The Project Gutenberg eBook of Psychology of the Unconscious, by C. G. Jung

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. The 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!).

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.”

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.

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. For 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.

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.

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. Sun’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. Very 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.

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. Revelation 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. Compare 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. The 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. Lactantius 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.