Notes
Part I
Introduction
1. “Science of Language,” first series, p. 25.
2. “Creative Evolution.”
3. For a more complete presentation of Jung’s views consult his
“Theory of Psychoanalysis” in the Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph
Series, No. 19.
4. He is said to have killed himself when he heard that she whom he
so passionately adored was his mother.
5. “Wish Fulfilment and Symbolism in Fairy Tales.” Tr. by W. A.
White, M.D.
6. “Dream and Myth.” Deuticke, Wien 1909.
7. “The Myth of the Birth of the Hero.”
8. “Die Symbolik in den Legenden, Märchen, Gebräuchen und
Träumen.” Psychiatrisch.-Neurologische Wochenschrift, X. Jahrgang.
9. “On the Nightmare.” Amer. Journ. of Insanity, 1910.
10. Jahrbuch, 1910, Pt. II.
11. “Die Frömmigkeit des Grafen Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Ein psychoanalytischer
Beitrag zur Kenntnis der religiösen Sublimationprozesse
und zur Erklärung des Pietismus.” Deuticke, Wien 1910. We have a
suggestive hint in Freud’s work, “Eine Kindheitserinnerung des
Leonardo da Vinci.” Deuticke, Wien 1910.
12. Compare Rank in Jahrbuch, Pt. II, p. 465.
Chapter I
13. Compare Liepmann, “Über Ideenflucht,” Halle 1904; also Jung,
“Diagnost. Assoc. Stud.,” p. 103: “Denken als Unterordnung unter eine
herrschende Vorstellung”; compare Ebbinghaus, “Kultur der Gegenwart,”
p. 221. Külpe (“Gr. d. Psychologie,” p. 464) expresses himself
in a similar manner: “In thinking it is a question of an anticipatory
apperception which sometimes governs a greater, sometimes a smaller
circle of individual reproductions, and is differentiated from accidental
motives of reproduction only by the consequence with which all things
outside this circle are held back or repressed.”
14. In his “Psychologia empirica meth. scientif. pertract.,” etc., 1732,
p. 23, Christian Wolff says simply and precisely: “Cogitatio est actus
animae quo sibi rerumque aliarum extra se conscia est.”
15. The moment of adaptation is emphasized especially by William
James in his definition of reasoning: “Let us make this ability to deal
with novel data the technical differentia of reasoning. This will
sufficiently mark it out from common associative thinking, and will
immediately enable us to say just what peculiarity it contains.”
16. “Thoughts are shadows of our experiences, always darker, emptier,
simpler than these,” says Nietzsche. Lotze (“Logik,” p. 552) expresses
himself in regard to this as follows: “Thought, left to the logical laws
of its movement, encounters once more at the end of its regularly
traversed course the things suppressed or hidden.”
17. 486Compare the remarks of Baldwin following in text. The eccentric
philosopher Johann Georg Hamann (1730–88) even places intelligence
and speech as identical (see Hamann’s writings, pub. by Roth,
Berlin 1821). With Nietzsche intelligence fares even worse as “speech
metaphysics” (Sprachmetaphysik). Friedrich Mauthner goes the furthest
in this conception (“Sprache und Psychologie,” 1901). For him there
exists absolutely no thought without speech, and speaking is thinking.
His idea of the “fetish of the word” governing in science is worthy of
notice.
18. Compare Kleinpaul: “Das Leben der Sprache,” 3 Bände. Leipzig
1893.
19. “Jardin d’Épicure,” p. 80.
20. Speech is generated by the intellect and in turn generates intellect.
21. It is difficult to calculate how great is the seductive influence of the
primitive word-meaning upon a thought. “Anything which has even been
in consciousness remains as an affective moment in the unconscious,” says
Hermann Paul (“Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte,” 4th ed., 1909, p.
25). The old word-meanings have an after-effect, chiefly imperceptible,
“within the dark chamber of the unconscious in the Soul” (Paul). J. G.
Hamann, mentioned above, expresses himself unequivocably: “Metaphysics
reduces all catchwords and all figures of speech of our empirical
knowledge to empty hieroglyphics and types of ideal relations.” It is
said that Kant learned some things from Hamann.
22. “Grundriss der Psychologie,” p. 365.
23. “Lehrbuch der Psychologie,” X, 26.
24. James Mark Baldwin: “Thought and Things, or Genetic Logic.”
25. In this connection I must refer to an experiment which Eberschweiler
(Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 1908) has made at my
request, which discloses the remarkable fact that in an association experiment
the intra-psychic association is influenced by phonetic considerations
(“Untersuchungen über den Einfluss der sprachlichen Komponente auf die
Assoziation,” Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 1908).
26. So at least this form of thought appears to Consciousness. Freud
says in this connection (“The Interpretation of Dreams,” tr. by Brill,
p. 418): “It is demonstrably incorrect to state that we abandon ourselves
to an aimless course of ideas when we relinquish our reflections, and
allow the unwilled ideas to emerge. It can be shown that we are able
to reject only those end-presentations known to us, and that immediately
upon the cessation of these unknown or, as we inaccurately say, unconscious
end-presentations come into play which now determine the course
of the unwilled ideas—a thought without end-presentation cannot be
produced through any influence we can exert on our own psychic life.”
27. “Grundriss der Psychologie,” p. 464.
28. Behind this assertion stand, first of all, experiences taken from the
field of the normal. The undirected thinking is very far removed from
“meditation,” and especially so as far as readiness of speech is concerned.
In psychological experiments I have frequently found that the
subjects of the investigation—I speak only of cultivated and intelligent
people, whom I have allowed to indulge in reveries, apparently unintentionally
and without previous instruction—have exhibited affect-expressions
which can be registered experimentally. But the basic
thought of these, even with the best of intentions, they could express only
incompletely or even not at all. One meets with an abundance of
similar experiences in association experiments and psychoanalysis—indeed,
there is hardly an unconscious complex which has not at some time
existed as a phantasy in consciousness.
However, more instructive are the experiences from the domain of
psychopathology. But those arising in the field of the hysterias and
neuroses, which are characterized by an overwhelming transference
tendency, are rarer than the experiences in the territory of the introversion
type of neuroses and psychoses, which constitute by far the
greater number of the mental derangements, at least the collected
Schizophrenic group of Bleuler. As has already been indicated by the
term “introversion,” which I briefly introduced in my study, “Konflikte
der kindlichen Seele,” pp. 6 and 10, these neuroses lead to an overpowering
autoerotism (Freud). And here we meet with this unutterable
purely phantastic thinking, which moves in inexpressible symbols and
feelings. One gets a slight impression of this when one seeks to examine
the paltry and confused expressions of these people. As I have frequently
observed, it costs these patients endless trouble and effort to put their
phantasies into common human speech. A highly intelligent patient,
who interpreted such a phantasy piece by piece, often said to me, “I
know absolutely with what it is concerned, I see and feel everything,
but it is quite impossible for me to find the words to express it.” The
poetic and religious introversion gives rise to similar experiences; for
example, Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans viii:26—“For we know
not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh
intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
29. 487Similarly, James remarks, “The great difference, in fact, between
that simple kind of rational thinking which consists in the concrete
objects of past experience merely suggesting each other, and reason distinctively
so called, is this, that whilst the empirical thinking is only
reproductive, reasoning is productive.”
30. Compare the impressive description of Petrarch’s ascent of Mt.
Ventoux, by Jacob Burckhardt (“Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien,”
1869, p. 235):
“One now awaits a description of the view, but in vain, not because
the poet is indifferent to it, but, on the contrary, because the impression
affects him all too strongly. His entire past life, with all its follies,
passes before him; he recalls that it is ten years ago to-day that he,
as a young man, left Bologna, and he turns a yearning glance toward
Italy. He opens a book—‘Confessions of St. Augustine,’ his companion
at that time—and his eye falls upon this passage in the tenth chapter:
‘and the people went there and admired the high mountains, the wide
wastes of the sea and the mighty downward rushing streams, and the
ocean and the courses of the stars, and forgot themselves.’ His brother,
to whom he reads these words, cannot comprehend why, at this point, he
closes the book and is silent.”
31. Wundt gives a striking description of the scholastic method in his
“Philosophische Studien,” XIII, p. 345. The method consists “first in
this, that one realizes the chief aim of scientific investigation is the
discovery of a comprehensive scheme, firmly established, and capable of
being applied in a uniform manner to the most varied problems; secondly,
in that one lays an excessive value upon certain general ideas,
and, consequently, upon the word-symbols designating these ideas,
wherefore an analysis of word-meanings comes, in extreme cases, to be
an empty subtlety and splitting of hairs, instead of an investigation of
the real facts from which the ideas are abstracted.”
32. 488The concluding passage in “Traumdeutung” was of prophetic significance,
and has been brilliantly established since then through investigations
of the psychoses. “In the psychoses these modes of operation
of the psychic mechanism, normally suppressed in the waking state, again
become operative, and then disclose their inability to satisfy our needs
in the outer world.” The importance of this position is emphasized by
the views of Pierre Janet, developed independently of Freud, and which
deserve to be mentioned here, because they add confirmation from an
entirely different side, namely, the biological. Janet makes the distinction
in this function of a firmly organized “inferior” and “superior”
part, conceived of as in a state of continuous transformation.
“It is really on this superior part of the functions, on their adaptation
to present circumstances, that the neuroses depend. The neuroses are
the disturbances or the checks in the evolution of the functions—the
illnesses depending upon the morbid functioning of the organism. These
are characterized by an alteration in the superior part of the functions,
in their evolution and in their adaptation to the present moment—to the
present state of the exterior world and of the individual, and also by the
absence or deterioration of the old parts of these same functions.
“In the place of these superior operations there are developed physical,
mental, and, above all, emotional disturbances. This is only the tendency
to replace the superior operations by an exaggeration of certain inferior
operations, and especially by gross visceral disturbances” (“Les
Névroses,” p. 383).
The old parts are, indeed, the inferior parts of the functions, and these
replace, in a purposeless fashion, the abortive attempts at adaptation.
Briefly speaking, the archaic replaces the recent function which has
failed. Similar views concerning the nature of neurotic symptoms are
expressed by Claparède as well (“Quelques mots sur la définition de
l’Hystérie,” Arch. de Psychol., I, VII, p. 169).
He understands the hysterogenic mechanism as a “Tendance à la
réversion”—as a sort of atavistic manner of reaction.
33. I am indebted to Dr. Abraham for the following interesting communication:
“A little girl of three and a half years had been presented
with a little brother, who became the object of the well-known childish
jealousy. Once she said to her mother, ‘You are two mammas; you are
my mamma, and your breast is little brother’s mamma.’ She had just
been looking on with great interest at the process of nursing.” It is very
characteristic of the archaic thinking of the child for the breast to be
designated as “mamma.”
34. Compare especially Freud’s thorough investigation of the child in
his “Analyse der Phobie eines fünfjährigen Knaben,” 1912 Jahrbuch,
Pt. I. Also my study, “Konflikte der kindlichen Seele,” 1912 Jahrbuch,
Pt. II, p. 33.
35. “Human, All Too Human,” Vol. II, p. 27 and on.
36. “Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre,” Pt. II, p. 205.
37. 489“Der Künstler, Ansätze zu einer Sexualpsychologie,” 1907, p. 36.
38. Compare also Rank’s later book, “The Myth of the Birth of the
Hero.”
39. “Wish Fulfilment and Symbolism in Fairy Tales,” 1908.
40. “Dreams and Myths.”
41. Compare with this “Konflikte der kindlichen Seele,” p. 6, foot.
42. Compare Abraham, “Dreams and Myths.” New York 1913. The
wish for the future is represented as already fulfilled in the past.
Later, the childish phantasy is again taken up regressively in order to
compensate for the disillusionment of actual life.
43. Rank: “The Myth of the Birth of the Hero.”
44. Naturally, it could not be said that because this was an institution
in antiquity, the same would recur in our phantasy, but rather that in
antiquity it was possible for the phantasy so generally present to become
an institution. This may be concluded from the peculiar activity of the
mind of antiquity.
45. The Dioscuri married the Leucippides by theft, an act which, according
to the ideas of higher antiquity, belonged to the necessary customs
of marriage (Preller: “Griechische Mythologie,” 1854, Pt. II, p. 68).
46. See S. Creuzer: “Symbolik und Mythologie,” 1811, Pt. III, p. 245.
47. Compare also the sodomitic phantasies in the “Metamorphoses” of
Apuleius. In Herculaneum, for example, corresponding sculptures have
been found.
48. Ferrero: “Les lois psychologiques du symbolisme.”
49. With the exception of the fact that the thoughts enter consciousness
already in a high state of complexity, as Wundt says.
50. Schelling: “Philosophie der Mythologie,” Werke, Pt. II, considers
the “preconscious” as the creative source, also H. Fichte (“Psychologie,”
I, p. 508) considers the preconscious region as the place of origin of the
real content of dreams.
51. Compare, in this connection, Flournoy: “Des Indes à la planète
Mars.” Also Jung: “Zur Psychologie und Pathologie sogenannter okkulter
Phänomene,” and “Über die Psychologie der Dementia praecox.”
Excellent examples are to be found in Schreber: “Denkwürdigkeiten
eines Nervenkranken.” Mutze, Leipzig.
52. “Jardin d’Épicure.”
53. The figure of Judas acquires a great psychological significance as
the priestly sacrificer of the Lamb of God, who, by this act, sacrifices
himself at the same time. (Self-destruction.) Compare Pt. II of this
work.
54. Compare with this the statements of Drews (“The Christ Myth”),
which are so violently combated by the blindness of our time. Clear-sighted
theologians, like Kalthoff (“Entstehung des Christentums,” 1904),
present as impersonal a judgment as Drews. Kalthoff says, “The
sources from which we derive our information concerning the origin of
Christianity are such that in the present state of historical research no
historian would undertake the task of writing the biography of an
historical Jesus.” Ibid., p. 10: “To see behind these stories the life of
a real historical personage, would not occur to any man, if it were not
for the influence of rationalistic theology.” Ibid., p. 9: “The divine
in Christ, always considered an inner attribute and one with the human,
leads in a straight line backward from the scholarly man of God, through
the Epistles and Gospels of the New Testament, to the Apocalypse of
Daniel, in which the theological imprint of the figure of Christ has
arisen. At every single point of this line Christ shows superhuman
traits; nowhere is He that which critical theology wished to make Him,
simply a natural man, an historic individual.”
55. 490Compare J. Burckhardt’s letter to Albert Brenner (pub. by Hans
Brenner in the Basle Jahrbuch, 1901): “I have absolutely nothing stored
away for the special interpretation of Faust. You are well provided
with commentaries of all sorts. Hark! let us at once take the whole
foolish pack back to the reading-room from whence they have come.
What you are destined to find in Faust, that you will find by intuition.
Faust is nothing else than pure and legitimate myth, a great primitive
conception, so to speak, in which everyone can divine in his own way
his own nature and destiny. Allow me to make a comparison: What
would the ancient Greeks have said had a commentator interposed himself
between them and the Oedipus legend? There was a chord of the
Oedipus legend in every Greek which longed to be touched directly and
respond in its own way. And thus it is with the German nation and
Faust.”
56. I will not conceal the fact that for a time I was in doubt whether
I dare venture to reveal through analysis the intimate personality which
the author, with a certain unselfish scientific interest, has exposed to
public view. Yet it seemed to me that the writer would possess an
understanding deeper than any objections of my critics. There is always
some risk when one exposes one’s self to the world. The absence of
any personal relation with Miss Miller permits me free speech, and also
exempts me from those considerations due woman which are prejudicial
to conclusions. The person of the author is on that account just as
shadowy to me as are her phantasies; and, like Odysseus, I have tried
to let this phantom drink only enough blood to enable it to speak, and
in so doing betray some of the secrets of the inner life.
I have not undertaken this analysis, for which the author owes me but
little thanks, for the pleasure of revealing private and intimate matters,
with the accompanying embarrassment of publicity, but because I wished
to show the secret of the individual as one common to all.
Chapter Ii
57. A very beautiful example of this is found in C. A. Bernoulli: “Franz
Overbeck und Friedrich Nietzsche. Eine Freundschaft,” 1908 (Pt. I,
p. 72). This author depicts Nietzsche’s behavior in Basle society: “Once
at a dinner he said to the young lady at his side, ‘I dreamed a short
time ago that the skin of my hand, which lay before me on the table,
suddenly became like glass, shiny and transparent, through which I saw
distinctly the bones and the tissues and the play of the muscles. All at
once I saw a toad sitting on my hand and at the same time I felt an
irresistible compulsion to swallow the beast. I overcame my terrible
aversion and gulped it down.’ The young lady laughed. ‘And do you
laugh at that?’ Nietzsche asked, his deep eyes fixed on his companion,
half questioning, half sorrowful. The young lady knew intuitively that
she did not wholly understand that an oracle had spoken to her in the
form of an allegory and that Nietzsche had revealed to her a glimpse
into the dark abyss of his inner self.” On page 166 Bernoulli continues
as follows: “One can perhaps see, behind that harmless pleasure
of faultless exactness in dress, a dread of contamination arising from
some mysterious and tormenting disgust.”
Nietzsche went to Basle when he was very young; he was then just
at the age when other young people are contemplating marriage. Seated
next to a young woman, he tells her that something terrible and disgusting
is taking place in his transparent hand, something which he
must take completely into his body. We know what illness caused the
premature ending of Nietzsche’s life. It was precisely this which he
would tell the young lady, and her laughter was indeed discordant.
58. 491A whole series of psychoanalytic experiences could easily be produced
here to illustrate this statement.
59. Ferenczi: “Introjektion und Übertragung,” Jahrbuch, Pt. I (1912).
Chapter Iii
60. The choice of words and comparisons is always significant. A
psychology of travels and the unconscious forces co-operating with them
is yet to be written.
61. This mental disturbance had until recently the very unfortunate
designation, Dementia Praecox, given by Kraepelin. It is extremely unfortunate
that this malady should have been discovered by the psychiatrists,
for its apparently bad prognosis is due to this circumstance.
Dementia praecox is synonymous with therapeutic hopelessness. How
would hysteria appear if judged from the standpoint of psychiatry!
The psychiatrist naturally sees in the institutions only the worst cases
of dementia praecox, and as a consequence of his therapeutic helplessness
he must be a pessimist. How deplorable would tuberculosis appear
if the physician of an asylum for the incurable described the nosology
of this disease! Just as little as the chronic cases of hysteria, which
gradually degenerate in insane asylums, are characteristic of real
hysteria, just so little are the cases of dementia praecox in asylums
characteristic of those early forms so frequent in general practice, and
which Janet has described under the name of Psychasthenia. These
cases fall under Bleuler’s description of Schizophrenia, a name which
connotes a psychological fact, and might easily be compared with
similar facts in hysteria. The term which I use in my private work
for these conditions is Introversion Neurosis, by which, in my opinion,
the most important characteristic of the condition is given, namely, the
predominance of introversion over transference, which latter is the
characteristic feature of hysteria.
In my “Psychology of Dementia Praecox” I have not made any study
of the relationship of the Psychasthenia of Janet. Subsequent experience
with Dementia Praecox, and particularly the study of Psychasthenia in
Paris, have demonstrated to me the essential relationship of Janet’s
group with the Introversion Neuroses (the Schizophrenia of Bleuler).
62. Compare the similar views in my article, “Über die Psychologie der
Dementia praecox,” Halle 1907; and “Inhalt der Psychose,” Deuticke,
Wien 1908. Also Abraham: “Die psychosexuellen Differenzen der
Hysterie und der Dementia praecox,” Zentralblatt für Nervenheilkunde
und Psychiatrie, 1908. This author, in support of Freud, defines the
chief characteristic of dementia praecox as Autoerotism, which as I
have asserted is only one of the results of Introversion.
63. 492Freud, to whom I am indebted for an essential part of this view,
also speaks of “Heilungsversuch,” the attempt toward cure, the search
for health.
64. Miss Miller’s publication gives no hint of any knowledge of psychoanalysis.
65. Here I purposely give preference to the term “Imago” rather than
to the expression “Complex,” in order, by the choice of terminology, to
invest this psychological condition, which I include under “Imago,”
with living independence in the psychical hierarchy, that is to say,
with that autonomy which, from a large experience, I have claimed
as the essential peculiarity of the emotional complex. (Compare “The
Psychology of Dementia Praecox.”) My critics, Isserlin especially, have
seen in this view a return to medieval psychology, and they have, therefore,
rejected it utterly. This “return” took place on my part consciously
and intentionally because the phantastic, projected psychology
of ancient and modern superstition, especially demonology, furnishes
exhaustive evidence for this point of view. Particularly interesting
insight and confirmation is given us by the insane Schreber in an autobiography
(“Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken,” Mutze, Leipzig),
where he has given complete expression to the doctrine of autonomy.
“Imago” has a significance similar on the one hand to the psychologically
conceived creation in Spitteler’s novel “Imago,” and upon the
other hand to the ancient religious conception of “imagines et lares.”
66. Compare my article, “Die Bedeutung des Vaters für das Schicksal
des Einzelnen.”
67. As is well known, Anaxagoras developed the conception that the
living primal power (Urpotenz) of νοῦς (mind) imparts movement, as
if by a blast of wind, to the dead primal power (Urpotenz) of matter.
There is naturally no mention of sound. This νοῦς, which is very
similar to the later conception of Philo, the λόγος σπερματικός of the
Gnostics and the Pauline πνεῦμα (spirit) as well as to the πνεῦμα of the
contemporary Christian theologians, has rather the old mythological
significance of the fructifying breath of the winds, which impregnated
the mares of Lusitania, and the Egyptian vultures. The animation of
Adam and the impregnation of the Mother of God by the πνεῦμα are produced
in a similar manner. The infantile incest phantasy of one of my
patients reads: “the father covered her face with his hands and blew
into her open mouth.”
68. Haydn’s “Creation” might be meant.
69. See Job xvi: 1–11.
70. I recall the case of a young insane girl who continually imagined
that her innocence was suspected, from which thought she would not
allow herself to be dissuaded. Gradually there developed out of her
defensive attitude a correspondingly energetic positive erotomania.
71. Compare the preceding footnote with the text of Miss Miller’s.
72. The case is published in “Zur Psychologie und Pathologie
sogenannter okkulter Phänomene.” Mutze, Leipzig 1902.
73. 493Compare Freud’s “Analyse der Phobie eines fünfjährigen Knaben,”
Jahrbuch, Vol. I, 1st half; also Jung: “Konflikte der kindlichen Seele,”
Jahrbuch, II, Vol. I.
74. Others do not make use of this step, but are directly carried away
by Eros.
75. The heaven above, the heaven below, the sky above, the sky below,
all things above, all things below, decline and rise.
76. “La sagesse et la destinée.”
77. This time I shall hardly be spared the reproach of mysticism. But
perhaps the facts should be further considered; doubtless the unconscious
contains material which does not rise to the threshold of consciousness.
The analysis dissolves these combinations into their historical determinants,
for it is one of the essential tasks of analysis to render impotent
by dissolution the content of the complexes competing with the proper
conduct of life. Psychoanalysis works backwards like the science of
history. Just as the largest part of the past is so far removed that it is
not reached by history, so too the greater part of the unconscious determinants
is unreachable. History, however, knows nothing of two
kinds of things, that which is hidden in the past and that which is
hidden in the future. Both perhaps might be attained with a certain
probability; the first as a postulate, the second as an historical prognosis.
In so far as to-morrow is already contained in to-day, and all
the threads of the future are in place, so a more profound knowledge
of the past might render possible a more or less far-reaching and certain
knowledge of the future. Let us transfer this reasoning, as Kant has
already done, to psychology. Then necessarily we must come to the
same result. Just as traces of memory long since fallen below the
threshold of consciousness are accessible in the unconscious, so too there
are certain very fine subliminal combinations of the future, which are
of the greatest significance for future happenings in so far as the future
is conditioned by our own psychology. But just so little as the science
of history concerns itself with the combinations for the future, which is
the function of politics, so little, also, are the psychological combinations
for the future the object of analysis; they would be much more the object
of an infinitely refined psychological synthesis, which attempts to follow
the natural current of the libido. This we cannot do, but possibly this
might happen in the unconscious, and it appears as if from time to time,
in certain cases, significant fragments of this process come to light, at
least in dreams. From this comes the prophetic significance of the dream
long claimed by superstition.
The aversion of the scientific man of to-day to this type of thinking,
hardly to be called phantastic, is merely an overcompensation to the very
ancient and all too great inclination of mankind to believe in prophesies
and superstitions.
78. Dreams seem to remain spontaneously in the memory just so long as
they give a correct résumé of the psychologic situation of the individual.
79. How paltry are the intrinsic ensemble and the detail of the erotic
experience, is shown by this frequently varied love song which I quote
in its epirotic form:
Epirotic Love Song
(Zeitschrift des Vereines für Volkskunde, XII, p. 159.)
O Maiden, when we kissed, then it was night; who saw us?
A night Star saw us, and the moon,
And it leaned downward to the sea, and gave it the tidings,
Then the Sea told the rudder, the rudder told the sailor,
The sailor put it into song, then the neighbor heard it,
Then the priest heard it and told my mother,
From her the father heard it, he got in a burning anger,
They quarrelled with me and commanded me and they have forbidden me
Ever to go to the door, ever to go to the window.
And yet I will go to the window as if to my flowers,
And never will I rest till my beloved is mine.
80. 494Job xli: 13 (Leviathan).
“21. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.
“22. In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy
before him.
“24. His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the
nether millstone.
“25. When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason
of breakings they purify themselves.
“33. Upon earth there is not his like who is made without fear.
“34. He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children
of pride.”
Chapter xlii.
“1. Then Job answered the Lord, and said,
“2. I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can
be withholden from thee.”
81. The theriomorphic attributes are lacking in the Christian religion
except as remnants, such as the Dove, the Fish and the Lamb. The
latter is also represented as a Ram in the drawings in the Catacombs.
Here belong the animals associated with the Evangelists which particularly
need historical explanation. The Eagle and the Lion were definite
degrees of initiation in the Mithraic mysteries. The worshippers of
Dionysus called themselves βόες because the god was represented as a
bull; likewise the ἄρκτοι of Artemis, conceived of as a she-bear.
The Angel might correspond to the ἡλιόδρομοι of the Mithras mysteries.
It is indeed an exquisite invention of the Christian phantasy that the
animal coupled with St. Anthony is the pig, for the good saint was one
of those who were subjected to the devil’s most evil temptations.
82. Compare Pfister’s notable article: “Die Frömmigkeit des Grafen
Ludwig von Zinzendorf.” Wien 1910.
83. The Book of Job, originating at a later period under non-Jewish
influences, is a striking presentation of individual projection psychology.
84. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us” (I John i: 8).
85. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah
liii: 4).
86. “Bear ye one another’s burdens” (Galatians vi: 2).
87. God is Love, corresponding to the platonic “Eros” which unites
humanity with the transcendental.
88. Compare Reitzenstein (“Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen,”
Leipzig and Berlin 1910, p. 20): “Among the various forms with which
a primitive people have represented the highest religious consecration,
union with God, belongs necessarily that of the sexual union, in which
man attributes to his semen the innermost nature and power of God.
That which was in the first instance wholly a sensual act becomes in
the most widely separated places, independently, a sacred act, in
which the god is represented by a human deputy or his symbol the
Phallus.”
89. 495Take as an example among many others the striking psychologic description
of the fate of Alypius, in the “Confessions” of St. Augustine
(Bk. VI, Ch. 7): “Only the moral iniquity of Carthage, expressed in the
absolute wildness of its worthless spectacles, had drawn him down into
the whirlpool of this misery. [Augustine, at that time a teacher of
Logic, through his wisdom had converted Alypius.] He rose up after
those words from the depths of the mire, into which he had willingly
let himself be submerged, and which had blinded him with fatal pleasure.
He stripped the filth from off his soul with courageous abstemiousness.
All the snares of the Hippodrome no longer perplexed him. Thereupon
Alypius went to Rome in order to study law; there he became a backslider.
He was transported to an unbelievable degree by an unfortunate
passion for gladiatorial shows. Although in the beginning he abominated
and cursed these shows, one evening some of his friends and
fellow-students, whom he met after they had dined, in spite of his passionate
refusals and the exertion of all the power of his resistance,
dragged him with friendly violence to the Amphitheatre on the occasion
of a cruel and murderous exhibition. At the time he said to them, ‘If
you drag my body to that place and hold it there, can you turn my
mind and my eyes to that spectacle?’ In spite of his supplications they
dragged him with them, eager to know if he would be able to resist the
spectacle. When they arrived they sat down where place was still left,
and all glowed with inhuman delight. He closed his eyes and forbade
his soul to expose itself to such danger. O, if he had also stopped up
his ears! When some one fell in combat and all the people set up
a mighty shout, he stifled his curiosity and prepared proudly to scorn
the sight, confident that he could view the spectacle if he so desired.
And his soul was overcome with terrible wounds, like the wounds of
the body which he desired to see, and souls more miserable than the one
whose fall had caused the outcry, which pressing through his ears, had
opened his eyes, so that his weakness had been bared. Through this he
could be struck and thrown down, for he had the feeling of confidence
more than strength, and he was the weaker because he trusted himself
to this and not to Thee. When he saw the blood, then at the same
time he drew in the desire for blood, and no longer turned away but
directed his looks thither. The fury took possession of him and yet he
did not know it; he took delight in the wicked combat and was intoxicated
by the bloody pleasure. Now he was no longer the same as when
he had come, and he was the true accomplice of those who first had
dragged him there. What more is there to say? He saw, he cried out,
he was inflamed, and he carried away with him the insane longing,
which enticed him again to return, not only in the company of those who
first had dragged him with them, but going ahead of all and leading
others.”
90. Destiny.
91. Compare the prayer of the so-called Mithraic Liturgy (pub. by
Dieterich). There, characteristic places are to be found, such for instance
as: τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης μου ψυχικῆς δυνάμεως ἤν ἐγὼ πάλιν μεταπαραλήμψομαι
μετὰ τὴν ἐνεστῶσαν καὶ κατεπείγουσάν με πικρὰν ἀνάγκην ἁχρεοκόπητον (The
human soul force which I, weighed down by guilt, would again attain,
because of the present bitter need oppressing me), ἐπικαλοῦμαι ἕνεκα τῆς
κατεπειγούσης καὶ πικρᾶς ἀπαραιτήτου ἀνάγκης (On account of the oppressing
bitter and inexorable need).
From the speech of the High Priest (Apuleius: “Metamorphoses,”
lib. XI, 248) a similar train of thought may be gathered. The young
philosopher Lucius was changed into an ass, that continuously rutting
animal which Isis hated. Later he was released from the enchantment
and initiated into the mysteries of Isis. When he was freed from the
spell the priest speaks as follows: “Lubrico virentis aetatulae, ad serviles
delapsus voluptates, curiositatis improsperae sinistrum praemium reportasti.—Nam
in eos, quorum sibi vitas servitium Deae nostrae majestas
vindicavit, non habet locum casus infestus—in tutelam jam receptus
es Fortunae, sed videntis” (But falling into the slavery of pleasure, in
the wantonness of buxom youth, you have reaped the inauspicious reward
of your ill-fated curiosity—for direful calamity has no power over those
whose lives the majesty of our Goddess has claimed for her own
service.—You are now received under the guardianship of fortune, but
of a fortune who can see). In the prayer to the Queen of Heaven, Isis,
Lucius says: “Qua fatorum etiam inextricabiliter contorta retractas licia
et Fortunae tempestates mitigas, et stellarum noxios meatus cohibes”
(By which thou dost unravel the inextricably entangled threads of the
fates, and dost assuage the tempests of fortune and restrain the malignant
influences of the stars).—Generally it was the purpose of the rite
to destroy the “evil compulsion of the star” by magic power.
The power of fate makes itself felt unpleasantly only when everything
goes against our will; that is to say when we no longer find ourselves
in harmony with ourselves. As I endeavored to show in my article,
“Die Bedeutung des Vaters,” etc., the most dangerous power of fate lies
in the infantile libido fixation, localized in the unconscious. The power
of fate reveals itself at closer range as a compulsion of the libido;
wherefore Maeterlinck justly says that a Socrates could not possibly be
a tragic hero of the type of Hamlet. In accordance with this conception
the ancients had already placed εἱμαρμένη (destiny) in relation to “Primal
Light,” or “Primal Fire.” In the Stoic conception of the primal cause,
the warmth spread everywhere, which has created everything and which
is therefore Destiny. (Compare Cumont: “Mysterien des Mithra,” p.
83.) This warmth is, as will later be shown, a symbol of the libido.
Another conception of the Ananke (necessity) is, according to the Book
of Zoroaster, περὶ φύσεως (concerning nature), that the air as wind had
once a connection with fertility. I am indebted to Rev. Dr. Keller of
Zurich for calling my attention to Bergson’s conception of the “durée
créatrice.”
92. Power for putting in motion.
93. 496Schiller says in “Wallenstein”: “In your breast lie the constellations
of your fate.” “Our fates are the result of our personality,” says
Emerson in his “Essays.” Compare with this my remarks in “Die
Bedeutung des Vaters.”
94. The ascent to the “Idea” is described with unusual beauty in
Augustine (Bk. X, Ch. 8). The beginning of Ch. 8 reads: “I will raise
myself over this force of my nature, step by step ascending to Him who
has made me. I will come to the fields and the spacious palaces of my
memory.”
95. The followers of Mithra also called themselves Brothers. In
philosophical speech Mithra was Logos emanating from God. (Cumont:
“Myst. des Mithra,” p. 102.)
Besides the followers of Mithra there existed many Brotherhoods
which were called Thiasai and probably were the organizations from
which the Church developed later. (A. Kalthoff: “Die Entstehung des
Christentums.”)
96. 497Augustine, who stood in close relation to that period of transition not
only in point of time but also intellectually, writes in his “Confessions”
(Bk. VI, Ch. 16):
“Nor did I, unhappy, consider from what source it sprung, that even
on these things, foul as they were, I with pleasure discoursed with my
carnal pleasures. And yet these friends I loved for themselves only, and
friends; nor could I, even according to the notions I then had of
happiness, be happy without friends, amid what abundance soever of
I felt that I was beloved of them for myself only. O, crooked paths!
Woe to the audacious soul, which hoped, by forsaking Thee, to gain
some better thing! Turned it hath, and turned again, upon back, sides,
and belly, yet all was painful, and Thou alone rest!” (Trans. by
Pusey.)
It is not only an unpsychologic but also an unscientific method of
procedure to characterize offhand such effects of religion as suggestion.
Such things are to be taken seriously as the expression of the deepest
psychologic need.
97. Both religions teach a pronounced ascetic morality, but at the same
time a morality of action. The last is true also of Mithracism. Cumont
says that Mithracism owed its success to the value of its morale: “This
stimulated to action in an extraordinary degree” (“Myst. des Mithra”).
The followers of Mithra formed a “sacred legion” for battle against
evil, and among them were virgins (nuns) and continents (ascetics).
Whether these brotherhoods had another meaning—that is, an economic-communistic
one—is something I will not discuss now. Here only the
religious-psychologic aspects interest us. Both religions have in common
the idea of the divine sacrifice. Just as Christ sacrificed himself as the
Lamb of God, so did Mithra sacrifice his Bull. This sacrifice in both
religions is the heart of the Mysteries. The sacrificial death of Christ
means the salvation of the world; from the sacrifice of the bull of
Mithra the entire creation springs.
98. This analytic perception of the roots of the Mystery Religions is
necessarily one-sided, just as is the analysis of the basis of the religious
poem. In order to understand the actual causes of the repression in
Miss Miller one must delve into the moral history of the present; just
as one is obliged to seek in the ancient moral and economic history the
actual causes of repression which have given rise to the Mystery cults.
This investigation has been brilliantly carried out by Kalthoff. (See
his book, “Die Entstehung des Christentums,” Leipzig 1904.) I also
refer especially to Pohlmann’s “Geschichte des antiken Kommunismus
und Sozialismus”; also to Bücher: “Die Aufstände der unfreien Arbeiter
143 bis 129 v. Chr.,” 1874.
The other cause of the enormous introversion of the libido in antiquity
is probably to be found in the fact that an unbelievably large part of
the people suffered in the wretched state of slavery. It is inevitable that
finally those who bask in good fortune would be infected in the mysterious
manner of the unconscious, by the deep sorrow and still deeper
misery of their brothers, through which some were driven into orgiastic
furies. Others, however, the better ones, sank into that strange world-weariness
and satiety of the intellectuals of that time. Thus from two
sources the great introversion was made possible.
99. 498Compare Freud: “The Interpretation of the Dream.”
100. Compare Freud: “Sublimation,” in “Three Contributions to the
Sexual Theory.”
101. In a manner which is closely related to my thought, Kalthoff
(“Entstehung des Christentums”) understands the secularizing of the
religious interest as a new incarnation of the λόγος (word). He says:
“The profound grasp of the soul of nature evidenced in modern painting
and poetry, the living intuitive feeling which even science in its most
austere works can no longer do without, enables us easily to understand
how the Logos of Greek philosophy which assigned its place in the world
to the old Christ type, clothed in its world-to-come significance celebrated
a new incarnation.”
102. It seems, on account of the isolation of the cult, that this fact was
the cause of its ruin as well, because the eyes of that time were blinded
to the beauty of nature. Augustine (Bk. X, Ch. 6) very justly remarks:
“But they [men] were themselves undone through love for her [creation].”
103. Augustine (ibid.): “But what do I love when I love Thee, Oh God?
Not the bodily form, nor the earthly sweetness, nor the splendor of the
light, so dear to these eyes; nor the sweet melodies of the richly varied
songs; not the flowers and the sweet scented ointments and spices of
lovely fragrance; not manna and honey; not the limbs of the body
whose embraces are pleasant to the flesh. I do not love these when I
love my God, and yet the light, the voice, the fragrance, the food, the
embrace of my inner man; when these shine into my soul, which no
space contains, which no time takes away, where there is a fragrance
which the wind does not blow away, where there is a taste which no
gluttony diminishes and where harmony abides which no satiety can
remove—that is what I love, when I love my God.” (Perhaps a model
for Zarathustra: “Die sieben Siegel,” Nietzsche’s works, VI, p. 33 ff.)
104. Cumont: “Die Mysterien des Mithra. Ein Beitrag zur Religionsgeschichte
der römischen Kaiserzeit.” Übersetzt von Gehrich, Leipzig
1903, p. 109.
105. 41st Letter to Lucilius.
106. Ibid.
Chapter Iv
107. Complexes are apt to be of the greatest stability, although their
outward forms of manifestation change kaleidoscopically. A large
number of experimental studies have entirely convinced me of this fact.
108. Julian the Apostate made the last, unsuccessful attempt to cause the
triumph of Mithracism over Christianity.
109. This solution of the libido problem was brought about in a similar
manner by the flight from the world during the first Christian century.
(The cities of the Anchorites in the deserts of the Orient.) People
mortified themselves in order to become spiritual and thus escape the
extreme brutality of the decadent Roman civilization. Asceticism is
forced sublimation, and is always to be found where the animal impulses
are still so strong that they must be violently exterminated. The masked
self-murder of the ascetic needs no further biologic proof.
Chamberlain (“Foundations of the Nineteenth Century”) sees in the
problem a biologic suicide because of the enormous amount of illegitimacy
among Mediterranean peoples at that time. I believe that illegitimacy
tends rather to mediocrity and to living for pleasure. It appears after
all that there were, at that time, fine and noble people who, disgusted
with the frightful chaos of that period which was merely an expression
of the disruption of the individual, put an end to their lives, and thus
caused the death of the old civilization with its endless wickedness.
110. .sp 1
499“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.”
111. Δίκη (Justice), daughter of Zeus and Themis, who, after the Golden
Age, forsook the degenerate earth.
112. Thanks to this eclogue, Virgil later attained the honor of being a
semi-Christian poet. To this he owes his position as guide to Dante.
113. Both are represented not only as Christian, but also as Pagan. Essener
and Therapeuten were quasi orders of the Anchorites living in
the desert. Probably, as, for instance, may be learned from Apuleius
(“Metamorphoses,” lib. XI), there existed small settlements of mystics
or consecrated ones around the sacred shrines of Isis and Mithra.
Sexual abstinence and celibacy were also known.
114. .sp 1
“Below the hills, a marshy plain
Infects what I so long have been retrieving:
This stagnant pool likewise to drain
Were now my latest and my best achieving.
To many millions following let me furnish soil.”
The analogy of this expression with the quotation above is striking.
115. Compare Breuer and Freud: “Studien über Hysterie”; also Bleuler:
“Die Psychoanalyse Freuds,” Jahrbuch, 1910, Vol. II, 2nd half.
116. Faust (in suicide monologue):
“Out on the open ocean speeds my dreaming!
The glassy flood before my feet is gleaming!
A new day beckons to a newer shore!
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
Do I, but now a worm, deserve to track?
Yes, resolute to reach some brighter distance;
On Earth’s fair sun I turn my back!
· · · · ·
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil,
Upon its tract to follow, follow soaring!
Then would I see eternal Evening gild
The silent world beneath me glowing.
· · · · ·
And now before mine eyes expands the ocean,
With all its bays in shining sleep!
· · · · ·
The new-born impulse fires my mind,
I hasten on, his beams eternal drinking.”
We see it is the same longing and the same sun.
117. 500Compare Jung: “Diagnost. Assoc. Stud.”; also “The Psychology of
Dementia Praecox,” Chs. II and III.
118. According to the Christian conception God is Love.
119. Apuleius (“Met.,” lib. XI, 257): “At manu dextera gerebam flammis
adultam facem: et caput decora corona cinxerat palmae candidae foliis
in modum radiorum prosistentibus. Sic ad instar solis exornato et in vicem
simulacri constituto” (Then in my right hand I carried a burning torch;
while a graceful chaplet encircled my head, the shining leaves of the
palm tree projecting from it like rays of light. Thus arrayed like the
sun, and placed so as to resemble a statue).
120. The parallel in the Christian mysteries is the crowning with the
crown of thorns, the exhibition and mocking of the Savior.
121. Sacred word.
122. I am a star wandering about with you, and flaming up from the depths.
123. In the same way the Sassanian Kings called themselves “Brothers
of the Sun and of the Moon.” In Egypt the soul of every ruler was a
reduplication of the Sun Horus, an incarnation of the sun.
124. “The rising at day out of the Underworld.” Erman: “Aegypten,”
p. 409.
125. Compare the coronation above. Feather, a symbol of power.
Feather crown, a crown of rays, halo. Crowning, as such, is an identification
with the sun. For example, the spiked crown upon the Roman
coins made its appearance at the time when the Cæsars were identified
with Sol invictus (“Solis invicti comes”). The halo is the same, that
is to say, an image of the sun, just as is the tonsure. The priests of Isis
had smooth-shaven heads like stars. (See Apuleius, “Metamorphoses.”)
126. Compare with this my statements in “Über die Bedeutung des Vaters
für das Schicksal des Einzelnen.” Deuticke, Wien.
127. In the text of the so-called Mithra Liturgy are these lines: “Εγώ
εἴμι σύμπλανος ὑμῖν ἀστὴρ καὶ ἐκ τοῦ βάθους ἀναλάμπων—ταῦτά σον εἰπόντος εὐθέως
ὁ δίσκος ἁπλωθήσεται” (I am a star wandering about with you and flaming
up from the depths. When thou hast said this, immediately the disc
of the sun will unfold). The mystic through his prayers implored the
divine power to cause the disc of the sun to expand. In the same way
Rostand’s “Chantecler” causes the sun to rise by his crowing.
“For verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard
seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place;
and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew
xvii: 20).
128. Compare especially the words of the Gospel of John: “I and my
Father are one” (John x: 30). “He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father” (John xiv: 9). “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the
Father in me” (John xiv: 11). “I came forth from the Father, and
am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father”
(John xvi: 28). “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to
my God, and your God” (John xx: 17).
129. See the footnote on p. 137 of text.
130. 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, conqueror
of stars.
131. Two-bodied: an obscure epithet, if one does not admit that the dual
life of the redeemed, taught in the mysteries of that time, was attributed
to God, that is to say, to the libido. Compare the Pauline conception
of the σῶμα σαρκικόν and πνευματικόν (carnal and spiritual body). In
the Mithraic worship, Mithra seems to be the divine spirit, while Helios
is the material god; to a certain extent the visible lieutenant of the
divinity. Concerning the confusion between Christ and Sol, see below.
132. 501Compare Freud: “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory.”
133. Renan (“Dialogues et fragments philosophiques,” p. 168) says:
“Before religion had reached the stage of proclaiming that God must
be put into the absolute and ideal, that is to say, beyond this world, one
worship alone was reasonable and scientific: that was the worship of
the sun.”
134. The path of the visible Gods will appear through the sun, the God
my father.
135. Buber: “Ekstat. Konfess.,” p. 51 and on.
136. “Liebesgesänge an Gott,” cited by Buber: “Ekstat. Konfess.,”
p. 40. An allied symbolism is found in Carlyle: “The great fact of existence
is great to him. Fly as he will, he can not get out of the awful
presence of this reality. His mind is so made; he is great by that first
of all. Fearful and wonderful, real is life, real is death, is this
universe to him. Though all men should forget its truth, and walk in
a vain show, he can not. At all moments the Flame-image glares in
upon him” (“Heroes and Hero-Worship”).
One can select from literature at random. For example, S. Friedländer
(Berlin-Halensee) says in Jugend, 1910, No. 35, p. 823: “Her longing
demands from the beloved only the purest. Like the sun, it burns to
ashes with the flame of excessive life, which refuses to be light,” and
so on.
137. Buber: Ibid., p. 45.
138. I emphasize this passage because its idea contains the psychological
root of the “Wandering of the soul in Heaven,” the conception of which
is very ancient. It is a conception of the wandering sun which from
its rising to its setting wanders over the world. The wandering gods
are representations of the sun, that is, symbols of the libido. This
comparison is indelibly impressed in the human phantasy as is shown by
the poem of Wesendonck:
Grief.
The sun, every evening weeping,
Reddens its beautiful eyes for you;
When early death seizes you,
Bathing in the mirror of the sea.
Still in its old splendor
The glory rises from the dark world;
You awaken anew in the morning
Like a proud conqueror.
Ah, why then should I lament,
When my heart, so heavy, sees you?
Must the sun itself despair?
Must the sun set?
And does death alone bear life?
Do griefs alone give joys?
O, how grateful I am that
Such pains have given me nature!
Another parallel is in the poem of Ricarda Huch:
As the earth, separating from the sun,
Withdraws in quick flight into the stormy night,
Starring the naked body with cold snow,
Deafened, it takes away the summer joy.
And sinking deeper in the shadows of winter,
Suddenly draws close to that which it flees,
Sees itself warmly embraced with rosy light
Leaning against the lost consort.
Thus I went, suffering the punishment of exile,
Away from your countenance, into the ancient place.
Unprotected, turning to the desolate north,
Always retreating deeper into the sleep of death;
And then would I awake on your heart,
Blinded by the splendor of the dawn.
139. 502Translated by Dr. T. G. Wrench.
140. After you have said the second prayer, when silence is twice commanded;
then whistle twice and snap twice,[856] 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.
141. Five-fingered stars.
142. “Ecce Homo,” translated by A. M. Ludovici.
143. The water-god Sobk, appearing as a crocodile, was identified with
Rê.
144. Erman: “Aegypten,” p. 354.
145. Erman: Ibid., p. 355.
146. Compare above ἀστέρας πενταδακτυλιαίους (“five-fingered stars”).
147. The bull Apis is a manifestation of Ptah. The bull is a well-known
symbol of the sun.
148. Amon.
149. Sobk of Faijum.
150. The God of Dedu in the Delta, who was worshipped as a piece of
wood. (Phallic.)
151. This reformation, which was inaugurated with much fanaticism,
soon broke down.
152. Apuleius, “Met.,” lib. XI, p. 239.
153. It is noteworthy that the humanists too (I am thinking of an expression
of the learned Mutianus Rufus) soon perceived that antiquity had
but two gods, that is, a masculine god and a feminine god.
154. Not only was the light- or fire-substance ascribed to the divinity
but also to the soul; as for example in the system of Mâni, as well as
among the Greeks, where it was characterized as a fiery breath of air.
The Holy Ghost of the New Testament appears in the form of flames
around the heads of the Apostles, because the πνεῦμα was understood
to mean “fiery” (Dieterich: Ibid., p. 116). Very similar is the
Iranian conception of Hvarenô, by which is meant the “Grace of
Heaven” through which a monarch rules. By “Grace” is understood
a sort of fire or shining glory, something very substantial (Cumont:
Ibid., p. 70). We come across conceptions allied in character in Kerner’s
“Seherin von Prevorst,” and in the case published by me, “Psychologie
und Pathologie sogenannter occulter Phänomene.” Here not only the
souls consist of a spiritual light-substance, but the entire world is constructed
according to the white-black system of the Manichæans—and
this by a fifteen-year-old girl! The intellectual over-accomplishment
which I observed earlier in this creation, is now revealed as a consequence
of energetic introversion, which again roots up deep historical
strata of the soul and in which I perceive a regression to the memories
of humanity condensed in the unconscious.
155. 503In 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.
156. I add to this a quotation from Firmicus Maternus (Mathes. I, 5, 9,
cit. by Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” I, p. 40): “Cui (animo)
descensus per orbem solis tribuitur” (To this spirit the descent through
the orb of the sun is attributed).
157. St. Hieronymus remarks, concerning Mithra who was born in a
miraculous manner from a rock, that this birth was the result of “solo
aestu libidinis” (merely through the heat of the libido) (Cumont:
“Textes et Monuments,” I, p. 163).
158. Mead: “A Mithraic Ritual.” London 1907, p. 22.
159. I am indebted to my friend and co-worker, Dr. Riklin, for the
knowledge of the following case which presents an interesting symbolism.
It concerns a paranoic who passed over into a manifest megalomaniac
in the following way: She suddenly saw a strong light, a wind blew upon
her, she felt as if “her heart turned over,” and from that moment she
knew that God had visited her and was in her.
I wish to refer here to the interesting correlation of mythological and
pathological forms disclosed in the analytical investigation of Dr. S.
Spielrein, and expressly emphasize that she has discovered the symbolisms
presented by her in the Jahrbuch, through independent experimental
work, in no way connected with my work.
160. “You will see the god youthful, graceful, with glowing locks, in a
white garment and a scarlet cloak, with a fiery helmet.”
161. “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.”
162. According to the Chaldean teaching the sun occupies the middle
place in the choir of the seven planets.
163. The Great Bear consists of seven stars.
164. Mithra is frequently represented with a knife in one hand and a
torch in the other. The knife as an instrument of sacrifice plays an
important rôle in his myth.
165. Ibid.
166. Compare with this the scarlet mantle of Helios in the Mithra liturgy.
It was a part of the rites of the various cults to be dressed in the bloody
skins of the sacrificial animals, as in the Lupercalia, Dionysia and
Saturnalia, the last of which has bequeathed to us the Carnival, the
typical figure of which, in Rome, was the priapic Pulcinella.
167. 504Compare the linen-clad retinue of Helios. Also the bull-headed gods
wear white περιζώματα (aprons).
168. The title of Mithra in Vendidad XIX, 28; cit. by Cumont: “Textes
et Monuments,” p. 37.
169. The development of the sun symbol in Faust does not go as far as
an anthropomorphic vision. It stops in the suicide scene at the chariot
of Helios (“A fiery chariot borne on buoyant pinions sweeps near me
now”). The fiery chariot comes to receive the dying or departing hero,
as in the ascension of Elijah or of Mithra. (Similarly Francis of
Assisi.) In his flight Faust passes over the sea, just as does Mithra.
The ancient Christian pictorial representations of the ascension of
Elijah are partly founded upon the corresponding Mithraic representations.
The horses of the sun-chariot rushing upwards to Heaven leave
the solid earth behind, and pursue their course over a water god, Oceanus,
lying at their feet. (Cumont: “Textes et Monuments.” Bruxelles 1899,
I, p. 178.)
170. Compare my article, “Psych. und Path. sog. occ. Phän.”
171. Quoted from Pitra: “Analecta sacra,” cit. by Cumont: “Textes et
Monuments,” p. 355.
172. Helios, the rising sun—the only sun rising from heaven!
173. Cited from Usener: “Weihnachtsfest,” p. 5.
174. “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 healing
shall be displayed.”
175. The passage from Malachi is found in chap. iv, 2: “But unto you
that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in
His wings” (feathers). This figure of speech recalls the Egyptian sun
symbol.
176. Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” t. I, p. 355. περὶ ἀστρονόμων.
177. “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
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.’”
178. “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.”
179. The pictures in the Catacombs contain much symbolism of the sun.
The Swastika cross, for example—a well-known image of the sun, wheel
of the sun, or sun’s feet—is found upon the garment of Fossor Diogenes
in the cemetery of Peter and Marcellinus. The symbols of the rising sun,
the bull and the ram, are found in the Orpheus fresco of the cemetery
of the holy Domitilla. Similarly the ram and the peacock (which, like
the phœnix, is the symbol of the sun) is found upon an epitaph of the
Callistus Catacomb.
180. Compare the countless examples in Görres: “Die christliche
Mystik.”
181. Compare Leblant: “Sarcophages de la Gaule,” 1880. In the “Homilies”
of Clement of Rome (“Hom.,” II, 23, cit. by Cumont) it is said:
Τῷ κυρίῳ γεγονάσιν δώδεκα ἀπόστολοι τῶν τοῦ ἡλίου δώδεκα μηνῶν φέροντες
τὸν ἀριθμόν (The twelve apostles of the Lord, having the number of
the twelve months of the sun). As is apparent, this idea is concerned
with the course of the sun through the Zodiac. Without wishing to enter
upon an interpretation of the Zodiac, I mention that, according to the
ancient view (probably Chaldean), the course of the sun was represented
by a snake which carried the signs of the Zodiac on its back (similarly
to the Leontocephalic God of the Mithra mysteries). This view is proven
by a passage from a Vatican Codex edited by Cumont in another connection
(190, saec. XIII, p. 229, p. 85): “τότε ὁ πάνσοφος δημιουργὸς ἄκρῳ
νεύματι ἐκίνησε τὸν μέγαν δράκοντα σὺν τῷ κεκοσμημένῳ στεφάνῳ, λέγω δὴ τὰ ἰβ’ ζῴδια,
βαστάζοντα ἐπὶ τοῦ νώτου αὐτοῦ” (The all-wise maker of the world
set in motion the great dragon with the adorned crown, with a command
at the end. I speak now of the twelve images borne on the back of
this).
This inner connection of the ζῴδια (small images) with the zodiacal
snake is worthy of notice and gives food for thought. The Manichæan
system attributes to Christ the symbol of the snake, and indeed of the
snake on the tree of Paradise. For this the quotation from John gives
far-reaching justification (John iii:14): “And as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up.”
An old theologian, Hauff (“Biblische Real- und Verbalkonkordanz,”
1834), makes this careful observation concerning this quotation: “Christ
considered the Old Testament story an unintentional symbol of the idea
of the atonement.” The almost bodily connection of the followers with
Christ is well known. (Romans xii:4): “For as we have many members
in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being
many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”
If confirmation is needed that the zodiacal signs are symbols of the libido,
then the sentence in John i:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world,” assumes a significant meaning.
182. 505According to an eleventh-century manuscript in Munich; Albrecht
Wirth: “Aus orientalischen Chroniken,” p. 151. Frankfurt 1894.
183. “To Zeus, the Great Sun God, the King, the Saviour.”
184. Abeghian: “Der armenische Volksglaube,” p. 41, 1899.
185. Compare Aigremont: “Fuss- und Schuhsymbolik,” Leipzig 1909.
186. Attis was later assimilated with Mithra. Like Mithra he was
represented with the Phrygian cap (Cumont: “Myst. des Mith.,” p. 65).
According to the testimony of Hieronymus, the manger (Geburtshöhle)
at Bethlehem was originally a sanctuary (Spelæum) of Attis (Usener:
“Weihnachtsfest,” p. 283).
187. Cumont (“Die Mysterien des Mithra,” p. 4) says of Christianity
and Mithracism: “Both opponents perceived with astonishment how
similar they were in many respects, without being able to account for the
causes of this similarity.”
188. Our present-day moral views come into conflict with this wish in so
far as it concerns the erotic fate. The erotic adventures necessary for
so many people are often all too easily given up because of moral
opposition, and one willingly allows himself to be discouraged because
of the social advantages of being moral.
189. The poetical works of Lord Byron.
190. Edmond Rostand: “Cyrano de Bergerac,” Paris 1898.
191. The projection into the “cosmic” is the primitive privilege of the
libido, for it enters into our perception naturally through all the avenues
of the senses, apparently from without, and in the form of pain and
pleasure connected with the objects. This we attribute to the object
without further thought, and we are inclined, in spite of our philosophic
considerations, to seek the causes in the object, which often has very
little concern with it. (Compare this with the Freudian conception of
Transference, especially Firenczi’s remarks in his paper, “Introjektion
und Übertragung,” Jahrbuch, Vol. I, p. 422.) Beautiful examples
of direct libido projection are found in erotic songs:
“Down on the strand, down on the shore,
A maiden washed the kerchief of her lover;
And a soft west wind came blowing over the shore,
Lifted her skirt a little with its breeze
And let a little of her ankles be seen,
And the seashore became as bright as all the world.”
(Neo-Grecian Folksong from Sanders: “Das Volksleben
der Neugriechen,” 1844, p. 81, cit. Zeitschrift
des Vereines für Volkskunde, Jahrgang XII,
1902, p. 166.)
“In the farm of Gymir I saw
A lovely maiden coming toward me;
From the brilliance of her arm glowed
The sky and all the everlasting sea.”
(From the Edda, tr. (into Ger.) by H. Gering, p.
53; Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, Jahrgang XII, 1902,
p. 167.)
Here, too, belong all the miraculous stories of cosmic events, phenomena
occurring at the birth and death of heroes. (The Star of Bethlehem;
earthquakes, the rending asunder of the temple hangings, etc., at the
death of Christ.) The omnipotence of God is the manifest omnipotence
of the libido, the only actual doer of wonders which we know. The
symptom described by Freud, as the “omnipotence of thought” in Compulsion
Neuroses arises from the “sexualizing” of the intellect. The
historical parallel for this is the magical omnipotence of the mystic,
attained by introversion. The “omnipotence of thought” corresponds to
the identification with God of the paranoic, arrived at similarly through
introversion.
192. 506Comparable to the mythological heroes who after their greatest
deeds fall into spiritual confusion.
193. Here I must refer you to the blasphemous piety of Zinzendorf, which
has been made accessible to us by the noteworthy investigation of Pfister.
194. Anah is really the beloved of Japhet, the son of Noah. She leaves
him because of the angel.
195. The one invoked is really a star. Compare Miss Miller’s poem.
196. Really an attribute of the wandering sun.
197. Compare Miss Miller’s poem.
“My poor life is gone,
· · · · ·
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.”
198. The light-substance of God.
199. The light-substance of the individual soul.
200. The bringing together of the two light-substances shows their
common origin; they are the symbols of the libido. Here they are figures
of speech. In earlier times they were doctrines. According to Mechthild
von Magdeburg the soul is made out of love (“Das fliessende Licht der
Gottheit,” herausgegeben von Escherich, Berlin 1909).
201. Compare what is said above about the snake symbol of the libido.
The idea that the climax means at the same time the end, even death,
forces itself here.
202. 507Compare the previously mentioned pictures of Stuck: Vice, Sin and
Lust, where the woman’s naked body is encircled by the snake. Fundamentally
it is a symbol of the most extreme fear of death. The death
of Cleopatra may be mentioned here.
203. Encircling by the serpent.
508
Part Ii
Chapter I
204. This is the way it appears to us from the psychological standpoint.
See below.
205. Samson as Sun-god. See Steinthal: “Die Sage von Simson,” Zeitschrift
für Völkerpsychologie, Vol. II.
206. I am indebted for the knowledge of this fragment to Dr. Van
Ophuijsen of The Hague.
207. Rudra, properly father of the Maruts (winds), a wind or sun god,
appears here as the sole creator God, as shown in the course of the
text. The rôle of creator and fructifier easily belongs to him as wind
god. I refer to the observations in Part I concerning Anaxagoras and
to what follows.
208. This and the following passages from the Upanishads are quoted
from: “The Upanishads,” translated by R. G. S. Mead and J. C. Chattopâdhyâya.
London 1896.
209. In a similar manner, the Persian sun-god Mithra is endowed with
an immense number of eyes.
210. Whoever has in himself, God, the sun, is immortal, like the sun.
Compare Pt. I, Ch. 5.
211. Bayard Taylor’s translation of “Faust” is used throughout this book.—Translator.
212. He was given that name because he had introduced the phallic cult
into Greece. In gratitude to him for having buried the mother of the
serpents, the young serpents cleaned his ears, so that he became clairaudient
and understood the language of birds and beasts.
213. Compare the vase picture of Thebes, where the Cabiri are represented
in noble and in caricatured form (in Roscher: “Lexicon,” s.
Megaloi Theoi).
214. The justification for calling the Dactyli thumbs is given in a note
in Pliny: 37, 170, according to which there were in Crete precious stones
of iron color and thumblike shape which were called Idaean Dactyli.
215. Therefore, the dactylic metre or verse.
216. See Roscher: “Lexicon of Greek and Roman Mythology,” s.
Dactyli.
217. According to Jensen: “Kosmologie,” p. 292, Oannes-Ea is the educator
of men.
218. Inman: “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism.”
219. Varro identifies the μεγάλοι θεοί with the Penates. The Cabiri might
be simulacra duo virilia Castoris et Pollucis in the harbor of Samothrace.
220. In Brasiae on the Laconian coast and in Pephnos some statues
only a foot high with caps on their heads were found.
221. 509That the monks have again invented cowls seems of no slight
importance.
222. Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, II, p. 187.
223. The typical motive of the youthful teacher of wisdom has also
been introduced into the Christ myth in the scene of the twelve-year-old
Jesus in the temple.
224. Next to this, there is a female figure designated as ΚΡΑΤΕΙΑ,
which means “one who brings forth” (Orphic).
225. Roscher: “Lexicon,” s. v. Megaloi Theoi.
226. Comrade—fellow-reveller.
227. Roscher: “Lexicon,” s. v. Phales.
228. Compare Freud’s evidence, Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, I,
p. 188. I must remark at this place that etymologically penis and
penates are not grouped together. On the contrary, πέος, πόσυη,
Sanskrit pása-ḥ, Latin penis, were given with the Middle High German
visel (penis) and Old High German fasel the significance of fœtus,
proles. (Walde: “Latin Etymologie,” s. Penis.)
229. Stekel in his “Traumsymbolik” has traced out this sort of representation
of the genitals, as has Spielrein also in a case of dementia
praecox. 1912 Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 369.
230. The figure of Κράτεια, the one who “brings forth,” placed beside
it is surprising in that the libido occupied in creating religion has
apparently developed out of the primitive relation to the mother.
231. In Freud’s paper (“Psychoanalytische Bemerkungen über einen
Fall von Paranoia usw.,” 1912 Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 68), which appeared
simultaneously with the first part of my book, he makes an
observation absolutely parallel to the meaning of my remarks concerning
the “libido theory” resulting from the phantasies of the insane
Schreber: Schreber’s divine rays composed by condensation of sun’s rays,
nerve fibres and sperma are really nothing else but the libido fixations
projected outside and objectively represented, and lend to his delusion
a striking agreement with our theory. That the world must come to
an end because the ego of the patient attracts all the rays to himself;
that later during the process of reconstruction he must be very anxious
lest God sever the connection of the rays with him: these and certain
other peculiarities of Schreber’s delusion sound very like the foregoing
endopsychic perceptions, on the assumption of which I have based the
interpretation of paranoia.
232. “Tuscalanarum quaestionum,” lib. IV.
233. 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 transported
and exults on obtaining what was desired: for we naturally pursue
those things that have the appearance of good, and avoid the contrary—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 reasonable
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.
234. “Pro Quint.,” 14.
235. Libido is used for arms and military horses rather than for dissipations
and banquets.
236. Walde: “Latin Etymological Dictionary,” 1910. See libet. Liberi
(children) is grouped together with libet by Nazari (“Riv. di Fil.,”
XXXVI, 573). Could this be proven, then Liber, the Italian god
of procreation, undoubtedly connected with liberi, would also be grouped
with libet. Libitina is the goddess of the dead, who would have nothing
in common with Lubentina and Lubentia (attribute of Venus), which
belongs to libet; the name is as yet unexplained. (Compare the later
comments in this work.) Libare = to pour (to sacrifice?) and is supposed
to have nothing to do with liber. The etymology of libido shows
not only the central setting of the idea, but also the connection with
the German Liebe (love). We are obliged to say under these
circumstances that not only the idea, but also the word libido is well
chosen for the subject under discussion.
237. 510A corrected view on the conservation of energy in the light of the
theory of cognition might offer the comment that this picture is the projection
of an endopsychic perception of the equivalent transformations
of the libido.
Chapter Ii
238. Freud: “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory,” p. 29. Translation
by Brill. “In a non-sexual ‘impulse’ originating from impulses
of motor sources we can distinguish a contribution from a stimulus-receiving
organ, such as the skin, mucous membrane, and sensory
organs. This we shall here designate as an erogenous zone; it is that
organ the stimulus of which bestows on the impulse the sexual character.”
239. Freud: Ibid., p. 14. “One definite kind of contiguity, consisting of
mutual approximation of the mucous membranes of the lips in the
form of a kiss, has among the most civilized nations received a sexual
value, though the parts of the body concerned do not belong to the sexual
apparatus but form the entrance to the digestive tract.”
240. See Freud: Ibid.
241. An old view which Möbius endeavored to bring again to its own.
Among the newcomers it is Fouillée, Wundt, Beneke, Spencer, Ribot
and others, who grant the psychologic primate to the impulse system.
242. Freud: Ibid., p. 25. “I must repeat that these psychoneuroses, as
far as my experience goes, are based on sexual motive powers. I do
not mean that the energy of the sexual impulse contributes to the forces
supporting the morbid manifestations (symptoms), but I wish distinctly
to maintain that this supplies the only constant and the most important
source of energy in the neurosis, so that the sexual life of such persons
manifests itself either exclusively, preponderately, or partially in these
symptoms.”
243. That scholasticism is still firmly rooted in mankind is only
too easily proven, and an illustration of this is the fact that not the
least of the reproaches directed against Freud, is that he has changed
certain of his earlier conceptions. Woe to those who compel mankind
to learn anew! “Les savants ne sont pas curieux.”
244. Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 65.
245. Schreber’s case is not a pure paranoia in the modern sense.
246. Also in “Der Inhalt der Psychose,” 1908.
247. Compare Jung: “The Psychology of Dementia Praecox,” p. 114.
248. For example, in a frigid woman who as a result of a specific sexual
repression does not succeed in bringing the libido sexualis to the husband,
the parent imago is present and she produces symptoms which
belong to that environment.
249. Similar transgression of the sexual sphere might also occur in
hysterical psychoses; that indeed is included with the definition of the
psychosis and means nothing but a general disturbance of adaptation.
250. 511“Die psychosexuellen Differenzen der Hysterie und der Dementia
praecox,” Zentralblatt für Nervenheilkunde und Psychiatrie, 1908.
251. “Introjektion und Übertragung,” Jahrbuch, Vol. I, p. 422.
252. See Avenarius: “Menschliche Weltbegriffe,” p. 25.
253. “Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” Vol. I, p. 54.
254. “Theogonie.”
255. Compare Roscher: “Lexicon,” p. 2248.
256. Drews: “Plotinus,” Jena 1907, p. 127.
257. Ibid., p. 132.
258. One substance in three forms.
259. Ibid., p. 135.
260. Plotinus: “Enneades,” II, 5, 3.
261. Plotinus: “Enneades,” IV, 8, 3.
262. “Enneades,” III, 5, 9.
263. Ibid., p. 141.
264. Naturally this does not mean that the function of reality owes its
existence to the differentiation in procreative instincts exclusively. I am
aware of the undetermined great part played by the function of
nutrition.
265. Malthusianism is the artificial setting forth of the natural tendency.
266. For instance, in the form of procreation as in general of the will.
267. Freud in his work on paranoia has allowed himself to be carried
over the boundaries of his original conception of libido by the facts of
this illness. He there uses libido even for the function of reality, which
cannot be reconciled with the standpoint of the “Three Contributions.”
268. Bleuler arrives at this conclusion from the ground of other considerations,
which I cannot always accept. See Bleuler, “Dementia
Praecox,” in Aschaffenburg’s “Handbuch der Psychiatrie.”
269. See Jung: “Kritik über E. Bleuler: Zur Theorie des schizophrenen
Negativismus.” Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 469.
270. Spielrein: “Über den psychologischen Inhalt eines Falles von
Schizophrenie.” Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 329.
271. His researches are in my possession and their publication is in
preparation.
272. Honegger made use of this example in his lecture at the private
psychoanalytic congress in Nürnberg, 1910.
273. Spielrein: Ibid., pp. 338, 353, 387. For soma as the “effusion of
the seed,” see what follows.
274. Compare Berthelot: “Les Alchémistes Grecs,” and Spielrein: Ibid.,
p. 353.
275. I cannot refrain from observing that this vision reveals the original
meaning of alchemy. A primitive magic power for generation, that is
to say, a means by which children could be produced without the mother.
276. 512Spielrein: Ibid., pp. 338, 345.
277. I must mention here those Indians who create the first people from
the union of a sword hilt and a shuttle.
278. Ibid., p. 399.
Chapter Iii
279. Naturally a precursor of onanism.
280. This true catatonic pendulum movement of the head, I saw arise
in the case of a catatonic patient, from the coitus movements gradually
shifted upwards. This Freud has described long ago as a shifting from
below to above.
281. She put the small fragments which fell out into her mouth and ate
them.
282. “Dreams and Myths.” Vienna 1909. Translated by Wm. A. White,
M.D.
283. A. Kuhn: “Mythologische Studien,” Vol. I: “Die Herabkunft des
Feuers und des Göttertrankes.” Gütersloh 1886. A very readable
résumé of the contents is to be found in Steinthal: “Die ursprüngliche
Form der Sage von Prometheus,” Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und
Sprachwissenschaft, Vol. II, 1862; also in Abraham: Ibid.
284. Also mathnâmi and mâthayati. The root manth or math has a
special significance.
285. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, Vol. II, p. 395, and
Vol. IV, p. 124.
286. I learn (that which is learned, knowledge; the act of learning), to
take thought beforehand, to Prometheus (forethought).
287. Prometheus, the herald of the Titans.
288. Bapp in Roscher’s “Lexicon,” Sp. 3034.
289. Bhṛgu = φλεγυ, a recognized connection of sound. See Roscher: Sp.
3034, 54.
290. For the eagle as a fire token among the Indians, see Roscher: Sp.
3034, 60.
291. The stem manth according to Kuhn becomes in German
mangeln, rollen (referring to washing). Manthara is the butter
paddle. When the gods generated the amrta (drink of immortality)
by twirling the ocean around, they used the mountain Mandara as the
paddle (see Kuhn: Ibid., p. 17). Steinthal calls attention to the Latin
expression in poetical speech: mentula = male member, in which ment
(manth) was used. I add here also, mentula is to be taken as diminutive
for menta or mentha (μίνθα), Minze. In antiquity the Minze was
called “Crown of Aphrodite” (Dioscorides, II, 154). Apuleius called
it “mentha venerea”; it was an aphrodisiac. (The opposite meaning is
found in Hippocrates: Si quis eam saepe comedat, ejus genitale semen
ita colliquescit, ut effluat, et arrigere prohibet et corpus imbecillum reddit),
and according to Dioscorides, Minze is a means of preventing conception.
(See Aigremont: “Volkserotik und Pflanzenwelt,” Vol. I, p. 127). But the
ancients also said of Menta: “Menta autem appellata, quod suo odore
mentem feriat—mentae ipsius odor animum excitat.” This leads us to
the root ment—in Latin mens; English, mind—with which the parallel
development to pramantha, Προμηθεύς, would be completed. Still to be
added is that an especially strong chin is called mento (mentum).
A special development of the chin is given, as we know, to the priapic
figure of Pulcinello, also the pointed beard (and ears) of the satyrs and
the other priapic demon, just as in general all the protruding parts of
the body can be given a masculine significance and all the receding
parts or depressions a feminine significance. This applies also to all
other animate or inanimate objects. See Maeder: Psycho.-Neurol.
Wochenschr., X. Jahrgang. However, this whole connection is more
than a little uncertain.
292. 513Abraham observes that in Hebrew the significance of the words
for man and woman is related to this symbolism.
293. “What is called the gulya (pudendum) means the yoni (the birthplace)
of the God; the fire, which was born there, is called ‘beneficent’”
(“Kâtyâyanas Karmapradîpa,” I, 7; translated by Kuhn: “Herabkunft
des Feuers,” p. 67). The etymologic connection between bohren—geboren
is possible. The Germanic bŏrôn (to bore) is primarily related
to the Latin forare and the Greek φαράω = to plow. Possibly it is
an Indo-Germanic root bher with the meaning to bear; Sanscrit bhar-;
Greek φερ-; Latin fer-; from this Old High German beran, English to
bear, Latin fero and fertilis, fordus (pregnant); Greek φορός. Walde
(“Latin Etym.,” s. Ferio) traces forare to the root bher-. Compare with
this the phallic symbolism of the plough, which we meet later on.
294. Weber: “Indische Studien,” I, 197; quoted by Kuhn: Ibid., p. 71.
295. “Rigveda,” III, 29—1 to 3.
296. Or mankind in general. Viçpatni is the feminine wood, viçpati, an
attribute of Agni, the masculine. In the instruments of fire lies the
origin of the human race, from the same perverse logic as in the beforementioned
shuttle and sword-hilt. Coitus as the means of origin of
the human race must be denied, from the motive, to be more fully discussed
later, of a primitive resistance against sexuality.
297. Wood as the symbol of the mother is well known from the dream
investigation of the present time. See Freud: “Dream Interpretation.”
Stekel (“Sprache des Traumes,” p. 128) explains it as the symbol of
the woman. Wood is also a German vulgar term for the breast.
(“Wood before the house.”) The Christian wood symbolism needs a
chapter by itself. The son of Ilâ: Ilâ is the daughter of Manus, the
one and only, who with the help of his fish has overcome the deluge,
and then with his daughter again procreated the human race.
298. See Hirt: “Etymologie der neuhochdeutschen Sprache,” p. 348.
299. The capitular of Charlemagne of 942 forbade “those sacrilegious
fires which are called Niedfyr.” See Grimm: “Mythologie,” 4th edition,
p. 502. Here there are to be found descriptions of similar fire ceremonies.
300. Kuhn: Ibid., p. 43.
301. 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.
302. Preuss: “Globus,” LXXXVI, 1905, S. 358.
303. Compare with this Friedrich Schultze: “Psychologie der Naturvölker,”
p. 161.
304. This primitive play leads to the phallic symbolism of the plough.
Ἀροῦν means to plough and possesses in addition the poetic meaning
of impregnate. The Latin arare means merely to plough, but the phrase
“fundum alienum arare” means “to pluck cherries in a neighbor’s
garden.” A striking representation of the phallic plough is found on
a vase in the archeological museum in Florence. It portrays a row
of six naked ithyphallic men who carry a plough represented phallically
(Dieterich: “Mutter Erde,” p. 107). The “carrus navalis” of our
spring festival (carnival) was at times during the Middle Ages a
plough (Hahn: “Demeter und Baubo,” quoted by Dieterich: Ibid., p.
109). Dr. Abegg of Zurich called my attention to the clever work of
R. Meringer (“Wörter und Sachen. Indogermanische Forschungen,” 16,
179/84, 1904). We are made acquainted there with a very far-reaching
amalgamation of the libido symbols with the external materials and
external activities, which support our previous considerations to an
extraordinary degree. Meringer’s assumption proceeds from the two
Indo-Germanic roots, ṷen and ṷeneti. Indo-Germanic *uen Holz, ai.
ist. van, vana. Agni is garbhas vanām, “fruit of the womb of the
woods.”
Indo-Germanic *ṷeneti signifies “he ploughs”: by that is meant the
penetration of the ground by means of a sharpened piece of wood and
the throwing up of the earth resulting from it. This verb itself is not
verified because this very primitive working of the ground was given
up at an early time. When a better treatment of the fields was learned,
the primitive designation for the ploughed field was given to the pasture,
therefore Gothic vinja, υομη, Old Icelandic vin, pasture, meadow. Perhaps
also the Icelandic Vanen, as Gods of agriculture, came from that.
From ackern (to plough) sprang coïre (the connection might have
been the other way); also Indo-Germanic *ṷenos (enjoyment of love),
Latin venus. Compare with this the root ṷen = wood. Coïre = passionately
to strive; compare Old High German vinnan, to rave or to
storm; also the Gothic vēns; ἐλπις = hope; Old High German wân =
expectation, hope; Sanscrit van, to desire or need; further, Wonne (delight,
ecstasy); Old Icelandic vinr (beloved, friend). From the meaning
ackern (to plough) arises wohnen (to live). This transition has been
completed only in the German. From wohnen → gewöhnen, gewohnt sein
(to be accustomed), Old Icelandic vanr = gewohnt (to be accustomed);
from ackern further → sich mühen, plagen (to take much trouble, wearing
work), Old Icelandic vinna, to work: Old High German winnan (to toil
hard, to overwork); Gothic vinnan, πάσχειν; vunns, πάθημα. From ackern
comes, on the other hand, gewinnen, erlangen (to win, to attain), Old
High German giwinnan, but also verletzen (to injure): Gothic vunds
(wund), wound. Wund in the beginning, the most primal sense, was
therefore the ground torn up by the wooden implement. From verletzen
(to injure) come schlagen (to strike), besiegen (to conquer): Old High
German winna (strife); Old Saxon winnan (to battle).
305. 514The old custom of making the “bridal bed” upon the field, which
was for the purpose of rendering the field fertile, contains the primitive
thought in the most elementary form; by that the analogy was expressed
in the clearest manner: Just as I impregnate the woman, so do I impregnate
the earth. The symbol leads the sexual libido over to the cultivation
of the earth and to its fruitfulness. Compare with that Mannhardt:
“Wald- und Feldkulte,” where there are abundant illustrations.
306. Spielrein’s patient (Jahrbuch, III, p. 371) associates fire and generation
in an unmistakable manner. She says as follows concerning it:
“One needs iron for the purpose of piercing the earth and for the
purpose of creating fire.” This is to be found in the Mithra liturgy as
well. In the invocation to the fire god, it is said: ὁ συνδήσας πνεύματι
τὰ πὑρινα κλεῖθρα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (Thou who hast closed up the fiery locks of
heaven, with the breath of the spirit,—open to me). “With iron one
can create cold people from the stone.” The boring into the earth has
for her the meaning of fructification or birth. She says: “With the
glowing iron one can pierce through mountains. The iron becomes
glowing when one pushes it into a stone.”
Compare with this the etymology of bohren and gebären (see above).
In the “Bluebird” of Maeterlinck the two children who seek the bluebird
in the land of the unborn children, find a boy who bores into his nose.
It is said of him: he will discover a new fire, so as to warm the earth
again, when it will have grown cold.
307. 515Compare with this the interesting proofs in Bücher: “Arbeit und
Rhythmus,” Leipzig 1899.
308. Amusement is undoubtedly coupled with many rites, but by no means
with all. There are some very unpleasant things.
309. The Upanishads belong to the Brâhmana, to the theology of the
Vedic writings, and comprise the theosophical-speculative part of the
Vedic teachings. The Vedic writings and collections are in part of
very uncertain age and may reach back to a very distant past because
for a long period they were handed down only orally.
310. The primal and omniscient being, the idea of whom, translated
into psychology, is comprehended in the conception of libido.
311. Âtman is also considered as originally a bisexual being—corresponding
to the libido theory. The world sprang from desire. Compare
Bṛihadâraṇyaka-Upaniṣhad, I, 4, 1 (Deussen):
“(1) In the beginning this world was Âtman alone—he looked
around: Then he saw nothing but himself.
“(2) Then he was frightened; therefore, one is afraid, when one is
alone. Then he thought: Wherefore should I be afraid,
since there is nothing beside myself?
“(3) But also he had no joy, therefore one has no joy when one
is alone. Then he longed for a companion.”
After this there follows the description of his division quoted above.
Plato’s conception of the world-soul approaches very near to the Hindoo
idea. “The soul in no wise needed eyes, because near it there was
nothing visible. Nothing was separate from it, nothing approached it,
because outside of it there was nothing” (“Timaios”).
312. Compare with this Freud’s “Three Contributions to the Sexual
Theory.”
313. What seems an apparently close parallel to the position of the hand
in the Upanishad text I observed in a little child. The child held one
hand before his mouth and rubbed it with the other, a movement which
may be compared to that of the violinist. It was an early infantile
habit which persisted for a long time afterwards.
314. Compare Freud: “Bemerkungen über einen Fall von Zwangsneurose.”
1912 Jahrbuch, Vol. I, p. 357.
315. As shown above, in the child the libido progresses from the mouth
zone into the sexual zone.
316. 516Compare what has been said above about Dactyli. Abundant examples
are found in Aigremont: “Fuss- und Schuhsymbolik.”
317. When, in the enormously increased sexual resistance of the present
day, women emphasize the secondary signs of sex and their erotic
charm by specially designed clothing, that is a phenomenon which belongs
in the same general scheme for the heightening of allurement.
318. It is well known that the orifice of the ear has also a sexual value. In
a hymn to the Virgin it is called “quæ per aurem concepisti.” Rabelais’
Gargantua was born through his mother’s ear. Bastian (“Beiträge z.
vergl. Psychologie,” p. 238) mentions the following passage from
an old work, “There is not to be found in this entire kingdom, even
among the very smallest girls, a maiden, because even in her tender
youth she puts a special medicine into her genitals, also in the orifice of
her ears; she stretches these and holds them open continuously.”—Also
the Mongolian Buddha was born from the ear of his mother.
319. The driving motive for the breaking up of the ring might be sought,
as I have already intimated in passing, in the fact that the secondary
sexual activity (the transformed coitus) never is or would be adapted
to bring about that natural satiety, as is the activity in its real place.
With this first step towards transformation, the first step towards the
characteristic dissatisfaction was also taken, which later drove man
from discovery to discovery without allowing him ever to attain satiety.
Thus it looks from the biological standpoint, which however is not the
only one possible.
320. Translated by Mead and Chattopâdhyâya. Sec. 1, Pt. II.
321. In a song of the Rigveda it is said that the hymns and sacrificial
speeches, as well as all creation in general, have proceeded from the
“entirely fire consumed” Purusha (primitive man-creator of the world).
322. To shine; to show forth; reveal;—light.
323. I said; they said; a saying; an oracle.
324. Compare Brugsch: “Religion und Myth. d. alt. Aegypter,” p. 255 f.,
and the Egyptian dictionary.
325. The German word “Schwan” belongs here, therefore it sings when
dying. It is the sun. The metaphor in Heine supplements this very
beautifully.
“Es singt der Schwan im Weiher
Und rudert auf und ab,
Und immer leiser singend,
Taucht er ins Flutengrab.”
Hauptmann’s “Sunken Bell” is a sun myth in which bell = sun = life =
libido.
326. 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.
327. Loosely connected with ag-ilis. See Max Müller: “Vorl. über den
Ursprung und die Entwicklung der Religion,” p. 237.
328. An Eranian name of fire is Nairyôçağha = masculine word. The
Hindoo Narâçam̆sa means wish of men (Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,”
II, 49). Fire has the significance of Logos (compare Ch. 7, “Siegfried”).
Of Agni (fire), Max Müller, in his introduction to “The Science
of Comparative Religions,” says: “It was a conception familiar to
India to consider the fire upon the altar as being at the same time
subject and object. The fire burned the sacrifice and was thereby similar
to the priest, the fire carried the sacrifice to the gods, and was thereby
an intercessor between men and the gods: fire itself, however, represented also something divine, a god, and when honor was to be shown
to this god, then fire was as much the subject as the object of the
sacrifice. Hence the first conception, that Agni sacrificed itself, i.e. that
it produced for itself its own sacrifice, and next that it brings itself
to the sacrifice.” The contact of this line of thought with the Christian
symbol is plainly apparent. Krishna utters the same thought in the
“Bhagavad-Gîtâ,” b. IV (translated by Arnold, London 1910):
“All’s then God!
The sacrifice is Brahm, the ghee and grain
Are Brahm, the fire is Brahm, the flesh it eats
Is Brahm, and unto Brahm attaineth he
Who, in such office, meditates on Brahm.”
The wise Diotima sees behind this symbol of fire (in Plato’s symposium,
c. 23). She teaches Socrates that Eros is “the intermediate
being between mortals and immortals, a great Demon, dear Socrates;
for everything demoniac is just the intermediate link between God and
man.” Eros has the task “of being interpreter and messenger from
men to the gods, and from the gods to men, from the former for their
prayers and sacrifices, from the latter for their commands and for
their compensations for the sacrifices, and thus filling up the gap between
both, so that through his mediation the whole is bound together with
itself.” Eros is a son of Penia (poverty, need) generated by Poros
intoxicated with nectar. The meaning of Poros is dark; πόρος means way
and hole, opening. Zielinski: “Arch. f. Rel. Wissensch.,” IX, 43 ff.,
places him with Phoroneus, identical with the fire-bringer, who is held
in doubt; others identify him with primal chaos, whereas others read
arbitrarily Κόρος and Μόρος. Under these circumstances, the question
arises whether there may not be sought behind it a relatively simple
sexual symbolism. Eros would be then simply the son of Need and of
the female genitals, for this door is the beginning and birthplace of
fire. Diotima gives an excellent description of Eros: “He is manly,
daring, persevering, a strong hunter (archer, compare below) and an
incessant intriguer, who is constantly striving after wisdom,—a powerful
sorcerer, poison mixer and sophist; and he is respected neither as an
immortal nor as a mortal, but on the same day he first blooms and
blossoms, when he has attained the fulness of the striving, then dies
in it but always awakens again to life because of the nature of his
father (rebirth!); attainment, however, always tears him down
again.” For this characterization, compare Chs. V, VI and VII of this
work.
329. 517Compare Riklin: “Wish Fulfilment and Symbolism in Fairy Tales,”
translated by Wm. White, M.D., where a child is produced by the
parents placing a little turnip in the oven. The motive of the furnace
where the child is hatched is also found again in the type of the whale-dragon
myth. It is there a regularly recurring motive because the belly
of the dragon is very hot, so that as the result of the heat the hero
loses his hair—that is to say, he loses the characteristic covering of hair
of the adult and becomes a child. (Naturally the hair is related to
the sun’s rays, which are extinguished in the setting of the sun.)
Abundant examples of this motive are in Frobenius: “Das Zeitalter
des Sonnengottes,” Vol. I. Berlin 1904.
330. A potion of immortality.
331. This aspect of Agni is similar to Dionysus, who bears a remarkable
parallel to both the Christian and the Hindoo mythology.
332. 518“Now everything in the world which is damp, he created from
sperma, but this is the soma.” Bṛihadâraṇyaka-Upaniṣhad, 1–4.
333. The question is whether this significance was a secondary development.
Kuhn seems to assume this. He says (“Herabkunft des Feuers,”
p. 18): “However, together with the meaning of the root manth already
evolved, there has also developed in the Vedas the conception of ‘tearing
off’ due naturally to the mode of procedure.”
334. Examples in Frobenius: “Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes.”
335. See in this connection Stekel: “Die sexuelle Wurzel der Kleptomanie,”
Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, 1908.
336. Even in the Roman Catholic church at various places the custom
prevailed for the priest to produce once a year the ceremonial fire.
337. I must remark that the designation of onanism as a “great discovery”
is not merely a play with words on my part. I owe it to two
young patients who pretended that they were in possession of a terrible
secret; that they had discovered something horrible, which no one had
ever known before, because had it been known great misery would have
overtaken mankind. Their discovery was onanism.
338. One must in fairness, however, consider that the demands of life,
rendered still more severe by our moral code, are so heavy that it
simply is impossible for many people to attain that goal which can be
begrudged to no one, namely the possibility of love. Under the cruel
compulsion of domestication, what is left but onanism, for those people
possessed of an active sexuality? It is well known that the most
useful and best men owe their ability to a powerful libido. This energetic
libido longs for something more than merely a Christian love for
the neighbor.
339. I am fully conscious that onanism is only an intermediate phenomenon.
There always remains the problem of the original division of
the libido.
340. In connection with my terminology mentioned in the previous
chapter, I give the name of autoerotic to this stage following the incestuous
love. Here I emphasize the erotic as a regressive phenomenon; the
libido blocked by the incest barrier regressively takes possession of an
older way of functioning anterior to the incestuous object of love. This
may be comprehended by Bleuler’s terminology, Autismus, that is, the
function of pure self-preservation, which is especially distinguished by
the function of nutrition. However, the terminology “autismus” cannot
very well be longer applied to the presexual material, because it is
already used in reference to the mental state of dementia praecox where
it has to include autoerotism plus introverted desexualized libido.
Autismus designates first of all a pathological phenomenon of regressive
character, the presexual material, however, of a normal functioning, the
chrysalis stage.
Chapter Iv
341. Therefore that beautiful name of the sun-hero Gilgamesh: Wehfrohmensch
(pain-joy human being). See Jensen: “Gilgamesh Epic.”
342. Compare here the interesting researches of H. Silberer. 1912 Jahrbuch,
Vol. I, p. 513.
343. 519See Bleuler: Psychiatr.-neurol. Wochenschrift, XII. Jahrgang, Nr.
18 to 21.
344. Compare with this my explanations in Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 469.
345. Compare the exhortation by Krishna to the irresolute Arjuna in
Bhagavad-Gîtâ: “But thou, be free of the pairs of opposites!” Bk. II,
“The Song Celestial,” Edwin Arnold.
346. “Pensées,” LIV.
347. See the following chapter.
348. Compare John Müller: “Über die phantastischen Gesichtserscheinungen,”
Coblenz 1826; and Jung: “Occult Phenomena,” in Collected
Papers on Analytic Psychology.
349. Also the related doctrine of the Upanishad.
350. Bertschinger: “Illustrierte Halluzinationen,” Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 69.
351. How very important is the coronation and sun identification, is
shown not alone from countless old customs, but also from the corresponding
ancient metaphors in the religious speech: the Wisdom of
Solomon v: 17: “Therefore, they will receive a beautiful crown from
the hand of the Lord.” I Peter v: 4: “Feed the flock of God … and
when the chief shepherd shall appear ye shall receive a crown of glory
that fadeth not away.”
In a church hymn of Allendorf it is said of the soul: “The soul is
liberated from all care and pain and in dying it has come to the crown
of joy; she stands as bride and queen in the glitter of eternal splendor,
at the side of the great king,” etc. In a hymn by Laurentius Laurentii
it is said (also of the soul): “The crown is entrusted to the brides
because they conquer.” In a song by Sacer we find the passage: “Adorn
my coffin with garlands just as a conqueror is adorned,—from those
springs of heaven, my soul has attained the eternally green crown: the
true glory of victory, coming from the son of God who has so cared
for me.” A quotation from the above-mentioned song of Allendorf is
added here, in which we have another complete expression of the primitive
psychology of the sun identification of men, which we met in the
Egyptian song of triumph of the ascending soul.
(Concerning the soul, continuation of the above passage:) “It [the
soul] sees a clear countenance [sun]: his [the sun’s] joyful loving nature
now restores it through and through: it is a light in his light.—Now the
child can see the father: He feels the gentle emotion of love. Now he
can understand the word of Jesus. He himself, the father, has loved
you. An unfathomable sea of benefits, an abyss of eternal waves of
blessing is disclosed to the enlightened spirit: he beholds the countenance
of God, and knows what signifies the inheritor of God in light and the
co-heir of Christ.—The feeble body rests on the earth: it sleeps until
Jesus awakens it. Then will the dust become the sun, which now is
covered by the dark cavern: Then shall we come together with all the
pious, who knows how soon, and will be for eternity with the Lord.” I
have emphasized the significant passages by italics: they speak for
themselves, so that I need add nothing.
352. In order to avoid misunderstanding I must add that this was absolutely
unknown to the patient.
353. 520The analysis of an eleven-year-old girl also confirms this. I gave
a report of this in the I Congrès International de Pédologie, 1911, in
Brussels.
354. The identity of the divine hero with the mystic is not to be
doubted. In a prayer written on papyrus to Hermes, it is said: σὺ γὰρ
ἐγὼ καὶ ἐγὼ σύ· τὸ σόν ὄνομα ἐμὸν καὶ τὸ ἐμὸν σὸν· ἐγὼ γὰρ εἰμι τὸ εἴθολόν σου (For
thou art I and I am thou, thy name is mine, and mine is thine; for
I am thy image). (Kenyon: Greek Papyrus, in the British Museum,
1893, p. 116, Pap. CXXII, 2. Cited by Dieterich: “Mithrasliturgie,”
p. 79.) The hero as image of the libido is strikingly illustrated in the
head of Dionysus at Leiden (Roscher, I, Sp. 1128), where the hair rises
like flame over the head. He is—like a flame: “Thy savior will be
a flame.” Firmicus Maternus (“De Errore Prof. Relig.,” 104, p. 28) acquaints
us with the fact that the god was saluted as bridegroom, and
“young light.” He transmits the corrupt Greek sentence, δε νυνφε
χαιρε νυνφε νεον φως, with which he contrasts the Christian conception:
“Nullum apud te lumen est nec est aliquis qui sponsus mereatur audire:
unum lumen est, unus est sponsus. Nominum horum gratiam Christus
accepit.” To-day Christ is still our hero and the bridegroom of the soul.
These attributes will be confirmed in regard to Miss Miller’s hero in
what follows.
355. The giving of a name is therefore of significance in the so-called
spiritual manifestations. See my paper, 1902, “Occult Phenomena,” Collected
Papers on Analytical Psychology.
356. The ancients recognized this demon as συνοπαδός, the companion and
follower.
357. A parallel to these phantasies are the well-known interpretations
of the Sella Petri of the pope.
358. When Freud called attention through his analytic researches to the
connection between excrements and gold, many ignorant persons found
themselves obliged to ridicule in an airy manner this connection. The
mythologists think differently about it. De Gubernatis says that excrement
and gold are always associated together. Grimm tells us of the following
magic charm: “If one wants money in his house the whole year,
one must eat lentils on New Year’s Day.” This notable connection is
explained simply through the physiological fact of the indigestibility of
lentils, which appear again in the form of coins. Thus one becomes a
mint.
359. A French father who naturally disagreed with me in regard to this
interest in his child mentioned, nevertheless, that when the child speaks
of cacao, he always adds “lit”; he means caca-au-lit.
360. Freud: Jahrbuch, Vol. I, p. 1. Jung: Jahrbuch, Vol. II, p. 33. See
third lecture delivered at Clark University, 1909.
361. I refer to the previous etymologic connection.
362. Compare Bleuler: Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 467.
363. “Genius and Insanity.”
364. Here again is the connection with antiquity, the infantile past.
365. This fact is unknown to me. It might be possible that in some
way the name of the legendary man who invented the cuneiform characters has been preserved (as, for example, Sinlikiunnini as the poet
of the Gilgamesh epic). But I have not succeeded in finding anything
of that sort. However, Ashshurbanaplu or Asurbanipal has left behind
that marvellous cuneiform library, which was excavated in Kujundschik.
Perhaps “Asurubama” has something to do with this name. Further
there comes into consideration the name of Aholibamah, which we have
met in Part I. The word “Ahamarama” betrays equally some connections
with Anah and Aholibamah, those daughters of Cain with the
sinful passion for the sons of God. This possibility hints at Chiwantopel
as the longed-for son of God. (Did Byron think of the two sister whores,
Ohola and Oholiba? Ezeck. xxiii:4.)
366. 521The race does not part with its wandering sun-heroes. Thus it
was related of Cagliostro, that he once drove at the same time four
white horses out of a city from all the city gates simultaneously
(Helios!).
367. Mysticism.
368. Agni, the fire, also hides himself at times in a cavern. Therefore
he must be brought forth again by generation from the cavity of the
female wood. Compare Kuhn: “Herabk. des Feuers.”
369. We = Allah.
370. The “two-horned.” According to the commentaries, this refers to
Alexander the Great, who in the Arabian legends plays nearly the same
rôle as the German Dietrich von Bern. The “two-horned” refers to
the strength of the sun-bull. Alexander is often found upon coins with
the horns of Jupiter Ammon. It is a question of identification of the
ruler around whom so many legends are clustered, with the sun of spring
in the signs of the bull and the ram. It is obvious that humanity had
a great need of effacing the personal and human from their heroes, so
as finally to make them, through a μετάστασις (eclipse), the equal of
the sun, that is to say, completely into a libido-symbol. If we thought
like Schopenhauer, then we would surely say, Libido-symbol. But if we
thought like Goethe, then we would say, Sun; for we exist, because the
sun sees us.
371. Vollers: “Chidher. Archiv für Religionswissenschaft,” p. 235, Vol.
XII, 1909. This is the work which is my authority on the Koran commentaries.
372. Here the ascension of Mithra and Christ are closely related. See
Part I.
373. A parallel is found in the Mithra mysteries! See below.
374. Parallel to this are the conversations of Mohammed with Elias, at
which the sacramental bread was served. In the New Testament the
awkwardness is restricted to the proposal of Peter. The infantile character
of such scenes is shown by similar features, thus by the gigantic
stature of Elias in the Koran, and also the tales of the commentary, in
which it is stated that Elias and Chidher met each year in Mecca,
conversed and shaved each other’s heads.
375. On the contrary, according to Matthew xvii: 11, John the Baptist is
to be understood as Elias.
376. Compare the Kyffhäuser legend.
377. 522Vollers: Ibid.
378. Another account says that Alexander had been in India on the
mountain of Adam with his “minister” Chidher.
379. These mythological equations follow absolutely the rule of dreams,
where the dreamer can be resolved into many analogous forms.
380. “He must grow, but I must waste away.”—John iii: 30.
381. Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” p. 172.
382. The parallel between Hercules and Mithra may be drawn even
more closely. Like Hercules, Mithra is an excellent archer. Judging
from certain monuments, not only the youthful Hercules appears to be
threatened by a snake, but also Mithra as a youth. The meaning of
the ἄθλος of Hercules (the work) is the same as the Mithraic mystery of
the conquering and sacrifice of the bull.
383. These three scenes are represented in a row on the Klagenfurt
monument. Thus the dramatic connection of these must be surmised
(Cumont: “Myst. des Mithras”).
384. Also the triple crown.
385. The Christian sequence is John—Christ, Peter—Pope.
386. The immortality of Moses is proven by the parallel situation with
Elias in the transfiguration.
387. See Frobenius: “Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes.”
388. Therefore the fish is the symbol of the “Son of God”; at the same
time the fish is also the symbol of the approaching world-cycle.
389. Riklin: “Wish Fulfilment and Symbolism.”
390. Inman: “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism.”
391. The amniotic membrane(?).
392. The Etrurian Tages, who sprang from the “freshly ploughed furrow,”
is also a teacher of wisdom. In the Litaolane myth of the Basutos,
there is a description of how a monster devoured all men and left only
one woman, who gave birth to a son, the hero, in a stable (instead of a
cave: see the etymology of this myth). Before she had arranged a bed
for the infant out of the straw, he was already grown and spoke “words
of wisdom.” The quick growth of the hero, a frequently recurring
motive, appears to mean that the birth and apparent childhood of the
hero are so extraordinary because his birth really means his rebirth,
therefore he becomes very quickly adapted to his hero rôle. Compare
below.
393. Battle of Rê with the night serpent.
394. Matthew iii: 11.
395. “Das Gilgameshepos in der Weltliteratur,” Vol. I, p. 50.
396. The difference between this and the Mithra sacrifice seems to be
extraordinarily significant. The Dadophores are harmless gods of light
who do not participate in the sacrifice. The animal is lacking in the
sacrifice of Christ. Therefore there are two criminals who suffer the
same death. The scene is much more dramatic. The inner connection
of the Dadophores to Mithra, of which I will speak later, allows us
to assume the same relation of Christ to the criminals. The scene with
Barabbas betrays that Christ is the god of the ending year, who is
represented by one of the thieves, while the one of the coming year is
free.
397. 523For example, the following dedication is found on a monument:
D. I. M. (Deo Invicto Mithrae) Cautopati. One discovers sometimes
Deo Mithrae Caute or Deo Mithrae Cautopati in a similar alternation
as Deo Invicto Mithrae—or sometimes Deo Invicto—or, merely, Invicto.
It also appears that the Dadophores are fitted with knife and bow, the
attributes of Mithra. From this it is to be concluded that the three
figures represent three different states of a single person. Compare
Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” p. 208.
398. Of the threefold Mithra.
399. Cited by Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” p. 208.
400. Having expanded himself threefold, he departed from the sun.
401. 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 diminishing
form of an old man.
402. Ibid.
403. Taurus and Scorpio are the equinoctial signs for the period from
4300 to 2150 B.C. These signs, long since superseded, were retained even
in the Christian era.
404. Under some circumstances, it is also sun and moon.
405. In order to characterize the individual and the all-soul, the personal
and the super-personal, Atman, a verse of the Shvetâshvatara-Upanishad
(Deussen) makes use of the following comparison:
“Zwei schön beflügelte verbundne Freunde
Umarmen einen und denselben Baum;
Einer von ihnen speist die süsse Beere,
Der andre schaut, nicht essend, nur herab.”
(Two closely allied friends, beautifully winged, embrace one
and the same tree; One of them eats the sweet berries, the other
not eating merely looks downwards.)
406. Among the elements composing man, in the Mithraic liturgy, fire is
especially emphasized as the divine element, and described as τὸ εἰς
ἐμὴν κρᾶσιν θεοδώρητον (The divine gift in my composition). Dietrich:
Ibid., p. 58.
407. Threefold God.
408. It is sufficient to point to the loving interest which mankind and
also the God of the Old Testament has for the nature of the penis, and
how much depends upon it.
409. The testicles easily count as twins. Therefore in vulgar speech
the testicles are called the Siamese twins. (“Anthropophyteia,” VII,
p. 20. Quoted by Stekel: “Sprache des Traumes,” p. 169.)
410. “Recherches sur le culte, etc., de Vénus,” Paris, 1837. Quoted by
Inman: “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” New York,
p. 4.
411. The androgynous element is not to be undervalued in the faces of
Adonis, Christ, Dionysus and Mithra, and hints at the bisexuality of the
libido. The smooth-shaven face and the feminine clothing of the Catholic
priest contain a very old female constituent from the Attis-Cybele cult.
412. Stekel (“Sprache des Traumes”) has again and again noted the
Trinity as a phallic symbol. For example, see p. 27.
413. 524Sun’s rays = Phalli.
414. In a Bakairi myth a woman appears, who has sprung from a corn
mortar. In a Zulu myth it is said: A woman is to catch a drop of blood
in a vessel, then close the vessel, put it aside for eight months and open
it in the ninth month. She follows the advice, opens the vessel in the
ninth month, and finds a child in it. (Frobenius: “Das Zeitalter des
Sonnengottes” [The Age of the Sun-God], I, p. 237.)
415. Inman: Ibid., p. 10, Plate IX.
416. Roscher: “Lexicon,” Sp. 2733/4. See section, Men.
417. A well-known sun animal, frequent as a phallic symbol.
418. Like Mithra and the Dadophores.
419. The castration in the service of the mother explains this quotation
in a very significant manner: Exod. iv: 25: “Then Zipporah took a sharp
stone, and cut off her son’s foreskin and cast it at his feet and said,
Surely, a bloody husband art thou to me.” This passage shows what
circumcision means.
420. Gilgamesh, Dionysus, Hercules, Christ, Mithra, and so on.
421. Compare with this, Graf: “R. Wagner im Fliegenden Holländer:
Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde.”
422. I have pointed out above, in reference to the Zosimos vision, that
the altar meant the uterus, corresponding to the baptismal font.
Chapter V
423. Freud: “Dream Interpretation.”
424. I am indebted to Dr. Abegg in Zürich for the knowledge of Indra and
Urvarâ, Domaldi and Râma.
425. Medieval Christianity also considered the Trinity as dwelling in the
womb of the holy Virgin.
426. “Symbolism,” Plate VII.
427. Another form of the same motive is the Persian idea of the tree of
life, which stands in the lake of rain, Vourukasha. The seeds of this
tree were mixed with water and by that the fertility of the earth was
maintained. “Vendîdâd,” 5, 57, says: The waters flow “to the lake
Vourukasha, down to the tree Hvâpa; there my trees of many kinds all
grow. I cause these waters to rain down as food for the pure man,
as fodder for the well-born cow. (Impregnation, in terms of the presexual
stage.) Another tree of life is the white Haoma, which grows
in the spring Ardvîçura, the water of life.” Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,”
I, 465, 467.
428. Excellent examples of this are given in the work of Rank, “The
Myth of the Birth of the Hero,” translated by Wm. White.
429. Shadows probably mean the soul, the nature of which is the same as
libido. Compare with this Part I.
430. But I must mention that Nork (“Realwörterbuch,” sub. Theben und
Schiff) pleads that Thebes is the ship city; his arguments are much
attacked. From among his arguments I emphasize a quotation from
Diodorus (I, 57), according to which Sesostris (whom Nork associates
with Xisuthros) had consecrated to the highest god in Thebes a vessel
280 els long. In the dialogue of Lucius (Apuleius: “Metam.,” lib. II,
28), the night journey in the sea was used as an erotic figure of speech:
“Hac enim sitarchia navigium Veneris indiget sola, ut in nocte pervigili
et oleo lucerna et vino calix abundet” (For the ship of Venus needs
this provision in order that during the night the lamp may abound with
oil and the goblet with wine). The union of the coitus motive with
the motive of pregnancy is to be found in the “night journey on the
sea” of Osiris, who in his mother’s womb copulated with his sister.
431. 525Very illuminating psychologically is the method and the manner in
which Jesus treats his mother, when he harshly repels her. Just as
strong and intense as this, has the longing for her imago grown in his
unconscious. It is surely not an accident that the name Mary accompanies
him through life. Compare the utterance of Matthew x: 35:
“I have come to set a man at variance with his father, a daughter with
her mother. He who loves father and mother more than me is not
worthy of me.” This directly hostile purpose, which calls to mind the
legendary rôle of Bertran de Born, is directed against the incestuous
bond and compels man to transfer his libido to the Saviour, who, dying,
returning into his mother and rising again, is the hero Christ.
432. Genitals.
433. The horns of the dragon have the following attributes: “They will
prey upon woman’s flesh and they will burn with fire.” The horn, a
phallic emblem, is in the unicorn the symbol of the Holy Ghost (Logos).
The unicorn is hunted by the archangel Gabriel, and driven into the lap
of the Virgin, by which was understood the immaculate conception. But
the horns are also sun’s rays, therefore the sun-gods are often horned.
The sun phallus is the prototype of the horn (sun wheel and phallus
wheel), therefore the horn is the symbol of power. Here the horns
“burn with fire” and prey upon the flesh; one recognizes in this a
representation of the pains of hell where souls were burnt by the fire
of the libido (unsatisfied longing). The harlot is “consumed” or
burned by unsatisfied longing (libido). Prometheus suffers a similar
fate, when the eagle, sun-bird (libido), tears his intestines: one might
also say, that he was pierced by the “horn.” I refer to the phallic
meaning of the spear.
434. In the Babylonian underworld, for example. The souls have a
feathery coat like birds. See the Gilgamesh epic.
435. In a fourteenth-century Gospel at Bruges there is a miniature where
the “woman” lovely as the mother of God stands with half her body
in a dragon.
436. τὸ ἀρνίον, little ram, diminutive of the obsolete ἀρήν = ram. (In
Theophrastus it occurs with the meaning of “young scion.”) The
related word ἀρνίς designates a festival annually celebrated in honor
of Linos, in which the λίνος, the lament called Linos, was sung as a
lamentation for Linos, the new-born son of Psamathe and Apollo, torn
to pieces by dogs. The mother had exposed her child out of fear of
her father Krotopos. But for revenge Apollo sent a dragon, Poine,
into Krotopos’ land. The oracle of Delphi commanded a yearly lament
by women and maidens for the dead Linos. A part of the honor was
given to Psamathe. The Linos lament is, as Herodotus shows (II, 79),
identical with the Phœnician, Cyprian and Egyptian custom of the
Adonis-(Tammuz) lament. As Herodotus observes, Linos is called
Maneros in Egypt. Brugsch points out that Maneros comes from the
Egyptian cry of lamentation, maa-n-chru: “come to the call.” Poine is
characterized by her tearing the children from the womb of all mothers.
This ensemble of motives is found again in the Apocalypse, xii: 1–5,
where it treats of the woman, whose child was threatened by a dragon
but was snatched away into the heavens. The child-murder of Herod
is an anthropomorphism of this “primitive” idea. The lamb means the
son. (See Brugsch: “Die Adonisklage und das Linoslied,” Berlin
1852.) Dieterich (Abraxas: “Studien zur Religionsgeschichte des
späteren Altertums,” 1891) refers for an explanation of this passage to
the myth of Apollo and Python, which he reproduces as follows: “To
Python, the son of earth, the great dragon, it was prophesied that the
son of Leto would kill him; Leto was pregnant by Zeus: but Hera
brought it about that she could give birth only there where the sun did
not shine. When Python saw that Leto was pregnant, he began to pursue
her in order to kill her, but Boreas brought Leto to Poseidon. The
latter brought her to Ortygia and covered the island with the waves of
the sea. When Python did not find Leto, he returned to Parnassus.
Leto brought forth upon the island thrown up by Poseidon. The fourth
day after the birth, Apollo took revenge and killed the Python.” The
birth upon the hidden island belongs to the motive of the “night journey
on the sea.” The typical character of the “island phantasy” has for
the first time been correctly perceived by Riklin (1912 Jahrbuch, Vol. II,
p. 246). A beautiful parallel for this is to be found, together with the
necessary incestuous phantasy material, in H. de Vere Stacpool: “The
Blue Lagoon.” A parallel to “Paul and Virginia.”
437. 526Revelation xxi: 2: “And the holy city, the new Jerusalem, I saw
coming down from the heaven of God, prepared as a bride adorned for
her bridegroom.”
438. The legend of Saktideva, in Somadeva Bhatta, relates that the hero,
after he had escaped from being devoured by a huge fish (terrible
mother), finally sees the golden city and marries his beloved princess
(Frobenius, p. 175).
439. In the Apocryphal acts of St. Thomas (2nd century) the church is
taken to be the virgin mother-spouse of Christ. In an invocation of the
apostle, it is said:
Come, holy name of Christ, thou who art above all names.
Come, power of the highest and greatest mercy,
Come, dispenser of the greatest blessings,
Come, gracious mother.
Come, economy of the masculine.
Come, woman, thou who disclosest the hidden mysteries….
In another invocation it is said:
Come, greatest mercy,
Come, spouse (literally community) of the male,
Come, woman, thou who knowest the mystery of the elect,
Come, woman, thou who showest the hidden things
And who revealest the unspeakable things, holy
Dove, thou who bringest forth the twin nestling,
Come, mysterious mother, etc.
F. C. Conybeare: “Die jungfräuliche Kirche und die jungfräuliche
Mutter.” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, IX, 77. The connection of
the church with the mother is not to be doubted, also the conception
of the mother as spouse. The virgin is necessarily introduced to hide
the incest idea. The “community with the male” points to the motive
of the continuous cohabitation. The “twin nestlings” refer to the old
legend, that Jesus and Thomas were twins. It plainly expresses the
motive of the Dioscuri. Therefore, doubting Thomas had to place his
finger in the wound at the side. Zinzendorf has correctly perceived the
sexual significance of this symbol that hints at the androgynous nature
of the primitive being (the libido). Compare the Persian legend of
the twin trees Meschia and Mechiane, as well as the motive of the
Dioscuri and the motive of cohabitation.
440. 527Compare Freud: “Dream Interpretation.” Also Abraham: “Dreams
and Myths,” pp. 22 f.
441. The sea is the symbol of birth.
442. Isaiah xlviii:1. “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called
by the name of Israel and are come forth out of the waters of Judah.”
443. Wirth: “Aus orientalischen Chroniken.”—The Greek “Materia” is
ὕλη, which means wood and forest; it really means moist, from the
Indo-Germanic root sū in ὕω, “to make wet, to have it rain”; ὑετός
= rain; Iranian suth = sap, fruit, birth; Sanscrit súrā = brandy; sutus =
pregnancy; sūte, sūyate = to generate; sutas = son; sūras = soma; υἱός
= son; (Sanscrit, sūnús; gothic, sunus).
444. Κοίμημα means cohabitation, κοιμητήριον bedchamber, hence coemeterium
= cemetery, enclosed fenced place.
445. Nork: “Realwörterbuch.”
446. In a myth of Celebes, a dove maiden who was caught in the
manner of the swan maiden myth, was called Utahagi after a white
hair which grew on its crown and in which there was magic strength.
Frobenius, p. 307.
447. Referring to the phallic symbolism of the finger, see the remarks
about the Dactyli, Part II, Chap. I: I mention at this place the following
from a Bakairi myth: “Nimagakaniro devoured two finger bones, many
of which were in the house, because Oka used them for his arrow heads
and killed many Bakairi whose flesh he ate. The woman became pregnant
from the finger bone and only from this, not from Oka” (quoted
by Frobenius, p. 236).
448. Further proof for this in Prellwitz: “Griechische Etymologie.”
449. Siecke: “Der Gott Rudra in Rigveda”: Archiv für Religionswissenschaft,
Vol. I, p. 237.
450. The fig tree is the phallic tree. It is noteworthy that Dionysus
planted a fig tree at the entrance to Hades, just as “Phalli” are placed
on graves. The cyprus tree consecrated to Aphrodite grew to be entirely
a token of death, because it was placed at the door of the house of
death.
451. Therefore the tree at times is also a representation of the sun. A
Russian riddle related to me by Dr. Van Ophuijsen reads: “What is
the tree which stands in the middle of the village and is visible in
every cottage?” Answer: “The sun and its light.” A Norwegian riddle
reads:
“A tree stands on the mountain of Billings,
It bends over a lake,
Its branches shine like gold:
You won’t guess that to-day.
In the evening the daughter of the sun collected the golden
branches, which had been broken from the wonderful oak.
Bitterly weeps the little sun
In the apple orchard.
From the apple tree has fallen
The golden apple,
Do not weep, little sun,
God will make another
Of gold, of bronze, of silver.”
The picking of the apple from the paradise tree may be compared with
the fire theft, the drawing back of the libido from the mother. (See
the explanations which follow concerning the specific deed of the
hero.)
452. 528The relation of the son to the mother was the psychologic basis of
many religions. In the Christian legend the relation of the son to the
mother is extraordinarily clear. Robertson (“Evangelical Myths”) has
hit upon the relation of Christ to the Marys, and he conjectures that
this relation probably refers to an old myth “where a god of Palestine,
perhaps of the name Joshua, appears in the changing relation of lover
and son towards a mythical Mary. This is a natural process in the
oldest theosophy and one which appears with variations in the myths of
Mithra, Adonis, Attis, Osiris and Dionysus, all of whom were brought
into relation (or combination) with mother goddesses and who appear
either as a consort or a feminine eidolon in so far as the mothers and
consorts were identified as occasion offered.”
453. Rank has pointed out a beautiful example of this in the myth of
the swan maiden. “Die Lohengrinsage: Schriften zur angewandten
Seelenkunde.”
454. Muther (“Geschichte der Malerei,” Vol. II) says in the chapter:
“The First Spanish Classic”: “Tieck once wrote: Sexuality is the great
mystery of our being. Sensuality is the first moving wheel in our
machinery. It stirs our being and makes it joyous and living. Everything
we dream of as beautiful and noble is included here. Sexuality
and sensuousness are the spirit of music, of painting and of all art. All
wishes of mankind rotate around this center like moths around a
burning light. The sense of beauty and the feeling for art are only
other expressions of it. They signify nothing more than the impulse
of mankind towards expression. I consider devoutness itself as a diverted
channel of the sexual desire.” Here it is openly declared that one should
never forget when judging the ancient ecclesiastic art that the effort
to efface the boundaries between earthly and divine love, to blend them
into each other imperceptibly, has always been the guiding thought, the
strongest factor in the propaganda of the Catholic church.
455. 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.
456. We will not discuss here the reasons for the strength of the phantasy.
But it does not seem difficult to me to imagine what sort of powers are
hidden behind the above formula.
457. 529Lactantius says: “When all know that it is customary for certain
animals to conceive through wind and breath of air, why should any one
consider it miraculous for a virgin to be impregnated by the spirit of
God?” Robertson: “Evang. Myth.,” p. 31.
458. Therefore the strong emphasis upon affiliation in the New Testament.
459. The mystic feelings of the nearness of God; the so-called personal
inner experience.
460. The sexual mawkishness is everywhere apparent in the lamb symbolism
and the spiritual love-songs to Jesus, the bridegroom of the soul.
461. Usener: “Der heilige Tychon,” 1907.
462. Compare W. P. Knight: “Worship of Priapus.”
463. Or in the compensating organizations, which appear in the place of
religion.
464. The condition was undoubtedly ideal for early times, where mankind
was more infantile in general: and it still is ideal for that part
of humanity which is infantile; how large is that part!
465. Compare Freud: Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 1.
466. Here it is not to be forgotten we are moving entirely in the territory
of psychology, which in no way is allied to transcendentalism, either in
positive or negative relation. It is a question here of a relentless fulfilment
of the standpoint of the theory of cognition, established by Kant, not
merely for the theory, but, what is more important, for the practice. One
should avoid playing with the infantile image of the world, because all
this tends only to separate man from his essential and highest ethical
goal, moral autonomy. The religious symbol should be retained after
the inevitable obliteration of certain antiquated fragments, as postulate
or as transcendent theory, and also as taught in precepts, but is to be
filled with new meaning according to the demand of the culture of
the present day. But this theory must not become for the “adult” a
positive creed, an illusion, which causes reality to appear to him in a
false light. Just as man is a dual being, having an intellectual and
an animal nature, so does he appear to need two forms of reality, the
reality of culture, that is, the symbolic transcendent theory, and the
reality of nature which corresponds to our conception of the “true
reality.” In the same measure that the true reality is merely a figurative
interpretation of the appreciation of reality, the religious symbolic theory
is merely a figurative interpretation of certain endopsychic apperceptions.
But one very essential difference is that a transcendental support, independent
in duration and condition, is assured to the transubjective reality
through the best conceivable guarantees, while for the psychologic phenomena
a transcendental support of subjective limitation and weakness
must be recognized as a result of compelling empirical data. Therefore
true reality is one that is relatively universally valid; the psychologic
reality, on the contrary, is merely a functional phenomenon contained
in an epoch of human civilization. Thus does it appear to-day from
the best informed empirical standpoint. If, however, the psychologic
were divested of its character of a biologic epiphenomenon in a manner
neither known nor expected by me, and thereby was given the place of
a physical entity, then the psychologic reality would be resolved into
the true reality; or much more, it would be reversed, because then the
psychologic would lay claim to a greater worth, for the ultimate theory,
because of its directness.
467. 530“De Isid. et Osir.”
468. In the fourth place Isis was born in absolute humidity.
469. The great beneficent king, Osiris.
470. Erman: “Aegypten,” p. 360.
471. Here I must again recall that I give to the word “incest” more significance
than properly belongs to the term. Just as libido is the onward
driving force, so incest is in some manner the backward urge into childhood.
For the child, it cannot be spoken of as incest. Only for the adult
who possesses a completely formed sexuality does the backward urge become
incest, because he is no longer a child but possesses a sexuality
which cannot be permitted a regressive application.
472. Compare Frobenius: “Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes.”
473. Compare the “nightmare legends” in which the mare is a beautiful
woman.
474. This recalls the phallic columns placed in the temples of Astarte.
In fact, according to one version, the wife of the king was named
Astarte. This symbol brings to mind the crosses, fittingly called έγκολπια
(pregnant crosses), which conceal a secret reliquary.
475. Spielrein (Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 358) points out numerous indications
of the motive of dismemberment in a demented patient. Fragments
of the most varied things and materials were “cooked” or “burnt.”
“The ash can become man.” The patient saw children dismembered
in glass coffins. In addition, the above-mentioned “washing,” “cleaning,”
“cooking” and “burning” has, besides the coitus motive, also the
pregnancy motive; the latter probably in a predominating measure.
476. Later offshoots of this primitive theory of the origin of children are
contained in the doctrines of Karma, and the conception of the Mendelian
theory of heredity is not far off. One only has to realize that all apperceptions
are subjectively conditioned.
477. Demeter assembled the limbs of the dismembered Dionysus and
from them produced the god anew.
478. Compare Diodorus: III, 62.
479. Yet to be added is the fact that the cynocephalic Anubis as the
restorer of the corpse of Osiris (also genius of the dog star) had a compensatory
significance. In this significance he appears upon many sarcophagi.
The dog is also a regular companion of the healing Asclepius.
The following quotation from Petronius best supports the Creuzer
hypothesis (“Sat.,” c. 71): “Valde te rogo, ut secundum pedes statuae meae
catellam pingas—ut mihi contingat tuo beneficio post mortem vivere” (I
beseech you instantly to fasten beside the feet of my statue a dog, so
that because of your beneficence I may attain to life after death). See
Nork: Ibid., about dog.
Moreover, the relation of the dog to the dog-headed Hecate, the goddess
of the underworld, hints at its being the symbol of rebirth. She received
as Canicula a sacrificial dog to keep away the pest. Her close relation
to Artemis as goddess of the moon permits her opposition to fertility
to be glimpsed. Hecate, is also the first to bring to Demeter the news
of her stolen child (the rôle of Anubis!). Also the goddess of birth
Ilithyia received sacrifices of dogs, and Hecate herself is, on occasions,
goddess of marriage and birth.
480. 531Frobenius (Ibid., p. 393) observes that frequently the gods of fire
(sun-heroes) lack a member. He gives the following parallel: “Just
as the god wrenches out an arm from the ogre (giant), so does Odysseus
pluck out the eye of the noble Polyphemus, whereupon the sun creeps up
mysteriously into the sky. Might the fire-making, twisting and wrenching
out of the arm be connected?” This question is by this clearly illumined
if we assume, corresponding to the train of thought of the ancients, that
the wrenching out of the arm is really a castration. (The symbol of
the robbery of the force of life.) It is an act corresponding to the Attis
castration because of the mother. From this renunciation, which is really
a symbolic mother incest, arises the discovery of fire, as previously we
have already suspected. Moreover, mention must be made of the fact
that to wrench out an arm, means first of all merely “overpowering,”
and on that account can happen to the hero as well as to his opponent.
(Compare, for examples, Frobenius: Ibid., pp. 112, 395.)
481. Compare especially the description of the cup of Thebes.
482. Professor Freud has expressed in a personal discussion the idea that
a further determinate for the motive of the dissimilar brothers is to be
found in the elementary observance towards birth and the after-birth.
It is an exotic custom to treat the placenta as a child!
483. Brugsch: “Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter,” p. 354.
484. Ibid., p. 310.
485. In the conception of Âtman there is a certain fluid quality in so
far as he really can be identified with Purusha of the Rigveda. “Purusha
covers all the places of the earth, flowing about it ten fingers high.”
486. Brugsch: Ibid., p. 112.
487. In Thebes, where the chief god is Chnum, the latter represents the
breath of the wind in his cosmic component, from which later on “the
spirit of God floating over the waters” has developed; the primitive idea
of the cosmic parents, who lie pressed together until the son separates
them. (Compare the symbolism of Âtman above.)
488. Brugsch: Ibid., p. 128.
489. Servian song from Grimm’s “Mythology,” II, p. 544.
490. Frobenius: Ibid.
491. Compare the birth of the Germanic Aschanes, where rock, tree and
water are present at the scene of birth. Chidher too was found sitting
on the earth, the ground around covered with flowers.
492. Most singularly even in this quotation, V. 288, the description is
found of Sleep sitting high up in a pine tree. “There he sat surrounded
by branches covered with thorny leaves, like the singing bird, who by
night flutters through the mountains.” It appears as if the motive belongs
to a hierosgamos. Compare also the magic net with which Hephaestos
enfolds Ares and Aphrodite “in flagranti” and kept them for the sport
of the gods.
493. The rite of enchaining the statues of Hercules and the Tyrian Melkarth
is related to this also. The Cabiri too were wrapt in coverings.
Creuzer: “Symbolik,” II, 350.
494. Fick: “Indogermanisches Wörterbuch,” I, p. 132.
495. 532Compare the “resounding sun.”
496. The motive of the “striking rocks” belongs also to the motive of
devouring (Frobenius: Ibid., p. 405). The hero in his ship must pass
between two rocks which strike together. (Similar to the biting door,
to the tree trunk which snaps together.) In the passage, generally the
tail of the bird is pinched off (or the “poop” of the ship, etc.); the
castration motive is once more clearly revealed here, for the castration
takes the place of mother incest. The castration is a substitution for
coitus. Scheffel employs this idea in his well-known poem: “A herring
loved an oyster, etc.” The poem ends with the oyster biting off the
herring’s head for a kiss. The doves which bring Zeus ambrosia have
also to pass through the rocks which strike together. The “doves”
bring the food of immortality to Zeus by means of incest (entrance into
the mother) very similar to Freya’s apples (breasts). Frobenius also
mentions the rocks or caves which open only at a magic word and are
very closely connected with the rocks which strike together. Most
illuminating in this respect is a South African myth (Frobenius, p. 407):
“One must call the rock by name and cry loudly: Rock Utunjambili,
open, so that I may enter.” But the rock answers when it will not open
to the call. “The rock will not open to children, it will open to the
swallows which fly in the air!” The remarkable thing is, that no human
power can open the rock, only a formula has that power—or a bird.
This wording merely says that the opening of the rock is an undertaking
which cannot really be accomplished, but which one wishes to accomplish.
(In Middle High German, to wish is really “to have the power to
create something extraordinary.”) When a man dies, then only the
wish that he might live remains, an unfulfilled wish, a fluttering wish,
wherefore souls are birds. The soul is wholly only libido, as is illustrated
in many parts of this work; it is “to wish.” Thus the helpful
bird, who assists the hero in the whale to come again into the light,
who opens the rocks, is the wish for rebirth. (For the bird as
a wish, see the beautiful painting by Thoma, where the youth longingly
stretches out his arms to the birds who pass over his head.)
497. Melian Virgins.
498. Grimm: “Mythology,” I, p. 474.
499. In Athens there was a family of Αἰγειρότομοι = hewn from poplars.
500. Hermann: “Nordische Mythologie,” p. 589.
501. Pregnant.
502. Javanese tribes commonly set up their images of God in an artificial
cavity of a tree. This fits in with the “little hole” phantasy of Zinzendorf
and his sect. See Pfister: “Frömmigkeit des Grafen von Zinzendorf.”
In a Persian myth, the white Haoma is a divine tree, growing in the
lake Vourukasha, the fish Khar-mâhî circles protectingly around it and
defends it against the toad Ahriman. It gives eternal life, children to
women, husbands to girls and horses to men. In the Minôkhired the tree
is called “the preparer of the corpse” (Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,”
II, 115).
503. Ship of the sun, which accompanies the sun and the soul over the
sea of death to the rising.
504. Brugsch: Ibid., p. 177.
505. Similarly Isaiah li: 1: “… look unto the rock whence ye are hewn,
and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.” Further proof is found
in A. von Löwis of Menar: “Nordkaukasische Steingeburtssagen,” Archiv
für Religionswissenschaft, XIII, p. 509.
506. 533Grimm: “Mythology,” I, p. 474.
507. “Das Kreuz Christi. Rel.-hist.-kirchl.-archaeol. Untersuchungen,”
1875.
508. The legend of Seth is found in Jubinal: “Mystères inédits du XV.
siècle,” Part II, p. 16. Quoted from Zöckler: Ibid., p. 241.
509. The guilt is as always, whenever possible, thrown upon the mother.
The Germanic sacred trees are also under the law of an absolute taboo:
no leaf may be taken from them, and nothing may be picked from the
ground upon which their shadows fall.
510. According to the German legend (Grimm: Vol. II, p. 809), the
redeeming hero will be born when the tree, which now grows as a weak
shoot from the wall, has become large, and when from its wood the
cradle can be made in which the hero can be rocked. The formula
reads: “A linden shall be planted, which shall bear on high two boughs
from the wood of which a “poie” shall be made; the child who will
be the first to lie therein is destined to be taken by the sword from life
to death, and then salvation will enter in.” In the Germanic legends,
the appearance of a future event is connected most remarkably with a
budding tree. Compare with this the designation of Christ as a “branch”
or a “rod.”
511. Herein the motive of the “helpful bird” is apparent. Angels are
really birds. Compare the bird clothing of the souls of the underworld,
“soul birds.” In the sacrificium Mithriacum, the messenger of the gods
(the “angel”) is a raven, the winged Hermes, etc.
512. See Frobenius: Ibid.
513. The close connection between δελφίς = Dolphin and δελφύς = uterus is
emphasized. In Delphi there is the cavity in the earth and the Tripod
δελφινίς = a delphic table with three feet in the form of a Dolphin.
See in the last chapter Melicertes upon the Dolphin and the fiery
sacrifice of Melkarth.
514. See the comprehensive collection of Jones. On the nightmare.
515. Riklin: “Wish Fulfilment and Symbolism in Fairy Tales.”
516. Laistner: “Das Rätsel der Sphinx.”
517. Freud: Jahrbuch, Vol. I, June: “Mental Conflicts in Children”: Collected
Papers on Analytical Psychology.
518. “Epistola de ara ad Noviomagum reperta,” p. 25. Quoted by
Grimm: “Mythology,” Vol. II.
519. Even to-day the country people drive off these nymphs (mother goddesses,
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 farmhouses
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.
520. Grimm: Ibid., Vol. II, p. 1041.
521. Compare with that the horses whose tread causes springs to flow.
522. Compare Herrmann: “Nord. Myth.,” p. 64, and Fick: “Vergleich.
Wörterb. d. indogerm. Sprache,” Vol. I.
523. Parallel is the mantic significance of the delphic chasm, Mîmir’s
brook, etc. “Abyss of Wisdom,” see last chapter. Hippolytos, with whom
his stepmother was enamoured, was placed after death with the wise
nymph, Egeria.
524. That these matrons should declare by lots whether it would be to their
advantage or not to engage in battle.
525. 534Example in Bertschinger: Jahrbuch, Vol. III, Part I.
526. Compare the exotic myths given by Frobenius (“Zeitalter des Sonnengottes”),
where the belly of the whale is clearly the land of death.
527. One of the fixed peculiarities of the Mar is that he can only get
out of the hole, through which he came in. This motive belongs evidently
as the projected wish motive in the rebirth myth.
528. According to Gressmann: “Altorient. Text. und Bild.,” Vol. I, p. 4.
529. Abyss of wisdom, book of wisdom, source of phantasies. See below.
530. Cleavage of the mother, see Kaineus; also rift, chasm = division
of the earth, and so on.
531. “Schöpfung und Chaos.” Göttingen, 1895, p. 30.
532. Brugsch: Ibid., p. 161.
533. “In a Pyramid text, which depicts the battle of the dead Pharaoh
for the dominance of heaven, it reads: Heaven weeps, the stars tremble,
the guards of the gods tremble and their servants flee, when they see
the king rise as a spirit, as a god, who lives upon his fathers and
conquers his mothers.” Cited by Dieterich: “Mithrasliturgy,” p. 100.
534. Book II, p. 61.
535. By Ares, the Egyptian Typhon is probably meant.
536. In the Polynesian Maui myth, the act of the sun-hero is very plain:
he robs his mother of her girdle. The robbery of the veil in myths of
the type of the swan maiden has the same significance. In an African
myth of Joruba, the sun-hero simply ravishes his mother (Frobenius).
537. The previously mentioned myth of Halirrhotios, who destroyed
himself when he wished to cut down the holy tree of Athens, the Moria,
contains the same psychology, also the priestly castration (Attis castration)
in the service of the great mother. The ascetic self-torture in
Christianity has its origin, as is self-evident, in these sources because the
Christian form of symbol means a very intensive regression to the
mother incest.
538. The tearing off from the tree of life is just this sin.
539. Compare Kuhn: “Herabkunft des Feuers.”
540. Nork: “Wörterbuch s. v. Mistel.”
541. Therefore in England mistletoe boughs were hung up at Christmas.
Mistletoe as rod of life. Compare Aigremont: “Volkserotik und
Pflanzenwelt.”
542. Just as the tree has the phallic nature as well as a maternal significance,
so in myths the demonic old woman (she may be favorable
or malicious) often has phallic attributes, for example, a long toe, a
long tooth, long lips, long fingers, pendulous breasts, large hands, feet,
and so on. This mixture of male and female motive has reference to
the fact that the old woman is a libido symbol like the tree, generally
determined as maternal. The bisexuality of the libido is expressed in
its clearest form in the idea of the three witches, who collectively possessed
but one eye and one tooth. This idea is directly parallel to the
dream of a patient, who represented her libido as twins, one of which
is a box, the other a bottle-like object, for eye and tooth represent male
and female genitals. Relative to eye in this connection, see especially
the Egyptian myths: referring to tooth, it is to be observed that Adonis
(fecundity) died by a boar’s tooth, like Siegfried by Hagen’s spear:
compare with this the Veronese Priapus, whose phallus was bitten by a
snake. Tooth in this sense, like the snake, is a “negative” phallus.
543. 535Compare Grimm: Vol. II, Chap, iv, p. 802. The same motive in
another application is found in a Low-Saxon legend: Once a young ash
tree grew unnoticed in the wood. Each New Year’s Eve a white knight
upon a white horse rides up to cut down the young shoot. At the same
time a black knight arrives and engages him in combat. After a lengthy
conflict, the white knight succeeds in overcoming the black knight and
the white knight cuts down the young tree. But sometime the white
knight will be unsuccessful, then the ash will grow, and when it becomes
large enough to allow a horse to be tied under it, then a powerful king
will come and a tremendous battle will occur (destruction of the world).
544. Chantepie de la Saussaye: “Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte,” Vol.
II, p. 185.
545. Further examples in Frobenius: Ibid., passim.
546. See Jensen: “Gilgameshepos.”
547. In a Schlesian passionale of the fifteenth century Christ dies on the
same tree which was connected with Adam’s sin. Cited from Zöckler:
Ibid., p. 241.
548. For example, animal skins were hung on the sacrificial trees and
afterwards spears were thrown at them.
549. “Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen,” p. 498.
550. Stephens: “Central America” (cited by Müller: Ibid., p. 498).
551. Zöckler: “Das Kreuz Christi,” p. 34.
552. H. H. Bancroft: “Native Races of the Pacific States of North
America,” II, 506. (Cited by Robertson: “Evang. Myths,” p. 139.)
553. Rossellini: “Monumenti dell’ Egitto, etc.” Tom. 3. Tav. 23.
(Cited by Robertson: Ibid., p. 142.)
554. Zöckler: Ibid., p. 7. In the representation of the birth of a king
in Luxor one sees the following: The logos and messenger of the gods,
the bird-headed Thoth, makes known to the maiden Queen Mautmes
that she is to give birth to a son. In the following scene, Kneph and
Athor hold the Crux ansata to her mouth so that she may be impregnated
by this in a spiritual (symbolic) manner. Sharp: “Egyptian
Mythology,” p. 18. (Cited by Robertson: “Evangelical Myths,” p. 43.)
555. The statues of the phallic Hermes used as boundary stones were
often in the form of a cross with the head pointed (W. Payne Knight:
“Worship of Priapus,” p. 30). In Old English the cross is called
rod.
556. Robertson (Ibid., p. 140) mentions the fact that the Mexican priests
and sacrificers clothed themselves in the skin of a slain woman, and
placed themselves with arms stretched out like a cross before the god
of war.
557. 536“Indian Antiquities,” VI, 49.
558. The primitive Egyptian cross form is meant: Τ.
559. Zöckler: Ibid., p. 19. The bud is plainly phallic. See the above-mentioned
dream of the young woman.
560. I am indebted for my information about these researches to Professor
Fiechter of Stuttgart.
561. Zöckler: Ibid., p. 33.
562. The sacrifice is submerged in the water, that is, in the mother.
563. Compare later the moon as gathering place of souls (the devouring
mother).
564. Compare here what Abraham has to say in reference to pupilla
(“Dreams and Myths”).
565. Retreat of Rê upon the heavenly cow. In a Hindoo rite of purification,
the penitent must creep through an artificial cow in order to be
born anew.
566. Schultze: “Psychologie der Naturvölker.” Leipzig 1900, p. 338.
567. Brugsch: Ibid., p. 290.
568. One need not be amazed at this formula because it is the animal
in us, the primitive forces of which appear in religion. In this connection
Dieterich’s words (“Mithrasliturgie,” p. 108) take on an especially
important aspect. “The old thoughts come from below in new
force in the history of religion. The revolution from below creates a
new life of religion in primitive indestructible forms.”
569. Dispute between Mary and the Cross in R. Morris: “Legends of the
Holy Rood.” London 1871.
570. A very beautiful representation of the blood-red sun sinking into
the sea.
571. Jesus appears here as branch and bud in the tree of life. Compare
here the interesting reference in Robertson: “Evangelical Myths,” p. 51,
in regard to “Jesus, the Nazarene,” a title which he derives from
Nazar or Netzer = branch.
572. In Greece, the pale of torture, on which the criminal was stretched
or punished, was termed ἑκάτη (Hecate), the subterranean mother of
death.
573. Diez: “Etym. Wörterbuch der romanischen Sprachen,” p. 90.
Chapter Vi
574. Witches easily change themselves into horses, therefore the nail-marks
of the horseshoe may be seen upon their hands. The devil
rides on witch-horses, priests’ cooks are changed after death into horses,
etc. Negelein, Zeitschrift des Vereines für Volkskunde, XI, p. 406.
575. 537Just so does the mythical ancient king Tahmuraht ride upon Ahriman,
the devil.
576. The she-asses and their foals might belong to the Christian sun myth,
because the Zodiacal sign Cancer (Summer solstice) was designated in
antiquity as an ass and its young. (Compare Robertson: “Evangelical
Myths,” p. 19.)
577. Also a centaur.
578. Compare the exhaustive presentation of this theme in Jähn’s “Ross
und Reiter.”
579. Sleipnir is eight-footed.
580. Negelein: Ibid., p. 412.
581. Negelein: Ibid., p. 419.
582. I have since learned of a second exactly similar case.
583. 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.
584. Preller: “Griech. Mythologie,” I, I, p. 432.
585. See further examples in Aigremont: “Fuss- und Schuhsymbolik.”
586. Aigremont: Ibid., p. 17.
587. Negelein: Ibid., p. 386.
588. Ample proofs of the Centaurs as wind gods are to be found in
E. H. Meyer: “Indogermanische Mythen,” p. 447.
589. This is an especial motive, which must have something typical in
it. My patient (“Psychology of Dementia Praecox,” p. 165) also
declared that her horses had “half-moons” under their skin, like
“little curls.” In the songs of Rudra of the Rigveda, of the boar Rudra
it is said that his hair was “wound up in the shape of shells.” Indra’s
body is covered with eyes.
590. This change results from a world catastrophe. In mythology the
verdure and the upward striving of the tree of life signify also the
turning-point in the succession of the ages.
591. Therefore the lion was killed by Samson, who later harvested the
honey from the body. The end of summer is the plenteousness of the
autumn. It is a close parallel to the sacrificium Mithriacum. For
Samson, see Steinthal: “Die Sage von Simson,” Zeitschrift für Völkerpsych.,
Vol. II.
592. The present time is indicated by the head of the lion—because his
condition is strong and impetuous.
593. Time is thought by the wickedest people to be a divinity who deprives
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.
594. Philo: “In Genesim,” I, 100. (Cited by Cumont: “Textes et
Monuments,” I, p. 82.)
595. Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,” Vol. II, p. 193. In the writings
ascribed to Zoroaster, Περὶ Φύσεως, the Ananke, the necessity of fate, is
represented by the air. Cumont: Ibid., I, p. 87.
596. Spielrein’s patient (Jahrbuch, III, p. 394) speaks of horses, who
eat men, also exhumed bodies.
597. Negelein: Ibid., p. 416.
598. “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.”
599. P. Thomas a Villanova Wegener: “Das wunderbare äussere und
innere Leben der Dienerin Gottes Anna Catherina Emmerich.” Dülmen
i. W. 1891.
600. 538The heart of the mother of God is pierced by a sword.
601. Corresponding to the idea in Psalm xi:2, “For lo, the wicked bend
their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may
privily shoot at the upright in heart.”
602. K. E. Neumann: “The Speeches of Gautama Buddha,” translated
from the German collection of the fragments of Suttanipāto of the
Pāli-Kanon. München 1911.
603. With the same idea of an endogenous pain Theocritus (27, 28)
calls the birth throes “Arrows of the Ilithyia.” In the sense of a
wish the same comparison is found in Jesus Sirach 19:12. “When
a word penetrates a fool it is the same as if an arrow pierced his loins.”
That is to say, it gives him no rest until it is out.
604. One might be tempted to say that these were merely figuratively
expressed coitus scenes. But that would be a little too strong and an
unjustifiable accentuation of the material at issue. We cannot forget
that the saints have, figuratively, taught the painful domestification of
the brute. The result of this, which is the progress of civilization, has
also to be recognized as a motive for this action.
605. Apuleius (“Metam.,” Book II, 31) made use of the symbolism
of bow and arrow in a very drastic manner, “Ubi primam sagittam
saevi Cupidinis in ima praecordia mea delapsam excepi, arcum meum
en! Ipse vigor attendit et oppido formido, ne nervus rigoris nimietate
rumpatur” (When I pulled out the first arrow of fierce Cupid that had
entered into my inmost breast, behold my bow! Its very vigor stretches
it and makes me fear lest the string be broken by the excessive tautness).
606. Thus the plague-bringing Apollo. In Old High German, arrow is
called “strala” (strahlen = rays).
607. Spielrein’s patient (Jahrbuch, III, p. 371) has also the idea of the
cleavage of the earth in a similar connection. “Iron is used for the
purpose of penetrating into the earth … with iron man can …
create men … the earth is split, burst open, man is divided … is
severed and reunited. In order to make an end of the burial of the
living, Jesus Christ calls his disciples to penetrate into the earth.”
The motive of “cleavage” is of general significance. The Persian
hero Tishtriya, who also appeared as a white horse, opens the rain
lake, and thus makes the earth fruitful. He is called Tîr = arrow.
He was also represented as feminine, with a bow and arrow. Mithra
with his arrow shot the water from the rock, so as to end the drought.
The knife is sometimes found stuck in the earth. In Mithraic monuments
sometimes it is the sacrificial instrument which kills the bull. (Cumont:
Ibid., pp. 115, 116, 165.)
608. 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.
609. Spielrein’s patient also states that she has been shot through by
God. (3 shots:) “then came a resurrection of the spirit.” This is the
symbolism of introversion.
610. This is also represented mythologically in the legend of Theseus
and Peirithoos, who wished to capture the subterranean Proserpina.
With this aim they enter a chasm in the earth in the grove Kolonos,
in order to get down to the underworld; when they were below they
wished to rest, but being enchanted they hung on the rocks, that is to
say, they remained fixed in the mother and were therefore lost for the
upperworld. Later Theseus was freed by Hercules (revenge of Horus
for Osiris), at which time Hercules appears in the rôle of the death-conquering
hero.
611. 539This formula applies most directly to dementia praecox.
612. See Roscher: s. v. Philoktetes, Sp. 2318, 15.
613. When the Russian sun-hero Oleg stepped on the skull of the slain
horse, a serpent came out of it and bit him on the foot. Then he became
sick and died. When Indra in the form of Çyena, the falcon, stole the
soma drink, Kriçanu, the herdsman, wounded him in his foot with his
arrow (“Rigveda,” I, 155; IV, 322).
614. Similar to the Lord of the Grail who guards the chalice, the mother
symbol. The myth of Philoctetes is taken from a more involved connection,
the Hercules myth. Hercules has two mothers, the benevolent
Alcmene and the pursuing Hera (Lamia), from whose breast he has
absorbed immortality. Hercules conquered Hera’s serpent while yet
in the cradle; that is to say, conquered the “terrible mother,” the Lamia.
But from time to time Hera sent to him attacks of madness, in one of
which he killed his children (Lamia motive). According to an interesting
tradition, this deed occurred at the moment when Hercules
refused to perform a great act in the service of Eurystheus. As a result
of the refusal, the libido, in readiness for the work, regressed in a
typical manner to the unconscious mother-imago, which resulted in
madness (as to-day), during which Hercules identifies himself with
Lamia (Hera) and murders his own children. The delphic oracle
communicates to him the fact that he is named Hercules because he owes
his immortal fame to Hera, who through her persecution compelled him
to great deeds. It can be seen that “the great deed” really means the
conquering of the mother and through her to win immortality. His
characteristic weapon, the club, he cuts from the maternal olive tree.
Like the sun, he possessed the arrows of Apollo. He conquered the
Nemean lion in his cave, which has the signification of “the grave in
the mother’s womb” (see the end of this chapter). Then follows the
combat with the Hydra, the typical battle with the dragon; the complete
conquering of the mother. (See below.) Following this, the capture
of the Cerynean doe, whom he wounded with an arrow in the foot.
This is what generally happens to the hero, but here it is reversed.
Hercules showed the captured Erymanthian boar to Eurystheus, whereupon
the latter in fear crept into a cask. That is, he died. The
Stymphalides, the Cretan bull, and the man-devouring horse of Diomedes
are symbols of the devastating powers of death, among which the latter’s
relation to the mother may be recognized especially. The battle for
the precious girdle of the Amazon queen Hippolyte permits us to see
once more very clearly the shadow of the mother. Hippolyte is ready
to give up the girdle, but Hera, changing herself into the form of
Hippolyte, calls the Amazons against Hercules in battle. (Compare
Horus, fighting for the head ornament of Isis, about which there is
more later. Chap. 7.) The liberation of Hesione results from Hercules
journeying downwards with his ship into the belly of the monster,
and killing the monster from within after three days labor. (Jonah
motive; Christ in the tomb or in hell; the victory over death by creeping
into the womb of the mother, and its destruction in the form of the
mother. The libido in the form of the beautiful maiden again conquered.)
The expedition to Erythia is a parallel to Gilgamesh, also to
Moses, in the Koran, whose goal was the confluence of the two seas:
it is the journey of the sun to the Western sea, where Hercules discovered
the straits of Gibraltar (“to that passage”: Faust), and with the
ship of Helios set out towards Erythia. There he overcame the gigantic
guardian Eurytion (Chumbaba in the Gilgamesh epic, the symbol of
the father), then the triune Geryon (a monster of phallic libido symbolism),
and at the same time wounded Hera, hastening to the help
of Geryon by an arrow shot. Then the robbery of the herd followed.
“The treasure attained with difficulty” is here presented in surroundings
which make it truly unmistakable. Hercules, like the sun, goes to
death, down into the mother (Western sea), but conquers the libido
attached to the mother and returns with the wonderful kine; he has
won back his libido, his life, the mighty possession. We discover the
same thought in the robbery of the golden apples of Hesperides, which
are defended by the hundred-headed dragon. The victory over Cerberus
is also easily understood as the victory over death by entrance
into the mother (underworld). In order to come to his wife Deianira,
he has to undergo a terrible battle with a water god, Achelous (with
the mother). The ferryman Nessus (a centaur) violates Deianira.
With his sun arrows Hercules killed this adversary, but Nessus advised
Deianira to preserve his poisoned blood as a love charm. When after
the insane murder of Iphitus Delphi denied him the speech of the
oracle, he took possession of the sacred tripod. The delphic oracle then
compelled him to become a slave of Omphale, who made him like
a child. After this Hercules returned home to Deianira, who presented
him with the garment poisoned with Nessus’ blood (the Isis snake),
which immediately clung so closely to his skin that he in vain attempted
to tear it off. (The casting of the skin of the aging sun-god; Serpent,
as symbol of rejuvenation.) Hercules then ascended the funeral pyre
in order to destroy himself by fire like the phœnix, that is to say, to
give birth to himself again from his own egg. No one but young
Philoctetes dared to sacrifice the god. Therefore Philoctetes received
the arrows of the sun and the libido myth was renewed with this
Horus.
615. 540Apes, also, have an instinctive fear of snakes.
616. How much alive are still such primitive associations is shown by
Segantini’s picture of the two mothers: cow and calf, mother and child
in the same stable. From this symbolism the surroundings of the birthplace
of the Savior are explained.
617. The myth of Hippolytos shows very beautifully all the typical parts
of the problem: His stepmother Phaedra wantonly falls in love with
him. He repulses her, she complains to her husband of violation; the
latter implores the water god Poseidon to punish Hippolytos. Then a
monster comes out of the sea. Hippolytos’ horses shy and drag Hippolytos
to death. But he is resuscitated by Aesculapius and is placed by the
gods with the wise nymph, Egeria, the counsellor of Numa Pompilius.
Thus the wish is fulfilled; from incest, wisdom has come.
618. Compare Hercules and Omphale.
619. Compare the reproach of Gilgamesh against Ishtar.
620. Spielrein’s patient is also sick from “a snake bite.” Jahrbuch, III,
p. 385.
621. The entirely introverted patient of Spielrein uses similar images:
she speaks of “a rigidity of the soul on the cross,” of “stone figures”
which must be “ransomed.”
I call attention here to the fact that the symbolisms mentioned above
are striking examples of Silberer’s “functional category.” They depict
the condition of introversion.
622. 541W. Gurlitt says: “The carrying of the bull is one of the difficult
ἆθλα” (services) which Mithra performed in the service of freeing
humanity; “somewhat corresponding, if it is permitted to compare the
small with the great, with the carrying of the cross by Christ” (Cumont:
“Textes et Monuments,” I, 72). Surely it is permissible to compare the
two acts.
Man should be past that period when, in true barbaric manner, he
haughtily scorned the strange gods, the “dii minorum gentium.” But
man has not progressed that far, even yet.
623. Robertson (“Evangelical Myths,” p. 130) gives an interesting contribution
to the question of the symbol of the carrying of the cross.
Samson carried the “pillars of the gates from Gaza and died between
the columns of the temple of the Philistines.” Hercules, weighted down
by his burden, carried his columns to the place (Gades), where he also
died according to the Syrian version of the legend. The columns of
Hercules mark the western point where the sun sinks into the sea. In
old art he was actually represented carrying the two columns under
his arms in such a way that they exactly formed a cross. Here we
perhaps have the origin of the myth of Jesus, who carries his own
cross to the place of execution. It is worth noting that the three
synoptics substitute a man of the name of Simon from Cyrene as bearer
of the cross. Cyrene is in Libya, the legendary scene upon which
Hercules performed the labor of carrying the columns, as we have
seen, and Simon (Simson) is the nearest Greek name-form for Samson,
which in Greek might have been read Simson, as in Hebrew. But in
Palestine it was Simon, Semo or Sem, actually a name of a god, who
represented the old sun-god Semesch, who was identified with Baal, from
whose myth the Samson myth has doubtless arisen. The god Simon
enjoyed especial honor in Samaria. “The cross of Hercules might well
be the sun’s wheel, for which the Greeks had the symbol of the cross.
The sun’s wheel upon the bas-relief in the small metropolis at Athens
contains a cross, which is very similar to the Maltese cross.” (See Thiele:
“Antike Himmelsbilder,” 1898, p. 59.)
624. The Greek myth of Ixion, who was bound to the “four-spoked
wheel,” says this almost without disguise. Ixion first murdered his
stepfather, but later was absolved from guilt by Zeus and blessed with
his favor. But the ingrate attempted to seduce Hera, the mother. Zeus
deceived him, however, allowing the goddess of the clouds, Nephele, to
assume Hera’s form. (From this connection the centaurs have arisen.)
Ixion boasted of his deed, but Zeus as a punishment plunged him into
the underworld, where he was bound to a wheel continually whirled
around by the wind. (Compare the punishment of Francesca da Rimini
in Dante and the “penitents” by Segantini.)
625. Cited from Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, Jahrgang II, p. 365.
626. The symbolism of death appearing in abundance in dreams has been
emphasized by Stekel (“Sprache des Traumes,” p. 317).
627. Compare the Cassius scene above.
542
Chapter Vii
628. A direct unconstrained expression of sexuality is a natural occurrence
and as such neither unbeautiful nor repulsive. The “moral” repression
makes sexuality on one side dirty and hypocritical, on the other shameless
and obtrusive.
629. Compare what is said below concerning the motive of fettering.
630. The sacrilegious assault of Horus upon Isis, at which Plutarch
(“De Isis et Osiris”) stands aghast; he expresses himself as follows
concerning it. “But if any one wishes to assume and maintain that all
this has really happened and taken place with respect to blessed and
imperishable nature, which for the most part is considered as corresponding
to the divine; then, to speak in the words of Aeschylus, ‘he
must spit out and clean his mouth.’” From this sentence one can form
a conception of how the well-intentioned people of ancient society may
have condemned the Christian point of view, first the hanged God, then
the management of the family, the “foundation” of the state. The
psychologist is not surprised.
631. Compare the typical fate of Theseus and Peirithoos.
632. Compare the example given for that in Aigremont: “Fuss- und
Schuhsymbolik.” Also Part I of this book; the foot of the sun in an
Armenian folk prayer. Also de Gubernatis: “Die Tiere in der Indo-Germanischen
Mythologie,” Vol. I, p. 220 ff.
633. Rohde: “Psyche.”
634. Porphyrius (“De antro nympharum.” Quoted by Dieterich: “Mithraslit.,”
p. 63) says that according to the Mithraic doctrine the souls
which pass away at birth are destined for winds, because these souls
had taken the breath of the wind into custody and therefore had a
similar nature: “ψυχαῖς δ’ εἰς γένεσιν ἰούσαις καὶ ἀπὸ γενέσεως χωριζομέναις
εἰκότως ἔταξαν ἀνέμους διὰ τὸ ἐφελκεσθαι καὶ αὐτὰς πνεῦμα καὶ οὐσίαν ἔχειν
τοιαύτην—(The souls departing at birth and becoming separated, probably
become winds because of inhaling their breath and becoming the
same substance).
635. In the Mithraic liturgy the generating breath of the spirit comes from
the sun, probably “from the tube of the sun” (see Part I). Corresponding
to this idea, in the Rigveda the sun is called the One-footed.
Compare with that the Armenian prayer, for the sun to allow its foot
to rest upon the face of the suppliant (Abeghian: “Der armenische
Volksglaube,” 1899, p. 41).
636. Firmicus Maternus (Mathes., I, 5, 9): “Cui (animo) descensus per
orbem solis tribuitur, per orbem vero lunae praeparatur ascensus” (For
which soul a descent through the disc of the sun is devised, but the
ascent is prepared through the disc of the moon). Lydus (“De mens.,”
IV, 3) tells us that the hierophant Praetextatus has said that Janus
despatches the diviner souls to the lunar fields: τὰς θειοτέρας ψυχὰς ἐπὶ
τὴν σεληνικὸν χόρον ἀποπέμπει. Epiphanius (Haeres LXVI, 52): ὅτι ἐκ τῶν
ψυχῶν ὁ δίσκος [τῆς σελήνης] ἀποπίμπλαται. Quoted by Cumont: “Textes et
Monuments,” I, I, p. 40. In exotic myths it is the same with the moon.
Frobenius: Ibid., p. 352 ff.
637. “The Light of Asia, or The Great Renunciation” (Mahâbhinish-kramana).
638. 543One sees upon corresponding representations how the elephant
presses into Maya’s head with its trunk.
639. Rank: “The Myth of the Birth of the Hero,” translated by W.
White.
640. The speedy dying of the mother or the separation from the mother
belongs to the myth of the hero. In the myth of the swan maiden which
Rank has analyzed very beautifully, there is the wish-fulfilling thought,
that the swan maiden can fly away again after the birth of the child,
because she has then fulfilled her purpose. Man needs the mother only
for rebirth.
641. Indian word for the rustle of the wind in the trees.
642. Means sound of the waves.
643. An introjection of the object into the subject in the sense of Ferenczi,
the “gegenwurf” or “widerwurf” (Objektum) of the mystics Eckart
and Böhme.
644. Karl Joël (“Seele und Welt,” Jena 1912) says (p. 153): “Life does
not diminish in artists and prophets, but is enhanced. They are the
leaders into the lost Paradise, which now for the first time becomes
Paradise through rediscovery. It is no more the old dull unity of life
towards which the artist strives and leads, it is the sentient reunion,
not the empty but the full unity, not the unity of indifference but the
unity of difference.” “All life is the raising of the equilibrium and
the pulling backwards into equilibrium. Such a return do we find in
religion and art.”
645. By the primal experience must be understood that first human differentiation
between subject and object, that first conscious placing of
object, which is not psychologically conceivable without the presupposition
of an inner division of the animal “man” from himself, by
which precisely is he separated from nature which is at one with itself.
646. Crêvecoeur: “Voyage dans la Haute Pensylvanie,” I, 362.
647. The dragons of the Greek (and Swiss) legends live in or near
springs or other waters of which they are often the guardians.
648. Compare the discussion above about the encircling and devouring
motive. Water as a hindrance in dreams seems to refer to the mother,
longing for the mother instead of positive work. The crossing of water—overcoming
of the resistance; that is to say the mother, as a symbol of
the longing for inactivity like death or sleep.
649. Compare also the Attic custom of stuffing a bull in spring, the customs
of the Lupercalia, Saturnalia, etc. I have devoted to this motive
a separate investigation, therefore I forego further proof.
650. In the Gilgamesh epic, it is directly said that it is immortality which
the hero goes to obtain.
651. Sepp: “Das Heidentum und dessen Bedeutung für das Christentum,”
Vol. III, 82.
652. Compare the symbolism of the arrow above.
653. This thought is generally organized in the doctrine of pre-existence.
Thus in any case man is his own generator, immortal and a hero,
whereby the highest wishes are fulfilled.
654. 544Frazer: “Golden Bough,” IV, 297.
655. “Thou seekest the heaviest burden, there findest thou thyself”
(Nietzsche: “Zarathustra”).
656. It is an unvarying peculiarity, so to speak, that in the whale-dragon
myth, the hero is very hungry in the belly of the monster and begins to
cut off pieces from the animal, so as to feed himself. He is in the
nourishing mother “in the presexual stage.” His next act, in order to
free himself, is to make a fire. In a myth of the Eskimos of the Behring
Straits, the hero finds a woman in the whale’s belly, the soul of the
animal, which is feminine (Ibid, p. 85). (Compare Frobenius: Ibid,
passim.)
657. The carrying of the tree played an important part, as is evident
from a note in Strabo X, in the cult of Dionysus and Ceres (Demeter).
658. A text on the Pyramids, which treats of the arrival of the dead
Pharaoh in Heaven, depicts how Pharaoh takes possession of the gods
in order to assimilate their divine nature, and to become the lord of
the gods: “His servants have imprisoned the gods with a chain, they
have taken them and dragged them away, they have bound them, they
have cut their throats, and taken out their entrails, they have dismembered
them and cooked them in hot vessels. And the king consumed
their force and ate their souls. The great gods form his breakfast, the
medium gods his dinner, the little gods his supper—the king consumes
everything that comes in his way. Greedily he devours everything and
his magic power becomes greater than all magic power. He becomes
the heir of the power, he becomes greater than all heirs, he becomes the
lord of heaven, he eats all crowns and all bracelets, he eats the wisdom
of every god, etc.” (Wiedemann: “Der alte Orient,” II, 2, 1900, p. 18).
This impossible food, this “Bulimie,” strikingly depicts the sexual libido
in regression to the presexual material, where the mother (the gods) is
not the object of sex but of hunger.
659. The sacramental sacrifice of Dionysus-Zagreus and the eating of the
sacrificial meat produced the “νέος Διόνυσος” the resurrection of the god,
as plainly appears from the Cretan fragments of the Euripides quoted
by Dieterich (Ibid., p. 105):
ἁγνὸν δὲ βιον τείνων, ἐξ οὐ
Διὸς Ιδαίου μύστης γενόμην
καὶ νυκτιπόλου Ζαγρέως βούτας
τοὺς ὠμοφάγους δαῖτας τελέσας.
(Living a blameless life whereby I became an initiate of the
Idaean Zeus, I celebrated the carnivorous banquet of Zagreus,
the wandering herdsman of the night.)
The mystics took the god into themselves by eating the uncooked meat
of the sacrificial animal.
660. Richter: 14, 14.
661. Thou boy eternal, thou most beautiful one seen in the heavens, without
horns standing, with thy virgin head, etc.
662. Orphic Hymn, 46. Compare Roscher: “Lexicon,” sect. on Iakchos.
663. A winnowing fan used as cradle.
664. A close parallel to this is the Japanese myth of Izanagi, who, following
his dead spouse into the underworld, implored her to return.
She is ready, but beseeches him, “Do not look at me.” Izanagi produces
light with his reed, that is to say, with a masculine piece of wood (the
fire-boring Phallus), and thus loses his spouse. (Frobenius: Ibid., p. 343.)
Mother must be put in the place of spouse. Instead of the mother, the
hero produces fire; Hiawatha, maize; Odin, Runes, when he in torment
hung on the tree.
665. 545Quoted from De Jong: “Das antike Mysterienwesen.” Leiden 1910,
p. 22.
666. A son-lover from the Demeter myth is Iasion, who embraces Demeter
upon a thrice-ploughed cornfield. (Bridal couch in the pasture.) For
that Iasion was struck by lightning by Zeus (Ovid: “Metam.,” IX).
667. In a sunless place.
668. Descend into a sunless desert place.
669. Descent into a cave.
670. See Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” I, p. 56.
671. “Mithraslit.,” p. 123.
672. For example upon a Campana relief in Lovatelli (“Antichi monumenti,”
Roma, 1889, I, IV, Fig. 5). Likewise the Veronese Priapus has
a basket filled with phalli.
673. Compare Grimm: II, IV, p. 899: Either by the caressing or kissing
of a dragon or a snake, the fearful animal was changed into a beautiful
woman whom the hero wins in this way.
674. The mother, the earth, is the distributor of nourishment. The
mother in presexual material has this meaning. Therefore St. Dominicus
was nourished from the breasts of the mother of God. The sun wife,
Namaqua, consists of bacon. Compare with this the megalomanic ideas
of my patient, who asserted: “I am Germania and Helvetia made exclusively
from ‘sweet butter’” (“Psychology of Dementia Praecox”).
675. He who achieved divinity through the womb.
676. He who achieved divinity through the womb; he is a serpent, and he
was drawn through the womb of those who were being initiated.
677. The golden serpent is crowded into the breast of the initiates and is
then drawn out through the lowest parts.
678. O Fœtus, he who is in the vagina or womb.
679. Compare the ideas of Nietzsche: “Piercing into one’s own pit,” etc.
In a prayer to Hermes in a London papyrus it is said: ἐλθέ μοι, κύρίε
Ἑρμῆ, ὡς τὰ βρέφη εἰς τὰς κοιλίας τῶν γυναικῶν (Come to me, Lord Hermes, as
the foetus into the womb of the mother). Kenyon: “Greek Papyrus in
the British Museum,” 1893, p. 116; Pap. CXXII, Z. 2 ff. Cited by
Dieterich: Ibid., p. 97.
680. Compare De Jong: Ibid., p. 22.
681. The typical grain god of antiquity was Adonis, whose death and
resurrection was celebrated annually. He was the son-lover of the
mother, for the grain is the son and fructifier of the womb of the earth
as Robertson very correctly remarks (“Evangelical Myths,” p. 36).
682. De Jong: Ibid., p. 14.
683. On a certain night an image is placed lying down in a litter; there
is weeping and lamentations among the people, with beatings of bodies
and tears. After a time, when they have become exhausted from the
lamentations, a light appears; then the priest anoints the throats of all
those who were weeping, and softly whispers, “Take courage, O initiates
of the Redeemed Divinity; you shall achieve salvation through your
grief.”
684. Faust:
“There whirls the press, like clouds on clouds unfolding,
Then with stretched arm swing high the key thou’rt holding!”
685. As an example among many, I mention here the Polynesian Rata
myth cited by Frobenius: Ibid., pp. 64–66: “With a favorable wind the
boat was sailing easily away over the Ocean, when Nganaoa called out
one day: ‘O Rata, here is a fearful enemy who rises up from the
Ocean!’ It was an open mussel of huge dimensions. One shell was
in front of the boat, the other behind it, and the vessel was directly
between. The next moment the horrible mussel would have clapped its
shells together and ground the boat and occupants to pieces in its grip.
But Nganaoa was prepared for this possibility. He grasped his long
spear and quickly plunged it into the belly of the animal so that the
creature, instead of snapping together, at once sank back to the bottom
of the sea. After they had escaped from this danger they continued on
their way. But after a while the voice of the always watchful Nganaoa
was again to be heard. ‘O Rata, once more a terrible enemy rushes
upwards from the depths of the ocean.’ This time it was a mighty
octopus, whose gigantic tentacles already surrounded the boat, in order
to destroy it. At this critical moment, Nganaoa seized his spear, and
plunged it into the head of the octopus. The tentacles sank away limp
and the dead monster rose to the surface of the water. Once more they
continued on their journey, but a yet greater danger awaited them.
One day the valiant Nganaoa called out, ‘O Rata, here is a great
whale!’ The huge jaws were wide open, the lower jaw was already
under the boat, and the upper one over it. One moment more and the
whale would have devoured them. Now Nganaoa ‘the dragon slayer’
broke his spear into two parts, and at the moment when the whale was
about to devour them, he stuck the two pieces into the jaws of the foe
so that he could not close his jaws. Nganaoa quickly sprang into the
jaws of the great whale (devouring of the hero) and looked into its
belly, and what did he see? There sat both his parents, his father,
Tairitokerau, and his mother, Vaiaroa, who had been gulped down into
the depths of this monster. The oracle has come true. The voyage has
come to its end. Great was the joy of the parents of Nganaoa when they
saw their son. They were convinced that their freedom was at hand.
And Nganaoa resolved upon revenge. He took one of the two pieces
from the jaws of the animal—one was enough to make it impossible for
the whale to close his jaws and so keep a passage free for Nganaoa
and his parents. He broke this part of the spear in two, in order to
use them as wood to produce fire by rubbing. He commanded his father
to hold one firmly below, while he himself managed the upper one, until
the fire began to glimmer (production of fire). Now when he blew this
into flames, he hastened to heat the fatty part (heart) of the belly with
the fire. The monster, writhing with pain, sought help swimming to
the nearest land (journey in the sea). As soon as he reached the sandbank
(land) father, mother and son walked onto the land through the
open jaws of the dying whale (slipping out of the hero).”
686. 546In the New Zealand Maui myth (quoted by Frobenius: Ibid., p. 66 ff.)
the monster to be conquered is the grandmother Hine-nui-te-po. Maui,
the hero, says to the birds who assist him: “My little friends, now
when I creep into the jaws of the old woman, you must not laugh, but
when I have been in and come out again, from her mouth, then you
may greet me with jubilant laughter.” Then Maui actually creeps into
the mouth of the sleeping old woman.
687. Published and prepared by Julius v. Negelein, in “Relig. Geschichte.”
Vers. u. Vorarb. von Dieterich und Wünsch, Vol. XI.
Giessen 1912.
688. Quoted, J. v. Negelein: “Der Traumschlüssel des Jagaddeva,” p.
256.
689. The pine-tree speaks the significant word, “Minne-wawa!”
690. In a fairy tale, the bird comes to the tree which grows upon the
grave of the mother in order to give help.
691. 547Roscher: s. “Picus,” Sp. 2494, 62. Probably a symbol of rebirth.
692. The father of Picus is called Sterculus or Sterculius, a name which
is clearly derived from stercus = excrementum; he is also said to be
the devisor of manure. The primitive creator who also created the
mother did so in the manner of infantile creation, which we have previously
learned. The supreme god laid an egg, his mother, from which
he was again produced—this is an analogous train of thought.
693. Introversion = to enter the mother; to sink into one’s own inner-world,
or source of the libido, is symbolized by creeping in, passing
through, boring. (Scratching behind the ear = making fire.) Boring
into the ear, scratching with the nails, swallowing serpents. Thus the
Buddhist legend is understandable. When Gautama had spent the whole
day sitting in deep reflection under the sacred tree, at evening he became
Buddha, the illumined one.
694. Compare φαλλός (phallus) above and its etymological connection.
695. Spielrein’s patient received from God three wounds through her
head, breast and eye. “Then there came a resurrection of the Spirit”
(Jahrbuch, III, p. 376).
In the Tibetan myth of Bogda Gesser Khan the sun-hero shoots his
arrow into the forehead of the demoniacal old woman, who devours it
and spits it up again. In a Calmuc myth, the hero shoots the arrow
into the eye emitting rays, which is found on the forehead of the bull.
Compare with that the victory of Polyphemus, whose character is signified
upon an Attic vase because with it there is also a snake (as symbol
of the mother. See the explanation of the sacrificium Mithriacum).
696. In the form of the father, for Megissogwon is the demon of the
west, like Mudjekeewis.
697. Compare Deussen: “Geschichte der Philosophie,” Vol. I, p. 14.
698. An analogy is Zeus and Athene. In Rigveda 10, 31, the word of
prayer becomes a pregnant cow. In Persian it is the “Eye of Ahura”;
Babylonian Nabu: the word of fate; Persian vohu mano: the good
thought of the creator God; in Stoic conceptions, Hermes is logos or
world intellect; in Alexandria the Σοφία, in the Old Testament it is the
angel of Jehovah, or the countenance of God. Jacob wrestled with
the angel during the night at the ford of Jabbok, after he had crossed
the water with all that he possessed. (Night journey on the sea, battle
with the night snake, combat at the ford like Hiawatha.) In this
combat, Jacob dislocated his thigh. (Motive of the twisting out of the
arm. Castration on account of the overpowering of the mother.) This
“face” of God was compared in the old Jewish philosophy to the
mystic Metatron, the prince of the face of God (Josiah 5, 14), who
brings “the prayer to God” and “in whom is the name of God.” The
Naassens (Ophits) called the Holy Ghost the “first word,” the mother
of all that lives; the Valentinians comprehended the descending dove
of Pneuma as “the word of the mother from above, the Sophia.”
(Drews: “Christ Myth,” I, pp. 16, 22, 80.) In Assyria, Gibil, the fire
god, had the rôle of Logos. (Tiele: “Assyr. Gesch.”) In Ephrem,
the Syrian writer of hymns, John the Baptist says to Christ: “A spark
of fire in the air waits for thee over the Jordan. If thou followest it
and willst be baptised, then take possession of thyself, wash thyself, for
who has the power to take hold of burning fire with his hands? Thou,
who art wholly fire, have mercy upon me.” Usener: “Religionsgeschichtliche
Untersuchungen.” Cited by Drews: Ibid., p. 81.
699. 548Perhaps the great significance of the name arose from this phantasy.
700. Grimm mentions the legend that Siegfried was suckled by a doe.
(Compare Hiawatha’s first deed.)
701. Compare Grimm’s “Mythology.” Mime or Mîmir is a gigantic
being of great wisdom, “a very old Nature God,” with whom the
Norse gods associate. Later fables make of him a demon and a skilful
smith (closest relation to Wieland). Just as Wotan obtained advice
from the wise woman (compare the quotation from Julius Cæsar about
the German matron), so does Odin go to the brook of Mîmir in which
wisdom and judgment lie hidden, to the spiritual mother (mother-imago).
There he requests a drink (drink of immortality), but no
sooner does he receive it than he sacrifices his eye to the well (death
of the sun in the sea). The well of Mîmir points undoubtedly to the
mother significance of Mîmir. Thus Mîmir gets possession of Odin’s
other eye. In Mîmir, the mother (wise giant) and the embryo (dwarf,
subterranean sun, Harpocrates) is condensed; likewise, as mother, he is
the source of wisdom and art. (“Mother-imago” therefore may be
translated as “phantasy” under certain circumstances.)
702. The magic sleep is also present in the Homeric celebration of the
Hierosgamos. (See above.)
703. This is proved by Siegfried’s words:
“Through furious fire
To thee have I fared;
Nor birny nor buckler
Guarded my breast:
The flames have broken
Through to my heart,
My blood doth bound
In turbulent streams;
A raving fire
Within me is kindled.”
704. The cave dragon is the “terrible mother.” In the German legends
the maiden to be rescued often appears as a snake or dragon, and must
be kissed in this form, through which the dragon is changed into a
beautiful woman. A fish’s or a serpent’s tail is attributed to certain
wise women. In the “golden mountain” a king’s daughter was bewitched
into a snake. In the Oselberg near Dinkelsbühl there lives a
snake with a woman’s head and a bunch of keys around her neck.
(Grimm.)
705. Faust (II Part):
Doch im Erstarren such ich nicht mein Heil,
Das Schaudern ist der Menschheit bestes Teil;
Wie auch die Welt ihm das Gefühl verteure,
Ergriffen, fühlt er tief das Ungeheure.
706. “Etymol. Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache,” sub. Hort.
707. “Griechische Etymologie,” sub. κεύθω.
708. Pausanias: I, 18, 7.
709. 549Ocean, who arose to be the producer of all.
710. Rohde: “Psyche,” IV. Aufl., Vol. I, p. 214.
711. J. Maehly: “Die Schlange im Mythus und Kultus der klassischen
Völker,” 1867.
712. Duchesne: “Lib. pontifical.,” I, S. CIX. Cited by Cumont: “Textes
et Monuments,” Vol. I, p. 351.
713. There was a huge dragon on Mount Tarpeius, where the Capitolium
stands. Once a month, with sacrilegious maidens, the priests descended
365 steps into the hell of this dragon, carrying expiatory offerings of food
for the dragon. Then the dragon suddenly and unexpectedly arose,
and, though he did not come out, he poisoned the air with his breath.
Thence came the mortality of man and the deepest sorrow for the death
of the children. When, for the defence of truth, St. Silvester had had a
conflict with the heathen, it came to this that the heathen said: “Silvester,
go down to the dragon, and in the name of thy God make him desist from
the killing of mankind.”
714. Cited by Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” Vol. I, p. 351.
715. Like his counterpart, the apocalyptic “son of man,” from whose
mouth proceeds a “sharp two-edged sword.” Rev. i:16. Compare
Christ as serpent and the Antichrist seducing the people. Rev. xx:3.
We come across the same motive of the guardian dragon who pierces
women, in the myth from Van Diemen’s Land: “A horn-back lay in
the cavity of a rock, a huge horn-back! The horn-back was large and
he had a very long spear. From his cavity he espied the women;
he saw them dive into the water, he pierced them with his spear, he
killed them, he carried them away. For some time they were to be
seen no longer.” The monster was then killed by the two heroes. They
made fire(!) and brought the women to life again. (Cited by Frobenius:
Ibid., p. 77.)
716. The eyes of the Son of man are like a flame of fire. Rev. i:15.
717. Near the city of Rome there was a certain cavern in which appeared
a dragon of remarkable size, mechanically produced, brandishing a sword
in his mouth, his eyes glittering like gems, fearful and terrible. Hither
came virgins every year, devoted to this service, adorned with flowers,
who were given to him in sacrifice. Bringing these gifts, they unknowingly
descended the steps to a point where, with diabolical cunning, the
dragon was suspended, striking those who came a blow with the sword,
so that the innocent blood was shed. Now, there was a certain monk
who, on account of his good deeds, was well known to Stilico, the patrician;
he killed this dragon as follows: He examined each separate step
carefully, both with a rod and his own hand, until, discovering the false
step, he exposed the diabolical fraud. Then, jumping over this step,
he went down and killed the dragon, cutting him to pieces, demonstrating
that one who could be destroyed by human hand could not be a
divinity.
718. Cited by Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” I, p. 352.
719. Compare Roscher: “Lexicon,” I, 2, 1885.
720. Out of dark places she rushes on children and women.
721. The triple form also related to the moon (waxing, full, and waning
moon). However, such cosmic relations are primarily projections of
metapsychology.
722. Faust (II Part): The Scene of the mothers: The key belongs to
Hecate, προθυραία, as the guardian of Hades, and psychopompic Divinity.
Compare Janus, Peter and Aion.
723. Attribute of the “terrible mother”: Ishtar has “tormented the horse
with goad and whip and tortured him to death.” (Jensen: “Gilgamesh
Epic,” p. 18.) Also an attribute of Helios.
724. Phallic symbol of fear.
725. Murderous weapon as symbol of the fructifying phallus.
726. Plato has already testified to this as a phallic symbol, as is mentioned
above.
727. White-leaved.
728. Far-shooting Hecate.
729. Far-shooting, the far-darting.
730. Goddess of birth.
731. Cited by Roscher: I, 2, Sp. 1909.
732. Hecate.
733. Compare the symbolism in the hymn to Mary of Melk (12th century).
“Santa Maria,
Closed gate
Opened to God’s command—
Sealed fountain,
Barred garden,
Gate of Paradise.”
The same symbolism occurs in an erotic verse:
“Maiden, may I enter with you
Into your rose garden,
There, where the little red roses grow,
Those delicate and tender roses,
With a tree close by,
Whose leaves sway to and fro,
And a cool little brook
Which lies directly beneath it.”
734. 550Sacrificial cakes offered to the gods.
735. Herzog: “Aus dem Asklepieion von Kos.” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft,
Vol. X, H. 2, p. 219 ff.
736. A Mithraic sanctuary was, when at all possible, a subterranean
grotto; often the cavern was merely an artificial one. It is conceivable
that the Christian crypts and subterranean churches are of similar
meaning.
737. Compare Schultze: “Die Katakomben,” 1882, p. 9.
738. In the Taurobolia a bull was sacrificed over a grave, in which
lay the one to be consecrated. His initiation consisted in being covered
with the blood of the sacrifice. Also a regeneration and rebirth, baptism.
The baptized one was called Renatus.
739. Additional proof in Herzog: Ibid., p. 224.
740. Ibid., p. 225.
741. Ritual sacrificial food offered to the gods.
742. Indeed sacred serpents were kept for display and other purposes.
743. Ritual sacrificial food offered to the gods.
744. Rohde: “Psyche,” chap. 1, p. 244.
745. Vol. I, p. 28.
746. Fick. Compare “Wörterbuch,” I, p. 424.
747. Compare the stable cleaning of Hercules. The stable, like the
cavern, is a place of birth. We find stable and cavern in Mithracism
combined with the bull symbolism, as in Christianity. (See Robertson:
“Christ and Krishna.”) In a Basuto myth, the stable birth also occurs.
(Frobenius.) The stable birth belongs to the mythologic animal fable;
therefore the legend of the conceptio immaculata, allied to the history
of the impregnation of the barren Sarah, appears very early in Egypt as
an animal fable. Herodotus, III, 28, relates: “This Apis or Epaphos
is a calf whose mother was unable to become impregnated, but the
Egyptians said that a ray from heaven fell upon the cow, and from
that she brought forth Apis.” Apis symbolizes the sun, therefore his
signs: upon the forehead a white spot, upon his back a figure of an
eagle, upon his tongue a beetle.
748. According to Philo, the serpent is the most spirited of all animals;
its nature is that of fire, the rapidity of its movements is great and this
without need of any especial limbs. It has a long life and sheds age,
with its skin. Therefore it was inculcated in the mysteries, because it is
immortal. (Maehly: “Die Schlange in Mythologie und Kultus der
klassischen Völker,” 1867, p. 7.)
749. For example, the St. John of Quinten Matsys (see illustration);
also two pictures by an unknown Strassburg master in the Gallery at
Strassburg.
750. “And the woman—having a golden cup in her hand full of
abominations and filthiness of her fornication” (Rev. xvii:4). The
woman is “drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of
the martyrs of Jesus”: a striking image of the terrible mother (here,
cup = genitals). In the Tibetan myth of Bogda Gesser Khan there
is a beetle (treasure attainable with difficulty), which the demoniac
old woman guards. Gesser says to her: “Sister, never since I was
born have you shown me the beetle my soul.” The mother libido
is also the soul. It is significant that the old woman desired the hero
as a husband. (Frobenius.)
751. 551This is also the significance of the mysteries. Their purpose is to
lead the useless, regressive incestuous libido over the bridges of symbolism
into rational activity, and through that transform the obscure
compulsion of the libido working up from the unconscious into social
communion and higher moral endeavor.
752. An excellent example of this is the description of the orgies of the
Russian sectarian by Mereschkowski, in his book, “Peter the Great and
Alexei.” In the cult of the Asiatic Goddesses of love (Anaïtis, Mylitta,
etc.), prostitution in the temple was an organized institution. The
orgiastic cult of Anâhita (Anaïtis) has been preserved in modern sects,
with the Ali Illâhîja, the so-called “extinguishers of light”; with the
Yezêds and Dushikkurds, who celebrate nocturnal religious orgies which
end in a wild sexual debauch, during which incestuous unions also occur.
(Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,” II, p. 64.) Further examples are
to be found in the valuable work of Stoll (“Das Sexualleben in der
Völkerpsychologie,” Leipzig 1908).
753. Concerning the kiss of the snake, compare Grimm, II, p. 809.
By this means, a beautiful woman was set free. The sucking refers to
the maternal significance of the snake, which exists along with the
phallic. It is a coitus act on the presexual stage. Spielrein’s insane
patient (Jahrbuch, III, p. 344) says as follows: “Wine is the blood of
Jesus.—The water must be blessed, and was blessed by him. The one
buried alive becomes the vineyard. That wine becomes blood—the
water is mingled with ‘childishness’ because God says, ‘become like
little children.’ There is also a spermatic water which can be drunken
with blood. That perhaps is the water of Jesus.” Here we find a
commingling of all the various meanings of the way to win immortality.
Wiedemann (“Der alte Orient,” II, 2, p. 18; cited by Dieterich: Ibid.,
p. 101) asserts that it is an Egyptian idea that man draws in the milk
of immortality by suckling the breast of a goddess. (Compare with that
the myth of Hercules, where the hero attains immortality by a single
draw at the breast of Hera.)
754. From the writings of the sectarian Anton Unternährer: “Geheimes
Reskript der bernischen Regierung an die Pfarr- und Statthalterämter,”
1821. I owe the knowledge of this fragment to Rev. Dr. O.
Pfister.
755. Nietzsche: “Zarathustra”: “And I also give this parable to you:
Not a few who wished to drive out the devil from themselves, by that
lead themselves into the slough.”
756. Compare the vision of Zosimos.
757. The significance of the communion ritual as a unio mystica with
God is at bottom sexual and very corporeal. The primitive significance
of the communion is that of a Hierosgamos. Therefore in the fragment
of the Attis mysteries handed down by Firmicus it is said that the mystic
eats from the Tympanon, drinks from the Kymbalon, and he confesses:
ὑπὸ τὸν παστὸν ὑπέδυον, which means the same as: “I have entered the
bridal chamber.” Usener (in Dieterich: Ibid., p. 126) refers to a series of
quotations from the patristic literature, of which I mention merely one
sentence from the speeches of Proclus of Constantinople: ἡ παστας εν ἡ
ὁ λογος ενυμφευσατο την σακρα (The bridal chamber in which the Logos has
espoused the flesh). The church is also to some extent the bridal chamber,
where the spirit unites with the flesh, really the Cömeterium. Irenaeus
mentions some more of the initiatory customs of certain gnostic sects,
which were undoubtedly nothing but spiritual weddings. (Compare
Dieterich: Ibid., p. 127 ff.) In the Catholic church, even yet, a Hierosgamos
is celebrated on the installation of a priest. A young maiden there
represents the church as bride.
758. 552Compare also the phantasies of Felicien Rops: The crucified
Priapus.
759. Compare with that the symbolism in Nietzsche’s poem: “Why
enticest thou thyself into the paradise of the old serpent?”
760. “Thus Spake Zarathustra.”
761. Nietzsche himself must have shown at times a certain predilection
for loathsome animals. Compare C. A. Bernoulli: “Franz Oberbeck und
Friedrich Nietzsche,” Vol. I, p. 166.
762. I recall Nietzsche’s dream, which is cited in Part I of this book.
763. The Germanic myth of Dietrich von Bern, who had fiery breath,
belongs to this idea: He was wounded in the forehead by an arrow, a
piece of which remained there fixed; from this, he was called the immortal.
In a similar manner, half of Hrûngnir’s wedge-shaped stone
fastened itself in Thor’s head. See Grimm: “Mythology,” I, p. 309.
764. “Geschichte der Philosophie,” Vol. I, p. 181.
765. Sa tapo atapyata.
766. The Stoic idea of the creative primal warmth, in which we have
already recognized the libido (Part I, Chap. IV), belongs in this connection,
also the birth of Mithra from a stone, which resulted solo aestu
libidinis (through the heat of the libido only).
767. The place of discipline.
768. In the accurate prose translation this passage reads: “There Kâma
developed from him in the beginning” (Deussen: “Gesch. d. Phil.,”
Vol. I, p. 123). Kâma is the libido. “The sages found the root of being
in the non-being, in the heart, searching with introspection.”
769. “Fame and Eternity.”
770. Grimm: “Mythology,” III. The heroes have serpent’s eyes, as do
the kings: ormr î auga. Sigurdr is called Ormr î Auga.
771. Nietzsche’s
“In the green light,
Happiness still plays around the brown abyss.
His voice grows hoarse,
His eye flashes verdigris!”
772. From “The Poverty of the Richest.”
773. Nietzsche’s “Fragments of Dionysus-Dithyrambs.”
“Heavy eyes,
Which seldom love:
But when they love, it flashes out
Like a gold mine
Where a dragon guards the treasure of love.”
774. 553He is pregnant with the sun.
775. Galatians iii:27 alludes to this primitive idea: “For as many of
you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
776. Just as is Mânî so is Marsyas a crucified one. (See Robertson:
“Evangelical Myths,” p. 66.) Both were hung, a punishment which has
an unmistakable symbolic value, because the suspension (“to suffer
and fear in the torment of suspension”) is the symbol of an unfulfilled
wish. (See Freud: “The Interpretation of Dreams.”) Therefore Christ,
Odin, Attis hung on trees (= mother). The Talmudic Jesus ben Pandira
(apparently the earliest historic Jesus) suffered a similar death, on
the eve of a Passover festival in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106–79
B.C.). This Jesus may have been the founder of the “Essenes,” a sect
(see Robertson: “Evang. Myths,” p. 123) which stood in a certain relation
to subsequent Christianity. The Jesus ben Stada identified with the preceding
Jesus, but removed into the second Christian century, was also
hung. Both were first stoned, a punishment which was, so to speak,
a bloodless one like hanging. The Christian church, which spills no
blood, therefore burned. This may not be without significance for a
peculiar ceremony reported from Uganda: “When a king of Uganda
wished to live forever, he went to a place in Busiro, where a feast was
given by the chiefs. At the feast the Mamba Clan was especially held
in honor, and during the festivities a member of this clan was secretly
chosen by his fellows, caught by them, and beaten to death with their
fists; no stick or other weapon might be used by the men appointed to
do the deed. After death, the victim’s body was flayed and the skin
made into a special whip, etc. After the ceremony of the feast in
Busiro, with its strange sacrifice, the king of Uganda was supposed to
live forever, but from that day he was never allowed to see his mother
again.” (Quoted from Frazer: “Golden Bough,” Part IV, p. 415.) The
sacrifice, which is chosen to purchase everlasting life for another, is here
given over to a bloodless death and after that skinned. That this sacrifice
has an absolutely unmistakable relation to the mother—as we
already know—is corroborated very plainly by Frazer.
777. Frazer: “Adonis, Attis, Osiris,” p. 242.
778. Frazer: Ibid., p. 246.
779. Frazer: Ibid., p. 249.
780. Cited by Dieterich in “Mithrasliturgie,” p. 215.
781. The bull, father of the serpent, and the serpent, father of the bull.
782. Another attempt at solution seems to be the Dioscuri motive:
The sun consists of two brothers similar to each other, the one mortal,
the other immortal. This motive is found, as is well known, in the
two Açvins, who, however, are not further differentiated. In the
Mithraic doctrine, Mithra is the father, Sol the son, and yet both are
one as ὁ μέγας θεὸς Ἥελιος Μίθρας. The motive of twins emerges, not infrequently,
in dreams. In a dream, where it is related that a woman had
given birth to twins, the dreamer found, instead of the expected children,
a box and a bottle-like object. Here the twins had male and female
significance. This observation hints at a possible significance of the
Dioscuri as the sun and its re-bearing mother—daughter (?).
783. 554Among the daughters of the desert.
784. Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, Vol. II, p. 169.
785. This problem has frequently been employed in the ancient sun
myths. It is especially striking that the lion-killing heroes, Samson and
Hercules, are weaponless in the combat. The lion is the symbol of the
most intense summer heat, astrologically he is the Domicilium Solis.
Steinthal (Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, Vol. II, p. 133) reasons
about this in a most interesting manner, which I quote word for word:
“When the Sun-god fights against the summer heat, he fights against
himself; when he kills it, he kills himself. Most certainly! The
Phœnician, Assyrian and Lydian ascribes self-destruction to his sun-god,
for he can comprehend the lessening of the sun’s heat only as a self-murder.
He believed that the sun stood at its highest in the summer
and its rays scorched with destroying heat: thus does the god burn
himself, but he does not die, only rejuvenates himself.—Also Hercules
burns himself, but ascends to Olympus in the flames. This is the contradiction
in the pagan gods. They, as forces of nature, are helpful
as well as harmful to men. In order to do good and to redeem they
must work against themselves. The opposition is dulled, when either
of the two sides of the forces of nature is personified in an especial
god, or when the power of nature is conceived of as a divine personage;
however, each of its two modes of action, the benevolent and the injurious,
has an especial symbol. The symbol is always independent, and
finally is the god himself; and while originally the god worked against
himself, destroyed himself, now symbol fights against symbol, god
against god, or the god with the symbol.”
Certainly the god fights with himself, with his other self, which we
have conceived of under the symbol of mother. The conflict always
appears to be the struggle with the father and the conquering of the
mother.
786. The old Etruscan custom of covering the urn of ashes, and the dead
buried in the earth, with the shield, is something more than mere chance.
787. Incest motive.
788. Compare the idea of the Phœnix in the Apocalypse of Baruch,
Part I of this book.
Chapter Viii
789. The kingdom of the mother is the kingdom of the (unconscious)
phantasy.
790. Behind nature stands the mother, in continuation of our earlier discussions
and in the foregoing poem of Hölderlin. Here the mother
hovers before the poet’s mind as a tree, on which the child hangs like a
blossom.
791. Once he called the “stars his brothers.” Here I must call to mind
the remarks in the first part of this work, especially that mystic identification
with the stars: εγω ειμι συμπλανος ὑμιν αστερ (I am a star who wanders
together with you). The separation and differentiation from the
mother, the “individuation” creates that transition of the subjective into
the objective, that foundation of consciousness. Before this, man was
one with the mother. That is to say, with the world as a whole. At
that period man did not know the sun as brother. This occurred for
the first time, when after the resulting separation and placing of the
object, the libido, regressing to the infantile, perceived in that first state
its possibilities and the suspicion of his relationship to the stars forced
itself upon him. This occurrence appears not infrequently in the introversion
psychoses. A young peasant, an ordinary laboring man, developed
an introversion psychosis (Dementia Praecox). His first feelings
of illness were shown by a special connection which he felt with the
sun and the stars. The stars became full of meaning to him, and the
sun suggested ideas to him. This apparently entirely new perception of
nature is met with very often in this disease. Another patient began
to understand the language of birds, which brought him messages from
his beloved (mother). Compare Siegfried.
792. 555The spring belongs to the idea as a whole.
793. This idea expresses the divine-infantile blessedness, as in Hyperion’s
“Song of Fate.”
“You wander above there in the light
Upon soft clouds, blessed genii!
Shining breezes of the gods
Stir you gently.”
794. This portion is especially noteworthy. In childhood everything was
given him, and man is disinclined to obtain it once more for himself,
because it is won only through “toil and compulsion”: even love costs
trouble. In childhood the well of the libido gushed forth in bubbling
fulness. In later life it involves hard work to even keep the stream
flowing for the onward striving life, because with increasing age the
stream has a growing inclination to flow back to its source, if effectual
mechanisms are not created to hinder this backward movement or at
least to organize it. In this connection belongs the generally accepted
idea, that love is absolutely spontaneous; only the infantile type of love
is something absolutely spontaneous. The love of an adult man allows
itself to be purposefully directed. Man can also say “I will love.” The
heights of culture are conditioned by the capacity for displacement of
the libido.
795. Motive of immortality in the fable of the death of Empedocles.
Horace: Deus immortalis haberi—Dum cupit Empedocles ardentem
frigidus Aetnam—Insiluit (Empedocles deliberately threw himself into
the glowing Aetna because he wanted to be believed an immortal god).
796. Compare the beautiful passage in the journey to Hades of Odysseus,
where the hero wishes to embrace his mother.
“But I, thrilled by inner longing,
Wanted to embrace the soul of my departed mother.
Three times I endeavored, full of passionate desire for the embrace:
Three times from my hands she escaped
Like nocturnal shades and the images of dreams,
And in my heart sadness grew more intense.” (“Odyss.,” XI, 204.)
The underworld, hell, is indeed the place of unfulfilled longing. The
Tantalus motive is found through all of hell.
797. Spielrein’s patient (Jahrbuch, III, p. 345) speaks in connection with
the significance of the communion of “the water mixed with childishness;
spermatic water, blood and wine.” P. 368 she says: “The souls
fallen into the water are saved by God, they fall into the deep abyss—The
souls were saved by the son of God.”
798. 556The φάρμακον ἀθανασίας, the drink of Soma, the Haoma of the Persians,
might have been made from Ephedra vulgaris. Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,”
I, p. 433.
799. Like the heavenly city in Hauptmann’s “Hannele”:
“Salvation is a wonderful city,
Where peace and joy never end,
Its houses are marble, its roofs are gold,
But wine flows in silver fountains,
Flowers are strewed upon the white, white streets,
Continually from the towers sound the wedding bells.
Green as May are the battlements, shining with the light of early morning.
Giddy with butterflies, crowned with roses.
· · · · ·
There below, hand in hand,
The festive people wander through the heavenly land,
The wide, wide sea is filled with red, red wine,
They plunge in with shining bodies!
They plunge into the foam and the splendor,
The clear purple covers them entirely,
And they exulting arise from the flood,
Thus they are washed by Jesus’ blood.”
800. Richter: 15, 17.
801. Prellwitz: “Griech. Etym.,” s. σκήπτω.
802. Of the father.
803. Fate.
804. Chances and fates.
805. This was really the purpose of all mysteries. They create symbolisms
of death and rebirth for the practical application and education
of the infantile libido. As Frazer (“The Golden Bough,” I, p. 442)
points out, exotic and barbaric peoples have in their initiatory mysteries
the same symbolism of death and resurrection, just as Apuleius
(“Metam.,” XI, 23) says of the initiation of Lucius into the Isis mysteries:
“Accessi confinium mortis et calcato Proserpinae limine per omnia
vectus elementa remeavi” (I have reached the confines of death and
trodden the threshold of Proserpina; passing through all the elements, I
have returned). Lucius died figuratively (ad instar voluntariae mortis)
and was born anew (renatus).
806. This does not hinder the modern neurasthenic from making work
a means of repression and worrying about it.
807. Compare Genesis xlix: 17: “Dan shall be a serpent by the way,
an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall
fall backward.”
808. Compare with this the Egyptian representation of the Heaven as
woman and cow.
809. Freud: “Formulierungen über die zwei Prinzipien des psychischen
Geschehens,” 1912 Jahrbuch, p. 1 ff.
810. This form of question recalls the well-known Indian symbol of the
world-bearing animal: an elephant standing upon a tortoise. The elephant
has chiefly masculine-phallic significance and the tortoise, like
every shell animal, chiefly feminine significance.
811. 557Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, Vol. II, p. 171.
812. The neurotic Don Juan is no evidence to the contrary. That which
the “habitué” understands by love is merely an infirmity and far different
from that which love means!
813. Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,” II, 667.
814. Freud: “Eine Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci,” p. 57:
“The almighty, just God and benevolent nature appear to us as a great
sublimation of father and mother, rather than revivals and reproductions
of the early childish ideas of them. Religiousness leads biologically back
to the long-continued helplessness and need of the offspring of man, who,
when later he has recognized his real loneliness, and weakness against
the great powers of life, feels his condition similar to that of childhood,
and seeks to disavow this forlorn state by regressive renewal of the
infantile protective powers.”
815. Nietzsche: “Fröhliche Wissenschaft,” Aphorism 157. “Mentiri—give
heed!—he muses: immediately he will have a lie prepared. This is a
stage of culture, upon which whole peoples have stood. One should
ponder over what the Romans meant by mentiri!” Actually the Indo-Germanic
root méntis, men, is the same for mentiri, memini and mens.
See Walde: “Lat. Etym.,” sub. mendax, memini und mens.
816. See Freud: Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 60.
817. Bundehesh, XV, 27. The bull Sarsaok was sacrificed at the destruction
of the world. But Sarsaok was the originator of the race of men:
he had brought nine of the fifteen human races upon his back through
the sea to the distant points of the compass. The primitive bull of
Gayomart has, as we saw above, most undoubtedly female and maternal
significance on account of his fertility.
818. If for Silberer the mythological symbolism is a process of cognition
on the mythological stage (Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 664), then there exists,
between this view and mine, only a difference of standpoint, which determines
a different manner of expression.
819. This series of representations begins with the totem meal.
820. Taurus is astrologically the Domicilium Veneris.
821. There comes from the library of Asurbanipal an interesting Sumeric-Assyrian
fragment (Cuneiform Inscr., I, IV, 26, 6. Quoted by Gressmann:
“Altorient. Text. und Bild.,” I, p. 101):
“To the wise man he said:
A lamb is the substitute for a man.
He gives a lamb for his life,
He gives the heads of lambs for the heads of men,” etc.
822. Compare the remarkable account in Pausanias: VI, 17, 9 ff. “While
sleeping, the sperma of Zeus has flowed down upon the earth; in time
has arisen from this a demon, with double generative organs; that of
a man, and that of a woman. They gave him the name of Agdistis.
But the gods changed Agdistis and cut off the male organs. Now when
the almond tree which sprang forth from this bore ripe fruit, the
daughter of the spring, Sangarios, took of the fruit. When she placed
it in her bosom, the fruit disappeared at once; but she found herself
pregnant. After she had given birth to the child, a goat acted as protector: when he grew up, he was of superhuman beauty, so that Agdistis
fell in love with the boy. His relatives sent the full-grown Attis to
Pessinus, in order to marry the king’s daughter. The wedding song
was beginning when Agdistis appeared and in delirium Attis castrated
himself.”
823. 558Beloved of the mother of the gods, inasmuch as the Cybeline Attis
sheds his human shape in this way and stiffens into this tree trunk.
824. Firmicus: “De error. prof. rel.,” XXVIII. Quoted by Robertson:
“Evang. Myths,” p. 136, and Creuzer: “Symbolik,” II, 332.
825. Pentheus, as a hero with a serpent nature; his father was Echion,
the adder.
826. The typical sacrificial death in the Dionysus cult.
827. In the festival processions they wore women’s clothes.
828. In Bithynia Attis was called πάπας (papa, pope) and Cybele, Mã.
In the early Asiatic religions of this mother-goddess, there existed fish
worship and prohibition against fish as food for the priests. In the
Christian religion, it is noteworthy that the son of Atargatis, identified
with Astarte, Cybele, etc., is called Ἰχθύς (Creuzer: “Symbolik,” II, 60).
Therefore, the anagram of the name of Christ = ΙΕΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ
ΘΕΟΥ ΥΙΟΣ ΣΩΤΕΡ = ΙΧΘΥΣ.
829. Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,” 2, 76.
830. A. Nagel: “Der chinesische Küchengott Tsau-kyun.” Archiv für
Religionswissenschaft, XI, 23 ff.
831. In Spiegel’s “Parsigrammatik,” pp. 135, 166.
832. Porphyrius says: ὡς καὶ ὁ ταῦρος δημιουργὸς ὡν ὁ Μίθρας καὶ γενέσεως δεσπότης
(As the bull is the Creator, Mithra is the Lord of birth).
833. The death of the bull is voluntary and involuntary. When Mithra
strangles the bull, a scorpion bites the bull in the testicles (autumn
equinox).
834. Benndorf: “Bildwerke des Lateran Museum,” No. 547.
835. “Textes et Monuments,” I, 182.
836. In another place Cumont speaks of “the sorrowful and almost
morbid grace of the features of the hero.”
837. Infantilism is merely the result of the much deeper state of introversion
of the Christian in contrast to the other religions.
838. The libido nature of the sacrificed is unquestionable. In Persia, a
ram helped the first people to the first sin, cohabitation: it is also the
first animal which they sacrificed (Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,”
Vol. I, p. 511). The ram is the same as the paradisical serpent, which
was Christ according to the Manichaean version. The ancient Meliton
of Sardes taught that Christ was a lamb, similar to the ram in the
bush, which Abraham sacrificed in place of his son. Here the bush is
analogous to the cross (Fragment V, quoted by Robertson: Ibid).
839. See above. “Blood bridegroom of the mother.” From Joshua v: 2
we learn that Joshua again instituted the circumcision and redemption
of the first-born: “With this he must have substituted for the sacrifice
of children, which earlier it was the custom to offer up to Jehovah, the
sacrifice of the male foreskin” (Drews: “Christusmythe,” I, p. 47).
840. 559See Cumont: Ibid., p. 100.
841. The Zodiacal sign of the sun’s greatest heat.
842. This solution apparently concerns only the dogmatic symbolism. I
merely intimate that this sacrificial death was related to a festival of
vegetation or of Spring, from which the religious legend originated.
The folk customs contain in variations these same fundamental thoughts.
(Compare with that Drews: “Christusmythe,” I, p. 37).
843. A similar sacrificial death is that of Prometheus. He was chained
to a rock. In another version his chains were drawn through a pillar,
which hints at the enchainment to a tree. That punishment was his
which Christ took upon himself willingly. The fate of Prometheus
therefore recalls the misfortune of Theseus and Peirithoos, who remain
bound to the rock, the chthonic mother. According to Athenaeus, Jupiter
commanded Prometheus, after he had freed him, to wear a willow
crown and an iron ring, by which his lack of freedom and slavery was
symbolically represented. (Phoroneus, who in Argos was worshipped as
the bringer of fire, was the son of Melia, the ash, therefore tree-enchained.)
Robertson compares the crown of Prometheus to the crown of
thorns of Christ. The devout carry crowns in honor of Prometheus, in
order to represent the captivity (“Evangelical Myths,” p. 126). In this
connection, therefore, the crown means the same as the betrothal ring.
These are the requisites of the old Hierosgamos with the mother; the
crown of thorns (which is of Egyptian derivation according to
Athenaeus) has the significance of the painful ascetic betrothal.
844. Hecate.
845. The spear wound given by Longinus to Christ is the substitute for
the dagger thrust in the Mithraic bull sacrifice: “The jagged tooth of
the brazen wedge” was driven through the breast of the enchained and
sacrificed Prometheus (Aeschylus: “Prometheus”).
846. Mention must also be made of the fact that North German mythology
was acquainted with similar thoughts regarding the fruitfulness of the
sacrificial death on the mother: Through hanging on the tree of life,
Odin obtained knowledge of the Runes and the inspiring, intoxicating
drink which invested him with immortality.
847. I have refrained in the course of this merely orienting investigating
from referring to the countless possibilities of relationship between dream
symbolism and the material disclosed in these connections. That is a
matter of a special investigation. But I cannot forbear mentioning here
a simple dream, the first which a youthful patient brought to me in the
beginning of her analysis. “She stands between high walls of snow
upon a railroad track with her small brother. A train comes, she runs
before it in deadly fear and leaves her brother behind upon the track.
She sees him run over, but after the train has passed, the little fellow
stands up again uninjured.” The meaning of the dream is clear: the
inevitable approach of the “impulse.” The leaving behind of the little
brother is the repressed willingness to accept her destiny. The acceptance
is symbolized by the sacrifice of the little brother (the infantile
personality) whose apparently certain death becomes, however, a resurrection.
Another patient makes use of classical forms: she dreamed of
a mighty eagle, which is wounded in beak and neck by an arrow. If
we go into the actual transference phantasy (eagle = physician, arrow =
erotic wish of the patient), then the material concerning the eagle (winged
lion of St. Mark, the past splendor of Venice; beak = remembrances of
certain perverse actions of childhood) leads us to understand the eagle
as a composition of infantile memories, which in part are grouped
around the father. The eagle, therefore, is an infantile hero who is
wounded in a characteristic manner on the phallic point (beak). The
dream also says: I renounce the infantile wish, I sacrifice my infantile
personality (which is synonymous with: I paralyze it, castrate the father
or the physician). In the Mithra mysteries, in the introversion the
mystic himself becomes ἀετός, the eagle, this being the highest degree of
initiation. The identification with the unconscious libido animal goes
very far in this cult, as Augustine relates: “alii autem sicut aves alas percutiunt
vocem coracis imitantes, alii vero leonum more fremunt” (Some
move the arms like birds the wings, imitating the voice of the raven,
some groan like lions).
848. 560Miss Miller’s snake is green. The snake of my patient is also green.
In “Psychology of Dementia Praecox,” p. 161, she says: “Then a
little green snake came into my mouth; it had the finest, loveliest sense,
as if it had human understanding; it wanted to say something to me,
almost as if it had wished to kiss me.” Spielrein’s patient says of the
snake: “It is an animal of God, which has such wonderful colors, green,
blue and white. The rattlesnake is green; it is very dangerous. The
snake can have a human mind, it can have God’s judgment; it is a
friend of children. It will save those children who are necessary for
the preservation of human life” (Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 366). Here the
phallic meaning is unmistakable. The snake as the transformed prince
in the fairy tale has the same meaning. See Riklin: “Wish Fulfilment
and Symbolism in Fairy Tales.”
849. A patient had the phantasy that she was a serpent which coiled
around the mother and finally crept into her.
850. The serpent of Epidaurus is, in contrast, endowed with healing power.
Similia similibus.
851. This Bleuler has designated as Ambivalence or ambitendency.
Stekel as “Bi-polarity of all psychic phenomena” (“Sprache des
Traumes,” p. 535).
852. I am indebted for permission to publish a picture of this statuette
to the kindness of the director of the Veronese collection of antiques.
853. The “Deluge” is of one nature with the serpent. In the Wöluspa
it is said that the flood is produced when the Midgard serpent rises up
for universal destruction. He is called “Jörmungandr,” which means,
literally, “the all-pervading wolf.” The destroying Fenris wolf has also
a connection with the sea. Fen is found in Fensalir (Meersäle), the
dwelling of Frigg, and originally meant sea (Frobenius: Ibid., p. 179).
In the fairy stories of Red Riding Hood, a wolf is substituted in place
of a serpent or fish.
854. Compare the longing of Hölderlin expressed in his poem “Empedocles.”
Also the journey to hell of Zarathustra through the crater of the
volcano. Death is the entrance into the mother, therefore the Egyptian
king, Mykerinos, buried his daughter in a gilded wooden cow. That
was the guarantee of rebirth. The cow stood in a state apartment and
sacrifices were brought to it. In another apartment near the cow were
placed the images of the concubines of Mykerinos (Herodotus, II, p. 129 f).
855. Kluge: “Deutsche Etymologie.”
856. The whistling and snapping is a tasteless, archaic relic, an allurement
for the theriomorphic divinity, probably also an infantile reminiscence
(quieting the child by whistling and snapping). Of similar
significance is the roaring at the divinity. (“Mithr. Lit.,” p. 13): “You
are to look at him and give forth a long roar, as with a horn, using all
your breath, pressing your sides, and kiss the amulet … etc.” “My
soul roars with the voice of a hungry lion,” says Mechthild von Magdeburg.
“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul
after God.”—Psalms xlii: 2. The ceremonial custom, as so often happens,
has dwindled into a figure of speech. Dementia praecox, however,
revivifies the old custom, as in the “Roaring miracle” of Schreber. See
the latter’s “Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken,” by which he demands
that God, i.e. the Father, so inadequately oriented with humanity,
take notice of his existence.
The infantile reminiscence is clear, that is, the childish cry to attract
the attention of the parent to himself; the whistling and smacking for the
allurement of the theriomorphic attribute, the “helpful animal.” (See
Rank: “The Myth of the Birth of the Hero.”)
561
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