Section I.

Hidden Symbolism of

ALCHEMY and the OCCULT ARTS

(Formerly titled: _Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism_)

by Dr. Herbert Silberer

Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.

Dover Publications, Inc.

New York

1971

CONTENTS

Translator’s Preface

Part I. The Parable.

Section I. The Parable.

Section II. Dream And Myth Interpretation.

Part II. Analytic Part.

Section I. Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of The Parable.

Section II. Alchemy.

Section III. The Hermetic Art.

Section IV. Rosicrucianism And Freemasonry.

Section V. The Problem Of Multiple Interpretation.

Part III. Synthetic Part.

Section I. Introversion And Regeneration.

A. Introversion And Intro-Determination.

B. Effects Of Introversion.

C. Regeneration.

Section II. The Goal Of The Work.

Section III. The Royal Art.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.

Footnotes

This Dover edition, first published in 1971, is an unabridged and

unaltered republication of the work originally published by Moffat, Yard

and Company, New York, in 1917 under the title _Problems of Mysticism and

its Symbolism_.

_International Standard Book Number: 0-486-20972-5_

_Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-176356_

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

Prominent among the stones of a fireplace in my country den, one large

rounded giant stands out. It was bourne by the glacial streams from a more

northern resting place and is marked by a fossil of a mollusk that

inhabited northern seas many million years ago. Yet in spite of the eons

of time that have passed it can be compared with specimens of mollusks

that live to-day. Down through the countless centuries the living stream

has carved its structural habitations in much the same form. The science

of Paleontology has collected this history and has attempted a

reconstruction of life from its beginnings.

The same principle here illustrated is true for the thought-life of

mankind. The forms in which it has been preserved however are not so

evident. The structuralizations are not so definite. If they were,

evolution would not have been possible for the living stream of energy

which is utilized by mind-stuff cannot be confined if it would advance to

more complex integrations. Hence the products of mind in evolution are

more plastic—more subtle and more changing. They are to be found in the

myths and the folk-lore of ancient peoples, the poetry, dramatic art, and

the language of later races. From age to age however the strivings

continue the same. The living vessels must continue and the products

express the most fundamental strivings, in varying though related forms.

We thus arrive at a science which may be called paleo-psychology. Its

fossils are the thought-forms throughout the ages, and such a science

seeks to show fundamental likenesses behind the more superficial

dissimilarities.

The present work is a contribution to such a science in that it shows the

essential relationships of what is found in the unconscious of present day

mankind to many forms of thinking of the middle ages. These same trends

are present to-day in all of us though hidden behind a different set of

structural terms, utilizing different mechanisms for energy expression.

The unceasing complexity of life’s accumulations has created a great

principle for energy expression—it is termed sublimation—and in popular

parlance represents the spiritual striving of mankind towards the

perfecting of a relation with the world of reality—the environment—which

shall mean human happiness in its truest sense. One of the products of

this sublimation tendency is called Mysticism. This work would seek to aid

us to an understanding of this manifestation of human conduct as expressed

in concrete or contemplated action through thought. It does so by the

comparative method, and it is for this reason I have been led to present

it to an English reading public.

Much of the strange and outre, as well as the commonplace, in human

activity conceals energy transformations of inestimable value in the work

of sublimation. The race would go mad without it. It sometimes does even

with it, a sign that sublimation is still imperfect and that the race is

far from being spiritually well. A comprehension of the principles here

involved would further the spread of sympathy for all forms of thinking

and tend to further spiritual health in such mutual comprehension of the

needs of others and of the forms taken by sublimation processes.

For the actual work of translation, I wish to express my obligations to

friends Wilfred Lay, and Leo Stein. Without their generous and gifted

assistance I would not have been able to accomplish the task.

SMITH ELY JELLIFFE, M.D.

NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 1917.

Part I.

THE PARABLE.

Section I.

The Parable.

In an old book I discovered an extraordinary narrative entitled Parabola.

I take it as the starting point of my observations because it affords a

welcome guide. In the endeavor to understand the parable and get a

psychological insight into it, we are led on to journey through these very

realms of fancy, into which I should like to conduct the reader. At the

end of our journey we shall have acquired, with the understanding of the

first example, the knowledge of certain psychical laws.

I shall, then, without further prelude introduce the example, and

purposely avoid at the outset mentioning the title of the old book so that

the reader may be in a position to allow the narrative to affect him

without any preconceived ideas. Explanatory interpolations in the text,

which come from me, I distinguish with square brackets.

[1]. As once I strolled in a fair forest, young and green, and

contemplated the painfulness of this life, and lamented how

through the dire fall of our first parents we inherited such

misery and distress, I chanced, while thinking these thoughts, to

depart from the usual path, and found myself, I know not how, on a

narrow foot path that was rough, untrodden and impassable, and

overgrown with so much underbrush and bushes that it was easy to

see it was very little used. Therefore I was dismayed and would

gladly have gone back, but it was not in my power to do so, since

a strong wind so powerfully blew me on, that I could rather take

ten steps in advance than one backward.

[2]. Therefore I had to go on and not mind the rough walking.

[3]. After I had advanced a good while I came finally to a lovely

meadow hedged about with a round circle of fruit bearing trees,

and called by the dwellers _Pratum felicitatis_ [the meadow of

felicity], I was in the midst of a company of old men with beards

as gray as ice, except for one who was quite a young man with a

pointed black beard. Also there was among them one whose name was

well known to me, but his visage I could not yet see, who was

still younger, and they debated on all kinds of subjects,

particularly about a great and lofty mystery, hidden in Nature,

which God kept concealed from the great world, and revealed to

only a few who loved him.

[4]. I listened long and their discourse pleased me well, only

some would break forth from restraint, not touching upon the

matter or work, but what touched upon the parables, similitudes

and other parerga, in which they followed the poetic fancies of

Aristotle, Pliny and others which the one had copied from the

other. So I could contain myself no longer and mixed in my own

mustard, [put in my own word], refuted such trivial things from

experience, and the majority sided with me, examined me in their

faculty and made it quite hot for me. However the foundation of my

knowledge was so good, that I passed with all honors, whereupon

they all were amazed, unanimously included and admitted me in

their collegium, of which I was heartily glad.

[5]. But they said I could not be a real colleague till I learned

to know their lion, and became thoroughly acquainted with his

powers and abilities. For that purpose I should use diligence so

as to subdue him. I was quite confident in myself and promised

them I would do my best. For their company pleased me so well that

I would not have parted from them for a great deal.

[6]. They led me to the lion and described him very carefully, but

what I should undertake with him none could tell me. Some of them

indeed hinted, but very darkly, so that the (Der Tausende)

Thousandth one could not have understood him. But when I should

first succeed in subduing him and should have assured myself

against his sharp claws, and keen teeth, then they would conceal

nothing from me. Now the lion was very old, ferocious and large,

his yellow hair hung over his neck, he appeared quite

unconquerable, so that I was almost afraid of my temerity and

would gladly have turned back if my promise and also the

circumstance that the elders stood about me and were waiting to

see what I would do, had allowed me to give up. In great

confidence I approached the lion in his den and began to caress

him, but he looked at me so fiercely with his brightly shining

eyes that I could hardly restrain my tears. Just then I remembered

that I had learned from one of the elders, while we were going to

the lion’s den, that very many people had undertaken to overcome

the lion and very few could accomplish it. I was unwilling to be

disgraced, and I recalled several grips that I had learned with

great diligence in athletics, besides which I was well versed in

natural magic [magia] so I gave up the caresses and seized the

lion so dextrously, artfully and subtlely, that before he was well

aware of it I forced the blood out of his body, yea, even out of

his heart. It was beautifully red but very choleric. I dissected

him further and found, a fact which caused me much wonder, that

his bones were white as snow and there was much more bone than

there was blood.

[7]. Now when my dear elders, who stood above around the den and

looked at me, were aware of it, they disputed earnestly with each

other, for so much I could infer from their motions but what they

said I could not hear since I was deep down in the den. Yet as

they came close in dispute I heard that one said, “He must bring

him to life again, else he can not be our colleague.” I was

unwilling to undertake further difficulties, and betook myself out

of the den to a great place, and came, I know not how, on a very

high wall, whose height rose over 100 ells towards the clouds, but

on top was not one foot wide. And there went up from the

beginning, where I ascended, to the end an iron hand rail right

along the center of the wall, with many leaded supports. On this

wall I came, I say, and meseems there went on the right side of

the railing a man several paces before me.

[8]. But as I followed him awhile I saw another following me on

the other side, yet it was doubtful whether man or woman, that

called to me and said that it was better walking on his side than

where I went, as I readily believed, because the railing that

stood near the middle made the path so narrow that the going at

such a height was very bad. Then I saw also some that wished to go

on that path, fall: down below behind me, therefore I swung under

the railing; holding tight with my hands and went forward on the

other [left] side, till I finally came to a place on the wall

which was very precipitous and dangerous to descend. Then first I

repented that I had not stayed on the other [right] side and I

could not go under to the other side as it was also impossible to

turn round and get on the other path. So I risked it, trusted to

my good feet, held myself tight and came down without harm, and as

I walked a little further, looked and knew of no other danger, but

also knew not what had become of wall and railing.

[9]. After I came down, there stood in that place a beautiful rose

bush, on which beautiful red and white roses were growing, the red

more numerous, however, than the white. I broke off some roses

from the bush and put them on my hat. But there seemed to be in

the same place a wall, surrounding a great garden. In the garden

were lads, and their lasses who would gladly be in the garden, but

would not wander widely, or take the trouble to come to the gates.

So I pitied them. I went further along the path by which I had

come, still on the level, and went so fast that I soon came to

some houses, where I supposed I should find the gardener’s house.

But I found there many people, each having his own room. They were

slow. Two together they worked diligently, yet each had his own

work. [The meaning may be either that working alone they were

slow, but in twos they worked diligently; or two of them worked

together and were diligent. Both amount to the same thing as we

shall later realize.] But what they did, it seems, I had myself

done before and all their work was familiar to me. Especially,

thought I, see, if so many other people do so much dirty and

sloppy work, that is only an appearance according to each one’s

conceit, but has no reason in Nature, so it may also be pardoned

in you. I wished, therefore, because I knew such tricks vanished

like smoke, to remain here no longer in vain and proceeded on my

former way.

[10]. After I had arrived at the gate of the garden, some on one

side looked sourly at me, so that I was afraid they might hinder

me in my project; but others said, “See, he will into the garden,

and we have done garden service here so long, and have never

gotten in; we will laugh him down if he fails.” But I did not

regard all that, as I knew the conditions of this garden better

than they, even if I had never been in it, but went right to a

gate that was tight shut so that one could neither see nor find a

keyhole. I noticed, however, that a little round hole that with

ordinary eyes could not be seen, was in the door, and thought

immediately, that must be the way the door is opened, was ready

with my specially prepared Diederich, unlocked and went in. When I

was inside the door, I found several other bolted doors, which I

yet opened without trouble. Here, however, was a passage way, just

as if it was in a well built house, some six feet wide and twenty

long, with a roof above. And though the other doors were still

locked, I could easily see through them into the garden as the

first door was open.

[11]. I wandered into the garden in God’s name, and found in the

midst of it a small garden, that was square and six roods long,

hedged in with rose thorns, and the roses bloomed beautifully. But

as it was raining gently, and the sun shone in it, it caused a

very lovely rainbow. When I had passed beyond the little garden

and would go to the place where I was to help the maids, behold I

was aware that instead of the walls a low hurdle stood there, and

there went along by the rose garden the most beautiful maiden

arrayed in white satin, with the most stately youth, who was in

scarlet each giving arm to the other, and carrying in their hands

many fragrant roses. I spoke to them and asked them how they had

come over the hurdle. “This, my beloved bridegroom,” said she,

“has helped me over, and we are going now out of this beautiful

garden into our apartment to enjoy the pleasures of love.” “I am

glad,” said I, “that without any further trouble on my part your

desires are satisfied; yet see how I have hurried, and have run so

long a way in so short a time to serve you.” After that I came

into a great mill built inside of stones, in which were no flour

bins or other things that pertained to grinding but one saw

through the walls several water wheels going in water. I asked why

it had equipment for grinding. An old miller answered that the

mill was shut down on the other side. Just then I also saw a

miller’s boy go in from the sluice plank [Schutzensteg], and I

followed after him. When I had come over the plank [Steg], which

had the water wheels on the left, I stood still and was amazed at

what I saw there. For the wheels were now higher than the plank,

the water coal black, but its drops were yet white, and the sluice

planks were not over three fingers wide. Still I ventured back and

held onto the sticks that were over the sluice planks and so came

safely and dry over the water. Then I asked the old miller how

many water wheels he had. “Ten,” answered he. The adventure stuck

in my mind. I should have gladly known what the meaning was. But

as I noticed that the miller would not leave I went away, and

there was in front of the mill a lofty paved hill, on which were

some of the previously mentioned elders who walked in the sun,

which then shone very warm, and they had a letter from the whole

faculty written to them, on which they were consulting. [In our

modern mode of expression, the elders had directed a letter to the

sun, and so I find the passage in an English version of the

parable. This generally bungling translation is nevertheless not

in the least authoritative. And although an acceptable meaning is

derived from it, if one regards the sun as the just mentioned

“prince,” yet I believe a freer translation should be given ...

the elders walked in the warm sunshine; they consulted about a

letter written to them by the faculty.] I soon noticed what the

contents must be, and that it concerned me. I went therefore to

them and said, “Gentlemen, does it concern me?” “Yes,” said they,

“you must keep in marriage the woman that you have recently taken

or we must notify our prince.” I said, “that is no trouble as I

was born at the same time as she and brought up as a child with

her, and as I have taken her once I will keep her forever, and

death itself shall not part us, for I have an ardent affection for

her.” “What have we then to complain of?” replied they. “The bride

is content, and we have your will; you must copulate.”

“Contented,” said I. “Well,” said one, “the lion will then regain

his life and become more powerful and mighty than before.”

[12]. Then occurred to me my previous trouble and labor and I

thought to myself that for particular reasons it must not concern

me but some other that is well known to me; then I saw our

bridegroom and his bride go by in their previous attire, ready and

prepared for copulation, which gave me great joy, for I was in

great distress lest the thing might concern me.

[13]. When, then, as mentioned, our bridegroom in his brilliant

scarlet clothes with his dearest bride, whose white satin coat

shot forth bright rays, came to the proper marriage age, they

joined the two so quickly that I wondered not a little that this

maid, that was supposed to be the mother of the bridegroom, was

still so young that she appeared to be just born.

[14]. Now I do not know what sin these two must have committed

except that although they were brother and sister, they were in

such wise bound by ties of love, that they could not be separated,

and so, as it were, wished to be punished for incest. These two

were, instead of a bride bed and magnificent marriage, condemned

and shut up in an enduring and everlasting prison, which, because

of their high birth and goodly state, and also so that in future

they should not be guilty in secret, but all their conduct should

be known to the guard placed over them and in his sight, was made

quite transparent, bright and clear like a crystal, and round like

a sphere of heaven, and there they were with continual tears and

true contrition to atone and make reparation for their past

misdeeds. [Instead of to a bride bed the two were brought to a

prison, so that their actions could be watched. The prison was

transparent; it was a bright crystal clear chamber, like a sphere

of heaven, corresponding to the high position of the two persons.]

Previously, however, all their rare clothing and finery that they

had put on for ornament was taken away, so that in such a chamber

they must be quite naked and merely dwell with each other. [It is

not directly understood by these words that a cohabitation in

modern sense (coition) is meant. According to modern language the

passage must be rendered, “had to dwell near each other naked and

bare.” One is reminded, moreover, of the nuptial customs that are

observed particularly in the marriage of persons of high birth. In

any case and, in spite of my reservation, what occurs is conducive

or designed to lead to the sexual union.] Besides they gave them

no one that had to go into the chamber to wait on them, but after

they put in all the necessities in the way of meat and drink,

which were created from the afore mentioned water, the door of the

chamber was fast bolted and locked, the faculty seal impressed on

it and I was enjoined that I should guard them here, and spend the

winter before the door; the chamber should be duly warmed so that

they be neither too hot nor too cold, and they could neither come

out nor escape. But should they, on account of any hope of

breaking this mandate, escape, I would thereupon be justly

subjected to heavy punishment. I was not pleased by the thing, my

fear and solicitude made me faint hearted, for I communed with

myself that it was no small thing that had befallen me, as I knew

also that the college of wisdom was accustomed not to lie but to

put into action what it said. Yet because I could not change it,

beside which this locked chamber stood in the center of a strong

tower and surrounded with strong bulwarks and high walls, in which

one could with a small but continuous fire warm the whole chamber,

I undertook this office, and began in God’s name to warm the

chamber, and protect the imprisoned pair from the cold. But what

happened? As soon as they perceived the slightest warmth they

embraced each other so tenderly that the like will not soon be

seen, and stayed so hot that the young bridegroom’s heart in his

body dissolved for ardent love, also his whole body almost melted

in his beloved’s arms and fell apart. When she who loved him no

less than he did her, saw this, she wept over him passionately

and, as it were buried him with her tears so that one could not

see, for her gushing tears that overflowed everything, where he

went. Her weeping and sorrowing had driven her to this in a short

time, and she would not for deep anguish of heart live longer, but

voluntarily gave herself to death. Ah woe is me. In what pain and

need and trouble was I that my two charges had quite disappeared

in water, and death alone was left for me. My certain destruction

stood before my eyes, and what was the greatest hardship to me, I

feared the threatened shame and disgrace that would happen to me,

more than the injury that would overtake me.

[15]. As I now passed several days in such solitude and pondered

over the question how I could remedy my affairs, it occurred to me

how Medea had revived the dead body of Aeson, and I thought to

myself, “If Medea could do such a thing, why should such a thing

fail me?” I began at once to bethink me how I would do it, found

however no better way than that I should persist with continual

warmth until the waters disappeared, and I might see again the

corpses of our lovers. As I hoped to come off without danger and

with great advantage and praise I went on with my warmth that I

had begun and continued it forty whole days, as I was aware that

the water kept on diminishing the longer I kept it up, and the

corpses that were yet as black as coal, began again to be visible.

And truly this would have occurred before if the chamber had not

been all too securely locked and bolted. Which I yet did not avail

to open. For I noted particularly that the water that rose and

hastened to the clouds, collected above in the chamber and fell

down like rain, so that nothing could come of it, until our

bridegroom with his dearest bride, dead and rotten, and therefore

hideously stinking, lay before my eyes.

All the while the sunshine in the moist weather caused an

exceedingly beautiful rainbow to be seen, in the chamber, with

surprisingly beautiful colors, which overjoyed not a little my

overpowering affliction. Much more was I delighted that I saw my

two lovers lying before me again. But as no joy is so great but is

mixed with much sadness, so I was troubled in my joy thinking that

my charges lay still dead before me, and one could trace no life

in them. But because I knew that their chamber was made of such

pure and thick material, also so tight-locked that their soul and

spirit could not get out, but was still closely guarded within, I

continued with my steady warmth day and night, to perform my

delegated office, quite impressed with the fact that the two would

not return to their bodies, as long as the moisture continued. For

in the moist state nature keeps itself the same, as I then also

found in fact and in truth. For I was aware upon careful

examination that from the earth at evening through the power of

the sun, many vapors arose and drew themselves up just as the sun

draws water. They were condensed in the night in a lovely and very

fruitful dew, which very early in the morning fell and moistened

the earth and washed our dead corpses, so that from day to day,

the longer such bathing and washing continued, the more beautiful

and whiter they became. But the fairer and whiter they became, the

more they lost moisture, till finally the air being bright and

beautiful, and all the mist and moist weather, having passed, the

spirit and soul of the bride could hold itself no longer in the

bright air, but went back into the clarified and still more

transfigured body of the queen, who soon experienced it [i.e. her

soul and spirit] and at once lived again. This, then, as I could

easily observe, not a little pleased me, especially as I saw her

arise in surpassingly costly garments whose like was never seen on

earth, and with a precious crown decked with bright diamonds; and

also heard her speak. “Hear ye children of men and perceive ye

that are born of women, that the most high power can set up kings

and can remove kings. He makes rich and poor, according to his

will. He kills and makes again to live.”

[16]. See in me a true and living example of all that. I was great

and became small, but now after having been humbled, I am a queen

elevated over many kingdoms. I have been killed and made to live.

To poor me have been trusted and given over the great treasures of

the sages and the mighty.

[17]. “Therefore power is also given me to make the poor rich,

show kindness to the lowly, and bring health to the sick. But I am

not yet like my well-beloved brother, the great and powerful king,

who is still to be awakened from the dead. When he comes he will

prove that my words are true.”

[18]. And when she said that the sun shone very bright, and the

day was warmer than before, and the dog days were at hand. But

because, a long time before, there were prepared for the lordly

and great wedding of our new queen many costly robes, as of black

velvet, ashen damask, gray silk, silver taffeta, snow white satin,

even one studded with surpassingly beautiful silver pieces and

with precious pearls and lordly bright-gleaming diamonds, so

likewise different garments were arranged and prepared for the

young king, namely of carnation, yellow Auranian colors, precious

gear, and finally a red velvet garment with precious rubies and

thickly incrusted with carbuncles. But the tailors that made their

clothes were quite invisible, so that I also wondered as I saw one

coat prepared after another and one garment after another, how

these things came to pass, since I well knew that no one came into

the chamber except the bridegroom with his bride. So that what I

wondered at most of all was that as soon as another coat or

garment was ready, the first immediately vanished before my eyes,

so that I knew not whence they came or who had taken them away.

[19]. When now this precious clothing was ready, the great and

mighty king appeared in great splendor and magnificence, to which

nothing might be compared. And when he found himself shut in, he

begged me with friendly and very gracious words, to open the door

for him and permit him to go out; it would prove of great

advantage to me. Although I was strictly forbidden to open the

chamber, yet the grand appearance and the winning persuasiveness

of the king disconcerted me so that I cheerfully let him go. And

when he went out he was so friendly and so gracious and yet so

meek that he proved indeed that nothing did so grace high persons

as did these virtues.

[20]. But because he had passed the dog days in great heat, he was

very thirsty, also faint and tired and directed me to dip up some

of the swift running water under the mill wheels, and bring it,

and when I did, he drank a large part with great eagerness, went

back into his chamber, and bade me close the door fast behind him,

so that no one might disturb him or wake him from sleep.

[21]. Here he rested for a few days and called to me to open the

door. Methought, however, that he was much more beautiful, more

ruddy and lordly, which he then also remarked and deemed it a

lordly and wholesome water, drank much of it, more than before so

that I was resolved to build the chamber much larger. [Evidently

because the inmate increased in size.] When now the king had drunk

to his satisfaction of this precious drink, which yet the

unknowing regard as nothing he became so beautiful and lordly,

that in my whole life I never saw a more lordly person nor more

lordly demeanor. Then he led me into his kingdom, and showed me

all the treasures and riches of the world, so that I must confess,

that not only had the queen announced the truth, but also had

omitted to describe the greater part of it as it seemed to those

that know it. For there was no end of gold and noble carbuncle

there; rejuvenation and restoration of natural forces, and also

recovery of lost health, and removal of all diseases were a common

thing in that place. The most precious of all was that the people

of that land knew their creator, feared and honored him, and asked

of him wisdom and understanding, and finally after this transitory

glory an everlasting blessedness. To that end help us God the

Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

The author of the preceding narrative calls it a parable. Its significance

may have indeed appeared quite transparent to him, and he presupposes that

the readers of his day knew what form of learning he masked in it. The

story impresses us as rather a fairy story or a picturesque dream. If we

compare parables that come nearer to our modern point of view and are

easily understood on account of their simplicity, like those of Ruckert or

those of the New Testament, the difference can be clearly seen. The

unnamed author evidently pursues a definite aim; one does find some unity

in the bizarre confusion of his ideas; but what he is aiming at and what

he wishes to tell us with his images we cannot immediately conceive. The

main fact for us is that the anonymous writer speaks in a language that

shows decided affinity with that of dreams and myths. Therefore, however

we may explain in what follows the peculiarly visionary character of the

parable, we feel compelled to examine it with the help of a psychological

method, which, endeavoring to get from the surface to the depths, will be

able to trace analytically the formative powers of the dream life and

allied phenomena, and explain their mysterious symbols.

I have still to reveal in what book and in what circumstances the parable

appears. It is in the second volume of a book “Geheime Figuren der

Rosenkreuzer aus dem 16ten und 17ten Jahrhundert,” published at Altona

about 1785-90. Its chief contents are large plates with pictorial

representations and with them a number of pages of text. According to a

note on the title page, the contents are “for the first time brought to

light from an old manuscript.” The parable is in the second volume of a

three-volume series which bears the subtitle: Ein güldener Tractat vom

philosophischen Steine. Von einem noch lebenden, doch ungenannten

Philosopho, den Filiis doctrinae zur Lehre, den Fratribus Aureae Crucis

aber zur Nachrichtung beschrieben. Anno, M.D.C.XXV.

If I add that this book is an hermetic treatise (alchemistic), it may

furnish a general classification for it, but will hardly give any definite

idea of its nature, not merely on account of the oblivion into which this

kind of writing has now fallen, but also because the few ideas usually

connected with it produce a distorted picture. The hermetic art, as it is

treated here, the principles of which strike us to-day as fantastic, is

related to several “secret” sciences and organizations, some of which have

been discredited: magic, kabbala, rosicrucianism, etc. It is particularly

closely connected with alchemy so that the terms “hermetic art” and

“alchemy” (and even “royal art”) are often used synonymously. This

“art”—to call it by the name that not without some justification it

applies to itself—leads us by virtue of its many ramifications into a

large number of provinces, which furnish us desirable material for our

research.

So I will first, purposely advancing on one line, regard the parable as a

dream or a fairy tale and analyze it psychoanalytically. This treatment

will, for the information of the reader, be preceded by a short exposition

of psychoanalysis as a method of interpretation of dreams and fairy tales.

Then I will, still seeking for the roots of the matter, introduce the

doctrines that the pictorial language of the parable symbolizes. I will

give consideration to the chemical viewpoint of alchemy and also the

hermetic philosophy and its hieroglyphic educational methods.

Connections will be developed with religious and ethical topics, and we

shall have to take into account the historical and psychological relations

of hermetic thought with rosicrucianism in its various forms, and

freemasonry. And when we begin, at the conclusion of the analytical

section of my work, to apply to the solution of our parable and of several

folk tales the insight we have gained, we shall be confronted with a

problem in which we shall face two apparently contradictory

interpretations, according to whether we follow the lead of psychoanalysis

or of the hermetic, hieroglyphic solution. The question will then arise

whether and how the contradiction occurs. How shall we bring into relation

with each other and reconcile the two different interpretations which are

quite different and complete in themselves?

The question arising from the several illustrations expands into a general

problem, to which the synthetic part of my book is devoted. This will,

among other considerations, lead us into the psychology of symbol-making

where again the discoveries of psychoanalysis come to our aid. We shall

not be satisfied with analysis, but endeavor to follow up certain

evolutionary tendencies which, expressed in psychological symbols,

developing according to natural laws, will allow us to conjecture a

spiritual building up or progression that one might call an anabasis. We

shall see plainly by this method of study how the original contradiction

arises and how what was previously irreconcilable, turns out to be two

poles of an evolutionary process. By that means, several principles of

myth interpretation will be derived.

I have just spoken of an anabasis. By that we are to understand a forward

movement in a moral or religious sense. The most intensive exemplar of the

anabasis (whatever this may be) is mysticism. I can but grope about in the

psychology of mysticism; I trust I may have more confidence at that point

where I look at its symbolism from the ethical point of view.

Section II.

Dream And Myth Interpretation.

[Readers versed in Freud’s psychoanalysis are requested to pass over this

chapter as they will find only familiar matter.]

In the narrative which we have just examined its dream-like character is

quite noticeable. On what does it depend? Evidently the Parable must bear

marks that are peculiar to the dream. In looking for correspondences we

discover them even upon superficial examination.

Most noticeable is the complete and sudden change of place. The wanderer,

as I will hereafter call the narrator of the parable, sees himself

immediately transported from the place near the lion’s den to the top of a

wall, and does not know how he has come there. Later he comes down just as

suddenly. And in still other parts of the story there occurs just as rapid

changes of scene as one is accustomed to in dreams. Characteristic also is

the fact that objects change or vanish; the shift of scene resembles also,

as often in a dream, a complete transformation. Thus, for instance, as

soon as the wanderer has left the wall, it vanishes without leaving a

trace, as if it had never been. A similar change is also required in the

garden scene where, instead of the previously observed enclosing-wall, a

low hedge appears in a surprising manner.

Further, we are surprised by instances of knowledge without perception.

Often in a dream one knows something without having experienced it in

person. We simply know, without knowing how, that in such a house

something definite and full of mystery has happened; or we know that this

man, whom we see now for the first time, is called so and so; we are in

some place for the first time but know quite surely that there must be a

fountain behind that wall to which for any reason we have to go, etc. Such

unmediated knowledge occurs several times in the parable. In the beginning

of the narrative the wanderer, although a stranger, knows that the lovely

meadow is called by its inhabitants Pratum felicitatis. He knows

intuitively the name of one of the men unknown to him. In the garden scene

he knows, although he has noticed only the young men, that some young

women (whom on account of the nature of the place he cannot then see) are

desirous of going into the garden to these young men. One might say that

all this is merely a peculiarity of the representation inasmuch as the

author has for convenience, or on account of lack of skill, or for

brevity, left out some connecting link which would have afforded us the

means of acquiring this unexplained knowledge. The likeness to the dream

therefore would in that case be inadmissible. To this objection it may be

replied, that the dream does exactly like the author of the parable. Our

study is chiefly concerned with the product of the fancy and forces us to

the observation (whatever may be the cause of it) that the parable and the

dream life have certain “peculiarities of representation” in common.

In contrast to the miraculous knowledge we find in the dream a peculiar

unsureness in many things, particularly in those which concern the

personality of the wanderer. When the elders inform the wanderer that he

must marry the woman that he has taken, he does not know clearly whether

the matter at all concerns him or not; a remarkable fluctuation in his

attitude takes place. We wonder whether he has taken on the rôle of the

bridegroom or, quite the reverse, the bridegroom has taken the wanderer’s.

We are likewise struck by similar uncertainties, like those during the

walk on top of the wall where the wanderer is followed by some one, of

whom he does not know whether it is a man or a woman. Here belong also

those passages of the narrative introduced by the wanderer with “as if,”

etc. In the search for the gardener’s house he chances upon many people

and “it seems” that he has himself done what these people are there doing.

Quite characteristic also are the different obstructions and other

difficulties placed in the path of the wanderer. Even in the first

paragraph of the narrative we hear that he is startled, would gladly turn

back, but cannot because a strong wind prevents him. On top of the wall

the railing makes his progress difficult; on other occasions a wall, or a

door. The first experience, especially, recalls those frequent occurrences

in dreams where, anxiously turning in flight or oppressed by tormenting

haste, we cannot move. In connection with what is distressing and

threatening, as described in the precipitous slope of the wall and the

narrow plank by the mill, belong also the desperate tasks and

demands—quite usual in dreams and myths—that meet the wanderer. Among such

tasks or dangers I will only mention the severe examination by the elders,

the struggle with the lion, the obligation to marry, and the burden of

responsibility for the nuptial pair, all of which cause the wanderer so

much anxiety.

Among the evident dream analogies belongs finally (without, however,

completing my list of them) the peculiar logic that appears quite

conventional to the wanderer or the dreamer, but seldom satisfies the

reader or the careful reasoner. As examples, I mention that the dead lion

will be called to life again if the wanderer marries the woman that he

recently took; and that they put the two lovers that they want to punish

for incest, after they have carefully removed all the clothes from their

bodies, into a prison where these lovingly embrace.

So much for the external resemblances of the parable with the dream life.

The deeper affinity which can be shown in its innermost structure will

first appear in the psychoanalytic treatment. And now it will be advisable

for me to give readers not intimately acquainted with dream psychology

some information concerning modern investigations in dream life and in

particular concerning psychoanalytic doctrines and discoveries. Naturally

I can do this only in the briefest manner. For a more thorough study I

must refer the reader to the work of Freud and his school. The most

important books are mentioned in the bibliography at the end.

Modern scientific investigation of dreams, in which Freud has been a

pioneer, has come to the conclusion, but in a different sense from the

popular belief, that dreams have a significance. While the popular belief

says that they foretell something of the future, science shows that they

have a meaning that is present in the psyche and determined by the past.

Dreams are then, as Freud’s results show, always wish phantasies. [I give

here only exposition, not criticism. My later application of

psychoanalysis will show what reservations I make concerning Freud’s

doctrines.] In them wishes, strivings, impulses work themselves out,

rising to the surface from the depths of the soul. When they come in

waking life, wish phantasies are sometimes called castles in the air. In

dreams we have the fulfillment of wishes that are not or cannot be

fulfilled.

But the impulses that the dreams call up are principally such wishes and

impulses as we cannot ourselves acknowledge and such as in a waking state

we reject as soon as they attempt to announce themselves, as for instance,

animal tendencies or such sexual desires as we are unwilling to admit, and

also suppressed or “repressed” impulses. As a result of being repressed

they have the peculiarity of being in general inaccessible to

consciousness. [Freud speaks particularly of crassly egoistic actuations.

The criminal element in them is emphasized by Stekel.]

One not initiated into dream analysis may object that the obvious evidence

is against this theory. For the majority of dreams picture quite

inoffensive processes that have nothing to do with impulses and passions

which are worthy of rejection on either moral or other grounds. The

objection appears at first sight to be well founded, but collapses as soon

as we learn that the critical power of morality, which does not desert us

by day, retains by night a part of its power; and that therefore the

fugitive impulses and tendencies that seek the darkness and dare not come

forth by day, dare not even at night unveil their true aspect but have to

approach, as it were, in costumes, or disguised as symbols or allegories,

in order to pass unchallenged. The superintending power, that I just now

called the power of morality, is compared very pertinently to a censor.

What our psyche produces is, so to speak, subjected to a censor before it

is allowed to emerge into the light of consciousness. And if the fugitive

elements want to venture forth they must be correspondingly disguised, in

order to pass the censor. Freud calls this disguising or paraphrasing

process the dream disfigurement. The literal is thereby displaced by the

figurative, an allusion intimated through a nebulous atmosphere. Thus, in

the following example, an unconscious death wish is exhibited. In the

examination of a lady’s dream it struck me that the motive of a dead child

occurred repeatedly, generally in connection with picnics. During an

analysis the lady observed that when she was a girl the children, her

younger brothers and sisters, were often the obstacles when it was

proposed to have a party or celebration or the like. The association

Kinder (= children) Hinderniss (= obstacle) furnished the key to a

solution of the stereotyped dream motive. As further indications showed,

it concerned the children of a married man whom she loved. The children

prevented the man separating from his wife in order to marry the lady. In

waking life she would not, of course, admit a wish for the death of the

embarrassing children, but in dreams the wish broke through and

represented the secretly wished situation. The children are dead and

nothing now stands in the way of the “party” or the celebration (wedding).

The double sense of the word “party” is noticeable. (In German “eine

Partie machen” means both to go on an excursion and to make a matrimonial

match.) Such puns are readily made use of by dreams, in order to make the

objectionable appear unobjectionable and so to get by the censor.

Psychoanalytic procedure, employed in the interpretation of dreams of any

person can be called a scientifically organized confession that traces out

with infinite patience even to the smallest ramifications, the spiritual

inventory of what was tucked away in the mind of the person undergoing it.

Psychoanalysis is used in medical practice to discover and relieve the

spiritual causes of neurotic phenomena. The patient is induced to tell

more and more, starting from a given point, thereby going into the most

intimate details, and yet we are aware, in the network of outcropping

thoughts and memories, of certain points of connection, which have

dominating significance for the affective life of the person being

studied. Here the path begins to be hard because it leads into the

intimately personal. The secret places of the soul set up a powerful

opposition to the intruder, even without the purposive action of the

patient. Right there are, however, so to speak, the sore spots (pathogenic

“complexes”) of the psyche, towards which the research is directed. Firmly

advancing in spite of the limitations, we lay bare these roots of the soul

that strive to cling to the unconscious. Those are the disfigured elements

just mentioned; all of the items of the spiritual inventory from which the

person in question has toilsomely “worked himself out” and from which he

supposes himself free. They must be silent because they stand in some

contradictory relation to the character in which the person has clothed

himself; and if they, the subterranean elements still try to announce

themselves, he hurls them back immediately into their underworld; he

allows himself to think of nothing that offends too much his attitudes,

his morality and his feelings. He does not give verbal expression to the

disturbers of the peace that dwell in his heart of hearts.

The mischief makers are, however, merely repressed, not dead. They are

like the Titans [On this similarity rests the psychologic term “titanic,”

used frequently by me in what follows.] which were not crushed by the gods

of Olympus, but only shut up in the depths of Tartarus. There they wait

for the time when they can again arise and show their faces in daylight.

The earth trembles at their attempts to free themselves. Thus the titanic

forces of the soul strive powerfully upward. And as they may not live in

the light of consciousness they rave in darkness. They take the main part

in the procreation of dreams, produce in some cases hysterical symptoms,

compulsion ideas and acts, anxiety neuroses, etc. The examination of these

psychic disturbances is not without importance for our later researches.

Psychoanalysis, which has not at any time been limited to medical

practice, but soon began with its torch to illumine the activity of the

human spirit in all its forms (poetry, myth-making, etc.), was decried as

pernicious in many quarters. [The question as to how widely psychoanalysis

may be employed would at this time lead us too far, yet it will be

considered in Sect. 1, of the synthetic part of this volume.] Now it is

indeed true that it leads us toward all kinds of spiritual refuse. It does

so, however, in the service of truth, and it would be unfortunate to deny

to truth its right to justify itself. Any one determined to do so could in

that case defend a theory that sexual maladies are acquired by catching a

cold.

The spiritual refuse that psychoanalysis uncovers is like the manure on

which our cultivated fruits thrive. The dark titanic impulses are the raw

material from which in every man, the work of civilization forms an

ethical character. Where there is a strong light there are deep shadows.

Should we be so insincere as to deny, because of supposed danger, the

shadows in our inmost selves? Do we not diminish the light by so doing?

Morality, in whose name we are so scrupulous, demands above everything

else, truth and sincerity. But the beginning of all truth is that we do

not impose upon ourselves. “Know thyself” is written over the entrance of

the Pythian sanctuary. And it is this inspiring summons of the radiant god

of Delphi that psychoanalysis seeks to meet.

After this introductory notice, it will be possible properly to understand

the following instructive example, which contains exquisite sexual

symbolism.

Dream of Mr. T. “I dreamed I was riding on the railroad. Near me sat a

delicate, effeminate young man or boy; his presence caused erotic feelings

in me to a certain extent. (It appeared as if I put my arm about him.) The

train came to a standstill; we had arrived at a station and got out. I

went with the boy into a valley through which ran a small brook, on whose

bank were strawberries. We picked a great many. After I had gathered a

large number I returned to the railway and awoke.”

Supplementary communication. “I think I remember that an uncomfortable

feeling came over me in the boy’s company. The valley branched off to the

left from the railway.”

From a discussion of the dream it next appeared that T., who, as far as I

knew, entertained a pronounced aversion to homosexuality, had read a short

time before a detailed account of a notorious trial then going on in

Germany, that was concerned with real homosexual actions. [In

consciousness, of course. In the suppressed depths of unconsciousness the

infantile homosexual component also will surely be found.] An incident

from it, probably supported by some unconscious impulse, crowded its way

into the dream as an erotic wish, hence the affectionate scene in the

railway train. So far the matter would be intelligible even if in an

erotic day dream the image of a boy, considering the existing sexual

tendency of T., had been resolutely rejected by him. How are the other

processes in the dream related to it? Do they not at first sight appear

unconnected or meaningless?

And yet in them are manifested the fulfillment of the wish implied in the

erotic excitement in the company of the boy. The homosexual action of this

wish fulfillment would have been insufferable to the dream censor; it must

be intimated symbolically. And the remainder of the dream is accordingly

nothing but a dextrous veiling of a procedure hostile to the censor.

Even that the train comes to a standstill is a polite paraphrase.

[Paraphrase as the dreamer communicated to me, of an actual physical

condition—an erection.] Similar meaning is conveyed by the word station,

which reminds us of the Latin word status (from stare, to stand). The

scene in the car recalls moreover the joke in a story which often used to

occur to T. “A lady invited to a reception, where there were also young

girls, a _Hungarian_ [accentuated now, on account of what follows] (the

typical Vienna joker), who is feared on account of his racy wit. She

enjoined him at the same time, in view of the presence of the girls, not

to treat them to any of his spicy jests. The Hungarian agreed and appeared

at the party. To the amazement of the lady, he proposed the following

riddle: ‘’One can enter from in front, or from behind, only one has to

stand up.’ Observing the despair of the lady, he, with a sly, innocent

look, said, ‘But well then, what is it? Simply a trolley car.’ Next day

the daughter of the house appeared before her schoolmates in the high

school with the following:‘’Girls, I heard a great joke yesterday; one can

go in from in front or behind, only one must be stiff.’ ” [A neat

contribution, by the way, to the psychology of innocent girlhood.] The

anecdote was related to T. by a man later known to him as a homosexual. T.

had been with few Hungarians, but with these few, homosexuality had been,

as it happened, a favorite subject of conversation.

In the above we find many highly suggestive elements. The most suggestive

is, however, the strawberries. T. had, as appeared during the process of

the analysis, a couple of days before the dream read a French story where

the expression (new to him) _cueillir des fraises_ occurred. He went to a

Frenchman for the explanation of this phrase and learned that it was a

delicate way of speaking of the sexual act, because lovers like to go into

the woods under the pretext of picking strawberries, and thus separate

themselves from the rest of the company. In whatever way the dream wish

conceived its gratification, the valley (between the two hills!) through

which the brook flowed furnishes a quite definite suggestion. Here also

the above mentioned “from behind” probably gets a meaning.

The circumstance that the dream has, as it were, two faces, with one that

it openly exposes to view, implies that a distinction must be made between

the manifest and the latent material. The openly exposed face is the

manifest dream content (as the wording of the dream report represents the

dream); what is concealed is the latent dream thoughts. For the most part

a broad tissue of dream thoughts is condensed into a dream. A part of the

dream thoughts (not all) belongs regularly to the titanic elements of our

psyche. The shaping of the dream out of the dream thoughts is called by

Freud the dream work. Four principles direct it, Condensation,

Displacement, Representability, and Secondary Elaboration.

Condensation was just now mentioned. Many dream thoughts are condensed to

relatively few, but therefore all the more significant, images. Every

image (person, object, etc.) is wont to be “determined” by several dream

thoughts. Hence we speak of multiple determination or “Overdetermination.”

Displacement shows itself in the fact that the dream (evidently in the

service of distortion) pushes forward the unreal and pushes aside the

real; in short, rearranges the psychic values (interest) in such a way

that the dream in comparison with its latent thoughts appears as it were

displaced or “elsewhere centered.”

As the dream is a perceptual representation it must put into perceptually

comprehensible form everything that it wants to express, even that which

is most abstract. The tendency to vividly perceptual or plastic expression

that is characteristic of the dream, corresponds accordingly to the

Representability.

To the Secondary Elaboration we have to credit the last polishing of the

dream fabric. It looks after the logical connection in the pictorial

material, which is created by the displacing dream work. “This function

(i.e., the secondary elaboration) proceeds after the manner which the poet

maliciously ascribes to the philosopher; with its shreds and patches it

stops the gaps in the structure of the dream. The result of its effort is

that the dream loses its appearance of absurdity and disconnectedness and

approaches the standard of a comprehensible experience. But the effort is

not always crowned with complete success.” (Freud, “Traumdeutung,” p.

330.) The secondary elaboration can be compared also to the erection of a

façade.

Of the entire dreamwork Freud says (“Traumdeutung,” p. 338)

comprehensively that it is “not merely more careless, more incorrect, more

easily forgotten or more fragmentary than waking thought; it is something

qualitatively quite different and therefore not in the least comparable

with it. It does not, in fact, think, reckon, or judge, but limits itself

to remodeling. It may be exhaustively described if we keep in view the

conditions which its productions have to satisfy. These productions, the

dream, will have first of all to avoid the censor, and for this purpose

the dream work resorts to displacement of psychic intensities even to the

point of changing all psychic values; thoughts must be exclusively or

predominantly given in the material of visual and auditory memory images,

and from this grows that demand for representability which it answers with

new displacements. Greater intensities must apparently be attained here,

than are at its disposal in dream thoughts at night, and this purpose is

served by the extreme condensation which affects the elements of the dream

thoughts. There is little regard for the logical relations of the thought

material; they find finally an indirect representation in formal

peculiarities of dreams. The affects of dream thoughts suffer slighter

changes than their image content. They are usually repressed. Where they

are retained they are detached from images and grouped according to their

similarity.”

Briefly to express the nature of the dream, Stekel gives in one place

(“Sprache des Traumes,” p. 107) this concise characterization: “The dream

is a play of images in the service of the affects.”

A nearly exact formula for the dream has been contributed by Freud and

Rank, “On the foundation and with the help of repressed infantile sexual

material, the dream regularly represents as fulfilled actual wishes and

usually also erotic wishes in disguised and symbolically veiled form.”

(Jb.; ps. F., p. 519, and Trdtg., p. 117.) In this formula the wish

fulfillment, following Freud’s view, is preponderant, yet it would appear

to me that it is given too exclusive a rôle in the (chiefly affective)

background of the dream. An important point is the infantile in the dream,

in which connection we must mention the Regression.

Regression is a kind of psychic retrogression that takes place in manifold

ways in the dream (and related psychic events). The dream reaches back

towards infantile memories and wishes. [Sometimes this is already

recognizable in the manifest dream content. Usually, however, it is first

disclosed by psychoanalysis. Strongly repressed, and therefore difficult

of access, is this infantile sexual material. On the infantile forms of

sexuality, see Freud, “Three Contributions to Sexual Theory.”] It reaches

back also from the complicated and completed to a more primitive function,

from abstract thought to perceptual images, from practical activity to

hallucinatory wish fulfillment. [The latter with especial significance in

the convenience dreams. We fall asleep, for instance, when thirsty, then

instead of reaching for the glass of water, we dream of the drink.] The

dreamer thus approaches his own childhood, as he does likewise the

childhood of the human race, by reaching back for the more primitive

perceptual mode of thought. [On the second kind of regression the Zurich

psychiatrist, C. G. Jung, has made extraordinary interesting revelations.

His writings will further occupy our attention later.]

Nietzsche writes (“Menschliches, Allzumenschliches”), “In sleep and in

dreams we pass through the entire curriculum of primitive mankind.... I

mean as even to-day we think in dreams, mankind thought in waking life

through many thousand years; the first cause that struck his spirit in

order to explain anything that needed explanation satisfied him and passed

as truth. In dreams this piece of ancient humanity works on in us, for it

is the germ from which the higher reason developed and in every man still

develops. The dream takes us back into remote conditions of human culture

and puts in our hand the means of understanding it better. The dream

thought is now so easy because, during the enormous duration of the

evolution of mankind we have been so well trained in just this form of

cheap, phantastic explanation by the first agreeable fancy. In that

respect the dream is a means of recovery for the brain, which by day has

to satisfy the strenuous demands of thought required by the higher

culture.” (Works, Vol. II, pp. 27 ff.)

If we remember that the explanation of nature and the philosophizing of

unschooled humanity is consummated in the form of myths, we can deduce

from the preceding an analogy between myth making and dreaming. This

analogy is much further developed by psychoanalysis. Freud blazes a path

with the following words: “The research into these concepts of folk

psychology [myths, sagas, fairy stories] is at present not by any means

concluded, but it is apparent everywhere from myths, for instance, that

they correspond to the displaced residues of wish phantasies of entire

nations, the dreams of ages of young humanity.” (Samml. kl. Lehr. II, p.

205.) It will be shown later that fairy stories and myths can actually be

subjected to the same psychologic interpretation as dreams, that for the

most part they rest on the same psychological motives (suppressed wishes,

that are common to all men) and that they show a similar structure to that

of dreams.

Abraham (Traum und Mythus)(1) has gone farther in developing the

parallelism of dream and myth. For him the myth is the dream of a people

and a dream is the myth of the individual. He says, e.g., “The dream is

(according to Freud) a piece of superseded infantile, mental life” and

“the myth is a piece of superseded infantile, mental life of a people”;

also, “The dream then, is the myth of the individual.” Rank conceives the

myths as images intermediate between collective dreams and collective

poems. “For as in the individual the dream or poem is destined to draw off

unconscious emotions that are repressed in the course of the evolution of

civilization, so in mythical or religious phantasies a whole people

liberates itself for the maintenance of its psychic soundness from those

primal impulses that are refractory to culture (titanic), while at the

same time it creates, as it were, a collective symptom for taking up all

repressed emotion.” (Inz-Mot., p. 277. Cf. also Kunstl., p. 36.)

A definite group of such repressed primal impulses is given a prominent

place by psychoanalysis. I refer to the so-called Œdipus complex that

plays an important rôle in the dream life as also in myth and apparently,

also in creative poetry. The fables (sagas, dramas) of Œdipus, who slays

his father and marries his mother are well known. According to the

observations of psychoanalysis there is a bit of Œdipus in every one of

us. [These Œdipus elements in us can—as I must observe after reading

Imago, January, 1913—be called “titanic” in the narrower sense, following

the lead of Lorenz. They contain the motive for the separation of the

child from the parents.] The related conflicts, that in their entirety

constitute the Œdipus complex (almost always unconscious, because actively

repressed) arise in the disturbance of the relation to the parents which

every child goes through more or less in its first (and very early) sexual

emotions. “If king Œdipus can deeply affect modern mankind no less than

the contemporary Greeks, the explanation can lie only in the fact that the

effect of the Greek tragedy does not depend on the antithesis between fate

and the human will, but in the peculiarity of the material in which this

antithesis is developed. There must be a voice in our inner life which is

ready to recognize the compelling power of fate in the case of Œdipus,

while we reject as arbitrary the situations in the Ahnfrau or other

destiny tragedies. And such an element is indeed contained in the history

of king Œdipus. His fate touches us only because it might have been ours,

because the oracle hung the same curse over us before our birth as over

him. For us all, probably, it is ordained that we should direct our first

sexual feelings towards our mothers, the first hate and wish for violence

against our fathers. Our dreams convince us of that. King Œdipus, who has

slain his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta, is only the

wish-fulfillment of our childhood. But more fortunate than he, we have

been able, unless we have become psychoneurotic, to dissociate our sexual

feelings from our mothers and forget our jealousy of our fathers. From the

person in whom that childish wish has been fulfilled we recoil with the

entire force of the repressions, that these wishes have since that time

suffered in our inner soul. While the poet in his probing brings to light

the guilt of Œdipus, he calls to our attention our own inner life, in

which that impulse, though repressed, is always present. The antithesis

with which the chorus leaves us

See, that is Œdipus,

Who solved the great riddle and was peerless in power,

Whose fortune the townspeople all extolled and envied.

See into what a terrible flood of mishap he has sunk.

This admonition hits us and our pride, we who have become in our own

estimation, since the years of childhood, so wise and so mighty. Like

Œdipus, we live in ignorance of the wishes that are so offensive to

morality, which nature has forced upon us, and after their disclosure we

should all like to turn away our gaze from the scenes of our childhood.”

(Freud, Trdtg., p. 190 f.)

Believing that I have by this time sufficiently prepared the reader who

was unfamiliar with psychoanalysis for the psychoanalytic part of my

investigation, I will dispense with further time-consuming explanations.

Part II.

ANALYTIC PART.

Section I.

Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of The Parable.

Although we know that the parable was written by a follower of the

hermetic art, and apparently for the purpose of instruction, we shall

proceed, with due consideration, to pass over the hermetic content of the

narrative, which will later be investigated, and regard it only as a play

of free fantasy. We shall endeavor to apply to the parable knowledge

gained from the psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams, and we shall find

that the parable, as a creation of the imagination, shows at the very

foundations the same structure as dreams. I repeat emphatically that in

this research, in being guided merely by the psychoanalytic point of view,

we are for the time being proceeding in a decidedly one-sided manner.

In the interpretation of the parable we cannot apply the original method

of psychoanalysis. This consists in having a series of seances with the

dreamer in order to evoke the free associations. The dreamer of the

parable—or rather the author—has long ago departed this life. We are

obliged then to give up the preparatory process and stick to the methods

derived from them. There are three such methods.

The first is the comparison with typical dream images. It has been shown

that in the dreams of all individuals certain phases and types continually

recur, and in its symbolism have a far reaching general validity, because

they are manifestly built on universal human emotions. Their imaginative

expression is created according to a psychical law which remains fairly

unaffected by individual differences.

The second is the parallel from folk psychology. The inner affinity of

dream and myth implies that for the interpretation of individual creations

of fancy, parallels can profitably be drawn from the productions of the

popular imagination and vice versa.

The third is the conclusions from the peculiarities of structure of the

dream (myth, fairy tale) itself. In dreams and still more significantly in

the more widely cast works of the imagination creating in a dream-like

manner, as e.g., in myths and fairy tales, one generally finds motives

that are several times repeated in similar stories even though with

variations and with different degrees of distinctness. [Let this not be

misunderstood. I do not wish to revive the exploded notion that myths are

merely the play of a fancy that requires occupation. My position on the

interpretation of myths will be explained in Part I. of the synthetic

part.] It is then possible by the comparison of individual instances of a

motive, to conclude concerning its true character, inasmuch as one, as it

were, completes in accordance with their original tendency the lines of

increasing distinctness in the different examples, and thus—to continue

the geometric metaphor—one obtains in their prolongations a point of

intersection in which can be recognized the goal of the process toward

which the dream strives, a goal, however, that is not found in the dream

itself but only in the interpretation.

We shall employ the three methods of interpretation conjointly. After all

we shall proceed exactly as psychoanalysis does in interpretation of

folk-lore. For in this also there are no living authors that we can call

and question. We have succeeded well enough, however, with the derived

methods. The lack of an actual living person will be compensated for in a

certain sense by the ever living folk spirit and the infinite series of

its manifestations (folk-lore, etc.). The results of this research will

help us naturally in the examination of our parable, except in so far as I

must treat some of the conclusions of psychoanalysis with reserve as

problematic.

Let us now turn to the parable. Let us follow the author, or as I shall

call him, the wanderer, into his forest, where he meets his extraordinary

adventures.

I have just used a figure, “Let us follow him into his forest.” This is

worthy of notice. I mean, of course, that we betake ourselves into his

world of imagination and live through his dreams with him. We leave the

paths of everyday life, in order to rove in the jungle of phantasy. If we

remember rightly, the wanderer used the same metaphor at the beginning of

his narrative. He comes upon a thicket in the woods, loses the usual

path.... He, too, speaks figuratively. Have we almost unaware, in making

his symbolism our own, partially drawn away the veil from his mystery? It

is a fact confirmed by many observations [Cf. my works on threshold

symbolism—Schwellensymbolik, Jahrb. ps. F. III, p. 621 ff., IV, p. 675

ff.] that in hypnagogic hallucinations (dreamy images before going to

sleep), besides all kinds of thought material, the state of going to sleep

also portrays itself in exactly the same way that in the close of a dream

or hypnotic illusions on awakening, the act of awakening is pictorially

presented. The symbolism of awakening brings indeed pictures of leave

taking, departing, opening of a door, sinking, going free out of a dark

surrounding, coming home, etc. The pictures for going to sleep are

sinking, entering into a room, a garden or a dark forest.

The fairy story also used the same forest symbol. Whether on sinking into

sleep I have the sensation of going into a dark forest or whether the hero

of the story goes into a forest (which to be sure has still other

interpretations), or whether the wanderer in the parable gets into a

tangle of underbrush, all amounts to the same thing; it is always the

introduction into a life of phantasy, the entrance into the theater of the

dream. The wanderer, if he had not chosen for his fairy tale the first

person, could have begun as follows: There was once a king whose greatest

joy was in the chase. Once as he was drawn with his companions into a

great forest, and was pursuing a fleet stag, he was separated from his

followers, and went still further from the familiar paths, so that finally

he had to admit that he had lost his way. Then he went farther and farther

into the woods until he saw far off a house....

The wanderer comes through the woods to the Pratum felicitatis, the Meadow

of Felicity, and there his adventures begin. Here, too, our symbolism is

maintained; by sleeping or the transition to revery we get into the dream

and fairy tale realm, a land to which the fulfillment of our keenest

wishes beckons us. The realm of fairy tales is indeed—and the

psychoanalyst can confirm this statement—a Pratum felicitatis, in spite of

all dangers and accidents which we have there to undergo.

The dream play begins and the interpretation, easy till now, becomes more

difficult. We shall hardly be able to proceed in strictly chronological

order. The understanding of the several phases of the narrative does not

follow the sequence of their events. Let us take it as it comes.

The wanderer becomes acquainted with the inhabitants of the Pratum

felicitatis, who are discussing learned topics, he becomes involved in the

scientific dispute, and is subjected to a severe test in order to be

admitted to the company. The admission thus does not occur without trouble

but rather a great obstacle is placed in the way of it. The wanderer tells

us that his examiners hauled him over the coals, an allegorical metaphor,

taken possibly from the ordeal by fire. In these difficulties the

attaining of the end meets us in the first instance in a series of

analogous events, where the wanderer sees himself hindered in his

activities in a more or less painful, and often even a dangerous manner.

After a phase marked by anxiety the adventure turns out uniformly well and

some progress is made after the obstruction at the beginning. As a first

intimation of the coming experiences we may take up the obstacles in the

path in the first section of the parable, which are successfully removed,

inasmuch as the wanderer soon after reaches the lovely region (Sec. 3).

The psychology of dreams has shown that obstacles in the dream correspond

to conflicts of will on the part of the dreamer, which is exactly as in

the morbid restraint of neurotics. Anxiety develops when a suppressed

impulse wishes to gratify itself, to which impulse another will, something

determined by our culture, is opposed prohibitively. Obstructed

satisfaction creates anxiety instead of pleasure. Anxiety may then be

called also a libido with a negative sign. Only when the impulse in

question knows how to break through without the painful conflict, can it

attain pleasure—which is the psychic (not indeed the biologic) tendency of

every impulse emanating from the depths of the soul. The degrees of the

pleasure that thus exists in the soul may be very different, even

vanishingly small, a state of affairs occurring if the wish fulfilling

experience has through overgrowth of symbolism lost almost all of its

original form. If we follow the appearances of the obstruction motive in

the parable, and find the regular happy ending already mentioned, then we

can maintain it as a characteristic of the phantasy product in question,

that not only in its parts but also in the movement of the entire action,

it shows a tendency from anxiety towards untroubled fulfillment of wishes.

As for the examination episode, to which we have now advanced in our

progressive study of the narrative, we can now take up a frequently

occurring dream type; the Examination Dream. Almost every one who has to

pass severe examinations, experiences even at subsequent times when the

high school or university examinations are far in the past, distressing

dreams filled with the anxiety that precedes an examination. Freud

(Trdtg., p. 196 ff.) clearly says that this kind of dream is especially

the indelible memories of the punishments which we have suffered in

childhood for misdeeds and which make themselves felt again in our

innermost souls at the critical periods of our studies, at the _Dies irae,

dies ilia_ of the severe examinations. After we have ceased to be pupils

it is no longer as at first the parents and governesses or later the

teachers that take care of our punishment. The inexorable causal nexus of

life has taken over our further education, and now we dream of the

preliminaries or finals; whenever we expect that the result will chastise

us, because we have not done our duty, or done something incorrectly, or

whenever we feel the pressure of responsibility. Stekel’s experience is

also to be noticed, confirmed by the practice of other psychoanalysts,

that graduation dreams frequently occur if a test of sexual power is at

hand. The double sense of the word _matura_ (= ripe) (that may also mean

sexual maturity) may also come to mind as the verbal connecting link for

the association. In general the examination dreams may be the expression

of an anxiety about not doing well or not being able to do well; in

particular they are an expression of a fear of impotence. It should be

noted here that not only in the former but in the latter case the fear has

predominantly the force of a psychic obstruction.

For the interpretation of the examination scene also, we note the fairy

tale motif so frequently appearing of a hard-won prize, i.e., any story in

which a king or a potentate proposes a riddle or a task for the hero. If

the hero solves or accomplishes it, he generally wins, besides other

precious possessions, a woman or a princess, whom he marries. In the case

of a heroine the prize is a beautiful prince. The motif of the hard-won

prize matches the later appearance of obstacles in the Parable. The nature

of the prize is, for the present at any rate, a matter of indifference.

A second edition of the examination scene meets us in the 6th section as

the battle with the lion. The advance from the anxiety phase to the

fulfillment phase appears clearly and the emotions of the wanderer are

more strongly worked out. The difficulty at the beginning is indicated in

the preceding conversation where no one will advise him how he is to begin

with the beast, but all hold out guidance for a later time when he shall

have once bound the lion. The beginning of the fight causes the wanderer

much trouble. He “is amazed at his own temerity,” would gladly turn back

from his project, and he can “hardly restrain his tears for fear.” He

fortifies himself, however, develops brilliant abilities and comes off

victor in the fray. A gratification derived from his own ability is

unmistakable. The scene, as well as a variation of the preceding

examination, adds to it some essentially new details. The displacement of

the early opponents (i.e., the examining elders) by another (the lion) is

not really new. It is a mere compensation, although, as we shall see

later, a very instructive one. Entirely new is the result of the battle.

After killing the lion the victor brings to light white bones and red

blood from his body. Note the antithesis, white and red. It will occur

again. If we think of saga and fairy lore parallels, the dragon fight

naturally comes to mind. The victorious hero has to free a maiden who

languishes in the possession of an ogre. The anatomizing of the dead lion

finds numerous analogies in those myths and fairy tales in which

dismemberment of the body appears. It will be dealt with fully later on.

As the next obstacle in the parable we meet the difficult advance on the

wall. (Para. 7 and 8.) We have here again an obstruction to progress in

the narrower sense as in Sec. 1, but with several additions. The wall,

itself a type of embarrassment, reaches up to the clouds. Whoever goes up

so high may fall far. The way on top is “Not a foot in width” and an iron

hand rail occupies some of that space. The walking is therefore

uncomfortable and dangerous. The railing running in the middle of it

divides the path and so produces two paths, a right and a left. The right

path is the more difficult. Who would not in this situation think of

Hercules at the cross roads? The conception of right and left as right and

wrong, good and bad, is familiar in mythical and religious symbolism. That

the right path is the narrower [Matth. VII, 13, 14] or more full of thorns

is naturally comprehensible. In dreams the right-left symbolism is

typical. It has here a meaning similar to its use in religion, probably

however, with the difference that it is used principally with reference to

sexual excitements of such a character that the right signifies a

permitted (i.e., experienced by the dreamer as permissible), the left, an

illicit sexual pleasure. Accordingly it is, e.g., characteristic in the

dream about strawberry picking in the preceding part of the book, that the

valley, sought by the dreamer and the boy, “in order to pick strawberries

there” turns off to the left from the road, not to the right. The sexual

act with a boy appears even in dreams as something illicit, indecent,

forbidden. In the parable the wanderer goes from right to left, gets into

difficulties by doing so, but knows, as always, how to withdraw

successfully.

From the wall the wanderer comes to a rose tree, from which he breaks off

white and red roses. Notice the white and red. The victory over the lion

has yielded him white bones and red blood, the passing through the dangers

on the wall now yields him white and red roses. The similarity in the

latter case is particularly marked by his putting them in his hat.

Again in the course of the next sections (9-11) there are obstacles. There

a wall is set up against the wanderer. On account of that he has, in order

to gain entrance for the maidens into the company in the garden, to go a

long way round. Arriving at the door, he finds it locked and is afraid

that the people standing about will prevent his entrance or laugh at him.

But the first difficulty is barely removed, by the magic opening of the

first gate, when the now familiar change from the anxiety phase to the

fulfillment phase occurs. The wanderer traverses the corridor without

trouble but his eyes glance ahead of him and he sees through the still

closed door, as if it were glass, into the garden. What result has this

success over the difficulties yielded him? Where is the usual white and

red reward? We do not have to look long. In Sec. 11 it is recorded, “When

I had passed beyond the little garden [in the center of the larger garden]

and was going to the place where I was to help the maidens, behold, I was

aware that instead of the wall, a low hurdle stood there, and there went

by the rose garden, the most beautiful maiden arrayed in white satin with

the most stately youth who was in scarlet, each giving arm to the other,

and carrying in their hands many fragrant roses. ‘This, my dearest

bridegroom,’ said she, ‘has helped me over and we are now going out of

this lovely garden into our chamber to enjoy the pleasures of love.’ ”

Here the parallel with the fairy tale is complete, and reveals the

characteristic of the prize that rewards him. The red and the white reveal

themselves as man and woman, and the last aim is, as the just quoted

passage clearly shows, and the further course of the narrative fully

indicates, the sexual union of both. Even the rest of the fairy tale

prizes are not lacking—kingdoms, riches, happiness. And if they are not

dead they are still living.... The narrative has yielded a complete

fulfillment of wishes; the longing for love and power has attained its

end. That the wanderer does not experience the acquired happiness

immediately in his own person, but that the representation of happy love

is in the most illustrative manner developed in the union of two other

persons, is naturally a peculiarity of the narration. It is found often

enough in dreams. The ego of the dreamer is in such a case replaced by a

“split-off” person, through whom the dream evokes its dramatic pageantry.

It is as if the parable tried to say the hero has won his happy love

through struggle; two are, however, needful for love, a man and a woman,

so let us quickly create a pair. Apart from the fact that the reward must

evidently fall to the hero who has won it, the identity of the wanderer

with the king in the parable is abundantly demonstrated, even if somewhat

paraphrased. The secret of the dramatizing craft of the narrative is most

clearly exposed in the conclusion of Sec. 11, where the elders, with the

letter of the faculty in their hands, reveal to the wanderer that he must

marry the woman he has taken, which he furthermore cheerfully promises

them to do.

So far all would be regular and we might think, on superficial

examination, that the psychoanalytic solution of the parable was ended.

How far from being the case! We have interpreted only the upper stratum

and will see a problem show itself that invites us to press on into the

deeper layers of the phantasy fabric before us.

We have noticed that in the parable much, even the most important, is

communicated only by symbols and by means of allusions. Its previously

ascertained latent content [corresponding to the latent dream thoughts]

will in the manifest form be transcribed in different and gradually

diminishing disguises. Also a displacement (dream displacement) has taken

place. Now the dream or the imagination working in dreams does nothing

without purpose and even though according to its nature (out of “regard

for presentability”) it has to favor the visual in all cases, the tendency

toward the pictorial does not explain such a systematic series of

disguises and such a determinate tendency as that just observed by us. The

representation of the union of man and woman is strikingly paraphrased.

First as blood and bones—a type of intimate vital connection; they belong

to _one_ body, just as two lovers are one and as later the bridal pair

also melt into one body. Then as two kinds of roses that bloom on one

bush. The wanderer breaks the rose as the boy does the wild rose maiden.

And hardly is the veil of the previous disguise lifted, hardly have we

learned that the wanderer has taken a woman (Sec. 11), when the affair is

again hushed just as it is about to be dramatized (cf. Sec. 12), so that

apparently another enjoys the pleasures of love. This consequent

concealment must have a reason. Let us not forget the striking obstacles

which the wanderer experiences again and again and which we have not yet

thoroughly examined. The symbolism of the dream tells us that such

obstacles correspond to conflicts of the will. What kind of inner

resistance may it be that checks the wanderer at every step on his way to

happy love? We suspect that the examinations have an ethical flavor. This

appears to some extent in the right-left symbolism; then in the experience

at the mill, which we have not yet studied, where the wanderer has to pass

over a very narrow plank, the ethical symbolism of which will be discussed

later; and in the striking feeling of responsibility which the wanderer

has for the actions of the bridal pair in the crystal prison, which gives

us the impression that he had a bad conscience. Altogether we cannot doubt

that the dream—the parable—has endeavored, because of the censor, to

disguise the sexual experiences of the wanderer. We can be quite certain

that it will be said that the sexual as such will be forbidden by the

censor. That is, however, not the case. The account is outspoken enough,

and not the least prudish; the bridal pair embrace each other naked,

penetrate each other and dissolve in love, melt in rapture and pain. Who

could ask more? Therefore the sexual act itself could not have been

offensive to the censor. The whole machinery of scrupulousness,

concealment and deterrent objects, which stand like dreadful watchmen

before the doors of forbidden rooms, cannot on the other hand be

causeless. So the question arises: What is it that the dream censor in the

most varied forms [lion, dangerous paths, etc.] has so sternly vetoed?

In the strawberry dream related in the preceding section, we have seen

that a paraphrase of the latent dream content appears at the moment when a

form of sexual intercourse, forbidden to the dreamer by the dream censor,

was to be consummated. (Homosexual intercourse.) Most probably in the

parable also there is some form of sexuality rejected by the censor. What

may it be? Nothing indicates a homosexual desire. We shall have to look

for another erotic tendency that departs from the normal. From several

indications we might settle upon exhibitionism. This is, as are almost all

abnormal erotic tendencies, also an element of our normal psychosexual

constitution, but it is, if occurring too prominently, a perversity

against which the censor directs his attacks. The incidents of the parable

that indicate exhibitionism are those where the wanderer sees, through

locked doors (Sec. 10) or walls (Sec. 11), objects that can be interpreted

as sexual symbols. The miraculous sight corresponds to a transferred wish

fulfillment. The supposition that exhibitionism is the forbidden erotic

impulse element that we were looking for is, however, groundless, if we

recollect that these very elements appear most openly in the parable. In

Sec. 14 the wanderer has the freest opportunity to do as he likes. Still

the question arises, what is the prohibited tendency? No very great

constructive ability is required to deduce the answer. The wording of the

parable itself furnishes the information. In Sec. 14 we read, “Now I do

not know what sin these two have committed except that although they were

brother and sister they were so united in love that they could not again

be separated and so, as it were, required to be punished for incest.” And

in another passage (Sec. 13), “After our bridegroom ... with his dearest

bride ... came to the age of marriage, they both copulated at once and I

wondered not a little that this maiden, that yet was supposed to be the

bridegroom’s mother, was still so young.”

The sexual propensity forbidden by the censor is incest. That it can be

mentioned in the parable in spite of the censor is accounted for by the

exceedingly clever and unsuspected bringing about of the suggestion.

Dreams are very adroit in this respect, and the same cleverness

(apparently unconscious on the part of the author) is found in the

parable, which is in every way analogous to the dream. Incest can be

explicitly mentioned, because it is attributed to persons that have

apparently nothing to do with the wanderer. That the king in the crystal

prison is none other than the wanderer himself, we indeed know, thanks to

our critical analysis. The dreamer of the dream does not know it. For him

the king is a different person, who is alone responsible for his actions;

although in spite of the clear disguise, some feeling of responsibility

still overshadows the wanderer, a peculiar feeling that has struck us

before, and now is explained.

Later we shall see that from the beginning of the parable, incest symbols

are in evidence. Darkly hinted at first they are later somewhat more

transparent, and in the very moment when they remove the last veil and

attain a significance intolerable for the censor, exactly at that

psychologic moment the forbidden action is transferred to the other,

apparently strange, person.

A similar process, of course, is the change of situation in the strawberry

dream at the exact moment when the affair begins to seem unpleasant to the

dreamer. This becoming unpleasant can be beautifully followed out in the

parable. The critical transition is found exactly in one of those places

where the representation appears most confused. It is in this way that the

weakest points of the dream surface are usually constituted. Those are the

places where the outer covering is threadbare and exposes a nakedness to

the view of the analyzer.

The critical phase of the parable begins in the 11th section. The elders

consult over a letter from the faculty. The wanderer notices that the

contents concern him and asks, “Gentlemen, does it have to do with me?”

They answer, “Yes, you must marry your woman that you have recently

taken.” Wanderer: “That is no trouble; for I was, so to speak, born [how

subtle!] with her and brought up from childhood with her.” Now the secret

of the incest is almost divulged. But it is at once effectually retracted.

In Sec. 12 we read, “So my previous trouble and toil fell upon me and I

bethought myself that from strange causes [these strange causes are the

dream censor who, ruling in the unconscious, effects the displacements

that follow], it cannot concern me but another that is well known to me

[in truth a well-known other]. Then I see our bridegroom with his bride in

the previous attire going to that place ready and prepared for copulation

and I was highly delighted with it. For I was in great anxiety lest the

affair should concern me.” The anxiety is quite comprehensible. It is just

on account of its appearance that the displacement from the wanderer to

the other person takes place. Further in Sec. 13: “Now after ... our

bridegroom ... with his dearest bride ... came to the age of marriage [The

aim with which the censor performs his duties and effects the dream

displacement is, says Freud (Trdtg., p. 193), ‘to prevent the development

of anxiety or other form of painful affect’.] they both copulated ... and

I wondered not a little that this maiden, that was supposed to be actually

the _mother_ of the bridegroom, was still so young....” Now when the

transfer has taken place, the thought of its being the mother is hazarded;

whereas formerly a mere suggestion of a sister had been offered. Section

14 explicitly mentions incest and even arranges the punishment of the

guilt. In this form the matter can, of course, be contemplated without

troubling the conscience or being further represented pictorially.

The sister, alternating in the narrative with the mother, is only a

preliminary to the latter. As we find that the Œdipus complex [Rather an

attenuation, which occurs frequently, not merely in dream psychology, but

also in modern mythology.] is revived in the parable, let us bring the

latter into still closer relation with the fairy tales and myths to which

we have compared it. The woman sought and battled for by the hero appears,

in its deeper psychological meaning, always to be the mother. The

significance of the incest motive has been discovered on the one hand by

the psychoanalysts (in particular Rank, who has worked over extensive

material), on the other by the investigators of myths. That many modern

mythologists lay most stress in this discovery upon the astral or

meteorological content and do not draw the psychological conclusions is

another matter that will be discussed later. But in passing it may be

noted that the correspondence in the discovered material (motives) is the

more remarkable as it resulted from working in the direction of quite

different purposes.

It is now time to examine the details of the parable in conformity with

the main theme just stated and come to a definite interpretation.

Henceforward we may keep to a chronological order.

The threshold symbolism in the beginning of the parable has already been

given, also the obstacles that are indicative of a psychic conflict. We

might rest satisfied with that, yet a more complete interpretation is

quite possible, in which particular images are shown to be overdetermined.

The way is narrow, overgrown with bushes, and leads to the Pratum

felicitatis. That, according to a typical dream symbolism, is also a part

of the female body. The obstacles in the way we recognize as a recoil from

or impediment to incest; so it is evident that a definite female body,

namely that of the mother, is meant. The penetration leads to the Pratum

felicitatis, to blissful enjoyment. In fairy lore the sojourn in the

forest generally signifies death or the life in the underworld. Wilhelm

Muller, for example, writes, “As symbols of similar significance we have

the transformation into swans or other birds, into flowers, the exposure

in the forest, the life in the glass mountain, in a castle, in the

woods.... All imply death and life in the underworld.” The underworld is,

when regarded mythologically, not only the land where the dead go, but

also whence the living have come; thence for the individual, and in

particular for our wanderer, the uterus of the mother. It is significant

that the wanderer, as he strolls along, ponders over the fall of our first

parents and laments it. The fall of the parents was a sexual sin. That it

was incest besides, will be considered later. The son who sees in his

father his rival for his mother is sorry that the parents belong to each

other. A sexual offense (incest) caused the loss of paradise. The wanderer

enters the paradise, the Pratum felicitatis. [Garden of Joy, Garden of

Peace, Mountain of Joy, etc., are names of paradise. Now it is

particularly noteworthy that the same words can signify the beloved.

(Grimm, D. Mythol., II, pp. 684 ff., Chap. XXV, 781 f.)] The path thither

is not too rough for him (Sec. 2).

In Sec. 3 the wanderer enters his paradise (incest). He finds in the

father an obstacle to his relation with the mother. The elders (splitting

of the person of the father) will not admit him, forbid his entrance into

the college. He himself, the youth is already among them. The younger man,

whose name he knows without seeing his face, is himself. He puts himself

in the place of his father. (The other young man with the black pointed

beard may be an allusion to a quite definite person, intended for a small

circle of readers of the parable, contemporaries of the author. Either the

devil or death may be meant, yet I cannot substantiate this conjecture.)

In the fourth section the examinations begin. First the examination in the

narrower sense of the word. The paternal atmosphere of every examination

has already been emphasized in the passage from Freud quoted above. Every

examination, every exercise is associated with early impressions of

parental commands and punishments. Later (in the treatment of the lion)

the wanderer will turn out to be the questioner, whereas now the elders

are the questioners. In the relation between parent and child questions

play a part that is important from a psychological point of view.

Amazingly early the curiosity of the child turns toward sexual matters.

His desire to know things is centered about the question as to where

babies come from. The uncommunicativeness of the parents causes a

temporary suppression of the great question, which does not, however,

cease to arouse his intense desire for explanation. The dodging of the

issue produces further a characteristic loss of trust on the part of the

child, an ironic questioning, or a feeling that he knows better. The

knowing better than the questioning father we see in the wanderer. The

tables are turned. Instead of the child desiring (sexual) explanation from

the parents, the father must learn from the child (fulfillment of the wish

to be himself the father, as above). The elders are acquainted only with

figurative language (“Similitudines,” “Figmenta,” etc.); but the wanderer

is well informed in practical life, in experience he is an adept. As a

fact, parents in their indefiniteness about the question, Where do babies

come from? give a figurative answer (however appropriate it may be as a

figure of speech) in saying that the stork brings them, while the child

expects clear information (from experience). On the propriety of the

picturesque information that the stork brings the babies out of the water

we may note incidentally the following observations of Kleinpaul. The

fountain is the mother’s womb, and the red-legged stork that brings the

babies is none other than a humorous figure for the organ (phallus) with

the long neck like a goose or a stork, that actually gets the little

babies out of the mother’s body. We understand also that the stork has

bitten Mamma in the “leg.”

We have become acquainted above with the fear of impotence as one

significance of the anxiety about examinations. Psychosexual obstructions

cause impotence. The incest scruple is such an obstruction.

According to Laistner we can conceive the painful examination as a

question torture—a typical experience of the hero in countless myths.

Laistner, starting from this central motive, traces the majority of myths

back to the incubus dream. The solution of the tormenting riddle, the

magic word that banishes the ghost, is the cry of awakening, by which the

sleeper is freed from the oppressing dream, the incubus. The prototype of

the tormenting riddle propounder is, according to Laistner, the Sphinx.

Sphinx, dragon, giants, man eaters, etc., are analogous figures in myths.

They are what afflict the heroes, and what he has to battle with. The

corresponding figure in our parable is the lion.

Although the wanderer has brilliantly stood the test, the elders (Sec. 5)

do not admit him into their college (the motive of denial recurs later);

but enter him for the battle with the lion. This is surely a

personification of the same obstructions as the elders themselves. In them

we have, so to speak, before us the dragon (to be subdued) in a plural

form. Analogous multiplying of the dragon is found, for example, in

Stucken [in the astral myth]. Typical dragon fighters are Jason, Joshua,

Samson, Indra; and their dragon enemies are multitudes like the armed men

from the sowing of the dragon’s teeth by Jason, the Amorites for Joshua,

the Philistines in the case of Samson, the Dasas in that of Indra. We know

that for the wanderer the assemblage of elders is to be conceived chiefly

as the father, and the same is true now of the lion (king of animals,

royal beast, also in hermetic sense) who has as lion been already

appropriated to the father symbol. Kaiser, king, giants, etc., are wont in

dreams to represent the father. Accordingly large animals, especially wild

beasts or beasts of prey, are accustomed to appear in dreams with this

significance.

Stekel [Spr. Tr.] contributes the following dream of the patient Omicron:

“I was at home. My family had preserved a dead bear. His head was of wood

and out of his belly grew a mighty tree, which looked very old. Around the

animal’s neck was a chain. I pulled at it, and afterwards was afraid that

I had possibly choked him, in spite of the fact that he was long dead.”

And the following interpretation of it derived through analysis: “The bear

is a growler, i.e., his father, who has told him many a lie about the

genesis of babies. He reviles him for it. He was a blockhead, he had a

wooden head. The mighty tree is the phallus. The chain is marriage. He was

a henpecked husband, a tamed bear. Mother held him by the chain. This

chain (the bond ? of marriage) Omicron desired to sunder. (Incest

thoughts.) When the father died Omicron held his hand over his father’s

mouth to find out whether he was still breathing. Then he was pursued by

compulsive ideas, that he had killed his father. In dreams the same

reproaches appear. We realize how powerful his murder impulses were. His

reproaches are justified. For he had countless death wishes that were

centered about that most precious life.”

A girl not yet six years old told her mother the following dream:

“We went together, there we saw a camel on a rock, and you climbed up the

cliff. The camel wanted to keep slobbering you, but you wouldn’t let him,

and said, ‘I’d like to do it, but if you are like this, I won’t do it.’ ”

After the telling of the dream the mother asked the girl if she could

imagine what the camel signified in the dream, and she immediately

replied: “Papa, because he has to drag along and worry himself like a

camel. You know, Mamma, when he wants to slobber you it is as if he said

to you in camel talk, ‘Please play with me. I will marry you; I won’t let

you go away.’ The rocks on which you are were steep, the path was quite

clear, but the railing was very dirty and there was a deep abyss, and a

man slipped over the railing into the abyss. I don’t know whether it was

Uncle or Papa.”

Stekel remarks on this: “The neurotic child understands the whole conflict

of the parents. The mother refused the father coitus. In this she will not

‘play’ with the camel. The camel wants to ‘marry’ her. It is quite

puzzling how the child knows that Mamma has long entertained thoughts of

separation.... Children evidently observe much more sharply and exactly

than we have yet suspected. The conclusion of the dream is a quite

transparent symbolism of coitus. But the dream thoughts go deeper yet. A

man falls into an abyss. The father goes on little mountain expeditions.

Does the child wish that the father may fall? The father treats the child

badly and occasionally strikes her unjustly. At all events it is to be

noted that the little puss says to her mother, ‘Mamma, isn’t it true that

when Papa dies you will marry Dr. Stekel?’ Another time she chattered,

‘You know, Mamma, Dr. N. is nicer than Papa; he would suit you much

better.’ Also the antithesis of clean and dirty, that later plays such an

important part in the psychic life of neurotics, is here indicated.”

Not only the camel but also the railing and the abyss are interesting in

relation to Sec. 7 and 8 of the parable, where occurs the perilous wall

with the railing. People fall down there. There is evidently here an

intimate primitive symbolism (for the child also). But I will not

anticipate.

It is not necessary to add anything to the bear dream. It is quite clear.

Only one point must be noticed, that the subsequent concern about the dead

is to be met in the parable, though not on the wanderer’s part but on that

of the elders who desire the reviving of the lion.

The wanderer describes the lion (Sec. 6) as “old, fierce and large.” (The

growling bear of the dream.) The glance of his eye is the impressively

reproachful look of the father.

The wanderer conquers the lion and “dissects” him. Red blood, white bones,

come to view, male and female; the appearance of the two elements is, at

any rate overdetermined in meaning as it signifies on the one hand the

separation of a pair, father and mother, originally united as one body;

and on the other hand the liberation of sexuality in the mind of the

wanderer (winning of the mother or of the dragon-guarded maiden).

We ought not to explain the figures of the lion and the elders as “the

father.” Such exalted figures are usually condensations or composite

persons. The elders are not merely the father, but also the old, or the

older ones = parents in general, in so far as they are severe and

unapproachable. Apparently the mother also will prove unapproachable if

the adult son desires her as a wife. [The male child, on the other hand,

frequently has erotic experiences with the mother. The parents connive at

these, because they do not understand the significance even of their own

caresses. They generally do not know how to fix the limits between

moderation and excess.] The wanderer has no luck with blandishments in the

case of the lion. He begins indeed to fondle him (cf. Sec. 6), but the

lion looks at him formidably with his bright, shining eyes. He is not

obliging; the wanderer has to struggle with him. Offering violence to the

mother often appears in myths. We shall have an example of this later. It

is characteristic that the wanderer is amazed at his own audacity.

Dragon fighting, dismembering, incest, separation of parents, and still

other motives have an intimate connection in mythology. I refer to the

comparison of motives collected by Stucken from an imposing array of

material. [I quote an excerpt from it at the end of this volume, Note A.]

The motive of dismemberment has great significance for the subsequent

working out of my theme, so I must for that reason delay a little longer

at this point.

The parts resulting from the dismemberment have a sexual or procreative

value. That is evident from the analysis of the parable, even without the

support of mythological parallels. None the less let it be noticed that

many cosmogonies assign the origin of the universe or at least the world

or its life to the disintegrated parts of the body of a great animal or

giant. In the younger Edda the dismemberment of the giant Ymir is

recounted.

“From Ymir’s flesh was the earth created,

From his sweat the sea,

From his skeleton the mountains, the trees from his hair,

From his skull the heavens,

From his eyebrows kindly Äses made

Mitgard, the son of man.

But from his brain were created all the ill-tempered clouds.”

The Iranian myth has an ancestor bull, Abudad. “From his left side goes

Goschorum, his soul, and rises to the starry heavens; from his right side

came forth Kajomorts (Gâyômard), the first man. Of his seed the earth took

a third, but the moon two thirds. From his horns grew the fruits, from his

nose, leeks, from his blood, grapes, from his tail, five and twenty kinds

of grain. From his purified seed two new bulls were formed, from which all

animals are descended.” Just as in the Iranian myth the original being,

Gâyômard, considered as human, and the ancestor bull belong together, so

we find in the northern myth a cow Audhumla associated with Ymir. Ymir is

to be regarded as androgynous (man and woman), the primitive cow as only a

doubling of his being. The Iranian primitive bull ancestor also occurs as

cow. Compare white and red, male and female, in the body of the lion.

In the Indian Asvamedha the parts of the sacrificed steed correspond to

the elements of the visible creation. (Cf. Brhadaranyaka—Upanisad I, i.) A

primitive vedic cosmogony makes the world arise from the parts of the body

of a giant. (Rig-veda purusa-sukta.)

Just as from the dead primordial being the sacrificed bull, Mithra,

sprouts life and vegetation, so in the dream of Omicron, a tree grows out

of the belly of the dead bear. In mythology many trees grow out of graves,

that in some way reincarnate the creative or life principle of the dead.

It is an interesting fact that the world, or especially an improved new

edition of the world, comes from the body of a dying being. Some one kills

this being and so causes an improved creation. (According to Stucken,

incidentally, all myths are creation myths.) This improvement is now

identical, psychologically, with the above mentioned superior knowledge of

the son (expressed in general terms, the present new generation as opposed

to the ancestors). The son does away with the father (the children

overpower the ancestors), and creates, as it were out of the wreckage, an

improved world. So, beside the superior knowledge, a superior efficiency.

The primordial beings are destroyed but not so the creative power

(phallus, tree, the red and the white). It passes on to posterity (son)

which uses it in turn.

Dismemberments in creation myths are not always multiple but sometimes

dichotomous. Thus in the Babylonian cosmogony Marduk splits the monster

Tiamat into two pieces, which henceforth become the upper and lower half

of heaven. Winckler concludes that Tiamat is man-woman (primal pair). This

brings us to the type of creation saga where the producer of the

(improved) world separates the primal pair, his parents. The Chinese

creation myth speaks of the archaic Chaos as an effervescing water, in

which the two powers, Yang (heaven) and Yin (earth), the two primal

ancestors, are mingled and united. Pwanku, an offshoot of these primal

powers (son of the parents), separates them and thus they become manifest.

In the Egyptian myth we read (in Maspero, Histoire des Peuples de

l’Orient, Stucken, Astral Myth, p. 203): “The earth and the heaven were in

the beginning a pair of lovers lost in the Now who held each other in

close embrace, the god below the goddess. Now on the day of creation a new

god [son type], Shou, came out of the eternal waters, glided between them

and seizing Nouit [the goddess] with his hands, lifted her at arms’ length

above his head. While the starry bust of the goddess was lengthened out in

space, the head to the west, the loins to the east, and became the sky,

her feet and her hands [as the four pillars of heaven] fell here and there

on our earth.” The young god or the son pushes his way between the

parents, sunders their union, just as the dreamer Omicron would have liked

to sunder the chain of the bear (the marriage bond of the parents). This

case is quite as frequent a type in analytic psychology as in mythical

cosmology. The child is actually an intruder, even if it does indirectly

draw the bonds of marriage tighter. Fundamentally regarded, the child

appears as the rival of the father, who is no longer the only beloved one

of his wife. He must share the love with the new comer, to whom an even

greater tenderness is shown. Regarded from the standpoint of the growing

son, the intrusion represents the Œdipus motive (with the incest wish).

The most outspoken and also a commonly occurring form of the mythological

separation of the primal pair is the castration of the father by the son.

The motive is, according to all accounts, psychologically quite as

comprehensible as the frequently substituted castration of the son by the

father. The latter is psychologically the necessary correlate of the first

form. The rivals, father and son, menace each other’s sexual life. That

the castration motive works out that way with father and son (son-in-law

if the daughter takes the place of the mother) is expressed either in so

many words in the myth or through corresponding displacement types.

A clear case is the emasculation of Uranus by his son Kronos, who thereby

prevents the further cohabitation of the primal parents. [Archetype of the

Titan motive in a narrow sense.] Important for us is the fact that

castration in myths is represented sometimes as the tearing out of a limb

or by complete dismemberment. (Stucken, Astral Myth, pp. 436, 443, 479,

638 ff.; Rank, Incest Motive, p. 311 ff.)

The Adam myth also contains the motive of the separated primal parents. In

Genesis we do not, of course, see the myth in its pure form. It must first

be rehabilitated. Stucken accomplishes this in regarding Adam and Eve

(Hawwa) as the original world-parent pair, and Jahwe Elohim as the

separating son god. By a comparison of Adam and Noah he incidentally

arrives by analogical reasoning at an emasculation of Adam. In connection

with the “motive of the sleeping primal father,” he observes later (Astral

Myth, p. 224) that the emasculation (or the shameless deed, Ham with Noah)

is executed while the primal father lies asleep. Thus, Kronos emasculates

Uranus by night while he is sleeping with Gaia. Stucken now shows that the

sleep motive is contained in the 2d chapter of Genesis. “And the Lord God

caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of

his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.” (II, 21.) According to

Stucken the rib stands euphemistically for the organ of generation, which

is cut off from Adam while he sleeps.

Rank works out another kind of rearrangement. He takes the creation of Eve

from Adam as an inversion. He refers to the ever recurring world-parent

myths of savage peoples, in which the son begets upon the mother a new

generation. He cites after Frobenius a story from Joruba, Africa, where

the son and daughter of the world parents marry and have a son, who falls

in love with his mother. As she refuses to yield to his passion he follows

and overpowers her. She immediately jumps up and runs away crying. The son

follows her to soothe her, and when he catches her she falls sprawling on

the earth, her body begins to swell, two streams of water spring from her

breasts and her body falls in pieces. Fifteen gods spring from her

disrupted body. [Motive of the mutilation of the maternal body. The

dismembered lion also naturally contains this motive. From the mutilated

body come male and female (red and white) children.] Rank supposes that

the biblical account of the world parents serves as a mask for incest (and

naturally at the same time the symbolic accomplishment of the incest). He

continues, “It is needed only that the infantile birth theory [Birth from

anus, navel, etc. The taking of the rib = birth process.] which ignores

the sexual organs in woman and applies to both sexes, be raised in the

child’s thought to the next higher grade of knowledge, which ascribes to

the woman alone the ability to bring children into the world by the

opening of her body. In opposition to the biblical account we have the

truly natural process, according to which Adam came out of the opened body

of Eve. If by analogy with other traditions, we may take this as the

original one, it is clear that Adam has sexual intercourse with his

mother, and that the disguising of this shocking incest furnished the

motive for the displacement of the saga and for the symbolic

representation of its contents.” The birth from the side of the body, from

the navel, from the anus, etc., are among children common theories of

birth. In myths analogous to the biblical apple episode the man almost

always offers the apple to the woman. The biblical account is probably an

inversion. The apple is an apple of love and an impregnation symbol.

Impregnation by food is also an infantile procreation theory. For Rank,

therefore, it is Adam who is guilty of separating the primal parents

[Jahwe and Hawwa] and of incest with the mother. The contrast between the

two preceding conceptions of the Adam myth should not be carried beyond

limits. That they can stand side by side is the more conceivable because

Genesis itself is welded together from heterogeneous parts and different

elaborations of the primal pair motive. Displacements, inversions, and

therefore apparent contradictions must naturally lie in such a material.

Moreover, the interpretation depends not so much on the narrative of the

discovered motives as on the motives themselves. [On the interpretation of

the mythological motives cf. Lessmann, Aufg. u. Ziele, p. 12.]

Let us return now to the motive of dismemberment. One of the best known

examples of dismemberment in mythology is that of Osiris. Osiris and Isis,

the brother and sister, already violently in love with each other in their

mother’s womb, as the myth recounts, copulated with the result that

Arueris was born of the unborn. So the two gods came into the world as

already married brother and sister. Osiris traversed the earth, bestowing

benefits on mankind. But he had a bad brother, full of jealousy and envy,

Typhon (Set), who would gladly have taken advantage of the absence of his

brother to place himself on his throne. Isis, who ruled during the absence

of Osiris, acted so vigorously and resolutely that all his evil designs

were frustrated. Finally Osiris returned and Typhon, with a number of

confederates (the number varies) and with the Ethiopian queen Aso, formed

a conspiracy against the life of Osiris, and in feigned friendship

arranged a banquet. He had, however, caused a splendid coffin to be made,

and as they sat gayly at the feast, Typhon had it brought in, and offered

to give it to the person whose body would fit it. He had secretly taken

the measure of Osiris and had prepared the coffin accordingly. All tried

it in turn. None fitted. Finally Osiris lay in it. Then Typhon and his

confederates rushed up, closed it and threw it into the river, which

carried it to the sea. (Creuzer, L., p. 259 ff.) For the killing of his

brother Set, which happened according to the original version on account

of desire for power, later tradition substitutes an unconscious incest

which Osiris committed with his second sister, Nephthys, the wife of Set,

a union from which sprang Anubis (the dog-headed god). Set and Nephthys

are, according to H. Schneider, apparently no originally married brother

and sister like Osiris and Isis, but may have been introduced by way of

duplication, in order to account for the war between Osiris and his

brother. With the help of Anubis, Isis finds the coffin, brings it back to

Egypt, opens it in seclusion and gives way to her tender feelings and

sorrow for him. Thereupon she hides the coffin with the body in a thicket

in the forest in a lonely place. A hunt which the wild hunter Typhon

arranges, discovers the coffin. Typhon cuts the body into fourteen pieces.

Isis soon discovers the loss and searches in a papyrus canoe for the

dismembered body of Osiris, traveling through all the seven mouths of the

Nile, till she finally has found thirteen pieces. Only one is lacking, the

phallus, which had been carried out to sea and swallowed by a fish. She

put the pieces together and replaced the missing male member by another

made of sycamore wood and set up the phallus for a memento (as a

sanctuary). With the help of her son Horus, who, according to later

traditions, was begotten by Osiris after his death, Isis avenged the

murder of her spouse and brother. Between Horus and Set, who originally

were brothers themselves, there arises a bitter war, in which each tore

from the other certain parts of the body as strength-giving amulets. Set

knocked an eye out of his opponent and swallowed it, but lost at the same

time his own genitals (testicles), which in the original version were

probably swallowed by Horus. Finally Set was overcome and compelled to

give up Horus’ eye, with the help of which Horus again revivified Osiris

so that he could enter the kingdom of the dead as a ruler.

The dismemberment, with final loss of the phallus, will be clearly

recognized as a castration. The tearing out of the eye is similarly to be

regarded as emasculation. This motive is found as self-punishment for

incest, at the close of the Œdipus drama. On the dismemberment of Osiris

as a castration, Rank writes (Inz. Mot., p. 311): “The characteristic

phallus consecration of Isis shows us that her sorrow predominantly

concerns the loss of the phallus, (and it also is expressed in the fact

that according to a later version, she is none the less in a mysterious

manner impregnated by her emasculated spouse), so on the other hand the

conduct of the cruel brother shows us that in the dismemberment he was

particularly interested in the phallus, since that indeed was the only

thing not to be found, and had evidently been hidden with special

precautionary measures. Indeed both motivations appear closely united in a

version cited by Jeremias (Babylonisches in N. T., p. 721), according to

which Anubis, the son of the adulterous union of Osiris with his sister

Nephthys, found the phallus of Osiris, dismembered by Typhon with 27

assistants, which Isis had hidden in the coffin. Only in this manner could

the phallus from which the new age originated, escape from Typhon. If this

version clearly shows that Isis originally had preserved in the casket the

actual phallus of her husband and brother which had been made

incorruptible and not merely a wooden one, then on the other hand the

probability increases that the story originally concerns emasculation

alone because of the various weakening and motivating attempts that meet

us in the motive of the dismemberment.”

In the form of the Osiris saga the dismemberment appears, however, not

merely as emasculation. More clearly recognizable is also the separation

of the primal parents, the dying out of the primal being resulting in a

release of the primal procreative power for a fresh world creation. It is

a very interesting point that in one of the versions a mighty tree grows

out of the corpse of Osiris. Later on we become acquainted for the first

time with the potent motive of the restoration of the dismembered one, the

revivification of the dead.

For example, in the Finnish epic, Kalevala, Nasshut throws the

Lemminkainen into the waters of the river of the dead. Lemminkainen was

dismembered, but his mother fished out the pieces, one of which was

missing, put them together and brought them to life in her womb. According

to Stucken’s explanation we recognize in Nasshut a father image, in

Lemminkainen a son image. In the tradition no relationship between them is

mentioned. That is, however, a “Differentiation and attenuation of traits,

which is common in every myth-maker.” (S. A. M., p. 107.)

In the Edda it is recounted “that Thor fared forth with his chariot and

his goats and with him the Ase, called Loki. They came at evening to a

peasant and found shelter with him. At night Thor took his goats and slew

them; thereupon they were skinned and put into a kettle. And when they

were boiled Thor sat down with his fellow travelers to supper. Thor

invited the peasant and his wife and two children to eat with him. The

peasant’s son was called Thialfi and the daughter Roskwa. Then Thor laid

the goats’ skins near the hearth and said that the peasant and his family

should throw the bones onto the skins. Thialfi, the peasant’s son, had the

thigh bone of one goat and cut it in two with his knife to get the marrow.

Thor stayed there that night, and in the morning he got up before dawn,

dressed, took the hammer, Miolner, and lifted it to consecrate the goats’

skins. Thereupon the goats stood up; but one of them was lame in the hind

leg. He noticed it and said that the peasant or some of his household must

have been careless with the goats’ bones, for he saw that a thigh bone was

broken.” We are especially to note here that the hammer is a phallic

symbol.

In fairy tales the dismemberments and revivifications occur frequently.

For example, in the tale of the Juniper Tree [Machandelboom] (Grimm, K. H.

M., No. 47), a young man is beheaded, dismembered, cooked and served up to

his father to be eaten. The father finds the dish exceptionally good. On

asking for his son he is answered that the youth has gone to visit

relatives. The father throws all the bones under the table. They are

collected by the sister, wrapped in a bit of cloth and laid under the

juniper tree. The soul of the boy soared in the air as a bird and was

afterward translated into a living youth. The Grimm brothers introduce as

a parallel: “The collection of the bones occurs in the myths of Osiris and

Orpheus, and in the legend of Adelbert; the revivification in many others,

e.g., in the tale of Brother Lustig (K. H. M., No. 81), of Fichter’s Vogel

(No. 46), in the old Danish song of the Maribo-Spring, in the German saga

of the drowned child, etc.” Moreover, W. Mannhardt (Germ. Mythen., pp.

57-75) has collected numerous sagas and fairy tales of this kind, in which

occur the revivifications of dismembered cattle, fish, goats, rams, birds,

and men.

The gruesome meal in the story of the juniper tree reminds us of the

Tantalus story and the meal of Thyestes. Demeter (or Thetes) ate a

shoulder of the dismembered Pelops, who was set before the gods by his

father Tantalus, and the shoulder, after he was brought to life again, was

replaced by an ivory one. In a story from the northeastern Caucasus, a

chamois similarly dismembered and brought to life, like Thor’s goats, gets

an artificial shoulder (of wood).

For the purpose of being brought to life again the parts of the

dismembered animal are regularly put in a vessel or some container

(kettle, box, cloth, skin). In the case of the kettle, which corresponds

to the belly or uterus, they are generally cooked. Thus in the tale of the

juniper tree, the magic rejuvenations of Medea, which—except in the

version mentioning the magic potion—she practices on Jason and Æson, and

also on goats (cf. Thor and his goats). I must quote still other pertinent

observations of Rank (p. 313 ff). The motive of revivification, most

intimately connected with dismemberment, appears not only in a secondary

rôle to compensate for the killing, but represents as well simple coming

to life, i.e., birth. Rank believes that coming to life again applies

originally to a dissected snake (later other animals, chiefly birds), in

which we easily recognize the symbolical compensation for the phallus of

the Osiris story, excised and unfit for procreation, which can be brought

to life again by means of the water of life. “The idea that man himself at

procreation or at birth is assembled from separate parts, has found

expression not only in the typical widespread sexual theories of children,

but in countless stories (e.g., Balzac’s Contes drolatiques) and mythical

traditions. Of special interest to us is the antique expression

communicated by Mannhardt (Germ. Myth., p. 305), which says of a pregnant

woman that she has a belly full of bones,” which strikingly suggests the

feature emphasized in all traditions that the bones of the dismembered

person are thrown on a heap, or into a kettle (belly) or wrapped in a

cloth. [Even the dead Jesus, who is to live again, is enveloped in a

cloth. In several points he answers the requirements of the true

rejuvenation myth. The point is also made that the limbs that are being

put in the cloth must be intact, so that the resurrection may be properly

attained (as in a bird story where the dead bird’s bones must be carefully

preserved). The incompleteness (stigmata) also appears after the

resurrection.

John XIX, 33. “But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead

already, they brake not his legs.”—40 f. “Then took they the body of Jesus

and wound it in linen cloths with the spices.... Now in the place where he

was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher,

wherein was never man yet laid.”

We shall mention later the significance of garden and grave. It supports

that of the cloths.]

Rank considers that the circumstance that the dismembered person or animal

resurrected generally lacks a member, points without exception to

castration.

What he has said about dismemberment we can now sum up with reference to

the lion in the parable in the formulae: Separation of parents; the

pushing aside of the father; castration of father; taking his place;

liberation of the power of procreation; improvement. In its bearing on the

incest wish, castration is indeed the best translation of the

“anatomizing” of the lion. The dragon fighter has to release a woman. The

idea that the mother is in need of being released, and that it is a good

deed to free her from her oppressor, father, is according to the insight

of psychoanalysis a typical element of those unconscious phantasies of

mankind, which are stamped deeply with the greatest significance in the

imaginative “family romance” of neurotics. To the typical dragon fight

belongs, however (according to Stucken’s correct formulation), the motive

of denial. As a matter of fact the hero of our parable is denied the prize

set before him—the admission into the college—for several of the elders

insist on the condition that the wanderer must resuscitate the lion (Sec.

7). In myths where the dragon has to fight with a number of persons this

difference generally occurs: that he produces dissension among his

opponents. (Jason throws a stone among the men of the dragon’s teeth, they

fight about the stone and lay each other low.) Dissension occurs also

among the old men. They turned (Sec. 7) “fiercely on each other” if only

with words.

The wanderer removes, as it were, an obstacle by the fight, tears down a

wall or a restraint. This symbol occurs frequently in dreams; flying or

jumping over walls has a similar meaning. The wanderer was carried as if

in flight to the top of the wall. Then first returns the hesitation. The

symbolism of the two paths, right and left, has already been mentioned.

The man that precedes the wanderer (Sec. 7 and 8) may be quite properly

taken as the father image; once, at any rate, because the wanderer finds

himself on the journey to the mother (that is indeed the trend of the

dream) and on this path the father is naturally the predecessor. The

father is, however, the instructor, too, held up as an example and as a

model for choosing the right path. The father follows the right path to

the mother also; he is the lawful husband. The son can reach her only on

the left path. This he takes, still for the purpose of making things

better. Some one follows the wanderer on the other side (Sec. 8), whether

man or woman is not known. The father image in front of the wanderer is

his future for he will occupy his father’s place. The Being behind him is

surely the past, the careless childhood, that has not yet learned the

difference between man and woman. It does not take the difficult right

way, but quite intelligibly, the left. The wanderer himself turns back to

his childish irresponsibility; he takes the left path. The many people

that fall down may be a foil to illustrate the dangers of the path, for

the purpose of deepening the impression of improvement. Phantasies of

extraordinary abilities, special powers; contrasts to the anxiety of

examinations; all these in the case of the wanderer mark the change from

apprehension to fulfillment. We must not fail to recognize the element of

desire for honor; it will be yet described. In view of myth motives

reported by Stucken, the entire wall episode is to be conceived as a magic

flight; the people that fall off are the pursuers.

At the beginning of the ninth section of the parabola, the wanderer breaks

red and white roses from the rosebush and sticks them in his hat.

Red-white we already know as sexuality. The breaking off of flowers, etc.,

in dreams generally signifies masturbation; common speech also knows this

as “pulling off” or “jerking off.” In the symbolism of dreams and of myths

the hat is usually the phallus. This fact alone would be hardly worth

mentioning, but there are also other features that have a similar

significance. The fear of impotence points to autoerotic components in the

psychosexual constitution of the wanderer (of course not clearly

recognized as such), which is shown as well in the anxiety about ridicule

and disgrace that awaken ambition. This is clearest in the paragraphs 6,

10, 14, of the parable. That the masturbatory symbol precedes the

subsequent garden episode, can be understood if we realize that the

masturbation phantasy (which has an enormous psychic importance) animates

or predetermines the immediately following incest.

The wall about the garden that makes the long detour necessary (Sec. 9) is

as we know the resistance. Overcoming the resistance = going round the

wall, removal of the wall. Of course, after the completion of the detour

there is no wall. The wall, however, signifies also the inaccessibility or

virginity of the woman. The wall surrounds a garden. The garden is,

however (apart from the paradise symbolism derived from it), one of the

oldest and most indubitable symbols for the female body.

“Maiden shall I go with you

In your rose garden,

There where the roses stand

The delicate and the tender;

And a tree nearby

That moves its leaves,

And a cool spring

That lies just under it.”

Without much change the same symbolism is found in stately form in the

Melker Marienlied of the 12th century. (See Jung, Jb. ps. F., IV, S. 398

ff.)

Sainted Mary

Closed gate

Opened by God’s word—

Sealed fountain,

Barred garden,

Gate of Paradise.

Note also the garden, roses and fountains in the Song of Solomon.

The wanderer wishes to possess his mother as an unravished bride. Also a

feature familiar to psychoanalysis. The generally accompanying antithesis

is the phantasy that the mother is a loose woman = attainable, sexually

alluring woman. Perhaps this idea will also be found in the parable.

The young people of both sexes, separated by a wall, do not come together

because they are afraid of the distant detour to the door. This can, with

a little courage, be translated: The auto-erotic satisfaction is easier.

[C G. Jung writes (Jb. ps. F., IV, p. 213 ff): “Masturbation is of

inestimable importance psychologically. One is guarded from fate, since

there is no sexual need of submitting to any one, life and its

difficulties. With masturbation one has in his hands the great magic. He

needs only to imagine and in addition to masturbate and he possesses all

the pleasures of the world and is under no compulsion to conquer the world

of his desire through hard work and struggle with reality. Aladdin rubs

his lamp and the slaves come at his bidding; this story expresses the

great psychologic gain in local sexual satisfaction through facile

regression.” Jung applies to masturbation the motive of the dearly won

prize and that of the stealing of fire. He even appears to derive in some

way the use of fire from masturbation. In this at any rate I cannot follow

him.]

On his detour the wanderer (who desires to reach the portal of woman)

meets people who are alone in the rooms and carry on dirty work. Dirt and

masturbation are wont to be closely associated psychically. The dirty work

is “only appearance and individual fantasy,” and “has no foundation in

Nature.” The wanderer knows that “such practices vanish like smoke.” He

has done it himself before and now he will have nothing more to do with

it. He aspires to a woman, that the work done alone leads to nothing is

connected with the fact that the work of two is useful. But “dirty work”

is also to be understood as sensual enjoyment without love.

In paragraph 10 we again meet the already mentioned symbolism of the

walled garden. The wanderer is the only one that can secure admission to

the maiden. After a fear of impotence (anxiety about disgrace) he goes

resolutely to the door and opens it with his Diederich, which sticks into

a narrow, hardly visible opening (deflowering). He “knows the situation of

the place,” although he has never been there before. I mean that once,

before he was himself, he was there in the body of his mother. What

follows suggests a birth fantasy as these occur in dreams of being born.

The wanderer now actually takes part in being born in reverse direction. I

append several dreams about being born.

“I find myself on a very narrow stairway, leading down in turns; a winding

stairway. I turn and push through laboriously. Finally I find a little

door that leads me into the open, on a green meadow, where I rest in soft

luxuriant bushes. The warm sunshine was very pleasant.”

F. S. dreams: “In the morning I went to work with my brother (as we went

the same road) in the Customs House Street. Before the customs house I saw

the head postillion standing. From it the way led to a street between two

wooden walls; the way appeared very long and seemed to get narrower toward

the end and indeed so close that I was afraid that we would not get

through. I went out first, my brother behind me; I was glad when I got out

of the passage and woke with a beating heart.” Addenda. “The way was very

dark, more like a mine. We couldn’t see, except in the distance the end,

like a light in a mine shaft. I closed my eyes.” Stekel notes on the

dreams of F. S.: “The dream is a typical birth dream. The head postillion

is the father. The dreamer wants to reverse the birth relations of his

brother who is ten years older than he. ‘I went out first, my brother

after me.’ ”

Another beautiful example in Stekel: “Inter faeces et urinas nascimur.”

[We are born between faeces and urine] says St. Augustine. Mr. F. Z. S.

contributes an account of his birth which strongly reminds us of the

sewer-theory.

“I went into the office and had to pass a long, narrow, uneven alley. The

alley was like a long court between two houses and I had the indefinite

feeling that there was no thoroughfare. Yet I hurried through. Suddenly a

window over me opened and some one, I believe a female, spilled the wet

contents of a vessel on me. My hat was quite wet and afterwards I looked

at it closer and still noticed the traces of a dirty gray liquid.

Nevertheless, I went on without stopping, and quickened my steps. At the

end of the alley I had to go through the house that was connected by the

alley with the other. Here I found an establishment (inn?) that I passed.

In this establishment were people (porters, servants, etc.) engaged in

moving heavy pieces of furniture, etc., as if these were being moved out

or rearranged. I had to be careful and force my way through. Finally I

came to the open on a street and looked for an electric. Then I saw on a

path that went off at an angle, a man whom I took for an innkeeper who was

occupied in measuring or fastening a hedge or a trellis. I did not know

exactly what he was doing. He was counting or muttering and was so drunk

that he staggered.”

Stekel: “In this dream are united birth and effects of the forbidden or

unpermissible. The dreamer goes back over the path—evidently as an adult.

The experiences represent an accusation against the mother. This

accusation was not without reason. Mr. F. Z. S. had a joyless childhood.

His mother was a heavy drinker. He witnessed her coitus with strangers.

(Packing up = coitus.) The packers and porters are the strange men who

visited his inn (his mother was also his nurse) in order to store heavy

objects, etc. Finally he was obstructed in his birth, for a man is

occupied in measuring. The father was a surveyor (the innkeeper). In the

dream, furthermore, he was measuring a trellis-fence. Both trellis and

hedge are typical dream symbols of obstacles to copulation.”

Comparing Sections 10 and 11 of the parable carefully with the contents of

this dream, we find astonishing correspondences. Notice the details, e.g.,

the rosebushes, the sun, the rain, the hedge. On the “well builded house”

of Section 10, I shall only remark that Scherner has noticed in this

connection that the human body represents a building. “Well built house”

signifies “beautiful body.”

If we remember that the wanderer reverses the way of birth, we shall not

be surprised that he finds a smaller garden in the larger. That is

probably the uterus. The wanderer attains the most intimate union with his

ideal, the mother, in imagining himself in her body. This phantasy is

continued still less ambiguously,—but I do not wish to anticipate. Be it

only said: He possesses his mother as a spouse and as a child; it is as if

in the desire to do everything better than his father he desires to beget

himself anew. We already know the mythological motives of new creation,

that should follow the forcible separation of the parents and that we have

not yet noticed in the parable. Shall the better world still be created,

the dismembered paternal power be renewed, the lion again be brought to

life?

The rectangular place in the garden suggests a grave. A wall in a dream

means, among other things, a cemetery wall and the garden, a cemetery. And

widely as these ideas may be contrasted with the lifegiving mother’s womb,

they yet belong psychologically in very close connection with her. And

perhaps not only psychologically.

Stekel tells a dream of Mrs. Delta in which occurs “an open square space,

a garden or court. In the corner stood a tree, that slowly sinks before

our eyes as if it were sinking in water. As the tree and the court also

made swinging motions, I cleverly remarked, ‘Thus we see how the change in

the earth’s surface takes place.’ ” The topmost psychic stratum of the

dream reveals itself as an earthquake reminiscence. “Earth” leads to the

idea of “Mother Earth.” The tree sinking into it, is the tree of life, the

phallus. The rectangular space is the bedroom, the marriage bed. The

swinging motions characterize the whole picture still better. The

earthquake, however, contains, as is found in the analysis, death thoughts

also. The rectangular space becomes a grave. Even the water of the dream

deserves notice. “Babies come out of the water,” says an infantile theory

of procreation. We learn later that the fœtus floats in amniotic liquor.

This “water” lies naturally in “Mother Earth.” In contrast we have the

water of the dead (river of the dead, islands of the dead, etc.). Both

waters are analogous in the natural symbolism. It is the mythical abode of

the people not yet, or no longer, to be found in the world.

As water will appear again at important points in the parable, I will

dwell a little longer on that topic.

Little children come out of Holla’s fountain, there are in German

districts a number of Holla wells or Holla springs (Holla brunn?) with

appropriate legends. Women, we are told, who step into those springs

become prolific. Mullenhof tells of an old stone fountain in Flensburg,

which is called the Grönnerkeel. Its clear, copious water falls out of

four cocks into a wide basin and supplies a great part of the city. The

Flensburgers hold this fountain in great honor, for in this city it is not

the stork which brings babies, but they are fished out of this fountain.

While fishing the women catch cold and therefore have to stay in bed.

Bechstein (Fränk. Sagensch.) mentions a Little Linden Spring on a road in

Schweinfurt near Königshofen. The nurses dip the babies out of it with

silver pails, and it flows not with water but with milk. If the little

ones come to this baby fountain they look through the holes of the

millstone (specially mentioned on account of what follows) at its still

water, that mirrors their features, and think they have seen a little

brother or sister that looks just like them. (Nork. Myth d. Volkss., p.

501.)

From the lower Austrian peasantry Rank takes the following (Wurth. Zf. d.

Mythol., IV, 140): “Far, far off in the sea there stands a tree near which

the babies grow. They hang by a string on the tree and when the baby is

ripe the string breaks and the baby floats off. But in order that it

should not drown, it is in a box and in this it floats away to the sea

until it comes into a brook. Now our Lord God makes ill a woman for whom

he intended the baby. So a doctor is summoned. Our Lord God has already

suggested to him that the sick woman will have a baby. So he goes out to

the brook and watches for a long time until finally the box with the baby

comes floating in, and he takes it up and brings it to the sick woman. And

this is the way all people get their babies.”

I call attention briefly also to the legend of the fountain of youth, to

the mythical and naturalistic ideas of water as the first element and

source of all life, and to the drink of the gods (soma, etc.) Compare also

the fountain in the verses previously quoted.

The bridal pair in the parable (Sec. 11) walk through the garden and the

bride says they intend in their chamber to “enjoy the pleasures of love.”

They have picked many fragrant roses. Bear in mind the picking of

strawberries in Mr. T.’s dream. The garden becomes a bridal chamber. The

rain mentioned somewhat earlier, is a fructifying rain; it is the water of

life that drops down upon Mother Earth. It is identical with the sinking

trees of Mrs. Delta’s dream, with the power of creation developed by the

wanderer, with the mythical drink of the gods, ambrosia, soma. We shall

now see the wanderer ascend or descend to the source of this water of

life. To gain the water of life it is generally in myths necessary to go

down into the underworld (Ishtar’s Hell Journey), into the belly of a

monster or the like. Remember, too, that the wanderer puts himself back in

his mother’s womb. There is indeed the origin of his life. The process is

still more significantly worked out in the parable.

The wanderer (Section 11, after the garden episode) comes to the mill. The

water of the mill stream also plays a significant part in the sequel. The

reader will surely have already recognized what kind of a mill, what kind

of water is meant. I will rest satisfied with the mere mention of several

facts from folklore and dream-life.

Nork (Myth. d. Volkss., p. 301 f.) writes that Fenja is of the female sex

in the myth (Horwendil) which we must infer from her occupation, for in

antiquity when only hand mills were as yet in use, women exclusively did

this work. In symbolic language, however, the mill signifies the female

organ (μυλλός from which comes _mulier_) and as the man is the miller, the

satirist Petronius uses _molere mulierem_ = (grind a woman) for coitus,

and Theocritus (Idyll, IV, 48) uses μύλλω (I grind) in the same sense.

Samson, robbed of his strength by the harlot, has to grind in the mill

(Judges XVI, 21) on which the Talmud (Sota fol. 10) comments as follows:

By the grinding is always meant the sin of fornication (Beischlaf).

Therefore all the mills in Rome stand still at the festival of the chaste

Vesta. Like Apollo, Zeus, too, was a miller (μυλεύς, Lykophron, 435), but

hardly a miller by profession, but only in so far as he presides over the

creative lifegiving principle of the propagation of creatures. It is now

demonstrated that every man is a miller and every woman a mill, from which

alone it may be conceived that every marriage is a milling (jede

Vermählung eine Vermehlung), etc. Milling (vermehlung) is connected with

the Roman confarreatio (a form of marriage); at engagements the Romans

used to mingle two piles of meal. In the same author (p. 303 and p. 530):

Fengo is therefore the personification of grinding, the mill (Grotti) is

his wife Gerutha, the mother of Amleth or Hamlet. Grotti means both woman

and mill. Greeth is only a paraphrase of woman. He continues, “Duke Otto,

Ludwig of Bavaria’s youngest son, wasted his substance with a beautiful

miller’s daughter named Margaret, and lived in Castle Wolfstein.... This

mill is still called the Gretel mill and Prince Otto the Finner” (Grimm,

D. S., No. 496). Finner means, like Fengo, the miller [Fenja—old Norman? =

the milleress], for the marriage is a milling [Vermählung ist eine

Vermehlung], the child is the ground grain, the meal.

The same writer (Sitt. u. Gebr., p. 162): “In concept the seed corn has

the same value as the spermatozoon. The man is the miller, the woman the

mill.”

In Dulaure-Krauss-Rieskel (Zeugung i. Glaub usw. d. Völk., p. 100 ff.) I

find the following charm from the writings of Burkhard, Bishop of Worms:

“Have you not done what some women are accustomed to do? They strip

themselves of clothes, they anoint their naked bodies with honey, spread a

cloth on the ground, on which they scatter grain, roll about in it again

and again, then collect carefully all the grains, which have stuck on

their bodies, and grind them on the mill stone which they turn in a

contrary direction. When the corn is ground into meal, they bake a loaf of

it, and give it to their husbands to eat, so that they become sick and

die. When you have done this you will atone for it forty days on bread and

water.”

Killing is the opposite of procreating, therefore the mill is here turned

in reverse direction.

Etymologically it is here to be noted that the verb mahlen (grind),

iterative form of môhen (mow), originally had a meaning of moving oneself

forwards and backwards. Mulieren or mahlen (grind), _molere_, μυλλειν for

coire (cf. Anthropophyteia, VIII, p. 14).

There are numerous stories where the mill appears as the place of love

adventures. The “old woman’s mill” also is familiar; old women go in and

come out young. They are, as it were, ground over in the magic mill. The

idea of recreation in the womb lies at the bottom of it, just as in the

vulgar expression, “Lassen sie sich umvögeln.”

In a legend of the Transylvanian Gypsies, “there came again an old woman

to the king and said: ‘Give me a piece of bread, for seven times already

has the sun gone down without my having eaten anything!’ The King replied:

‘Good, but I will first have meal ground for you,’ and he called his

servants and had the old woman sawn into pieces. Then the old woman’s sawn

up body changed into a good Urme (fairy) and she soared up into the

air....” (H. V. Wlislocki, Märchen u. Sagen d. transylv. Zigeuner.)

A dream: “I came into a mill and into ever narrower apartments till

finally I had no more space. I was terribly anxious and awoke in terror.”

A birth phantasy or uterus phantasy.

Another dream (Stekel, Spr. d. Tr., p. 398 f.): “I came through a crack

between two boards out of the ‘wheel room.’ The walls dripped with water.

Right before me is a brook in which stands a rickety, black piano. I use

it to cross over the brook, as I am running away. Behind me is a crowd of

men. In front of them all is my uncle. He encourages them to pursue me and

roars and yells. The men have mountain sticks, which they occasionally

throw at me. The road goes through the verdure up and down hill. The path

is strewn with coal cinders and therefore black. I had to struggle

terribly to gain any ground. I had to push myself to move forwards. Often

I seemed as though grown to the ground and the pursuers came ever nearer.

Suddenly I am able to fly. I fly into a mill through the window. In it is

a space with board walls; on the opposite wall is a large crank. I sit on

the handle, hold on to it with my hands, and fly up. When the crank is up

I press it down with my weight, and so set the mill in motion. While so

engaged I am quite naked. I look like a cupid. I beg the miller to let me

stay here, promising to move the mill in the manner indicated. He sent me

away and I have to fly out of another window again. Outside there comes

along the ‘Flying Post.’ I place myself in front near the driver. I was

soon requested to pay, but I have only three heller with me. So the

conductor says to me, ‘Well, if you can’t pay, then you must put up with

our sweaty feet.’ Now, as if by command, all the passengers in the coach

drew off a shoe and each held a sweaty foot in front of my nose.”

This dream, too (beside other things), contains a womb phantasy, wheel

room, mill, space with wet walls—the womb. The dreamer is followed by a

crowd; just as our wanderer is met by a crowd; the elders. This dream,

which will still further occupy our attention, I shall call the “Flying

Post.”

Let us return to the parable. The mill of Section 11 is the womb. The

wanderer strives for the most intimate union with his mother; his

striving, to do better than his father culminates in his procreating

himself, the son, again and better.

He will quite fill up his mother—be the father in full. Of course the

phantasy does not progress without psychic obstructions. The anxious

passage over the narrow plank manifests it.

We have here the familiar obstructions to movement and in a form indeed

that recalls the dangerous path on the wall. The passage over the water is

also a death symbol. We have not only the anxiety about death caused by

the moral conflict, but we have also to remember that the passage into the

uterus is a passage to the beyond. The water is the Water of Death

(stygian waters) and of Life. In narrower sense it is also seminal fluid

and the amniotic liquor. It is overdetermined as indeed all symbols are.

The water bears the death color = black. In the Flying Post dream a black

road appears. The dreamer has conflicts like those of the wanderer.

The old miller who will give no information is the father. Of course he

will not let him have his mother, and he gives him no information as to

the mill work or the procreative activity. The wheels are, on the one

hand, the organs that grind out the child (producing the child like meal),

and on the other hand they are the ten commandments whose mundane

administration is the duty of the father, by means of strict education and

punishment. In passing over the plank, the wanderer places himself above

the ten commandments and above the privileges of the father. The wanderer

always extricates himself successfully from the difficulties. The anxiety

is soon done away with, and the fulfillment phase supervenes. It is only a

faint echo of the paternal commandments when the elders (immediately after

the episode, Section 11) hold out before him the letter from the faculty.

At bottom, in retaining their authority, they do indeed go against his own

wishes (also a typical artifice of the dream technique).

I have already discussed the letter episode sufficiently (as also Sections

12 and 13), so I need say no more about the incest wish there expressed.

The bridal pair were put (Section 14) into their crystal prison. We have

been looking for the reassembling of the dismembered; it takes place

before our eyes, the white and red parts, bones and blood, are indeed

bridegroom and bride. The prison is the skin or the receptacle in which,

as in myths, the revivification takes place. Not in the sense of the

revivification of the annihilated father, but a recreation (improvement)

that the son accomplishes, although the creative force as such remains the

same. The son “marries and mills” (vermählt und vermehlt) with his mother,

for the crystal container is again the same as the mill; the uterus. Even

the amniotic fluid and the nutritive liquid for the fœtus are present, and

the wanderer remakes himself into a splendid king. He can really do it

better than his father. The dream carries the wish fulfillment to the

uttermost limits.

Let us examine the process somewhat more in detail. The wanderer, by

virtue of a dissociation, has a twofold existence, once as a youth in the

inside of the glass sphere, and once outside in his former guise. Outside

and inside he is united with his mother as husband and as developing

child. He there embraces his “sister” (image of his mother renewed with

him as it were) as Osiris does his sister Isis. And in addition to this

the infantile sexual components of exhibitionism find satisfaction, for

whose gratification the covering of the procreation mystery is made of

glass. The sexual influence of the wanderer on the kettle (uterus) is

symbolically indicated by the fire task allotted to him. The fire is one

of the most frequent love symbols in dreams. Language also is wont to

speak of the fire of love, of the consuming flames of passion, of ardent

desires, etc. Customs, in particular marriage customs, show a similar

symbolism. That the wanderer is charged with a duty, and explicitly

commanded to do what he is willing to do without orders, is again the

already mentioned cunning device of the dream technique to bring together

the incompatible. It seems almost humorous when the prison is locked with

the seal of the right honorable faculty; I recall to you the expression

“sealing” (petschieren); the sealing is an applying of the father’s penis.

In the place of father we find, of course, the officiating wanderer. The

sealing means, however, the shutting up of the seed of life that is placed

in the mother. It is also said that the pair, after the confinement in the

prison, can be given no more nourishment; and that the food with which

they are provided comes exclusively from the water of the mill. That

refers to the intrauterine nourishment, to which nothing, of course, can

be supplied but the water of the mill so familiar to us.

The precious vessel that the wanderer guards is surrounded by strong

walls; it is inaccessible to the others; he alone may approach with his

fire. It is winter. That is not merely a rationalizing (pretext of

commonplace argument) of the firing, but a token of death entering into

the uterus. The amorous pair in the prison dissolve and perish, even rot

(Section 15). I must mention incidentally, for the understanding of this

version, that at the time of the writing of the parable the process of

impregnation was associated with the idea of the “decaying” or “rotting”

of the semen. The womb is compared to the earth in which the kernel of

grain “decays.”

The decaying which precedes the arising of the new being is connected with

a great inundation. Mythically, a deluge is actually accustomed to

introduce a (improved) creation. A proper myth can hardly dispense with

the idea of a primal flood. I would, in passing, note that the present

phase of the parable corresponds mythologically to the motive of being

swallowed, the later release from the prison is the spitting forth (from

the jaws of the monster), the return from the underworld. The

dismemberment motive of the cosmogonies is usually associated with a

deluge motive. In the description of the flood in the parable there are,

moreover, included some traits of the biblical narrative, e.g., the forty

days and the rainbow. This, be it remarked in passing, had appeared

before; it is a sign of a covenant. It binds heaven and earth, man and

woman. The flood originates in the falling of tears; it arises also from

the body of the woman; it refers to the well known highly significant

water. Stekel has arranged for dreams the so-called symbolic parallels,

according to which all secretions and excretions may symbolically

represent each other. On the presupposition that marks of similarity are

not conceived in a strict sense, the following comparisons may be drawn:

Mucus = blood = pus = urine = stools = semen = milk = sweat = tears =

spirit = air = [breath = flatus] = speech = money = poison. That in this

comparison both souls and tears appear is particularly interesting; the

living or procreating principle appears as soul in the form of clouds.

These are formed from water, the Water of Life. The dew that comes from it

impregnates the earth.

As we have now reached the excreta, I should like to remind the reader of

the foul and stinking bodies that in the parable lie in liquid (Section

15) on which falls a warmer rain. The parable psychoanalytically regarded,

is the result of a regression leading us into infantile thinking and

feeling; we have seen it clearly enough in the comparison with the myths.

And here it is to be noticed how great an interest children take in the

process of defecation. I should not have considered this worthy of notice,

did not the hermetic symbolism, as we shall see later, actually use in

parallel cases the expressions “fimus,” “urina puerorum,” etc., in quite

an unmistakable manner. In any case it is worth remembering that out of

dung and urine, things that decompose malodorously and repulsively, fresh

life arises. This agrees with the infantile theory of procreation, that

babies are brought forth as the residue of assimilation; we are to

observe, however, still other interrelations that will be encountered

later. A series of mythological parallels may be cited. I shall rest

satisfied with referring to the droll story, “Der Dumme Hans.” Stupid Jack

loads manure (fæces, sewage) into a cart and goes with it to a manor;

there he tells them he comes from the _Moorish_ land (from the country of

the blacks) and carries in his barrel the _Water of Life_. When any one

opens the barrel without permission, Stupid Jack represented himself as

having turned the water of life into sewage. He repeated the little trick

with his _dead_ grandmother whom he sewed up in black cloths and gave out

as a wonderfully beautiful princess who was lying in a hundred years’

sleep. Again, as he expected, the covering was raised by an unbidden hand

and John lamented, that, on account of the interference, instead of the

princess, whom he wanted to take to the King, a disgusting corpse had been

magically substituted. He succeeded in being recompensed with a _good

deal_ of money. [Jos. Haltrich, Deut. Volksmed. d. Siebenbürg, II, p.

224.]

Inasmuch as the wanderer of our parable finds himself not outside but

inside of the receptacle, he is as if in a bath. I note incidentally that

writings analogous to the parable expressly mention a bath in a similar

place, as the parable also does (Sec. 15). In dreams the image of bathing

frequently appears to occur as a womb or birth phantasy.

At the end of the 14th section, as the inmates of the prison die, his

certain ruin stands before the wanderer’s eyes—again a faint echo of his

relation to the bridegroom.

We have already for a long time thoroughly familiarized ourselves with the

thought that in the crystal prison the revivification of the dismembered

comes to pass. Whoever has the slightest doubt of it, can find it most

beautifully shown in the beginning of Section 15. The author of the

parable even mentions Medea and Æson. I need add nothing more concerning

the talents of the Colchian sorceress in the art of dissection and

rejuvenation.

In Section 18, “the sun shines very bright, and the day becomes warmer

than before and the dog days are at hand.” Soon after (Sec. 19) the king

is released from prison. It was before the winter (Sec. 14), but after

that season, when the sun “shines very warm” (Sec. 11), consequently well

advanced into autumn. Let us choose for the purpose a middle point between

the departing summer and the approaching winter, about the end of October,

and bear in mind that the dog-days come in August, so that at the end of

July they are in waiting, then we find for the time spent in the

receptacle nine months—the time of human gestation.

The newborn (Sec. 20) is naturally—thirsty. What shall he be fed with if

not with the water from the mill? And the water makes him grow and thrive.

Two royal personages stand before us in splendor and magnificence. The

wanderer has created for himself new parents (the father-king is, of

course, also himself) corresponding to the family romance of neurotics, a

phantasy romance, that like a ghost stalks even in the mental life of

healthy persons. It is a wish phantasy that culminates in its most

outspoken form in the conviction that one really springs from royal or

distinguished stock and has merely been found by the actual parents who do

not fit. They conceal his true origin. The day will come, however, when he

will be restored to the noble station which belongs to him by right. Here

belong in brief, those unrestrained wish phantasies which, no matter in

what concrete form, diversify the naïvely outlined content. They arise

from dissatisfaction with surroundings and afford the most agreeable

contrasts to straitened circumstances or poverty. In the parable

especially, the King (in his father character) is attractively portrayed.

At first the “lofty appearance” (Sec. 19) of the severe father amazes the

wanderer, then it turns out, however, that the king (ideal father) is

friendly, gracious and meek, and we are assured that “nothing graces

exalted persons as much as these virtues.” And then he leads the wanderer

into his kingdom and allows him to enjoy all the merely earthly treasures.

There takes place, so to speak, a universal gratification of all wishes.

Mythologically we should expect that the hero thrown up from the

underworld, should have brought with him the drink of knowledge. This is

actually the case, as he has indeed gained the thing whose constitution is

metaphorically worked out in the whole story, that is, the philosopher’s

stone. The wanderer is a true soma robber.

Let us hark back to the next to last section. Here, near the end of the

dream, the King becomes sleepy. The real sleeper already feels the

approaching awakening and would like to sleep longer (to phantasy). But he

pretends that the king is sleepy, thus throwing the burden from his own

shoulders. And to this experience is soon attached a symbol of waking: the

wanderer, the dreamer of the parable, is taken to another land, indeed

into a bright land. He wakes from his dreams with a pious echo of his wish

fulfillment on his lips ... “to which end help us, the Father, Son, and

Holy Ghost, Amen.” It is quite prosaic to conclude this melodious finale

by means of the formula “threshold symbolism.”

To sum up in a few words what the parable contains from the psychoanalytic

point of view, and to do this without becoming too general in suggesting

as its results the universal fulfillment of all wishes, I should put it

thus: the wanderer in his phantasy removes and improves the father, wins

the mother, procreates himself with her, enjoys her love even in the womb

and satisfies besides his infantile curiosity while observing procreative

process from the outside. He becomes King and attains power and

magnificence, even superhuman abilities.

Possibly one may be surprised at so much absurdity. One should reflect,

however, that those unconscious titanic powers of imagination that, from

the innermost recesses of the soul set in motion the blindly creating

dream phantasy, can only wish and do nothing but wish. They do not bother

about whether the wishes are sensible or absurd. Critical power does not

belong to them. This is the task of logical thinking as we consciously

exercise it, inasmuch as we observe the wishes rising from the darkness

and compare and weigh them according to teleological standards. The

unconsciously impelling affective life, however, desires blindly, and

troubles itself about nothing else.