thus creates a spiritual life. Therefore, in

252 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

religions, this course is now raised to a system. On that

account it is exceedingly instructive to see how religion

takes pains to further these symbolic transferences. 31

The New Testament furnishes us with an excellent ex-

ample in regard to this. Nicodemus, in the speech re-

garding rebirth, cannot forbear understanding the matter

very realistically.

John iii: 4:

(4) " How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter

a second time into his mother's womb, and be born ? "

But Jesus endeavors to raise into purity the sensuous

view of Nicodemus's mind moulded in materialistic

heaviness, and announces to him really the same and

yet not the same :

(5) " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of

water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of

God.

(6) "That which is born of the flesh is flesh: and that which

is born of the spirit is spirit.

(7) " Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born

again.

(8) " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the

sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither

it goeth ; so is everyone that is born of the spirit."

To be born of water means simply to be born from the

mother's womb. To be born of the spirit means to be

born from the fructifying breath of the wind; this we

learn from the Greek text (where spirit and wind are ex-

pressed by the same word, nvev^a) TO yeyevvrjusvov

SH Tff? ffacpnoS ffap effTiv, uai TO yeyevvrj^evov en TOV

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 253

TtrevjucxTO? nvevjAa effnv. To 7tvevp.a OTTOV 6e\.ei TfveT,*

etc.

This symbolism rose from the same need as that which

produced the Egyptian legend of the vultures, the mother

symbol. They were only females and were fertilized by

the wind. One recognizes very clearly the ethical de-

mand as the foundation of these mythologic assertions:

thou must say of the mother that she was not Impreg-

nated by a mortal in the ordinary way, but by a spiritual

being in an unusual manner. This demand stands in

strict opposition to the real truth; therefore, the myth

is a fitting solution. One can say it was a hero who died

and was born again in a remarkable manner, and in this

way attained immortality. The need which this demand

asserts is evidently a prohibition against a definite phan-

tasy concerning the mother. A son may naturally think

that a father has generated him in a carnal way, but not

that he himself impregnated the mother and so caused

himself to be born again into renewed youth. This in-

cestuous phantasy which for some reason possesses an

extraordinary strength, 32 and, therefore, appears as a

compulsory wish, is repressed and, conforming to the

above demand, under certain conditions, expresses itself

again, symbolically, concerning the problem of birth, or

rather concerning individual rebirth from the mother.

In Jesus's challenge to Nicodemus we clearly recognize

this tendency: "Think not carnally or thou art carnal,

but think symbolically, then art thou spirit." It is evident

*That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of

the spirit is spirit; the spirit bloweth where it listeth.

254 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

how extremely educative and developing this compulsion

toward symbolism can be. Nicodemus would remain fixed

in low commonplaces if he did not succeed in raising him-

self through symbols above this repressed incestuous

desire. As a righteous philistine of culture, he probably

was not very anxious for this effort, because men seem

really to remain satisfied in repressing the incestuous

libido, and at best to express it by some modest religious

exercises. Yet it seems to be important, on the other

side, that man should not merely renounce and. repress

and thereby remain firmly fixed in the incestuous bond,

but that he should redeem those dynamic forces which

lie bound up in incest, in order to fulfil himself. For man

needs his whole libido, to fill out the boundaries of his

personality, and then, for the first time, he is in a condi-

tion to do his best. The paths by which man may mani-

fest his incestuously fixed libido seem to have been

pointed out by the religious mythologic symbols. On this

account Jesus teaches Nicodemus : " Thou thinkest of

thy incestuous wish for rebirth, but thou must think that

thou art born from the water and that thou art generated

by the breath of the wind, 33 and in this way thou shalt

share in eternal life."

Thus the libido which lies inactive in the incestuous

bond repressed and in fear of the law and the avenging

Father God can be led over into sublimation through the

symbol of baptism (birth from water) and of generation

(spiritual birth) through the symbol of the descent of the

Holy Ghost. Thus man becomes a child 34 again and is

born into a circle of brothers and sisters; but his mother

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 255

is the "communion of the saints," the -church, and his

circle of brothers and sisters is humanity, with whom he is

united anew in the common inheritance of the primitive

symbol.

It seems that at the time in which Christianity had its

origin this process was especially necessary; for that

period, as the result of the incredible contrast between

slavery and the freedom of the citizens and masters, had

entirely lost the consciousness of the common bond of

mankind. One of the next and most essential reasons for

the energetic regression to the infantile in Christianity,

which goes hand in hand with the revival of the incest

problem, was probably to be found in the far-reaching

depreciation of women. At that time sexuality was so

easily attainable that the result could only be a very ex-

cessive depreciation of the sexual object. The existence

of personal values was first discovered by Christianity,

and there are many people who have not discovered it

even in the present day. However, the depreciation of

the sexual object hinders the outflow of that libido which

cannot be satisfied by sexual activity, because it belongs

to an already desexualized higher order. (If it were

not so, a Don Juan could never be neurotic; but the con-

trary is the case.) For how might those higher valua-

tions be given to a worthless, despised object? There-

fore, the libido, after having seen a " Helen in every

woman " for so long a time, sets out on a search for the

difficult to obtain, the worshipped, but perhaps unattain-

able, goal, and which in the unconscious is the mother.

Therefore the symbolic needs, based on the incest resist

256 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

ance, arise again in an increased degree, which promptly

transforms the beautiful, sinful world of the Olympian

Gods into incomprehensible, dreamlike, dark mysteries,

which, with their accessions of symbols and obscure mean-

ingful texts, remove us very far from the religious

feelings of that Roman-Graeco world. When we see

how much trouble Jesus took to make acceptable to Nico-

demus the symbolic perception of things, that is to say,

really a repression and veiling over of the actual facts,

and how important it was for the history of civilization

in general, that people thought and still think in this

way, then we understand the revolt which is raised every-

where against the psychologic discovery of the true back-

ground of the neurotic or normal symbolism. Always

and everywhere we encounter the odious realm of sexual-

ity, which represents to all righteous people of to-day

something defiled. However, less than 2,000 years have

passed since the religious cult of sexuality was more or

less openly in full bloom. To be sure, they were heathen

and did not know better, but the nature of religious power

does not change from cycle to cycle. If one has once re-

ceived an effectual impression of the sexual contents of

the ancient cults, and if one realizes oneself that the re-

ligious experience, that is, the union 35 with the God of

antiquity, was understood by antiquity as a more or less

concrete coitus, then truly one can no longer fancy that

the motor forces of a religion have suddenly become

wholly different since the birth of Christ. Exactly the

same thing has occurred as with the hysteric who at first

indulges in some quite unbeautiful, infantile sexual mani-

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 257

festations and afterwards develops a hyperaesthetic nega-

tion in order to convince every one of his special purity.

Christianity, with its repression of the manifest sexual, is

the negative of the ancient sexual cult. The original cult

has changed its tokens. 36 One only needs to realize how

much of the gay paganism, even to the inclusion of un-

seemly Gods, has been taken into the Christian church.

Thus the old indecent Priapus celebrated a gay festival of

resurrection in St. Tychon. 37 Also partly in the physicians

Sts. Kosma and Damien, who graciously condescended to

accept the " membra virilia " in wax at their festival. 38

St. Phallus of old memories emerges again to be wor-

shipped in country chapels, to say nothing of the rest of

the paganism!

There are those who have not yet learned to recognize

sexuality as a function equivalent to hunger and who,

therefore, consider it as disgraceful that certain taboo

institutions which were considered as asexual refuges are

now recognized as overflowing with sexual symbolism.

Those people are doomed to the painful realization that

such is still the case, in spite of their great revolt. One

must learn to understand that, opposed to the customary

habit of thought, psychoanalytic thinking reduces and

resolves those symbolic structures which have become

more and more complicated through countless elabora-

tion. This means a course of reduction which would

be an intellectual enjoyment if the object were different.

But here it becomes distressing, not only aesthetically, but

apparently also ethically, because the repressions which

are to be overcome have been brought about by our best

258 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

intentions. We must commence to overcome our virtu-

ousness with the certain fear of falling into baseness on

the other side. This is certainly true, for virtuousness is

always inwardly compensated by a great tendency towards

baseness; and how many profligate* are there who in-

wardly preserve a mawkish virtue and moral megalo-

mania? Both categories of men turn out to be snobs

when they come in contact with analytic psychology, be-

cause the moral man has imagined an objective and cheap

verdict on sexuality and the unmoral man is entirely un-

aware of the vulgarity of his sexuality and of his inca-

pacity for an unselfish love. One completely forgets that

one can most miserably be carried away, not only by a

vice, but also by a virtue. There is a fanatic orgiastic

self-righteousness which is just as base and which entails

just as much injustice and violence as a vice.

At this time, when a large part of mankind is begin-

ning to discard Christianity, it is worth while to under-

stand clearly why it was originally accepted. It was ac-

cepted in order to escape at last from the brutality of

antiquity. As soon as we discard it, licentiousness re-

turns, as impressively exemplified by life in our large

modern cities. This step is not a forward step, but a

backward one. It is as with individuals who have laid

aside one form of transference and have no new one.

Without fail they will occupy regressively the old path

of transference, to their great detriment, because the

world around them has since then essentially changed.

He who is repelled by the historical and philosophical

weakness of the Christian dogmatism and the religious

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 259

emptiness of an historical Jesus, of whose person we know

nothing and whose religious value is partly Talmudic,

partly Hellenic wisdom, and discards Christianity, and

therewith Christian morality, is certainly confronted with

the ancient problem of licentiousness. Today the indi-

vidual still feels himself restrained by the public hypo-

critical opinion, and, therefore, prefers to lead a secret,

separate life, but publicly to represent morality. It

might be different if men in general all at once found the

moral mask too dull, and if they realized how danger-

ously their beasts lie in wait for each other, and then

truly a frenzy of demoralization might sweep over hu-

manity. This is the dream, the wish dream, of the

morally limited man of today; he forgets necessity, which

strangles men and robs them of their breath, and which

with a stern hand interrupts every passion.

It must not be imputed to me that I am wishing to

refer the libido back by analytical reduction to the primi-

tive, almost conquered, stages, entirely forgetting the fear-

ful misery this would entail for humanity. Indeed, some

individuals would let themselves be transported by the

old-time frenzy of sexuality, from which the burden of

guilt has been removed, to their own greatest detriment.

But these are the ones who under other circumstances

would have prematurely perished in some other way.

However, I well know the most effectual and most inex-

orable regulator of human sexuality. This is necessity.

With this leaden weight human lust will never fly too

high.

To-day there are countless neurotics who are so simply

2 6o PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

because they do not know how to seek happiness in their

own manner. They do not even realize where the lack

lies. And besides these neurotics there are many more

normal people and precisely people of the higher type

who feel restricted and discontented. For all these re-

duction to the sexual elements should be undertaken, in

order that they may be reinstated into the possession of

their primitive self, and thereby learn to know and value

its relation to the entire personality. In this way alone

can certain requirements be fulfilled and others be re-

pudiated as unfit because of their infantile character. In

this way the individual will come to realize that certain

things are to be sacrificed, although they are accom-

plished, but in another sphere. We imagine that we have

long renounced, sacrificed and cut off our incest wish,

and that nothing of it is left. But it does not occur to us

that this is not true, but that we unconsciously commit

incest in another territory. In religious symbols, for

example, we come across incest. 39 We consider the in-

cestuous wish vanished and lost, and then rediscover it

in full force in religion. This process or transformation

has taken place unconsciously in secular development.

Just as in Part I it is shown that a similar unconscious

transformation of the libido is an ethically worthless pose,

and with which I compared the Christianity of early

Roman antiquity, where evidently licentiousness and bru-

tality were strongly resisted, so here I must remark in

regard to the sublimation of the incestuous libido, that

the belief in the religious symbol has ceased to be an

ethical ideal: but it is an unconscious transformation of

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 261

the incest wish into symbolic acts and symbolic concepts

which cheat men, as it were, so that heaven appears to

them as a father and earth as a mother and the people

upon it children and brothers and sisters. Thus man can

remain a child for all time and satisfy his incest wish all

unawares. This state would doubtless be ideal 40 if it were

not infantile and, there fore, merely a one-sided wish, which

maintains a childish attitude. The reverse is anxiety.

Much is said of pious people who remain unshaken in

their trust in God and wander unswervingly safe and

blessed through the world. I have never seen this Chid-

her yet. It is probably a wish figure. The rule is great

uncertainty among believers, which they drown with

fanatical cries among themselves or among others ; more-

over, they have religious doubts, moral uncertainty,

doubts of their own personality, feelings of guilt and,

deepest of all, great fear of the opposite aspect of reality,

against which the most highly intelligent people struggle

with all their force. This other side is the devil, the

adversary or, expressed in modern terms, the corrective

of reality, of the infantile world picture, which has been

made acceptable through the predominating pleasure

principle. 41 But the world is not a garden of God, of

the Father, but a place of terrors. Not only is heaven

no father and earth no mother and the people not

brothers nor sisters, but they represent hostile, destroy-

ing powers, to which we are abandoned the more surely,

the more childishly and thoughtlessly we have entrusted

ourselves to the so-called Fatherly hand of God. One

should never forget the harsh speech of the first Na-

262 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

poleon, that the good God is always on the side of the

heaviest artillery.

The religious myth meets us here as one of the greatest

and most significant human institutions which, despite

misleading symbols, nevertheless gives man assurance and

strength, so that he may not be overwhelmed by the

monsters of the universe. The symbol, considered from

the standpoint of actual truth, is misleading, indeed, but

it is psychologically true* 2 because it was and is the bridge

to all the greatest achievements of humanity.

But this does not mean to say that this unconscious

way of transformation of the incest wish into religious

exercises is the only one or the only possible one. There

is also a conscious recognition and understanding with

which we can take possession of this libido which is

bound up in incest and transformed into religious exer-

cises so that we no longer need the stage of religious

symbolism for this end. It is thinkable that instead of

doing good to our fellow-men, for " the love of Christ,"

we do it from the knowledge that humanity, even as our-

selves, could not exist if, among the herd, the one could

not sacrifice himself for the other. This would be the

course of moral autonomy, of perfect freedom, when man

could without compulsion wish that which he must do,

and this from knowledge, without delusion through be-

lief in the religious symbols.

It is a positive creed which keeps us infantile and,

therefore, ethically inferior. Although of the greatest

significance from the cultural point of view and of im-

perishable beauty from the aesthetic standpoint, this

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 263

delusion can no longer ethically suffice humanity striving

after moral autonomy.

The infantile and moral danger lies in belief in the

symbol because through that we guide the libido to an

imaginary reality. The simple negation of the symbol

changes nothing, for the entire mental disposition re-

mains the same ; we merely remove the dangerous object.

But the object is not dangerous; the danger is our own

infantile mental state, for love of which we have lost

something very beautiful and ingenious through the

simple abandonment of the religious symbol. I think

belief should be replaced by understanding; then we

would keep the beauty of the symbol, but still remain

free from the depressing results of submission to belief.

This would be the psychoanalytic cure for belief and dis-

belief.

The vision following upon that of the city is that of a

" strange fir tree with gnarled branches." This vision

does not seem extraordinary to us after all that we have

learned of the tree of life and its associations with the

city and the waters of life. This especial tree seems

simply to continue the category of the mother symbols.

The attribute " strange " probably signifies, as in dreams,

a special emphasis, that is, a special underlying complex

material. Unfortunately, the author gives us no indi-

vidual material for this. As the tree already suggested

in the symbolism of the city is particularly emphasized

through the further development of Miss Miller's visions

264 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

here, I find it necessary to discuss at some length the his-

tory of the symbolism of the tree.

It is well known that trees have played a large part in

the cult myth from the remotest times. The typical myth

tree is the tree of paradise or of life which we discover

abundantly used in Babylonian and also in Jewish lore;

and in prechristian times, the pine tree of Attis, the tree

or trees of Mithra; in Germanic mythology, Ygdrasil

and so on. The hanging of the Attis image on the pine

tree; the hanging of Marsyas, which became a celebrated

artistic motive ; the hanging of Odin ; the Germanic hang-

ing sacrifices indeed, the whole series of hanged gods

teaches us that the hanging of Christ on the cross is not

a unique occurrence in religious mythology, but belongs

to the same circle of ideas as others. In this world of

imagery the cross of Christ is the tree of life, and equally

the wood of death. This contrast is not astounding.

Just as the origin of man from trees was a legendary idea,

so there were also burial customs, in which people were

buried in hollow trees. From that the German language

retains even now the expression " Totenbaum " (tree of

death) for a coffin. Keeping in mind the fact that the

tree is predominantly a mother symbol, then the mystic

significance of this manner of burial can be in no way

incomprehensible to us. The dead are delivered back to

the mother for rebirth. We encounter this symbol in

the Osiris myth, handed down by Plutarch, 43 which is, in

general, typical in various aspects. Rhea is pregnant with

Osiris; at the same time also with Isis; Osiris and Isis

mate even in the mother's womb (motive of the night

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 265

journey on the sea with incest). Their son is Arueris,

later called Horus. It is said of Isis that she was born

"in absolute humidity" (rsraprr^ 6s rfjv "laiv ev navv-

ypoi? yevssdai *). It is said of Osiris that a certain Pa-

myles in Thebes heard a voice from the temple of Zeus

while drawing water, which commanded him to proclaim

that Osiris was born }iyas fiaffiXevz evspysnj? "OGipis.\

In honor of this the Pamylion were celebrated. They

were similar to the phallophorion. Pamyles is a phallic

'demon, similar to the original Dionysus. The myth re-

duced reads: Osiris and Isis were generated by phallus

from the water (mother womb) in the ordinary manner.

(Kronos had made Rhea pregnant, the relation was

secret, and Rhea was his sister. Helios, however, ob-

served it and cursed the relation.) Osiris was killed in

a crafty manner by the god of the underworld, Typhon,

who locked him in a chest. He was thrown into the Nile,

and so carried out to sea. Osiris, however, mated in the

underworld with his second sister, Nephthys (motive of

the night journey to the sea with incest). One sees here

how the symbolism is developed. In the mother womb,

before the outward existence, Osiris commits incest; in

death, the second intrauterine existence, Osiris again com-

mits incest. Both times with a sister who is simply sub-

stituted for the mother as a legal, uncensured symbol,

since the marriage with a sister in early antiquity was not

merely tolerated, but was really commended. Zara-

thustra also recommended the marriage of kindred. This

* In the fourth place Isis was born in absolute humidity,

t The great beneficent king, Osiris.

266 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

form of myth would be impossible to-day, because co-

habitation with the sister, being incestuous, would be

repressed. The wicked Typhon entices Osiris craftily

into a box or chest; this distortion of the true state of

affairs is transparent. The u original sin " caused men to

wish to go back into the mother again, that is, the in-

cestuous desire for the mother, condemned by law, is the

ruse supposedly invented by Typhon. The fact is, the

ruse is very significant. Man tries to sneak into rebirth

through subterfuge in order to become a child again.

An early Egyptian hymn 44 even raises an accusation

against the mother Isis because she destroys the sun-god

Re by treachery. It was interpreted as the ill-will of the

mother towards her son that she banished and betrayed

him. The hymn describes how Isis fashioned a snake,

put it in the path of Re, and how the snake wounded the

sun-god with a poisonous bite, from which wound he

never recovered, so that finally he had to retire on the

back of the heavenly cow. But this cow is the cow-

headed goddess, just as Osiris is the bull Apis. The

mother is accused as if she were the cause of man flying

to the mother in order to be cured of the wound which

she had herself inflicted. This wound is the prohibition

of incest. 45 Man is thus cut off from the hopeful cer-

tainty of childhood and early youth, from all the uncon-

scious, instinctive happenings which permit the child to

live as an appendage of his parents, unconscious of him-

self. There must be contained in this many sensitive

memories of the animal age, where there was not any

" thou shalt " and " thou shalt not," but all was just

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 267

simple occurrence. Even yet a deep animosity seems to

live in man because a brutal law has separated him from

the instinctive yielding to his desires and from the great

beauty of the harmony of the animal nature. This sepa-

ration manifested itself, among other things, in the incest

prohibition and its correlates (laws of marriage, etc.) ;

therefore pain and anger relate to the mother, as if she

were responsible for the domestication of the sons of

men. In order not to become conscious of his incest wish

(his backward harking to the animal nature), the son

throws all the burden of the guilt on the mother, from

which arises the idea of the " terrible mother." 46 The

mother becomes for him a spectre of anxiety, a night-

mare. 47

After the completed " night journey to the sea, 1 ' the

chest of Osiris was cast ashore by Byblos, and lay in the

branches of an Erica, which grew around the coffin and

became a splendid tree. The king of the land had the

tree placed as a column under his roof. 48 During this

period of Osiris's absence (the winter solstice) the lament

customary during thousands of years for the dead god

and his return occurs, and its evpecri? is a feast of joy.

A passage from the mournful quest of Isis is especially

noteworthy :

" She flutters like a swallow lamenting around the column,

which encloses the god sleeping in death."

(This same motive returns in the Kyffhauser saga.)

Later on Typhon dismembers the corpse and scatters

the pieces. We come upon the motive of dismember-

268 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

ment in countless sun myths, 49 namely, the inversion of

the idea of the composition of the child in the mother's

womb. 50 In fact, the mother Isis collects the pieces of

the body with the help of the jackal-headed Anubis. (She

finds the corpse with the help of dogs.) Here the noc-

turnal devourers of bodies, the dogs and jackals, become

the assistants of the composition, of the reproduction."

The Egyptian vulture owes its symbolic meaning as

mother to this necrophagic habit. In Persian antiquity the

corpses were thrown out for the dogs to devour, just as

to-day in the Indian funeral pyres the removal of the

carcasses is left to the vultures. Persia was familiar with

the custom of leading a dog to the bed of one dying,

whereupon the latter had to present the dog with a mor-

sel. 52 The custom, on its surface, evidently signifies that

the morsel is to belong to the dog, so that he will spare

the body of the dead, precisely as Cerberus was soothed

by the honey-cakes which Hercules gave to him in the

journey to hell. But when we bear in mind the jackal-

headed Anubis who rendered his good services in the

gathering together of the dismembered Osiris, and the

mother significance of the vulture, then the question arises

whether something deeper was not meant by this cere-

mony. Creuzer has also concerned himself with this idea,

and has come to the conclusion that the astral form of

the dog ceremony, that is, the appearance of Sirius, the

dog star, at the period of the sun's highest position, is

related to this in that the introduction of the dog has a

compensatory significance, death being thereby made, re-

FRUCTIFICATION FOLLOWING UPON THE MITHRAIC SACRIFICE

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 269

versedly, equal to the sun's highest position. This is

quite in conformity with psychologic thought, which re-

sults from the very general fact that death is interpreted

as entrance into the mother's womb (rebirth). This in-

terpretation would seem to be supported by the other-

wise enigmatic function of the dog in the Sacrificium

Mithriacum. In the monuments a dog always leaps up

upon the bull killed by Mithra. However, this sacrifice

is probably to be interpreted through the Persian legend,

as well as through the monument, as the moment of the

highest fecundity. The most beautiful expression of this

is seen upon the magnificent Mithra relief of Heddern-

heim. Upon one side of a large stone slab (formerly

probably rotating) is seen the stereotyped overthrowing

and sacrifice of the bull, but upon the other side stands

Sol, with a bunch of grapes in his hand, Mithra with

the cornucopia, the Dadophores with fruits, correspond-

ing to the legend that all fecundity proceeds from the

dead bull of the world, fruits from the horns, wine from

its blood, grain from the tail, cattle from its sperma, leek

from its nose, and so on. Silvanus stands above this

scene with the animals of the forest arising from him.

The significance suspected by Creuzer might very easily

belong to the dog in this connection. 53 Let us now turn

back to the myth of Osiris. In spite of the restoration of

the corpse accomplished by Isis, the resuscitation succeeds

only incompletely in so far as the phallus of Osiris cannot

again be produced, because it was eaten by the fishes;

the power of life was wanting. 54 Osiris as a phantom

once more impregnated Isis, but the fruit is Harpocrates,

270 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

who was feeble in TOIZ Haroodsv yviois (in the lower

limbs), that is, corresponding to the significance of

yvlov (at the feet). (Here, as is plainly evident, foot

is used in the phallic meaning.) This incurability of the

setting -sun corresponds to the incurability of Re in the

above-mentioned older Egyptian sun hymn. Osiris, al-

though only a phantom, now prepares the young sun, his

son Horus, for a battle with Typhon, the evil spirit of

darkness. Osiris and Horus correspond to the father-

son symbolism mentioned in the beginning, which sym-

bolic figure, corresponding again to the above formula-

tion, 55 is flanked by the well-formed and ugly figures of

Horus and Harpocrates, the latter appearing mostly as a

cripple, often represented distorted to a mere caricature. 58

He is confused in the tradition very much with Horus,

with whom he also has the name in common. Hor-pi-

chrud, as his real name 57 reads, is composed from chrud,

" child," and Hor, from the adjective hri up, on top,

and signifies the up-coming child, as the rising sun, and

opposed to Osiris, who personifies the setting sun the

sun of the west. Thus Osiris and Horpichrud or Horus

are one being, both husband and son of .the same mother,

Hathor-Isis. The Chnum-Ra, the sun god of lower

Egypt, represented as a ram, has at his side, as the female

divinity of the land, Hatmehit, who wears the fish on her

head. She is the mother and wife of Bi-neb-did (Ram,

local name of Chnum-Ra). In the hymn of Hibis, 58

Amon-ra was invoked:

"Thy (Chum-Ram) dwells in Mendes, united as the quad-

ruple god Thmuis. He is the phallus, the lord of the gods. The

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 271

bull of his mother rejoices in the cow (ahet, the mother) and

man fructifies through his semen."

In further inscriptions Hatmehit was directly referred

to as the " mother of Mendes." (Mendes is the Greek

form of Bi-neb-did: ram.) She is also invoked as the

" Good," with the additional significance of ta-nofert, or

" young woman." The cow as symbol of the mother is

found in all possible forms and variations of Hathor-

Isis, and also in the female Nun (parallel to this is the

primitive goddess Nit or Neith), the protoplasm which,

related to the Hindoo Atman, 59 is equally of masculine

and feminine nature. Nun is, therefore, invoked as

Amon, 60 the original water, 61 which is in the beginning.

He is also designated as the father of fathers, the mother

of mothers. To this corresponds the invocation to the

female side of Nun-Amon, of Nit or Neith.

" Nit, the ancient, the mother of god, the mistress of Esne,

the father of fathers, the mother of mothers, who is the beetle

and the vulture, the being in its beginning.

" Nit, the ancient, the mother who bore the light god, Ra,

who bore first of all, when there was nothing which brought forth.

" The cow, the ancient, which bore the sun, and then laid the

germ of gods and men."

The word " nun " has the significance of young, fresh,

new, also the on-coming waters of the Nile flood. In a

transferred sense " nun " was also used for the chaotic

primitive waters; in general for the primitive generating

matter 62 which was personified by the goddess Nunet.

From her Nut sprang, the goddess of heaven, who was

272 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

represented with a starry body, and also as the heavenly

cow with a starry body.

When the sun-god, little by little, retires on the back

of the heavenly cow, just as poor Lazarus returns into

Abraham's bosom, each has the same significance; they

return into the mother, in order to rise as Horus. Thus

it can be said that in the morning the goddess is the

mother, at noon the sister-wife and in the evening again

the mother, who receives the dying in her lap, reminding

us of the Fieri of Michelangelo. As shown by the illus-

tration (from Dideron's " Iconographie Chretienne "),

this thought has been transferred as a whole into Chris-

tianity.

Thus the fate of Osiris is explained: he passes into

the mother's womb, the chest, the sea, the tree, the

column of Astartes; he is dismembered, re-formed, and

reappears again in his son, Hor-pi-chrud.

Before entering upon the further mysteries which the

beautiful myth reveals to us, there is still much to be said

about the symbol of the tree. Osiris lies in the branches

of the tree, surrounded by them, as in the mother's womb.

The motive of embracing and entwining is often found

in the sun myths, meaning that it is the myth of rebirth.

A good example is the Sleeping Beauty, also the legend

of the girl who is enclosed between the bark and the

trunk, but who is freed by a youth with his horn. 63 The

horn is of gold and silver, which hints at the sunbeam in

the phallic meaning. (Compare the previous legend of

the horn.) An exotic legend tells of the sun-hero, how he

must be freed from the plant entwining around him. 64

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 273

A girl dreams of her lover who has fallen into the water;

she tries to save him, but first has to pull seaweed and

sea-grass from the water; then she catches him. In an

African myth the hero, after his act, must first be disen-

tangled from the seaweed. In a Polynesian myth the

hero's ship was encoiled by the tentacles of a gigantic

polyp. Re's ship is encoiled by a night serpent on its

night journey on the sea. In the poetic rendering of the

history of Buddha's birth by Sir Edwin Arnold ("The

Light of Asia," p. 5) the motive of an embrace is also

found :

" Queen Maya stood at noon, her days fulfilled,

Under a Palso in the palace grounds,

A stately trunk, straight as a temple shaft,

With crown of glossy leaves and fragrant blooms;

And knowing the time come for all things knew

The conscious tree bent down its boughs to make

A bower about Queen Maya's majesty:

And earth put forth a thousand sudden flowers

To spread a couch: while ready for the bath

The rock hard by gave out a limpid stream

Of crystal flow. So brought she forth the child." 65

We come across a very similar motive in the cult legend

of the Samian Hera. Yearly it was claimed that the

image disappeared from the temple, was fastened some-

where on the seashore on a trunk of a Lygos tree and

wound about with its branches. There it was u found,"

and was treated with wedding-cake. This feast is un-

doubtedly a iepo? ydfjios (ritual marriage), because in

Samos there was a legend that Zeus had first had a long-

continued secret love relation with Hera. In Plataea

274 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

and Argos, the marriage procession was represented with

bridesmaids, marriage feast, and so on. The festival took

place in the wedding month " raprfhiGov" (beginning of

February). But in Plataea the image was previously

carried into a lonely place in the wood; approximately

corresponding to the legend of Plutarch that Zeus had

kidnapped Hera and then had hidden her in a cave of

Cithaeron. According to our deductions, previously

made, we must conclude from this that there is still an-

other train of thought, namely, the magic charm of

rejuvenation, which is condensed in the Hierosgamos.

The disappearance and hiding in the wood, in the cave,

on the seashore, entwined in a willow tree, points to the

death of the sun and rebirth. The early springtime

Fa}Mi\iGov (the time of Marriage) in February fits in

with that very well. In fact, Pausanias informs us that

the Argivan Hera became a maiden again by a yearly

bath in the spring of Canathos. The significance of the

bath is emphasized by the information that in the

Plataeian cult of Hera Teleia, Tritonian nymphs appeared

as water-carriers. In a tale from the Iliad, where the

conjugal couch of Zeus upon Mount Ida is described, it is

said: 66

" The son of Saturn spake, and took his wife

Into his arms, while underneath the pair,

The sacred Earth threw up her freshest herbs:

The dewy lotos, and the crocus-flower,

And thick and soft the hyacinth. All these

Upbore them from the ground. Upon this couch

They lay, while o'er them a bright golden cloud

Gathered and shed its drops of glistening dew.

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 275

So slumbered on the heights of Gargarus

The All-Father overcome by sleep and love,

And held his consort in his arms."

Trans, by W. C. Bryant.

Drexler recognizes in this description an unmistakable

allusion to the garden of the gods on the extreme western

shore of the ocean, an idea which might have been taken

from a Prehomeric Hierosgamos hymn. This western

land is the land of the setting sun, whither Hercules,

Gilgamesh, etc., hasten with the sun, in order to find

there immortality, where the sun and the maternal sea

unite in an eternally rejuvenating intercourse. Our sup-

position of a condensation of the Hierosgamos with the

myth of rebirth is probably confirmed by this. Pausanias

mentions a related myth fragment where the statue of

Artemis Orthia is also called Lygodesma (chained with

willows), because it was found in a willow tree; this tale

seems to be related to the general Greek celebration of

Hierosgamos with the above-mentioned customs. 67

The motive of the u devouring " which Frobenius has

shown to be a regular constituent of the sun myths is

closely related to this (also metaphorically). The

"whale dragon' 1 (mother's womb) always "devours"

the hero. The devouring may also be partial instead of

complete.

A six-year-old girl, who goes to school unwillingly,

dreams that her leg is encircled by a large red worm.

She had a tender interest for this creature, contrary to

what might be expected. An adult patient, who cannot

separate from an older friend on account of an extraordi-

276 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

narily strong mother transference, dreams that " she had

to get across some deep water (typical idea!) with this

friend; her friend fell in (mother transference) ; she

tries to drag her out, and almost succeeds, but a large

crab seizes on the dreamer by the foot and tries to pull

her in."

Etymology also confirms this conception : There is an

Indo-Germanic root velu-, vet-, with the meaning of u en-

circling, surrounding, turning." From this is derived

Sanskrit val, valati = to cover, to surround, to encircle,

to encoil (symbol of the snake) ; valli = creeping plant;

uluta = boa-constrictor = Latin voliitus, Lithuanian velu,

velti = wickeln (to roll up); Church Slavonian vlina

Old High German, wella = Welle (wave or billow) . To

the root velu also belongs the root vivo, with the mean-

ing " cover, corium, womb." (The serpent on account of

its casting its skin is an excellent symbol of rebirth.)

Sanskrit ulva, ulba has the same meaning; Latin volva,

volvula, vulva. To velu also belongs the root ulvord,

with the meaning of " fruitful field, covering or husk

of plants, sheath." Sanskrit urvdrd = sown field. Zend

urvara = plant. (See the personification of the ploughed

furrow.) The same root vel has also the meaning of

" wallen " (to undulate) . Sanskrit ulmuka conflagra-

tion. Fa\ea, Fs.\oL) Gothic vulan = wallen (to undulate).

Old High German and Middle High German walm =

heat, glow. 68 It is typical that in the state of " involu-

tion " the hair of the sun-hero always falls out from the

heat. Further the root vel is found with the meaning

41 to sound, 69 and to will, to wish " (libido!).

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 277

The motive of encoiling is mother symbolism. 70 This

is verified by the fact that the trees, for example, bring

forth again (like the whale in the legend of Jonah).

They do that very generally, thus in the Greek legend

the Mshiai vvjjupai* of the ash trees are the mothers of

the race of men of the Iron Age. In northern mythology,

Askr, the ash tree, is the primitive father. His wife,

Embla, is the " Emsige," the active one, and not, as was

earlier believed, the aspen. Askr probably means, in the

first place, the phallic spear of the ash tree. (Compare

the Sabine custom of parting the bride's hair with the

lance.) The Bundehesh symbolizes the first people,

Meschia and Meschiane, as the tree Reivas, one part of

which places a branch in a hole of the other part. The

material which, according to the northern myth, was ani-

mated by the god when he created men 71 is designated

as ire = wood, tree. 72 I recall also v\rj = wood, which in

Latin is called materia. In the wood of the " world-ash,"

Ygdrasil, a human pair hid themselves at the end of the

world, from whom sprang the race of the renewed

world. 73 The Noah motive is easily recognized in this

conception (the night journey on the sea) ; at the same

time, in the symbol of Ygdrasil, a mother idea is again

apparent. At the moment of the destruction of the world

the " world-ash " becomes the guardian mother, the tree

of death and life, one te fyxolmorf 9 1 74 This function of

rebirth of the " world-ash " also helps to elucidate the

representation met with in the Egyptian Book of the

*Mdian Virgins. t Pregnant.

278 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Dead, which is called u the gate of knowledge of the

soul of the East " :

" I am the pilot in the holy keel, I am the steersman who allows

no rest in the ship of Ra. 76 I know that tree of emerald green

from whose midst Ra rises to the height of the clouds." 76

Ship and tree of the dead (death ship and death tree)

are here closely connected. The conception is that Ra,

born from the tree, ascends (Osiris in the Erika). The

representation of the sun-god Mithra is probably ex-

plained in the same way. He is represented upon the

Heddernheim relief, with half his body arising from the

top of a tree. (In the same way numerous other monu-

ments show Mithra half embodied in the rock, and illus-

trate a rock birth, similar to Men.) Frequently there is

a stream near the birthplace of Mithra. This con-

glomeration of symbols is also found in the birth of

Aschanes, the first Saxon king, who grew from the Harz

rocks, which are in the midst of the wood 77 near a foun-

tain. 78 Here we find all the mother symbols united

earth, wood, water, three forms of tangible matter. We

can wonder no longer that in the Middle Ages the tree

was poetically addressed with the title of honor, " mis-

tress." Likewise it is not astonishing that the Christian

legend transformed the tree of death, the cross, into

the tree of life, so that Christ was often represented on

a living and fruit-bearing tree. This reversion of the

cross symbol to the tree of life, which even in Babylon

was an important and authentic religious symbol, is also

considered entirely probable by Zockler, 79 an authority

CHRIST ON THE TREE OF LIFE

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 279

on the history of the cross. The pre-Christian meaning

of the symbol does not contradict this interpretation; on

the contrary, its meaning is life. The appearance of the

cross in the sun worship (here the cross with equal arms,

and the swastika cross, as representative of the sun's

rays), as well as in the cult of the goddess of love (Isis

with the crux ansata, the rope, the speculum veneris 9 ,

etc. ) , in no way contradicts the previous historical mean-

ing. The Christian legend has made abundant use of this

symbolism.

The student of mediaeval history is familiar with the

representation of the cross growing above the grave of

Adam. The legend was that Adam was buried on Gol-

gotha. Seth had planted on his grave a branch of the

" paradise tree," which became the cross and tree of

death of Christ. 80 We all know that through Adam's

guilt sin and death came into the world, and Christ

through his death has redeemed us from the guilt. To

the question in what had Adam's guilt consisted it is said

that the unpardonable sin to be expiated by death was

that he dared to pick a fruit from the paradise tree. 81

The results of this are described in an Oriental legend.

One to whom it was permitted to cast one look into

Paradise after the fall saw the tree there and the four

streams. But the tree was withered, and in its branches

lay an infant. (The mother had become pregnant. 82 )

This remarkable legend corresponds to the Talmudic

tradition that Adam, before Eve, already possessed a

demon wife, by name Lilith, with whom he quarrelled for

mastership. But Lilith raised herself into the air through

28o PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

the magic of the name of God and hid herself in the sea.

Adam forced her back with the help of three angels. 83

Lilith became a nightmare, a Lamia, who threatened those

with child and who kidnapped the newborn child. The

parallel myth is that of the Lamias, the spectres of the

night, who terrified the children. The original legend is

that Lamia enticed Zeus, but the jealous Hera, however,

caused Lamia to bring only dead children into the world.

Since that time the raging Lamia is the persecutor of

children, whom she destroys wherever she can. This

motive frequently recurs in fairy tales, where the mother

often appears directly as a murderess or as a devourer

of men; 84 a German paradigm is the well-known tale of

Hansel and Gretel. Lamia is actually a large, voracious

fish, which establishes the connection with the whale-

dragon myth so beautifully worked out by Frobenius, in

which the sea monster devours the sun-hero for rebirth

and where the hero must employ every stratagem to con-

quer the monster. Here again we meet with the idea of

the " terrible mother " in the form of the voracious fish,

the mouth of death. 85 In Frobenius there are numerous

examples where the monster has devoured not only men

but also animals, plants, an entire country, all of which

are redeemed by the hero to a glorious rebirth.

The Lamias are typical nightmares, the feminine nature

of which is abundantly proven. 86 Their universal pecu-

liarity is that they ride upon their victims. Their coun-

terparts are the spectral horses which bear their riders

along in a mad gallop. One recognizes very easily in

these symbolic forms the type of anxious dream which,

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 281

as Riklin shows, 87 has already become important for the

interpretation of fairy tales through the investigation of

Laistner. 88 The typical riding takes on a special aspect

through the results of the analytic investigation of in-

fantile psychology; the two contributions of Freud and

myself 89 have emphasized, on one side, the anxiety sig-

nificance of the horse, on the other side the sexual mean-

ing of the phantasy of riding. When we take these expe-

riences into consideration, we need no longer be surprised

that the maternal " world-ash " Ygdrasil is called in Ger-

man " the frightful horse." Cannegieter 90 says of night-

mares :

" Abigunt eas nymphas (matres deas, mairas) hodie rustic! osse

capitis equini tectis injecto, cujusmodi ossa per has terras in

rusticorum villis crebra est animadvertere. Nocte autem ad con-

cubia equitare creduntur et equos fatigare ad longinqua itinera." *

The connection of nightmare and horse seems, at first

glance, to be present also etymologically nightmare and

mare. The Indo-Germanic root for mare is mark.

Mare is the horse, English mare; Old High German

mar ah (male horse) and meri'ha (female horse) ; Old

Norse merr (mar a = nightmare) ; Anglo-Saxon my re

(maira). The French " cauchmar " comes from calcare

= to tread, to step (of iterative meaning, therefore, " to

tread " or press down) . It was also said of the cock who

* Even to-day the country people drive off these nymphs (mother god-

desses, Maira) by throwing a bone of the head of a horse upon the roof

bones of this kind can often be seen throughout the land on the farm-

houses of the country people. By night, however, they are believed to ride

at the time of the first sleep, and they are believed to tire out their horses

by long journeys.

282 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

stepped upon the hen. This movement is also typical for

the nightmare; therefore, it is said of King Vanlandi,

" Mara trad han," the Mara trod on him in sleep even to

death. 91 A synonym for nightmare is the " troll " or

" treter " 92 (treader). This movement (calcare] is

proven again by the experience of Freud and myself with

children, where a special infantile sexual significance is

attached to stepping or kicking.

The common Aryan root mar means " to die " ; there-

fore, mara the " dead " or " death." From this results

mors, jwo'pof = fate (also juofpa? 93 ). As is well known,

the Nornes sitting under the " world-ash " personify fate

like Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. With the Celts the

conception of the Fates probably passes into that of

malres and matrons, which had a divine significance

among the Germans. A well-known passage in Julius

Caesar (" De Bello Gallico," i: 50) informs us of this

meaning of the mother :

" Ut matres familias eorum sortibus et vaticinationibus 9 * decla-

rarent, utrum prcelium committi ex usu esset, nee ne." *

In Slav mara means " witch " ; poln. mora demon,

nightmare; mor or more (Swiss-German) means " sow,"

also as an insult. The Bohemian mura means " night-

mare " and " evening moth, Sphinx." This strange con-

nection is explained through analysis where it often

occurs that animals with movable shells (Venus shell) or

wings are utilized for very transparent reasons as sym-

bols of the female genitals. 95 The Sphingina are the twi-

* That these matrons should declare by lots whether it would be to their

advantage or not to engage in battle.

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 283

light moths ; they, like the nightmare, come in the dark-

ness. Finally, it is to be observed that the sacred olive

tree of Athens is called " popia" (that was derived from

juo'pos). Halirrhotios wished to cut down the tree, but

killed himself with the axe in the attempt.

The sound resemblance of mar, mere with meer = sea

and Latin mare sea is remarkable, although etymologi-

cally accidental. Might it refer back to " the great primi-

tive idea of the mother " who, in the first place, meant to

us our individual world and afterwards became the sym-

bol of all worlds? Goethe said of the mothers: "They

are encircled by images of all creatures." The Chris-

tians, too, could not refrain from reuniting their mother

of God with water. " Ave Maris Stella " is the begin-

ning of a hymn to Mary. Then again it is the horses

of Neptune which symbolize the waves of the sea. It is

probably of importance that the infantile word ma-ma

(mother's breast) is repeated in its initial sound in all

possible languages, and that the mothers of two religious

heroes are called Mary and Maya. That the mother is

the horse of the child is to be seen most plainly in the

primitive custom of carrying the child on the back or let-

ting it ride on the hip. Odin hung on the " world-

ash," the mother, his " horse of terror." The Egyptian

sun-god sits on the back of his mother, the heavenly

cow.

We have already seen that, according to Egyptian con-

ceptions, Isis, the mother of god, played an evil trick on

the sun-god with the poisonous snake; also Isis behaved

treacherously toward her son Horus in Plutarch's tradi-

284 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

tion. That is, Horus vanquished the evil Typhon, who

murdered Osiris treacherously (terrible mother = Ty-

phon). Isis, however, set him free again. Horus there-

upon rebelled, laid hands on his mother and tore the regal

ornaments from her head, whereupon Hermes gave her

a cow's head. Then Horus conquered Typhon a second

time. Typhon, in the Greek legend, is a monstrous

dragon. Even without this confirmation it is evident that

the battle of Horus is the typical battle of the sun-hero

with the whale-dragon. Of the latter we know that it is

a symbol of the " dreadful mother," of the voracious

jaws of death, where men are dismembered and ground

up. 96 Whoever vanquishes this monster has gained a new

or eternal youth. For this purpose one must, in spite of

all dangers, descend into the belly of the monster 97 (jour-

ney to hell) and spend some time there. (Imprisonment

by night in the sea. )

The battle with the night serpent signifies, therefore,

the conquering of the mother, who is suspected of an in-

famous crime, that is, the betrayal of the son. A full

confirmation of the connection comes to us through the

fragment of the Babylonian epic of the creation, discov-

ered by George Smith, mostly from the library of Asur-

banipal. The period of the origin of the text was prob-

ably in the time of Hammurabi (2,000 B.C.). We

learn from this account of creation 98 that the sun-god Ea,

the son of the depths of the waters and the god of wis-

dom, 99 had conquered Apsu. Apsu is the creator of the

great gods (he existed in the beginning in a sort of trinity

with Tiamat the mother of gods and Mumu, his vizier) .

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 285

Ea conquered the father, but Tiamat plotted revenge.

She prepared herself for battle against the gods.

" Mother Hubur, who created everything,

Procured invincible weapons, gave birth to giant snakes

With pointed teeth, relentless in every way;

Filled their bellies with poison instead of blood,

Furious gigantic lizards, clothed them with horrors,

Let them swell with the splendor of horror, formed them rearing,

Whoever sees them shall die of terror.

Their bodies shall rear without turning to escape.

She arrayed the lizards, dragons and Lahamen,

Hurricanes, mad dogs, scorpion men,

Mighty storms, fishmen and rams.

With relentless weapons, without fear of conflict,

Powerful are Tiamat's commands, irresistible are they.

" After Tiamat Wad powerfully done her work

She conceived evil against the gods, her descendants;

In order to revenge Apsu, Tiamat did evil.

When Ea now heard this thing

He became painfully anxious, sorrowfully he sat himself.

He went to the father, his creator, Ansar,

To relate to him all that Tiamat plotted.

Tiamat, our mother, has taken an aversion to us,

Has prepared a riotous mob, furiously raging."

The gods finally opposed Marduk, the god of spring,

the victorious sun, against the fearful host of Tiamat.

Marduk prepared for battle. Of his chief weapon, which

he created, it is said:

" He created the evil wind, Imhullu, the south storm and the

hurricane,

The fourth wind, the seventh wind, the whirlwind and the

harmful wind,

Then let he loose the winds, which he had created, the seven:

To cause confusion within Tiamat, they followed behind him,

286 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Then the lord took up the cyclone, his great weapon ;

For his chariot he mounted the stormwind, the incomparable,

the terrible one."

His chief weapon is the wind and a net, with which he

will entangle Tiamat. He approaches Tiamat and chal-

lenges her to a combat.

" Then Tiamat and Marduk, the wise one of the gods, came to-

gether,

Rising for the fight, approaching to the battle:

Then the lord spread out his net and caught her.

He let loose the Imhullu in his train at her face,

Then Tiamat now opened her mouth as wide as she could.

He let the Imhullu rush in so that her lips could not close;

With the raging winds he filled her womb.

Her inward parts were seized and she opened wide her mouth.

He touched her with the spear, dismembered her body,

He slashed her inward parts, and cut out her heart,

Subdued her and put an end to her life.

He threw down her body and stepped upon it.'*

After Marduk slew the mother, he devised the crea-

tion of the world.

" There the lord rested contemplating her body,

Then divided he the Colossus, planning wisely.

He cut it apart like a flat fish, into two parts, 100

One half he took and with it he covered the Heavens."

In this manner Marduk created the universe from the

mother. It is clearly evident that the killing of the

mother-dragon here takes place under the idea of a wind

fecundation with negative accompaniments.

The world is created from the mother, that is to say,

from the libido taken away from the mother through sac-

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 287

rifice. We shall have to consider this significant formula

more closely in the last chapter. The most interesting

parallels to this primitive myth are to be found in the

literature of the Old Testament, as Gunkel 101 has bril-

liantly pointed out. It is worth while to trace the psy-

chology of these parallels.

Isaiah li : 9 :

(9) "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord;

awake as in the ancient days, in the generation of old. Art thou

not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon ?

(10) " Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of

the great deep, that hath made the depths of the sea a way for

the ransomed to pass over?"

The name of Rahab is frequently used for Egypt in

the Old Testament, also dragon. Isaiah, chapter xxx,

verse 7, calls Egypt " the silent Rahab," and means,

therefore, something evil and hostile. Rahab is the well-

known whore of Jericho, who later, as the wife of Prince

Salma, became the ancestress of Christ. Here Rahab

appeared as the old dragon, as Tiamat, against whose

evil power Marduk, or Jehovah, marched forth. The

expression " the ransomed " refers to the Jews freed

from bondage, but it is also mythological, for the hero

again frees those previously devoured by the whale.

(Frobenius.)

Psalm Ixxxix: 10:

" Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain."

Job xxvi: 12-13:

" He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding

he smiteth through the proud.

288 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

" By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens, his hand hath

formed the crooked serpent."

Gunkel places Rahab as identical with Chaos, that is,

the same as Tiamat. Gunkel translates " the breaking to

pieces " as " violation." Tiamat or Rahab as the mother

is also the whore. Gilgamesh treats Ischtar in this way

when he accuses her of whoredom. This insult towards

the mother is very familiar to us from dream analysis.

The dragon Rahab appears also as Leviathan, the water

monster (maternal sea).

Psalm Ixxiv:

(13) " Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest

the heads of the dragons in the waters.

(14) "Thou brakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and

gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

(15) "Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou

didst dry up mighty rivers."

While only the phallic meaning of the Leviathan was

emphasized in the first part of this work, we now discover

also the maternal meaning. A further parallel is:

Isaiah xxvii : I :

" In that day, the Lord with his cruel and great and strong

sword shall punish Leviathan, the piercing serpent, even Leviathan

that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the

We come upon a special motive in Job, chap, xli, v. i :

" Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? or his tongue

with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an hook

in his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? "

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 289

Numerous parallels to this motive are to be found

among exotic myths in Frobenius, where the maternal sea

monster was also fished for. The comparison of the

mother libido with the elementary powers of the sea

and the powerful monsters borne by the earth show how

invincibly great is the power of that libido which we des-

ignate as maternal.

We have already seen that the incest prohibition pre-

vents the son from reproducing himself through the

mother. But this must be done by the god, as is shown

with remarkable clearness and candor in the pious Egyp-

tian mythology, which has preserved the most ancient and

simple concepts. Thus Chnum, the " moulder," the

" potter," the " architect," moulds his egg upon the pot-

ter's wheel, for he is " the immortal growth," " the re-

production of himself and his own rebirth, the creator of

the egg, which emerged from the primitive waters." In

the Book of the Dead it says :

"I am the sublime falcon (the Sun-god), which has come

forth from his egg."

Another passage in the Book of the Dead reads :

" I am the creator of Nun, who has taken his place in the

underworld. My nest is not seen and my egg is not broken."

A further passage reads :

" that great and noble god in his egg: who is his own originator

of that which has arisen from him." 102

Therefore, the god Nagaga-uer is also called the

" great cackler." (Book of the Dead.) " I cackle like

290 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

a goose and I whistle like a falcon." The mother is re-

proached with the incest prohibition as an act of wilful

maliciousness by which she excludes the son from immor-

tality. Therefore, a god must at least rebel, overpower

and chastise the mother. (Compare Adam and Lilith,

above.) The "overpowering" signifies incestuous

rape. 103 Herodotus 104 has preserved for us a valuable

fragment of this religious phantasy.

" And how they celebrate their feast to Isis in the city of

Busiris, I have already previously remarked. After the sacrifice,

all of them, men and women, full ten thousand people, begin to

beat each other. But it would be sin for me to mention for whom

they do beat each other.

" But in Papremis they celebrated the sacrifice with holy actions,

as in the other places. About the time when the sun sets, some

few priests are busy around the image; most of them stand at

the entrance with wooden clubs, and others who would fulfil a

vow, more than a thousand men, also stand in a group with

wooden cudgels opposite them.

" Now on the eve of the festival, they take the image out in

a small and gilded temple into another sacred edifice. Then the

few who remain with the image draw a four-wheeled chariot upon

which the temple stands with the image which it encloses. But

the others who stand in the anterooms are not allowed to enter.

Those under a vow, who stand by the god, beat them off. Now

occurs a furious battle with clubs, in which they bruise each other's

bodies and as I believe, many even die from their wounds: not-

withstanding this, the Egyptians consider that none die.

" The natives claim that this festival gathering was introduced

for the following reason: in this sanctuary lived the mother .of

Ares. 105 Now Ares was brought up abroad and when he became

a man he came to have intercourse with his mother. The servants

of his mother who had seen him did not allow him to enter peace-

fully, but prevented him; at which he fetched people from an-

other city, who mistreated the servants and had entrance to his

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 291

mother. Therefore, they asserted that this slaughter was intro-

duced at the feast for Ares."

It is evident that the pious here fight their way to a share

in the mystery of the raping of the mother. 106 This is the

part which belongs to them, 107 while the heroic deed be-

longs to the god. 108 By Ares is meant the, Egyptian Typhon,

as we have good reasons to suppose. Thus Typhon rep-

resents the evil longing for the mother with which other

myth forms reproach the mother, according to the well-

known example. The death of Balder, quite analogous

to the death of Osiris (attack of sickness of Re), because

of the wounding by the branch of the mistletoe, seems to

need a similar explanation. It is recounted in the myth

how all creatures were pledged not to hurt Balder, save

only the mistletoe, which was forgotten, presumably be-

cause it was too young. This killed Balder. Mistletoe

is a parasite. The female piece of wood in the fire-boring

ritual was obtained 109 from the wood of a parasitical or

creeping plant, the fire mother. The " mare " rests upon

" Marentak," in which Grimm suspects the mistletoe.

The mistletoe was a remedy against barrenness. In Gaul

the Druid alone was allowed to climb the holy oak amid

solemn ceremonies after the completed sacrifice, in order

to cut off the ritual mistletoe. 110 This act is a religiously

limited and organized incest. That which grows on the

tree is the child, 111 which man might have by the mother;

then man himself would be in a renewed and rejuvenated

form; and precisely this is what man cannot have, because

the incest prohibition forbids it. As the Celtic custom

shows, the act is performed by the priest only, with the

292 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

observation of certain ceremonies; the hero god and the

redeemer of the world, however, do the unpermitted, the

superhuman thing, and through it purchase immortality.

The dragon, who must be overcome for this purpose,

means, as must have been for some time clearly seen, the

resistance against the incest. Dragon and serpent, espe-

cially with the characteristic accumulation of anxiety at-

tributes, are the symbolic representations of anxiety

which correspond to the repressed incest wish. It is,

therefore, intelligible, when we come across the tree with

the snake again and again (in Paradise the snake even

tempts to sin). The snake or dragon possesses in par-

ticular the meaning of treasure guardian and defender.

The phallic, as well as the feminine, meaning of the

dragon 112 indicates that it is again a symbol of the sexual

neutral (or bisexual) libido, that is to say, a symbol of the

libido in opposition. In this significance the black horse,

Apaosha, the demon of opposition, appears in the old

Persian song, Tishtriya, where it obstructs the sources

of the rain lake. The white horse Tishtriya makes two

futile attempts to vanquish Apaosha ; at the third attempt,

with the help of Ahuramazda, he is successful. 113 Where-

upon the sluices of heaven open and a fruitful rain pours

down upon the earth. 114 In this song one sees very beau-

tifully in the choice of symbol how libido is opposed to

libido, will against will, the discordance of primitive man

with himself, which he recognizes again in all the ad-

versity and contrasts of external nature.

The symbol of the tree encoiled by the serpent may

also be translated as the mother defended from incest

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 293

by resistance. This symbol is by no means rare upon

Mithraic monuments. The rock encircled by a snake is

to be comprehended similarly, because Mithra is one

born from a rock. The menace of the new-born by the

snake (Mithra, Hercules) is made clear through the

legend of Lilith and Lamia. Python, the dragon of Leto,

and Poine, who devastates the land of Crotopus, are sent

by the father of the new-born. This idea indicates the

localization, well known in psychoanalysis, of the incest

anxiety in the father. The father represents the active

repulse of the incest wish of the son. The crime, un-

consciously wished for by the son, is imputed to the father

under the guise of a pretended murderous purpose, this

being the cause of the mortal fear of the son for the

father, a frequent neurotic symptom. In conformity with

this idea, the monster to be overcome by the young hero

is frequently a giant, the guardian of the treasure or the

woman. A striking example is the giant Chumbaba in

the Gilgamesh epic, who protected the garden of

Ishtar; 115 he is overcome by Gilgamesh, whereby Ishtar

is won. Thereupon she makes erotic advances towards

Gilgamesh. 116 This data should be sufficient to render

intelligible the role of Horus in Plutarch, especially the

violent usage of Isis. Through overpowering the mother

the hero becomes equal to the sun; he reproduces him-

self. He wins the strength of the invincible sun, the

power of eternal rejuvenation. We thus understand a

series of representations from the Mithraic myth on the

Heddernheim relief. There we see, first of all, the birth

of Mithra from the top of the tree ; the next representa-

294 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

tion shows him carrying the conquered bull (comparable

to the monstrous bull overcome by Gilgamesh). This

bull signifies the concentrated significance of the monster,

the father, who as giant and dangerous animal embodies

the incest prohibition, and agrees with the individual

libido of the sun-hero, which he overcomes by self-sacri-

fice. The third picture represents Mithra, when he

grasps the head ornament of the sun, the nimbus. This

act recalls to us, first of all, the violence of Horus towards

Isis; secondly, the Christian basic thought, that those who

have overcome attain the crown of eternal life. On the

fourth picture Sol kneels before Mithra. These last two

representations show plainly that Mithra has taken to

himself the strength of the sun, so that he becomes the

lord of the sun as well. He has conquered " his animal

nature," the bull. The animal knows no incest prohibi-

tion; man is, therefore, man because he conquers the

incest wish, that is, the animal nature. Thus Mithra has

sacrificed his animal nature, the incest wish, and with that

has overcome the mother, that is to say, " the terrible

death-bringing mother." A solution is already antici-

pated in the Gilgamesh epic through the formal renuncia-

tion of the horrible Ishtar by the hero. The overcoming

of the mother in the Mithraic sacrifice, which had almost

an ascetic character, took place no longer by the archaic

overpowering, but through the renunciation, the sacrifice

of the wish. The primitive thought of incestuous repro-

duction through entrance into the mother's womb had

already been displaced, because man was so far advanced

in domestication that he believed that the eternal life of

BULL-SACRIFICE OF MITHRA

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 295

the sun is reached, not through the perpetration of incest,

but through the sacrifice of the incest wish. This impor-

tant change expressed in the Mithraic mystery finds its

full expression for the first time in the symbol of the

crucified God. A bleeding human sacrifice was hung on

the tree of life for Adam's sins. 117 The first-born sacri-

fices its life to the mother when he suffers, hanging on the

branch, a disgraceful and painful death, a mode of death

which belongs to the most ignominious forms of execution,

which Roman antiquity had reserved for only the lowest

criminal. Thus the hero dies, as if he had committed the

most shameful crime; he does this by returning into the

birth-giving branch of the tree of life, at the same time

paying for his guilt with the pangs of death. The animal

nature is repressed most powerfully in this deed of the

highest courage and the greatest renunciation; therefore,

a greater salvation is to be expected for humanity, be-

cause such a deed alone seems appropriate to expiate

Adam's guilt.

As has already been mentioned, the hanging of the

sacrifice on the tree is a generally widespread ritual cus-

tom, Germanic examples being especially abundant. The

ritual consists in the sacrifice being pierced by a spear. 118

Thus it is said of Odin (Edda, Havamal) :

" I know that I hung on the windswept tree

Nine nights through,

Wounded by a spear, dedicated to Odin

I myself to myself."

The hanging of the sacrifice to the cross also occurred

in America prior to its discovery. Miiller 119 mentions the

296 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Fejervaryian manuscript (a Mexican hieroglyphic kodex),

at the conclusion of which there is a colossal cross, in the

middle of which there hangs a bleeding divinity. Equally

interesting is the cross of Palenque ; 12 up above is a

bird, on either side two human figures, who look at the

cross and hold a child against it either for sacrifice or

baptism. The old Mexicans are said to have invoked the

favor of Centeotls, " the daughter of heaven and the

goddess of wheat," every spring by nailing upon the cross

a youth or a maiden and by shooting the sacrifice with

arrows. 121 The name of the Mexican cross signifies

11 tree of our life or flesh." 122

An effigy from the Island of Philae represents Osiris

in the form of a crucified god, wept over by Isis and

Nephthys, the sister consort. 123

The meaning of the cross is certainly not limited to

the tree of life, as has already been shown. Just as the

tree of life has also a phallic sub-meaning (as libido sym-

bol), so there is a further significance to the cross than

life and immortality. 124 Miiller uses it as a sign of rain

and of fertility, because it appears among the Indians

distinctly as a magic charm of fertility. It goes without

saying, therefore, that it plays a role in the sun cult. It

is also noteworthy that the sign of the cross is an impor-

tant sign for the keeping away of all evil, like the ancient

gesture of Manofica. The phallic amulets also serve the

same purpose. Zockler appears to have overlooked the

fact that the phallic Crux Ansata is the same cross which

has flourished in countless examples in the soil of an-

tiquity. Copies of this Crux Ansata are found in many

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 297

places, and almost every collection of antiquities pos-

sesses one or more specimens. 125

Finally, it must be mentioned that the form of the

human body is imitated in the cross as of a man with

arms outspread. It is remarkable that in early Christian

representations Christ is not nailed to the cross, but

stands before it with arms outstretched. 126 Maurice 127

gives a striking basis for this interpretation when he says :

" It is a fact not less remarkable than well attested, that the

Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the most stately

and beautiful tree as an emblem of the deity they adored, and

cutting off the side branches, they affixed two of the largest of

them to the highest part of the trunk, in such a manner that those

branches extended on each side like the arms of a man, and to-

gether with the body presented the appearance of a huge cross;

and in the bark in several places was also inscribed the letter T

(tau)." 128

" The tree of knowledge " of the Hindoo Dschaina

sect assumes human form; it was represented as a mighty,

thick trunk in the form of a human head, from the top

of which grew out two longer branches hanging down at

the sides and one short, vertical, uprising branch crowned

by a bud or blossom-like thickening. 129 Robertson in

his " Evangelical Myths " mentions that in the Assyrian

system there exists the representation of the divinity in

the form of a cross, in which the vertical beam corre-

sponds to a human form and the horizontal beam to a

pair of conventionalized wings. Old Grecian idols such,

for example, as were found in large numbers in Aegina

have a similar character, an immoderately long head and

298 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

arms slightly raised, wing-shaped, and in front distinct

breasts. 130

I must leave it an open question as to whether the

symbol of the cross has any relation to the two pieces

of wood in the religious fire production, as is frequently

claimed. It does appear, however, as if the cross symbol

actually still possessed the significance of " union," for

this idea belongs to the fertility charm, and especially to

the thought of eternal rebirth, which is most intimately

bound up with the cross. The thought of " union/' ex-

pressed by the symbol of the cross, is met with in

" Timaios " of Plato, where the world soul is conceived

as stretched out between heaven and earth in the form

of an X (Chi) ; hence in the form of a " St. Andrew's

cross." When we now learn, furthermore, that the

world soul contains in itself the world as a body, then this

picture inevitably reminds us of the mother.

(Dialogues of Plato. Jowett, Vol. II, page 528.)

" And in the center he put the soul, which he diffused through

the whole, and also spread over all the body round about, and

he made one solitary and only heaven, a circle moving in a circle,

having such excellence as to be able to hold converse with itself,

and needing no other friendship or acquaintance. Having these

purposes in view he created the world to be a blessed god."

This highest degree of inactivity and freedom from

desire, symbolized by the being enclosed within itself, sig-

nifies divine blessedness. The only human prototype of

this conception is the child in the mother's womb, or

rather more, the adult man in the continuous embrace of

the mother, from whom he originates. Corresponding to

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 299

this mythologic-philosophic conception, the enviable Dio-

genes inhabited a tub, thus giving mythologic expression

to the blessedness and resemblance to the Divine in his

freedom from desire. Plato says as follows of the bond

of the world soul to the world body :

" Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we

have spoken of them in this order ; for when he put them together

he would never have allowed that the elder should serve the

younger, but this is what we say at random, because we ourselves

too are very largely affected by chance. Whereas he made the

soul in origin and excellence prior to and older than the body,

to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the body was to be the

subject."

It seems conceivable from other indications that the

conception of the soul in general is a derivative of the

mother-imago, that is to say, a symbolic designation for

the amount of libido remaining in the mother-imago.

(Compare the Christian representation of the soul as the

bride of Christ.) The further development of the world

soul in " Timaios " takes place in an obscure fashion in

mystic numerals. When the mixture was completed the

following occurred :

" This entire compound he divided lengthways into two parts,

which he joined to one another at the center like the figure of

an X."

This passage approaches very closely the division and

union of Atman, who, after the division, is compared to

a man and a woman who hold each other in an embrace.

Another passage is worth mentioning:

300 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

" After the entire union of the soul had taken place, according

to the master's mind, he formed all that is corporeal within this,

and joined it together so as to penetrate it throughout."

Moreover, I refer to my remarks about the maternal

meaning of the world soul in Plotinus, in Chapter II.

A similar detachment of the symbol of the cross from a

concrete figure we find among the Muskhogean Indians,

who stretch above the surface of the water (pond or

stream) two ropes crosswise and at the point of intersec-

tion throw into the water fruits, oil and precious stones as

a sacrifice. 131 Here the divinity is evidently the water, not

the cross, which designates the place of sacrifice only,

through the point of intersection. The sacrifice at the

place of union indicates why this symbol was a primitive

charm of fertility, 132 why we meet it so frequently in the

prechristian era among the goddesses of love (mother

goddesses), especially among the Egyptians in Isis and

the sun-god. We have already discussed the continuous

union of these two divinities. As the cross (Tau [T],

Crux Ansata) always recurs in the hand of Turn, the

supreme God, the hegemon of the Ennead, it may not be

superfluous to say something more of the destination of

Turn. The Turn of On-Heliopolis bears the name " the

father of his mother " ; what that means needs no ex-

planation; Jusas or Nebit-Hotpet, the goddess joined to

him, was called sometimes the mother, sometimes the

daughter, sometimes the wife of the god. The day of

the beginning of autumn is designated in the Heliopolitan

inscriptions as the " festival of the goddess Jusasit," as

" the arrival of the sister for the purpose of uniting with

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 301

her father." It is the day in which " the goddess Mehnit

completes her work, so that the god Osiris may enter

into the left eye." (By which the moon is meant. 133 )

The day is also called the filling up of the sacred eye

with its needs. The heavenly cow with the moon eye,

the cow-headed Isis, takes to herself in the autumn

equinox the seed which procreates Horus. (Moon as

keeper of the seed.) The "eye" evidently represents

the genitals, as in the myth of Indra, who had to bear

spread over his whole body the likeness of Yoni (vulva) ,

on account of a Bathsheba outrage, but was so far par-

doned by the gods that the disgraceful likeness of Yoni

was changed into eyes. 134 The " pupil " in the eye is a

child. The great god becomes a child again; he enters

the mother's womb in order to renew himself. 135 In a

hymn it is said:

" Thy mother, the heavens, stretches forth her arms to thee."

In another place it is said :

"Thou shinest, oh father of the gods, upon the back of thy

mother, daily thy mother takes thee in her arms. When thou

illuminatest the dwelling of night, thou unitest with thy mother,

the heavens." 136

The Turn of Pitum-Heliopolis not only bears the Crux

Ansata as a symbol, but also has this sign as his most

frequent surname, that is, an* or ani, which means

" life " or " the living." He is chiefly honored as the

demon serpent, Agatho, of whom it is said, " The holy

demon serpent Agatho goes forth from the city Nezi."

The snake, on account of casting its skin, is the symbol

302 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

of renewal, as is the scarabseus, a symbol of the sun, of

whom it is said that he, being of masculine sex only, re-

produces himself.

The name Chnum (another name for Turn, always

meaning "the sun-god") comes from the verb jnum,

which means " to bind together, to unite." m Chnum

appears chiefly as the potter, the moulder of his egg.

The cross seems, therefore, to be an extraordinarily con-

densed symbol; its supreme meaning is that of the tree

of life, and, therefore, is a symbol of the mother. The

symbolization in a human form is, therefore, intelligible.

The phallic forms of the Crux Ansata belong to the ab-

stract meaning of " life " and " fertility," as well as to

the meaning of " union," which we can now very properly

interpret as cohabitation with the mother for the purpose

of renewal. 138 It is, therefore, not only a very touching

but also a very significant naive symbolism when Mary,

in an Old English lament of the Virgin, 139 accuses the cross

of being a false tree, which unjustly and without reason

destroyed " the pure fruit of her body, her gentle bird-

ling," with a poisonous draught, the draught of death,

which is destined only for the guilty descendants of the

sinner Adam. Her son was not a sharer in that guilt.

(Compare with this the cunning of Isis with the fatal

draught of love.) Mary laments :

" Cross, thou art the evil stepmother of my son, so high hast

thou hung him that I cannot even kiss his feet! Cross, thou art

my mortal enemy, thou hast slain my little blue bird! "

The holy cross answers :

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 303

" Woman, I thank thee for my honor: thy splendid fruit, which

now I bear, shines as a red blossom. 140 Not alone to save thee

but to save the whole world this precious flower blooms in thee." 141

Santa Crux says of the relation to each other of the

two mothers (Isis in the morning and Isis in the even-

ing) :

" Thou hast been crowned as Queen of Heaven on account of

the child, which thou hast borne. But I shall appear as the shining

relic to the whole world, at the day of judgment. I shall then

raise my lament for thy divine son innocently slain upon me."

Thus the murderous mother of death unites with the

mother of life in bringing forth a child. In their lament

for the dying God, and as outward token of their union,

Mary kisses the cross, and is reconciled to it. 142 The

naive Egyptian antiquity has preserved for us the union

of the contrasting tendencies in the mother idea of Isis.

Naturally this imago is merely a symbol of the libido of

the son for the mother, and describes the conflict be-

tween love and incest resistance. The criminal incestuous

purpose of the son appears projected as criminal cunning

in the mother-imago. The separation of the son from

the mother signifies the separation of man from the

generic consciousness of animals, from that infantile

archaic thought characterized by the absence of individual

consciousness.

It was only the power of the incest prohibition which

created the self-conscious individual,, who formerly had

been thoughtlessly one with the tribe, and in this way

alone did the idea of individual and final death become

304 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

possible. Thus through the sin of Adam death came into

the world. This, as is evident, is expressed figuratively,

that is, in contrast form. The mother's defence against

the incest appears to the son as a malicious act, which

delivers him over to the fear of death. This conflict faces

us in the Gilgamesh epic in its original freshness and

passion, where also the incest wish is projected onto the

mother.

The neurotic who cannot leave the mother has good

reasons; the fear of death holds him there. It seems as

if no idea and no word were strong enough to express

the meaning of this. Entire religions were constructed

in order to give words to the immensity of this conflict.

This struggle for expression which continued down

through the centuries certainly cannot have its source

in the restricted realm of the vulgar conception of incest.

Rather one must understand the law which is ultimately

expressed as " Incest prohibition " as coercion to domes-

tication, and consider the religious systems as institutions

which first receive, then organize and gradually sublimate,

the motor forces of the animal nature not immediately

available for cultural purposes.

We will now return to the visions of Miss Miller.

Those now following need no further detailed discussion.

The next vision is the image of a " purple bay." The

symbolism of the sea connects smoothly with that which

precedes. One might think here in addition of the

reminiscences of the Bay of Naples, which we came across

in Part I. In the sequence of the whole, however, we

must not overlook the significance of the " bay." In

SYMBOLISM OF MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 305

French it is called une bate, which probably corre-

sponds to a bay in the English text. It might be worth

while here to glance at the etymological side of this

idea. Bay is generally used for something which is open,

just as the Catalonian word badia (bai) comes from

badar, " to open." In French buyer means " to have the

mouth open, to gape." Another word for the same is

Meerbusen, " bay or gulf " ; Latin sinus, and a third word

is golf (gulf), which in French stands in closest relation

to gouffre = abyss. Golf is derived from " noXnos," 143

which also means " bosom " and " womb," " mother-

womb," also "vagina." It can also mean a fold of a

dress or pocket; it may also mean a deep valley between

high mountains. These expressions clearly show what

primitive ideas lie at their base. They render intelligible

Goethe's choice of words at that place where Faust wishes

to follow the sun with winged desire in order in the ever-

lasting day " to drink its eternal light " :

" The mountain chain with all its gorges deep,

Would then no more impede my godlike motion ;

And now before mine eyes expands the ocean,

With all its bays, in shining sleep ! "

Faust's desire, like that of every hero, inclines towards

the mysteries of rebirth, of immortality; therefore, his

course leads to the sea, and down into the monstrous

jaws of death, the horror and narrowness of which at

the same time signify the new day.

" Out on the open ocean speeds my dreaming:

The glassy flood before my feet is gleaming,

A new day beckons to a newer shore!

306 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

A fiery chariot borne on buoyant pinions,

Sweeps near me now! I soon shall ready be

To pierce the ether's high, unknown dominions,

To reach new spheres of pure activity!

This Godlike rapture, this supreme existence. . . .

" Yes, let me dare those gates to fling asunder,

Which every man would fain go slinking by!

'Tis time, through deeds this word of truth to thunder;

That with the height of God's Man's dignity may vie!

Nor from that gloomy gulf to shrink affrighted,

Where fancy doth herself to self-born pangs compel,

To struggle toward that pass benighted,

Around whose narrow mouth flame all the fires of Hell:

To take this step with cheerful resolution,

Though Nothingness should be the certain swift conclusion! "

It sounds like a confirmation, when the succeeding vision

of Miss Miller's is une falaise a pic, " a steep, precipi-

tous cliff." (Compare gouffre.) The entire series of

individual visions is completed, as the author observes,

by a confusion of sounds, somewhat resembling " wa-ma,

wa-ma." This has a very primitive, barbaric sound.

Since we learn from the author nothing of the subjective

roots of this sound, nothing is left us but the suspicion

that this sound might be considered, taken in connection

with the whole, as a slight mutilation of the well-known

call ma-ma.

CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE FROM

THE MOTHER

THERE now comes a pause in the production of visions

by Miss Miller; then the activity of the unconscious is

resumed very energetically.

A forest with trees and bushes appears.

After the discussions in the preceding chapter, there is

need only of a hint that the symbol of the forest coincides

essentially with the meaning of the holy tree. The holy

tree is found generally in a sacred forest inclosure or in

the garden of Paradise. The sacred grove often takes

the place of the taboo tree and assumes all the attributes

of the latter. The erotic symbolism of the garden is

generally known. The forest, like the tree, has mytho-

logically a maternal significance. In the vision which now

follows, the forest furnishes the stage upon which the

dramatic representation of the end of Chiwantopel is

played. This act, therefore, takes place in or near the

mother.

First, I will give the beginning of the drama as it is in

the original text, up to the first attempt at sacrifice. At

the beginning of the next chapter the reader will find the

continuation, the monologue and the sacrificial scene.

The drama begins as follows:

307

308 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

" The personage Chiwantopel, came from the south, on horse-

back; around him a cloak of vivid colors, red, blue and white. An

Indian in a costume of doe skin, covered with beads and ornamented

with feathers advances, squats down and prepares to let fly an

arrow at Chiwantopel. The latter presents his breast in an attitude

of defiance, and the Indian, fascinated by that sight, slinks away

and disappears within the forest."

The hero, Chiwantopel, appears on horseback. This

fact seems of importance, because as the further course

of the drama shows (see Chapter VIII) the horse plays

no indifferent role, but suffers the same death as the hero,

and is even called " faithful brother " by the latter.

These allusions point to a remarkable similarity between

horse and rider. There seems to exist an intimate con-

nection between the two, which guides them to the same

destiny. We already have seen that the symbolization of

" the libido in resistance " through the " terrible mother "

in some places runs parallel with the horse. 1 Strictly

speaking, it would be incorrect to say that the horse is, or

means, the mother. The mother idea is a libido symbol,

and the horse is also a libido symbol, and at some points

the two symbols intersect in their significances. The com-

mon feature of the two ideas lies in the libido, especially

in the libido repressed from incest. The hero and the

horse appear to us in this setting like an artistic formation

of the idea of humanity with its repressed libido, whereby

the horse acquires the significance of the animal uncon-

scious, which appears domesticated and subjected to the

will of man. Agni upon the ram, Wotan upon Sleipneir,

Ahuramazda upon Angromainyu, 2 Jahwe upon the mon-

strous seraph, Christ upon the ass, 3 Dionysus upon the

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 309

ass, Mithra upon the horse, Men upon the human-footed

horse, Freir upon the golden-bristled boar, etc., are

parallel representations. The chargers of mythology are

always invested with great significance; they very often

appear anthropomorphized. Thus, Men's horse has

human forelegs; Balaam's ass, human speech; the retreat-

ing bull, upon whose back Mithra springs in order to

strike him down, is, according to a Persian legend, actu-

ally the God himself. The mock crucifix of the Palatine

represents the crucified with an ass's head, perhaps in

reference to the ancient legend that in the temple of

Jerusalem the image of an ass was worshipped. As

Drosselbart (horse's mane) Wotan is half-human,

half-horse. 4 An old German riddle very prettily shows

this unity between horse and horseman. 5 " Who are the

two, who travel to Thing? Together they have three

eyes, ten feet 6 and one tail; and thus they travel over

the land." Legends ascribe properties to the horse, which

psychologically belong to the unconscious of man; horses

are clairvoyant and clairaudient; they show the way when

the lost wanderer is helpless; they have mantic powers.

In the Iliad the horse prophesies evil. They hear the

words which the corpse speaks when it is taken to the

grave words which men cannot hear. Caesar learned

from his human-footed horse (probably taken from the

identification of Caesar with the Phrygian Men) that he

was to conquer the world. An ass prophesied to Augustus

the victory of Actium. The horse also sees phantoms.

All these things correspond to typical manifestations of

the unconscious. Therefore, it is perfectly intelligible

310 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

that the horse, as the image of the wicked animal compo-

nent of man, has manifold connections with the devil.

The devil has a horse's foot; in certain circumstances a

horse's form. At crucial moments he suddenly shows a

cloven foot (proverbial) in the same way as in the abduc-

tion of Hadding, Sleipneir suddenly looked out from be-

hind Wotan's mantle. 7 Just as the nightmare rides on

the sleeper, so does the devil, and, therefore, it is said

that those who have nightmares are ridden by the devil.

In Persian lore the devil is the steed of God. The devil,

like all evil things, represents sexuality. Witches have

intercourse with him, in which case he appears in the

form of a goat or horse. The unmistakably phallic

nature of the devil is communicated to the horse as well;

hence this symbol occurs in connections where this is the

only meaning which would furnish an explanation. It is

to be mentioned that Loki generates in the form of a

horse, just as does the devil when in horse's form, as an

old fire god. Thus the lightning was represented therio-

morphically as a horse. 8 An uneducated hysteric told me

that as a child she had suffered from extreme fear of

thunder, because every time the lightning flashed she saw

immediately afterwards a huge black horse reaching up-

wards as far as the sky. 9 It is said in a legend that the

devil, as the divinity of lightning, casts a horse's foot

(lightning) upon the roofs. In accordance with the

primitive meaning of thunder as fertilizer of the earth,

the phallic meaning is given both to lightning and the

horse's foot. In mythology the horse's foot really has

the phallic function as in this dream. An uneducated

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 311

patient who originally had been violently forced to coitus

by her husband very often dreams (after separation)

that a wild horse springs upon her and kicks her in the

abdomen with his hind foot Plutarch has given us the

following words of a prayer from the Dionysus orgies:

\6eiv ?)pG)G AiovvGS "Akiov e? vaov ayvov GVV Xaplrsff-

ffiv &vaov rep fiotcp nodi dvoov, agie ravpe, agie ravps.* 10

Pegasus with his foot strikes out of the earth the

spring Hippocrene. Upon a Corinthian statue of Bel-

lerophon, which was also a fountain, the water flowed out

from the horse's hoof. Balder's horse gave rise to a

spring through his kick. Thus the horse's foot is the

dispenser of fruitful moisture. 11 A legend of lower

Austria, told by Jaehns, informs us that a gigantic man

on a white horse is sometimes seen riding over the moun-

tains. This means a speedy rain. In the German legend

the goddess of birth, Frau Holle, appears on horseback.

Pregnant women near confinement are prone to give oats

to a white horse from their aprons and to pray him to

give them a speedy delivery. It was originally the custom

for the horse to rub against the woman's genitals. The

horse (like the ass) had in general the significance of a

priapic animal. 12 Horse's tracks are idols dispensing

blessing and fertility. Horse's tracks established a claim,

and were of significance in determining boundaries, like

the priaps of Latin antiquity. Like the phallic Dactyli,

a horse opened the mineral riches of the Harz Moun-

* Come, O Dionysus, in thy temple of Elis, come with the Graces into

thy holy temple: come in sacred frenzy with the bull's foot.

3 i2 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

tains with his hoof. The horseshoe, an equivalent for

horse's foot, 13 brings luck and has apotropaic meaning.

In the Netherlands an entire horse's foot is hung up in

the stable to ward against sorcery. The analogous effect

of the phallus is well known; hence the phalli at the

gates. In particular the horse's leg turned lightning aside,

according to the principle " similia similibus."

Horses also symbolize the wind, that is to say, the

tertium comparationis is again the libido symbol. The

German legend recognizes the wind as the wild hunts-

man in pursuit of the maiden. Stormy regions frequently

derive their names from horses, as the White Horse

Mountain of the Liineburger heath. The centaurs are

typical wind gods, and have been represented as such by

Bocklin's artistic intuition. 14

Horses also signify fire and light. The fiery horses of

Helios are an example. The horses of Hector are called

Xanthos (yellow, bright), Podargos (swift-footed),

Lampos (shining) and Aithon (burning). A very pro-

nounced fire symbolism was represented by the mystic

Quadriga, mentioned by Dio Chrysostomus. The su-

preme God always drives his chariot in a circle. Four

horses are harnessed to the chariot. The horse driven

on the periphery moves very quickly. He has a shining

coat, and bears upon it the signs of the planets and the

Zodiac. 15 This is a representation of the rotary fire of

heaven. The second horse moves more slowly, and is

illuminated only on one side. The third moves still more

slowly, and the fourth rotates around himself. But once

the outer horse set the second horse on fire with his fiery

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 313

breath, and the third flooded the fourth with his stream-

ing sweat. Then the horses dissolve and pass over into

the substance of the strongest and most fiery, which now

becomes the charioteer. The horses also represent the

four elements. The catastrophe signifies the conflagra-

tion of the world and the deluge, whereupon the division

of the God into many parts ceases, and the divine unity

is restored. 16 Doubtless the Quadriga may be understood

astronomically as a symbol of time. We already saw in

the first part that the stoic representation of Fate is a

fire symbol. It is, therefore, a logical continuation of

the thought, when time, closely related to the conception

of destiny, exhibits this same libido symbolism. Brihada-

ranyaka-Upanishad, i: i, says:

" The morning glow verily is the head of the sacrificial horse,

the sun his eye, the wind his breath, the all-spreading fire his

mouth, the year is the belly of the sacrificial horse. The sky is

his back, the atmosphere the cavern of his body, the earth the vault

of his belly. The poles are his sides, in between the poles his ribs,

the seasons his limbs, the months and fortnights his joints. Days

and nights are his feet, stars his bones, clouds his flesh. The food

he digests is the deserts, the rivers are his veins, the mountains his

liver and lungs, the herbs and trees his hair; the rising sun is his

fore part, the setting sun his after part. The ocean is his kinsman,

the sea his cradle."

The horse undoubtedly here stands for a time symbol,

and also for the entire world. We come across in the

Mithraic religion, a strange God of Time, Aion,

called Kronos or Deus Leontocephalus, because his

stereotyped representation is a lion-headed man, who,

standing in a rigid attitude, is encoiled by a snake, whose

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

head projects forward from behind over the lion's

head. The figure holds in each hand a key, on the chest

rests a thunderbolt, upon his back are the four wings of

the wind; in addition to that, the figure sometimes bears

the Zodiac on his body. Additional attributes are a cock

and implements. In the Carolingian psalter of Utrecht,

which is based upon ancient models, the Saeculum-Aion is

represented as a naked man with a snake in his hand. As

is suggested by the name of the divinity, he is a symbol

of time, most interestingly composed from libido

symbols. The lion, the zodiac sign of the greatest sum-

mer heat, 17 is the symbol of the most mighty desire.

( u My soul roars with the voice of a hungry lion," says

Mechthild of Magdeburg.) In the Mithra mystery the

serpent is often antagonistic to the lion, corresponding to

that very universal myth of the battle of the sun with the

dragon.

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Turn is even desig-

nated as a he-cat, because as such he fought the snake,

Apophis. The encoiling also means the engulfing, the

entering into the mother's womb. Thus time is defined

by the rising and setting of the sun, that is to say, through

the death and renewal of the libido. The addition of the

cock again suggests time, and the addition of implements

suggests the creation through time. (" Duree creatrice,"

Bergson. ) Oromazdes and Ahriman were produced

through Zrwanakarana, the " infinitely long duration."

Time, this empty and purely formal concept, is expressed

in the mysteries by transformations of the creative power,

the libido. Macrobius says :

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 315

" Leonis capite monstratur praesens tempus quia conditio

ejus valida fervensque est." *

Philo of Alexandria has a better understanding:

" Tempus ab hominibus pessimis putatur deus volentibus Ens es-

sentiale abscondere pravis hominibus tempus putatur causa rerum

mundi, sapientibus vero et optimis non tempus sed Deus." f 18

In Firdusi 10 time is often the symbol of fate, the

libido nature of which we have already learned to recog-

nize. The Hindoo text mentioned above includes still

more its symbol of the horse contains the whole world;

his kinsman and his cradle is the sea, the mother, similar

to the world soul, the materna.1 significance of which we

have seen above. Just as Aion represents the libido in

an embrace, that is to say, in the state of death and of

rebirth, so here the cradle of the horse is the sea, i. e.

the libido is in the mother, dying and rising again, like

the symbol of the dying and resurrected Christ, who

hangs like ripe fruit upon the tree of life.

We have already seen that the horse is connected

through Ygdrasil with the symbolism of the tree. The

horse is also a " tree of death " ; thus in the Middle Ages

the funeral pyre was called St. Michael's horse, and the

neb-Persian word for coffin means u wooden horse." 20

The horse has also the role of psycho-pompos ; he is the

steed to conduct the souls to the other world horse-

*The present time is indicated by the head of the lion because his

condition is strong and impetuous.

fTime is thought by the wickedest people to be a divinity who de-

prives willing people of essential being; by good men it is considered to

be the Cause of the things of the world, but to the wisest and best it does

not seem time, but God,

316 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

women fetch the souls (Valkyries). Neo-Greek songs

represent Charon on a horse. These definitions obviously

lead to the mother symbolism. The Trojan horse was

the only means by which the city could be conquered; be-

cause only he who has entered the mother and been reborn

is an invincible hero. The Trojan horse is a magic

charm, like the " Nodfyr," which also serves to overcome

necessity. The formula evidently reads, " In order to

overcome the difficulty, thou must commit incest, and

once more be born from thy mother." It appears that

striking a nail into the sacred tree signifies something very

similar. The " Stock im Eisen " in Vienna seems to have

been such a palladium.

Still another symbolic form is to be considered. Occa-

sionally the devil rides upon a three-legged horse. The

Goddess of Death, Hel, in time of pestilence, also rides

upon a three-legged horse. 21 The gigantic ass, which is

three-legged, stands in the heavenly rain lake Vouru-

kasha ; his urine purifies the water of the lake, and from

his roar all useful animals become pregnant and all harm-

ful animals miscarry. The Triad further points to the

phallic significance. The contrasting symbolism of Hel is

blended into one conception in the ass of Vourukasha.

The libido is fructifying as well as destroying.

These definitions, as a whole, plainly reveal the funda-

mental features. The horse is a libido symbol, partly of

phallic, partly of maternal significance, like the tree. It

represents the libido in this application, that is, the libido

repressed through the incest prohibition.

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 317

In the Miller drama an Indian approaches the hero,

ready to shoot an arrow at him. Chiwantopel, however,

with a proud gesture, exposes his breast to the enemy.

This idea reminds the author of the scene between Cassius

and Brutus in Shakespeare's " Julius Caesar." A misun-

derstanding has arisen between the two friends, when

Brutus reproaches Cassius for withholding from him the

money for the legions. Cassius, irritable and angry,

breaks out into the complaint :

" Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come,

Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,

For Cassius is a-weary of the world :

Hated by one he loves: braved by his brother:

Check'd like a bondman ; all his faults observed:

Set in a note-book, learn'd and conn'd by rote,

To cast into my teeth. O I could weep

My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger,

And here my naked breast; within, a heart

Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold :

If that thou beest a Roman, take it forth:

I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart.

Strike, as thou didst at Caesar; for I know

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov'dst him better

Than ever thou lov'dst Cassius."

The material here would be incomplete without men-

tioning the fact that this speech of Cassius shows many

analogies to the agonized delirium of Cyrano (compare

Part I), only Cassius is far more theatrical and over-

drawn. Something childish and hysterical is in his man-

ner. Brutus does not think of killing him, but adminis-

ters a very chilling rebuke in the following dialogue :

318 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

BRUTUS: Sheathe your dagger:

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope :

Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor.

O CassiuSj you are yoked with a lamb

That carries anger as the flint bears fire :

Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,

And straight is cold again.

CASSIUS: Hath Cassius liv'd

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus

When grief and blood ill-tempered vexeth him?

BRUTUS: When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too.

CASSIUS: Do you confess so much ? Give me your hand.

BRUTUS: And my heart too.

CASSIUS: O Brutus!

BRUTUS:

What's the matter ?

CASSIUS : Have not you love enough to bear with me

When that rash humor which my mother gave me

Makes me forgetful?

BRUTUS s Yes, Cassius, and from henceforth

When you are over earnest with your Brutus,

He'll think your mother chides and leave you so.

The analytic interpretation of Cassius's irritability

plainly reveals that at these moments he identifies himself

with the mother, and his conduct, therefore, is truly femi-

nine, as his speech demonstrates most excellently. For his

womanish love-seeking and desperate subjection under

the proud masculine will of Brutus calls forth the friendly

remark of the latter, that Cassius is yoked with a lamb,

that is to say, has something very weak in his character,

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 319

which is derived from the mother. One recognizes in

this without any difficulty the analytic hall-marks of an

infantile disposition, which, as always, is characterized

by a prevalence of the parent-imago, here the mother-

imago. An infantile individual is infantile because he has

freed himself insufficiently, or not at all, from the child-

ish environment, that is, from his adaptation to his

parents. Therefore, on one side, he reacts falsely towards

the world, as a child towards his parents, always demand-

ing love and immediate reward for his feelings; on the

other side, on account of the close connection to the par-

ents, he identifies himself with them. The infantile indi-

vidual behaves like the father and mother. He is not in

a condition to live for himself and to find the place to

which he belongs. Therefore, Brutus very justly takes

it for granted that the " mother chides " in Cassius, not

he himself. The psychologically valuable fact which we

gather here is the information that Cassius is infantile

and identified with the mother. The hysterical behavior

is due to the circumstance that Cassius is still, in part, a

lamb, and an innocent and entirely harmless child. He

remains, as far as his emotional life is concerned, still far

behind himself. This we often see among people who,

as masters, apparently govern life and fellow-creatures;

they have remained children in regard to the demands of

their love nature.

The figures of the Miller dramas, being children of the

creator's phantasy, depict, as is natural, those traits of

character which belong to the author. The hero, the wish

figure, is represented as most distinguished, because the

320 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

hero always combines in himself all wished-for ideals.

Cyrano's attitude is certainly beautiful and impressive;

Cassius's behavior has a theatrical effect. Both heroes

prepare to die effectively, in which attempt Cyrano suc-

ceeds. This attitude betrays a wish for death in the un-

conscious of our author, the meaning of which we have

already discussed at length as the motive for her poem

of the moth. The wish of young girls to die is only an

indirect expression, which remains a pose, even in case

of real death, for death itself can be a pose. Such an

outcome merely adds beauty and value to the pose under

certain conditions. That the highest summit of life is

expressed through the symbolism of death is a well-known

fact; for creation beyond one's self means personal death.

The coming generation is the end of the preceding one.

This symbolism is frequent in erotic speech. The lascivi-

ous speech between Lucius and the wanton servant-maid

in Apuleius (" Metamorphoses," lib. ii: 32) is one of the

clearest examples :

" Proeliare, inquit, et fortiter proeliare : nee enim tibi cedam,

nee terga vortam. Cominus in aspectum, si vir es, dirige; et

grassare naviter, et occide moriturus. Hodierna pugna non habet

missionem. Simul ambo corruimus inter mutuos amplexus animas

anhelantes." *

This symbolism is extremely significant, because it

shows how easily a contrasting expression originates and

* "Fight," she said, " and fight bravely, for I will not give away an

inch nor turn my back. Face to face, come on if you are a man! Strike

home, do your worst and die! The battle this day is without quarter . . .

till, weary in body and mind, we lie powerless and gasping for breath

in each other's arms."

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 321

how equally intelligible and characteristic such an expres-

sion is. The proud gesture with which the hero offers

himself to death may very easily be an indirect expression

which challenges the pity or sympathy of the other, and

thus is doomed to the calm analytic reduction to which

Brutus proceeds. The behavior of Chiwantopel is also

suspicious, because the Cassius scene which serves as its

model betrays indiscreetly that the whole affair is merely

infantile and one which owes its origin to an overactive

mother imago. When we compare this piece with the

series of mother symbols brought to light in the previous

chapter, we must say that the Cassius scene merely con-

firms once more what we 'have long supposed, that is to

say, that the motor power of these symbolic visions arises

from an infantile mother transference, that is to say,

from an undetached bond to the mother.

In the drama the libido, in contradistinction to the in-

active nature of the previous symbols, assumes a threaten-

ing activity, a conflict becoming evident, in which the one

part threatens the other with murder. The hero, as the

ideal image of the dreamer, is inclined to die ; he does not

fear death. In accordance with the infantile character of

this hero, it would most surely be time for him to take his

departure from the stage, or, in childish language, to die.

Death is to come to him in the form of an arrow-wound.

Considering the fact that heroes themselves are very

often great archers or succumb to an arrow-wound (St.

Sebastian, as an example), it may not be superfluous to

inquire into the meaning of death through an arrow.

We read in the biography of the stigmatized nun Kath-

322 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

erine Emmerich 22 the following description of the evi-

dently neurotic sickness of her heart :

" When only in her novitiate, she received as a Christmas

present from the holy Christ a very tormenting heart trouble for

the whole period of her nun's life. God showed her inwardly

the purpose; it was on account of the decline of the spirit of the

order, especially for the sins of her fellow-sisters. But what

rendered this trouble most painful was the gift which she had

possessed from youth, namely, to see before her eyes the inner

nature of man as he really was. She felt the heart trouble

physically as if her heart was continually pierced by arrows. 23

These arrows and this represented the still worse mental suf-

fering she recognized as the thoughts, plots, secret speeches,

misunderstandings, scandal and uncharitableness, in which her

fellow-sisters, wholly without reason and unscrupulously, were

engaged against her and her god-fearing way of life."

It is difficult to be a saint, because even a patient and

long-suffering nature will not readily bear such a viola-

tion, and defends itself in its own way. The companion

of sanctity is temptation, without which no true saint can

live. We know from analytic experience that these

temptations can pass unconsciously, so that only their

equivalents would be produced in consciousness in the

form of symptoms. We know that it is proverbial that

heart and smart (Herz and Schmerz) rhyme. It is a

well-known fact that hysterics put a physical pain in place

of a mental pain. The biographer of Emmerich has com-

prehended that very correctly. Only her interpretation of

the pain is, as usual, projected. It is always the others

who secretly assert all sorts of evil things about her, and

this she pretended gave her the pains. 24 The case, how-

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 323

ever, bears a somewhat different aspect. The very diffi-

cult renunciation of all life's joys, this death before the

bloom, is generally painful, and especially painful are the

unfulfilled wishes and the attempts of the animal nature to

break through the power of repression. The gossip and

jokes of the sisters very naturally centre around these

most painful things, so that it must appear to the saint

as if her symptoms were caused by this. Naturally, again,

she could not know that gossip tends to assume the role

of the unconscious, which, like a clever adversary, always

aims at the actual gaps in our armor.

A passage from Gautama Buddha embodies this idea : 25

" A wish earnestly desired

Produced by will, and nourished

When gradually it must be thwarted,

Burrows like an arrow in the flesh."

The wounding and painful arrows do not come from

without through gossip, which only attacks externally,

but they come from ambush, from our own unconscious.

This, rather than anything external, creates the defense-

less suffering. It is our own repressed and unrecognized

desires which fester like arrows in our flesh. 26 In another

connection this was clear to the nun, and that most liter-

ally. It is a well-known fact, and one which needs no

further proof to those who understand, that these mystic

scenes of union with the Saviour generally are intermin-

gled with an enormous amount of sexual libido. 27 There-

fore, it is not astonishing that the scene of the stigmata

is nothing but an incubation through the Saviour, only

324 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

slightly changed metaphorically, as compared with the

ancient conception of " unio mystica," as cohabitation

with the god. Emmerich relates the following of her

stigmatization :

" I had a contemplation of the sufferings of Christ, and im-

plored him to let me feel with him his sorrows, and prayed five

paternosters to the honor of the five sacred wounds. Lying on

my bed with outstretched arms, I entered into a great sweetness

and into an endless thirst for the torments of Jesus. Then I saw

a light descending upon me: it came obliquely from above. It

was a crucified body, living and transparent, with arms extended,

but without a cross. The wounds shone brighter than the body;

they were five circles of glory, coming forth from the whole glory.

I was enraptured and my heart was moved with great pain and

yet with sweetness from longing to share in the torments of my

Saviour. And my longings for the sorrows of the Redeemer

increased more and more on gazing on his wounds, and passed

from my breast, through my hands, sides and feet to his holy

wounds: then from the hands, then from the sides, then from

the feet of the figure threefold shining red beams ending below

in an arrow, shot forth to my hands, sides and feet."

The beams, in accordance with the phallic fundamental

thought, are threefold, terminating below in an arrow-

point. 28 Like Cupid, the sun, too, has its quiver, full of

destroying or fertilizing arrows, sun rays, 29 which possess

phallic meaning. On this significance evidently rests the

Oriental custom of designating brave sons as arrows and

javelins of the parents. " To make sharp arrows " is an

Arabian expression for " to generate brave sons." The

Psalms declare (cxxvii:4) :

" Like as the arrows in the hands of the giant; even so are the

young children."

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 325

(Compare with this the remarks previously made

about " boys.") Because of this significance of the arrow

it is intelligible why the Scythian king Ariantes, when he

wished to prepare a census, demanded an arrow-head

from each man. A similar meaning attaches equally to

the lance. Men are descended from the lance, because

the ash is the mother of lances. Therefore, the men of

the Iron Age are derived from her. The marriage cus-

tom to which Ovid alludes (" Comat virgineas hasta

recurva comas" Fastorum, lib. ii:56o) has already

been mentioned. Kaineus issued a command that his

lance be honored. Pindar relates in the legend of this

Kaineus :

" He descended into the depths, splitting the earth with" a

straight foot." 80

He is said to have originally been a maiden named

Kainis, who, because of her complaisance, was trans-

formed into an invulnerable man by Poseidon. Ovid

pictures the battle of the Lapithae with the invulnerable

Kaineus; how at last they covered him completely with

trees, because they could not otherwise touch him. Ovid

says at this place :

" Exitus in dubio est : alii sub inania corpus

Tartara detrusum silvarum mole ferebant,

Abnuit Ampycides : medioque ex aggere f ulvis

Vidit avem pennis liquidas exire sub auras." *

*The result is doubtful: the body borne down by the weight of the

forest is carried into empty Tartaros: Ampycides denies this: from out

of the midst of the mass, he sees a bird with tawny feathers issue into

the liquid air.

326 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

Roscher considers this bird to be the golden plover

(Charadrius pluvialis), which borrows its name from the

fact that it lives in the xapadpa, a crevice in the earth.

By his song he proclaims the approaching rain. Kaineus

was changed into this bird.

We see again in this little myth the typical constituents

of the libido myth: original bisexuality, immortality (in-

vulnerability) through entrance into the mother (split-

ting the mother with the foot, and to become covered up)

and resurrection as a bird of the soul and a bringer of

fertility (ascending sun). When this type of hero causes

his lance to be worshipped, it probably means that his

lance is a valid and equivalent expression of him-

self.

From our present standpoint, we understand in a new

sense that passage in Job, which I mentioned in Chap-

ter IV of the first part of this book:

" He has set me up for his mark.

"His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins

asunder, and doth not spare: he poureth out my gall upon the

ground.

" He breaketh me with breach upon breach: he runneth upon

me like a giant." Job xvi: 12-13-14.

Now we understand this symbolism as an expression

for the soul torment caused by the onslaught of the un-

conscious desires. The libido festers in his flesh, a cruel

god has taken possession of him and pierced him with

his painful libidian projectiles, with thoughts, which over-

whelmingly pass through him. (As a dementia praecox

patient once said to me during his recovery: u To-day a

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 327

thought suddenly thrust itself through me.") This same

idea is found again in Nietzsche in Zarathustra :

The Magician

Stretched out, shivering

Like one half dead whose feet are warmed,

Shaken alas! by unknown fevers,

Trembling from the icy pointed arrows of frost,

Hunted by Thee, O Thought!

Unutterable! Veiled! Horrible One!

Thou huntsman behind the clouds!

Struck to the ground by thee,

Thou mocking eye that gazeth at me from the dark!

Thus do I lie

Bending, writhing, tortured

With all eternal tortures,

Smitten

By thee, crudest huntsman,

Thou unfamiliar God.

Smite deeper!

Smite once more:

Pierce through and rend my heart!

What meaneth this torturing

With blunt-toothed arrows?

Why gazeth thou again,

Never weary of human pain,

With malicious, God-lightning eyes,

Thou wilt not kill,

But torture, torture?

No long-drawn-out explanation is necessary to enable

us to recognize in this comparison the old, universal idea

of the martyred sacrifice of God, which we have met pre-

viously in the Mexican sacrifice of the cross and in the

sacrifice of Odin. 31 This same conception faces us in

328 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

the oft-repeated martyrdom of St. Sebastian, where, in

the delicate-glowing flesh of the young god, all the pain

of renunciation which has been felt by the artist has been

portrayed. An artist always embodies in his artistic work

a portion of the mysteries of his time. In a heightened

degree the same is true of the principal Christian symbol,

the crucified one pierced by the lance, the conception of

the man of the Christian era tormented by his wishes,

crucified and dying in Christ.

This is not torment which comes from without, which

befalls mankind; but that he himself is the hunter, mur-

derer, sacrificer and sacrificial knife is shown us in another

of Nietzsche's poems, wherein the apparent dualism is

transformed into the soul conflict through the use of the

same symbolism:

" Oh, Zarathustra,

Most cruel Nimrod !

Whilom hunter of God

The snare of all virtue,

An arrow of evil !

Now

Hunted by thyself

Thine own prey

Pierced through thyself,

Now

Alone with thee

Twofold in thine own knowledge

Mid a hundred mirrors

False to thyself,

Mid a hundred memories

Uncertain

Ailing with each wound

Shivering with each frost

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 329

Caught in thine own snares,

Self knower!

Self hangman!

"Why didst thou strangle thyself

With the noose of thy wisdom?

Why hast thou enticed thyself

Into the Paradise of the old serpent?

Why hast thou crept

Into thyself, thyself? ..."

The deadly arrows do not strike the hero from with-

out, but it is he himself who, in disharmony with himself,

hunts, fights and tortures himself. Within himself will

has turned against will, libido against libido therefore,

the poet says, " Pierced through thyself, 1 ' that is to say,

wounded by his own arrow. Because we have discerned

that the arrow is a libido symbol, the idea of " penetrat-

ing or piercing through " consequently becomes clear to

us. It is a phallic act of union with one's self, a sort of

self-fertilization (introversion) ; also a self-violatioi), a

self-murder; therefore, Zarathustra may call himself his

own hangman, like Odin, who sacrifices himself to Odin.

The wounding by one's own arrow means, first of all,

the state of introversion. What this signifies we .already

know the libido sinks into its u own depths " (a well-

known comparison of Nietzsche's) and finds there below,

in the shadows of the unconscious, the substitute for the

upper world, which it has abandoned : the world of mem-

ories (" 'mid a hundred memories "), the strongest and

most influential of which are the early infantile memory

pictures. It is the world of the child, this paradise-like

330 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

state of earliest childhood, from which we are separated

by a hard law. In this subterranean kingdom slumber

sweet feelings of home and the endless hopes of all that

is to be. As Heinrich in the " Sunken Bell," by Gerhart

Hauptmann, says, in speaking of his miraculous work:

" There is a song lost and forgotten,

A song of home, a love song of childhood,

Brought up from the depths of the fairy well,

Known to all, but yet unheard."

However, as Mephistopheles says, " The danger is

great." These depths are enticing; they are the mother

and death. When the libido leaves the bright upper

world, whether from the decision of the individual or

from decreasing life force, then it sinks back into its own

depths, into the source from which it has gushed forth,

and turns back to that point of cleavage, the umbilicus,

through which it once entered into this body. This point

of cleavage is called the mother, because from her comes

the source of the libido. Therefore, when some great

work is to be accomplished, before which weak man re-

coils, doubtful of his strength, his libido returns to that

source and this is the dangerous moment, in which the

decision takes place between annihilation and new life.

If the libido remains arrested in the wonder kingdom of

the inner world, 32 then the man has become for the world

above a phantom, then he is practically dead or des-

perately ill. 33 But if the libido succeeds in tearing itself

loose and pushing up into the world above, then a miracle

appears. This journey to the underworld has been a

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 331

fountain of youth, and new fertility springs from his ap-

parent death. This train of thought is very beautifully

gathered into a Hindoo myth : Once upon a time, Vishnu

sank into an ecstasy (introversion) and during this state

of sleep bore Brahma, who, enthroned upon the lotus

flower, arose from the navel of Vishnu, bringing with

him the Vedas, which he diligently read. (Birth of crea-

tive thought from introversion.) But through Vishnu's

ecstasy a devouring flood came upon the world. (Devour-

ing through introversion, symbolizing the danger of enter-

ing into the mother of death.) A demon taking advan-

tage of the danger, stole the Vedas from Brahma and

hid them in the depths. (Devouring of the libido.)

Brahma roused Vishnu, and the latter, transforming

himself into a fish, plunged into the flood, fought with

the demon (battle with the dragon), conquered him and

recaptured the Vedas. (Treasure obtained with diffi-

culty.)

Self-concentration and the strength derived therefrom

correspond to this primitive train of thought. It also

explains numerous sacrificial and magic rites which we

have already fully discussed. Thus the impregnable Troy

falls because the besiegers creep into the belly of a wooden

horse; for he alone is a hero who is reborn from the

mother, like the sun. But the danger of this venture is

shown by the history of Philoctetes, who was the only

one in the Trojan expedition who knew the hidden sanc-

tuary of Chryse, where the Argonauts had sacrificed al-

ready, and where the Greeks planned to sacrifice in order

to assure a safe ending to their undertaking. Chryse

332 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

was a nymph upon the island of Chryse; according

to the account of the scholiasts in Sophocles's " Ptu'loc-

tetes," this nymph loved Philoctetes, and cursed him be-

cause he spurned her love. This characteristic projection,

which is also met with in the Gilgamesh epic, should be

referred back,* as suggested, to the repressed incest wish

of the son, who is represented through the projection as if

the mother had the evil wish, for the refusal of which the

son was given over to death. In reality, however, the son

becomes mortal by separating himself from the mother.

His fear of death, therefore, corresponds to the repressed

wish to turn back to the mother, and causes him to be-

lieve that the mother threatens or pursues him. The

teleological significance of this fear of persecution is evi-

dent; it is to keep son and mother apart.

The curse of Chryse is realized in so far that Philoc-

tetes, according to one version, when approaching his

altar, injured himself in his foot with one of his own

deadly poisonous arrows, or, according to another ver-

sion 34 (this is better and far more abundantly proven),

was bitten in his foot by a poisonous serpent. From

then on he is ailing. 36

This very typical wound, which also destroyed Re, is

described in the following manner in an Egyptian hymn:

" The ancient of the Gods moved his mouth,

He cast his saliva upon the earth,

And what he spat, fell upon the ground.

With her hands Isis kneaded that and the soil

Which was about it, together:

From that she created a venerable worm,

And made him like a spear.

THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE 333

She did not twist him living around her face,

But threw him coiled upon the path,

Upon which the great God wandered at ease

Through all his lands.

" The venerable God stepped forth radiantly,

The gods who served Pharaoh accompanied him,

And he proceeded as every day.

Then the venerable worm stung him. . . .

The divine God opened his mouth

And the voice of his majesty echoed even to the sky.

And the gods exclaimed: Behold!

Thereupon he could not answer,

His jaws chattered,

All his limbs trembled

And the poison gripped his flesh,

As the Nile seizes upon the land."

In this hymn Egypt has again preserved for us a primi-

tive conception of the serpent's sting. The aging of the

autumn sun as an image of human senility is symbolically

traced back to the mother through the poisoning by the

serpent. The mother is reproached, because her malice

causes the death of the sun-god. The serpent, the primi-

tive symbol of fear, 37 illustrates the repressed tendency to

turn back to the mother, because the only possibility of

security from death is possessed by the mother, as the

source of life.

Accordingly, only the mother can cure him, sick unto

death, and, therefore, the hymn goes on to depict how the

gods were assembled to take counsel:

" And Isis came with her wisdom :

Her mouth is full of the breath of life,

Her words banish sorrow,

And her speech animates those who no longer breathe.

334 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

She said: 'What is that; what is that, divine father?

Behold, a worm has brought you sorrow '

" ' Tell me thy name, divine father,

Because the man remains alive, who is called by his name.' "

Whereupon Re replied :

E * I am he, who created heaven and earth, and piled up the hills,

And created all beings thereon.

I am he, who made the water and caused the great flood,

Who produced the bull of his mother,

Who is the procreator,' etc.

" The poison did not depart, it went further,

The great God was not cured.

Then said Isis to Re:

' Thine is not the name thou hast told me.

Tell me true that the poison may leave thee,

For he whose name is spoken will live.' "

Finally Re decides to speak his true name. He is ap-

proximately healed (imperfect composition of Osiris) ;

but he has lost his power, and finally he retreats to the

heavenly cow.

The poisonous worm is, if one may speak in this way,

a " negative " phallus, a deadly, not an animating, form

of libido; therefore, a wish for death, instead of a wish

for life. The "true name" is soul and magic power;

hence a symbol of libido. What Isis demands is the re-

transference of the libido to the mother goddess. This

request is fulfilled literally, for the age