CHAPTER I

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

[Illustration: DR. C. G. JUNG

“PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS”]

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

_A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido_

_A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought_

BY

DR. C. G. JUNG

Of the University of Zurich

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION, WITH INTRODUCTION, BY

BEATRICE M. HINKLE, M.D.

Of the Neurological Department of Cornell University Medical School and

of the New York Post Graduate Medical School

[Illustration]

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

1916

Copyright, 1916, by

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

_All rights reserved_

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

That humanity is seeking a new message, a new light upon the meaning of

life, and something tangible, as it were, with which it can work towards

a larger understanding of itself and its relation to the universe, is a

fact I think none will gainsay. Therefore, it has seemed to me

particularly timely to introduce to the English-speaking world Dr.

Jung’s remarkable book, “Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido.” In this

work he has plunged boldly into the treacherous sea of mythology and

folklore, the productions of the ancient mind and that of the common

people, and turned upon this vast material the same scientific and

painstaking method of psychologic analysis that is applied to the modern

mind, in order to reveal the common bond of desire and longing which

unites all humanity, and thus bridge the gaps presumed to exist between

ancient and widely separated peoples and those of our modern time. The

discovery of this undercurrent affecting and influencing ancient peoples

as well as modern serves as a foundation or platform from which he

proceeds to hold aloft a new ideal, a new goal of attainment possible of

achievement and which can be intellectually satisfying, as well as

emotionally appealing: the goal of _moral autonomy_.

This book, remarkable for its erudition and the tremendous labor

expended upon it, as well as for the new light which it sheds upon human

life, its motives, its needs and its possibilities, is not one for

desultory reading or superficial examination. Such an approach will

prevent the reader from gaining anything of its real value; but for

those who can bring a serious interest and willingness to give a careful

study to it the work will prove to be a veritable mine capable of

yielding the greatest riches.

The difficulties in translating a book such as this are almost

insuperable, but I have tried faithfully to express Dr. Jung’s thought,

keeping as close to the original text as possible and, at the same time,

rendering the difficult material and complicated German phrasing as

simply and clearly as the subject-matter would allow. In all this work I

owe much to Miss Helen I. Brayton, without whose faithful assistance the

work would never have been completed. I wish to acknowledge my gratitude

to Mr. Louis Untermeyer, whose help in rendering the poetic quotations

into English verse has been invaluable, and to express as well my

gratitude to other friends who have assisted me in various ways from

time to time.

B. M. H.

NEW YORK, 1915.

AN INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY

When Professor Freud of Vienna made his early discoveries in the realm

of the neuroses, and announced that the basis and origin of the various

symptoms grouped under the terms hysteria and neuroses lay in

unfulfilled desires and wishes, unexpressed and unknown to the patient

for the most part, and concerned chiefly with the sexual instinct, it

was not realized what far-reaching influence this unpopular and bitterly

attacked theory would exert on the understanding of human life in

general.

For this theory has so widened in its scope that its application has now

extended beyond a particular group of pathologic states. It has in fact

led to a new evaluation of the whole conduct of human life; a new

comprehension has developed which explains those things which formerly

were unexplained, and there is offered an understanding not only of the

symptoms of a neurosis and the phenomena of conduct but the product of

the mind as expressed in myths and religions.

This amazing growth has proceeded steadily in an ever-widening fashion

despite opposition as violent as any of which we have knowledge in the

past. The criticism originally directed towards the little understood

and much disliked sexual conception now includes the further teachings

of a psychology which by the application to it of such damning phrases

as mystical, metaphysical and sacrilegious, is condemned as

unscientific.

To add to the general confusion and misunderstanding surrounding this

new school of thought there has arisen a division amongst the leaders

themselves, so that there now exist two schools led respectively by

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

to in the literature as the Vienna School and the Zurich School.

It is very easy to understand that criticism and opposition should

develop against a psychology so difficult of comprehension, and so

disturbing to the ideas which have been held by humanity for ages; a

psychology which furthermore requires a special technique as well as an

observer trained to recognize and appreciate in psychologic phenomena a

verification of the statement that there is no such thing as chance, and

that every act and every expression has its own meaning, determined by

the inner feelings and wishes of the individual.

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

individual is to a large extent the determiner of his own destiny, for

only by poets and philosophers has this idea been put forth—not by

science; and it is a brave act to make this statement with full

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

scientific reasoning and procedure.

Developed entirely through empirical investigation and through an

analysis of individual cases, Freudian psychology seems particularly to

belong to that conception of Max Müller’s that “An empirical

acquaintance with facts rises to a scientific knowledge of facts as soon

as the mind discovers beneath the multiplicity of single productions the

unity of an organic system.”[1]

Psychoanalysis is the name given to the method developed for reaching

down into the hidden depths of the individual to bring to light the

underlying motives and determinants of his symptoms and attitudes, and

to reveal the unconscious tendencies which lie behind actions and

reactions and which influence development and determine the relations of

life itself. The result of digging down into the hidden psyche has been

to produce a mass of material from below the threshold of consciousness,

so astonishing and disturbing and out of relation with the previously

held values, as to arouse in any one unfamiliar with the process the

strongest antagonism and criticism.

Although originally studied only as a therapeutic method for the sick it

was soon realized through an analysis of normal people how slight were

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

normal. The differences observed were seen to be rather in the reactions

to life and to the conflicts produced by contending forces in the

individual.

These conflicts, usually not fully perceived by the individual, and

having to do with objectionable desires and wishes that are not in

keeping with the conscious idea of self, produce marked effects which

are expressed either in certain opinions, prejudices, attitudes of

conduct, faulty actions, or in some definite pathologic symptom. As Dr.

Jung says, he who remains healthy has to struggle with the same

complexes that cause the neurotic to fall ill.

In a valuable book called “The Neighbor,” written by the late Professor

N. Shaler of Harvard University, there occurs this very far-reaching

statement: “It is hardly too much to say that all the important errors

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

inadequacies in the association of the primal animal emotions with those

mental powers which have been so rapidly developed in mankind.”

This statement, reached by a process of reasoning and a method of

thought and study entirely different from psychoanalysis, nevertheless

so completely expresses in brief form the very basis of the postulates

developed through psychoanalysis that I quote it here. Such a statement

made in the course of a general examination of human relations does not

arouse opposition nor seem to be so difficult of acceptance. It appears

to be the individual application of these conceptions that has roused

such bitter antagonism and violent denunciations.

Rightly understood and used, psychoanalysis may be compared to surgery,

for psychoanalysis stands in the same relation to the personality as

surgery does to the body, and they aim at parallel results.

It is well recognized that in the last analysis nature is the real

physician, the healer of wounds; but prior to the development of our

modern asepsis and surgical technique the healing produced by nature was

most often of a very faulty and imperfect type—hideous scars, distorted

and crippled limbs, with functions impaired or incapacitated, resulted

from the wounds, or else nature was unable to cope with the hurt and the

injured one succumbed.

Science has been steadily working for centuries with the aim of

understanding nature and finding means to aid and co-operate with her so

that healing could take place with the least possible loss of function

or permanent injury to the individual. Marvelous results have rewarded

these persistent efforts, as the brilliant achievements of surgery

plainly indicate.

Meantime, however, little thought was given to the possibility of any

scientific method being available to help man overcome the wounds and

conflicts taking place in his soul, hurts which retarded his development

and progress as a personality, and which frequently in the struggle

resulted in physical pains and symptoms of the most varied character.

That was left solely to religion and metaphysics. Now, however, this

same assistance that surgery has given to the physical body,

psychoanalysis attempts to give to the personality. That it cannot

always succeed is as much to be expected, and more, than that surgery

does not always succeed, for the analytic work requires much of the

individual. No real result can be attained if he has not already

developed a certain quality of character and intelligence which makes it

possible for him to submit himself to a facing of his naked soul, and to

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

relation in life, an absolute truth and an absolute honesty are the only

basis of action, since deception of any kind deceives no one but the

individual himself and acts as a boomerang, defeating his own aims.

Such deep searching and penetrating into the soul is not something to be

undertaken lightly nor to be considered a trivial or simple matter, and

the fact is that where a strong compulsion is lacking, such as sickness

or a situation too difficult to meet, much courage is required to

undertake it.

In order to understand this psychology which is pervading all realms of

thought and seems destined to be a new psychological-philosophical

system for the understanding and practical advancement of human life, it

will be necessary to go somewhat into detail regarding its development

and present status. For in this new direction lies its greatest value

and its greatest danger.

The beginnings of this work were first published in 1895 in a book

entitled “Studien über Hysterie,” and contained the joint investigations

into hysteria of Dr. Breuer of Vienna and his pupil Dr. Sigmund Freud.

The results of their investigations seemed to show that the various

symptoms grouped under the title of hysteria were the result of

emotionally colored reminiscences which, all unknown to the conscious

waking self, were really actively expressing themselves through the

surrogate form of symptoms and that these experiences, although

forgotten by the patient, could be reproduced and the emotional content

discharged.

Hypnosis was the means used to enable the physician to penetrate deeply

into the forgotten memories, for it was found through hypnosis that

these lost incidents and circumstances were not really lost at all but

only dropped from consciousness, and were capable of being revived when

given the proper stimuli. The astonishing part about it was that with

the revival of these memories and their accompanying painful and

disturbing emotions, the symptoms disappeared. This led naturally to the

conclusion that these symptoms were dependent upon some emotional

disturbance or psychic trauma which had been inadequately expressed, and

that in order to cure the patient one merely had to establish the

connection between the memory and the emotions which properly belonged

to it, letting the emotion work itself out through a reproduction of the

forgotten scene.

With further investigation Freud found that hypnosis was unnecessary for

the revival of the forgotten experiences, and that it was possible to

obtain the lost emotional material in the conscious and normal state.

For this purpose the patient was encouraged to assume a passive,

non-critical attitude and simply let his thoughts flow, speaking of

whatever came into his mind, holding nothing back. During this free and

easy discussion of his life and conditions, directed by the law of

association of ideas, reference was invariably made to the experiences

or thoughts which were the most affective and disturbing elements. It

was seen to be quite impossible to avoid this indirect revelation

because of the strength of the emotions surrounding these ideas and the

effect of the conscious wish to repress unpleasant feelings. This

important group of ideas or impressions, with the feelings and emotions

clustered around them which are betrayed through this process, was

called by Jung a _complex_.

However, with the touching of the _complex_ which always contains

feelings and emotions so painful or unpleasant as to be unacceptable to

consciousness, and which are therefore repressed and hidden, great

difficulties appeared, for very often the patient came to a sudden stop

and could apparently recall nothing more. Memory gaps were frequent,

relations twisted, etc. Evidently some force banished these memories so

that the person was quite honest in saying that he could remember

nothing or that there was nothing to tell. This kind of forgetfulness

was called _repression_, and is the normal mechanism by which nature

protects the individual from such painful feelings as are caused by

unpleasant and unacceptable experiences and thoughts, the recognition of

his egoistic nature, and the often quite unbearable conflict of his

weaknesses with his feelings of idealism.

At this early time great attention was given towards developing a

technique which would render more easy the reproduction of these

forgotten memories, for with the abandonment of hypnosis it was seen

that some unknown active force was at work which not only banished

painful memories and feelings, but also prevented their return; this was

called _resistance_. This resistance was found to be the important

mechanism which interfered with a free flow of thought and produced the

greatest difficulty in the further conduct of the analysis. It appeared

under various guises and frequently manifested itself in intellectual

objections based on reasoning ground, in criticism directed towards the

analyst, or in criticism of the method itself, and finally, often in a

complete blocking of expression, so that until the resistance was broken

nothing more could be produced.

It was necessary then to find some aid by which these resistances could

be overcome and the repressed memories and feelings revived and set

free. For it was proven again and again that even though the person was

not at all aware of concealing within himself some emotionally

disturbing feeling or experience with which his symptoms were

associated, yet such was the fact, and that under proper conditions this

material could be brought into consciousness. This realm where these

unknown but disturbing emotions were hidden was called the

“Unconscious”—the “Unconscious” also being a name used arbitrarily to

indicate all that material of which the person is not aware at the given

time—the not-conscious.

This term is used very loosely in Freudian psychology and is not

intended to provoke any academic discussion but to conform strictly to

the dictionary classification of a “negative concept which can neither

be described nor defined.” To say that an idea or feeling is unconscious

merely means to indicate that the individual is unaware at that time of

its existence, or that all the material of which he is unaware at a

given time is unconscious.

With the discovery of the significance in relation to hysteria of these

varied experiences and forgotten memories which always led into the

erotic realm and usually were carried far back into early childhood, the

theory of an infantile sexual trauma as a cause of this neurosis

developed. Contrary to the usual belief that children have no sexuality

and that only at puberty does it suddenly arise, it was definitely shown

that there was a very marked kind of sexuality among children of the

most tender years, entirely instinctive and capable of producing a grave

effect on the entire later life.

However, further investigations carried into the lives of normal people

disclosed quite as many psychic and sexual traumas in their early

childhood as in the lives of the patients; therefore, the conception of

the “infantile sexual trauma” as the etiological factor was abandoned in

favor of “the infantilism of sexuality” itself. In other words, it was

soon realized that many of the sexual traumas which were placed in their

early childhood by these patients, did not really exist except in their

own phantasies and probably were produced as a defence against the

memories of their own childish sexual activities. These experiences led

to a deep investigation into the nature of the child’s sexuality and

developed the ideas which Freud incorporated in a work called “Three

Contributions to the Sexual Theory.” He found so many variations and

manifestations of sexual activity even among young children that he

realized that this activity was the normal, although entirely

unconscious, expression of the child’s developing life, and while not

comparable to the adult sexuality, nevertheless produced a very definite

influence and effect on the child’s life.

These childish expressions of this instinct he called “polymorphous

perverse,” because in many ways they resembled the various abnormalities

called perversions when found among adults under certain conditions.

In the light of these additional investigations Freud was led to change

his formulation, for instead of the symptoms of the neurotic patient

being due to definite sexual experiences, they seemed to be determined

by his reactions towards his own sexual constitution and the kind of

repression to which these instincts were subjected.

Perhaps one of the greatest sources of misunderstanding and difficulty

in this whole subject lies in the term sexuality, for Freud’s conception

of this is entirely different from that of the popular sense. He

conceives sexuality to be practically synonymous with the word _love_

and to include under this term all those tender feelings and emotions

which have had their origin in a primitive erotic source, even if now

their primary aim is entirely lost and another substituted for it. It

must also be borne in mind that Freud strictly emphasizes the psychic

side of sexuality and its importance, as well as the somatic expression.

Therefore, to understand Freud’s theories, his very broad conception of

the term sexual must never be forgotten.

Through this careful investigation of the psychic life of the

individual, the tremendous influence and importance of phantasy-making

for the fate was definitely shown. It was discovered that the indulgence

in day-dreams and phantasies was practically universal not only among

children but among adults, that even whole lives were being lived out in

a phantastic world created by the dreamer, a world wherein he could

fulfil all those wishes and desires which were found to be too difficult

or impossible to satisfy in the world of reality.

Much of this phantasy thinking was seen to be scarcely conscious, but

arose from unrealized wishes, desires and strivings which could only

express themselves through veiled symbols in the form of phantastic

structures not understood, nor fully recognized. Indeed, it is perhaps

one of the most common human experiences to find “queer thoughts,”

undesired ideas and images, forcing themselves upon one’s attention to

such an extent that the will has to be employed to push them out of

mind. It is not unusual to discover long-forgotten impressions of

childhood assuming a phantastic shape in memory, and dwelt upon as

though they were still of importance.

This material afforded a rich field for the searchers into the soul, for

through the operation of the law of association of ideas these

phantastic products, traced back to their origin, revealed the fact that

instead of being meaningless or foolish, they were produced by a

definite process, and arose from distinct wishes and desires which

unconsciously veiled themselves in these mysterious forms and pictures.

It is conceded that the most completely unconscious product of an

individual is his dream, and therefore Professor Freud turned his

attention from phantasies and day-dreams to the investigation of the

nightly dreams of his patients to discover whether they would throw

light upon the painful feelings and ideas repressed out of

consciousness, and therefore inaccessible to direct revelation.

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

that contrary to the usual conception that the dream is a phantastic and

absurd jumble of heterogeneous fragments, having no real relation to the

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

concerned with the problem of life most pressing at the time, which

expresses itself not directly, but in symbolic form so as to be

unrecognized. In this way the individual gains an expression and

fulfilment of his unrealized wish or desire.

This discovery of the symbolic nature of the dream and the phantasy was

brought about entirely through the associative method and developed

empirically through investigations of the dreams of many people. In this

manner it became evident that certain ideas and objects which recurred

again and again in the dreams and phantasies of different people were

definitely associated with certain unconscious or unrecognized wishes

and desires, and were repeatedly used by the mind to express these

meanings where a direct form was repressed and unallowed. Thus certain

dream expressions and figures were in a general way considered to be

rather definite symbols of these repressed ideas and feelings found in

the unconscious. Through a comparative and parallel study it soon

appeared that there was a similar mechanism at work in myths and fairy

tales and that the relationship between the dreams and phantasies of an

individual and the myths and folk tales of a people was so close that

Abraham could say that the myth is a fragment of the infantile soul life

of the race and the dream is the myth of the individual.

Thus through relating his dreams the patient himself furnished the most

important means of gaining access to the unconscious and disturbing

complexes with which his symptoms were connected.

Besides the dream analysis the patient furnished other means of

revelation of his complexes—his mannerisms and unconscious acts, his

opening remarks to his physician, his emotional reactions to certain

ideas; in short the whole behavior and verbal expressions of the

individual reveal his inner nature and problems.

Through all this work it became clear that in the emotional nature lay

the origin not only of the various nervous illnesses themselves, but

also of the isolated symptoms and individual idiosyncrasies and

peculiarities which are the part of all humanity and that the pathogenic

cause of the disturbances lies not in the ignorance of individuals, but

in those inner resistances which are the underlying basis of this

ignorance.

Therefore the aim of the therapy became not merely the relief of the

ignorance but the searching out and combating of these resistances.

It becomes evident from even this brief description of the analytic

procedure that we are dealing with a very complex and delicate material,

and with a technique which needs to make definite use of all influences

available for the help of the patient. It has long been recognized that

the relation established between physician and patient has a great

effect upon the medical assistance which he is able to render—in other

words, if a confidence and personal regard developed in the patient

towards the physician, the latter’s advice was just so much more

efficacious. This personal feeling has been frankly recognized and made

of distinct service in psychoanalytic treatment under the name of

_transference_. It is through the aid of this definite relationship

which must be established in the one being analyzed towards the analyst

that it is possible to deal with the unconscious and organized

resistances which so easily blind the individual and render the

acceptance of the new valuations very difficult to the raw and sensitive

soul.

Freud’s emphasis upon the rôle of the sexual instinct in the production

of the neurosis and also in its determining power upon the personality

of the normal individual does not imply that he does not also recognize

other determinants at the root of human conduct, as for instance, the

instinct for preservation of life and the ego principle itself. But

these motives are not so violently forbidden and repressed as the sexual

impulse, and therefore, because of that repressive force and the

strength of the impulse he considers this primary in its influence upon

the human being.

The importance of this instinct upon human life is clearly revealed by

the great place given to it under the name of love in art, literature,

poetry, romance and all beauty from the beginning of recorded time.

Viewed in this light it cannot seem extraordinary that a difficulty or

disturbance in this emotional field should produce such far-reaching

consequences for the individual. The sexual impulse is often compared

with that of hunger, and this craving and need lying in all humanity is

called by Freud _libido_.

THE OEDIPUS PROBLEM

With further investigations into the nature of the repressed complexes a

very astonishing situation was revealed. The parental influence on

children is something so well recognized and understood that to call

attention to it sounds much like a banality. However, here an

extraordinary discovery was made, for in tracing out the feelings and

emotions of adults it became evident that this influence was paramount

not only for children but for adults as well; that the entire direction

of lives was largely determined quite unconsciously by the parental

associations, and that, although adults, the emotional side of their

nature was still infantile in type and demanded unconsciously the

infantile or childish relations.

Freud traces out the commencement of the infantile attachment for the

parents in this wise.

In the beginning the child derives its first satisfaction and pleasure

from the mother in the form of nutrition and care for its wants. In this

first act of suckling Freud sees already a kind of sexual pleasure, for

he apparently identifies the pleasure principle and the sexual instinct

and considers that the former is primarily rooted in the latter. At this

early time commence such various infantile actions unconnected with

nutrition as thumbsucking, various movements of the body as rubbing,

boring, pulling and other manifestations of a definite interest in its

own body, a delight in nakedness, the pleasure exhibited in inflicting

pain on some object and its opposite, the pleasure from receiving pain.

All of these afford the child pleasure and satisfaction, and because

they seem analogous to certain perversions in adults they are called by

Freud the “polymorphous perverse sexuality” of childhood. The character

of these instinctive actions which have nothing to do with any other

person, and through which the child attains pleasure from its own body,

caused Freud to term this phase of life as autoerotic after Havelock

Ellis. However, with the growth of the child there is a parallel

development of the psychic elements of its sexual nature and now the

mother, the original object of its love, primarily determined by its

helplessness and need, acquires a new valuation. The beginnings of the

need for a love object to satisfy the craving or libido of the child are

early in evidence and, following along sex lines in general, the little

son prefers the mother and the daughter the father after the usual

preference of the parents.

At this early time children feel deeply the enormous importance of their

parents and their entire world is bounded by the family circle. All the

elements of the ego which the child possesses have now become manifest;

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

in the greatest degree towards the objects of their libido, namely the

parents. With the growing ego of the child there is a development of

strong wishes and desires demanding satisfaction which can only be

gratified by the mother; therefore there is aroused in the small son the

feeling of jealousy and anger towards the father in whom he sees a rival

for the affection of the mother and whom he would like to replace. This

desire in the soul of the child Freud calls the _Oedipus complex_ in

recognition of its analogy to the tragedy of King Oedipus who was drawn

by his fate to kill his father and win his mother for a wife. Freud

presents this as the _nuclear complex_ of every neurosis.

At the basis of this complex, some trace of which can be found in every

person, Freud sees a definite incest wish towards the mother which only

lacks the quality of consciousness. Because of moral reactions this wish

is quickly subjected to repression through the operation of the “incest

barrier,” a postulate he compares to the incest taboo found among

inferior peoples. At this time the child is beginning to develop its

typical sexual curiosity expressed by the question, “Where do I come

from?” The interest and investigation of the child into this problem,

aided by observations and deductions from various actions and attitudes

of the parents, who have no idea of the watchfulness of the child, lead

him, because of his imperfect knowledge and immature development, into

many false theories and ideas of birth. These infantile sexual theories

are held by Freud to be determinative in the development of the child’s

character and also for the contents of the unconscious as expressed in a

future neurosis.

These various reactions of the child and his sexual curiosity are

entirely normal and unavoidable, and if his development proceeds in an

orderly fashion then, at the time of definite object choice he will pass

smoothly over from the limitations of the family attachment out into the

world and find therein his independent existence.

However, if the libido remains fixed on the first chosen object so that

the growing individual is unable to tear himself loose from these

familial ties, then the incestuous bond is deepened with the developing

sexual instinct and its accompanying need of a love object, and the

entire future of the young personality endangered. For with the

development of the incestuous bond the natural repressions deepen

because the moral censor cannot allow these disturbing relations to

become clear to the individual. Therefore, the whole matter is repressed

more deeply into the unconscious, and even a feeling of positive enmity

and repulsion towards the parents is often developed in order to conceal

and over-compensate for the impossible situation actually present.

This persistence of the attachment of the libido to the original object,

and the inability to find in this a suitable satisfaction for the adult

need, interferes with the normal development of the psycho-sexual

character, and it is due to this that the adult retains that

“infantilism of sexuality” which plays so great a rôle in determining

the instability of the emotional life which so frequently leads into the

definite neuroses.

These were the conclusions reached and the ground on which Freudian

psychology rested, regarding the etiology of the neurosis, and the

tendencies underlying normal human mechanisms, when Dr. Carl Jung, the

most prominent of Freud’s disciples, and the leader of the Zurich

school, found himself no longer able to agree with Freud’s findings in

certain particulars, although the phenomena which Freud observed and the

technique of psychoanalysis developed by Freud were the material on

which Jung worked and the value of which he clearly emphasizes. The

differences which have developed lay in his understanding and

interpretation of the phenomena observed.

Beginning with the conception of libido itself as a term used to connote

sexual hunger and craving, albeit the meaning of the word sexual was

extended by Freud to embrace a much wider significance than common usage

has assigned it, Jung was unable to confine himself to this limitation.

He conceived this longing, this urge or push of life as something

extending beyond sexuality even in its wider sense. He saw in the term

libido a concept of unknown nature, comparable to Bergson’s élan vital,

a hypothetical energy of life, which occupies itself not only in

sexuality but in various physiological and psychological manifestations

such as growth, development, hunger, and all the human activities and

interests. This cosmic energy or urge manifested in the human being he

calls libido and compares it with the energy of physics. Although

recognizing, in common with Freud as well as with many others, the

primal instinct of reproduction as the basis of many functions and

present-day activities of mankind no longer sexual in character he

repudiates the idea of still calling them sexual, even though their

development was a growth originally out of the sexual. Sexuality and its

various manifestations Jung sees as most important channels occupied by

libido, but not the exclusive ones through which libido flows.

This is an energic concept of life; and from this viewpoint this

hypothetical energy of life or libido is a living power used

instinctively by man in all the automatic processes of his functioning;

such very processes being but different manifestations of this energy.

By virtue of its quality of mobility and change man, through his

understanding and intelligence, has the power consciously to direct and

use his libido in definite and desired ways.

In this conception of Jung will be seen an analogy to Bergson, who

speaks of “this change, this movement and becoming, this self-creation,

call it what you will, as the very stuff and reality of our being.”[2]

In developing the energic conception of libido and separating it from

Freud’s sexual definition, Jung makes possible the explanation of

interest in general, and provides a working concept by which not only

the specifically sexual, but the general activities and reactions of man

can be understood.

If a person complains of no longer having interest in his work or of

losing interest in his surroundings, then one understands that his

libido is withdrawn from this object and that in consequence the object

itself seems no longer attractive, whereas, as a matter of fact, the

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

libido that we bestow upon an object that makes it attractive and

interesting.

The causes for the withdrawal of libido may be various and are usually

quite different from those that the persons offer in explanation. It is

the task of psychoanalysis to discover the real reasons, which are

usually hidden and unknown. On the other hand, when an individual

exhibits an exaggerated interest or places an over-emphasis upon an idea

or situation, then we know there is too much libido here and that we may

find as a consequence a corresponding depletion elsewhere.

This leads directly into the second point of difference between Jung’s

views and those of Freud. This is concerned with those practically

universal childish manifestations of sexuality called by Freud

“polymorphous perverse” because of their similarity to those

abnormalities of sexuality which occur in adults and are called

perversions.

Jung takes exception to this viewpoint. He sees in the various

manifestations of childhood the precursors or forerunners of the later

fully developed sexuality, and instead of considering them perverse he

considers them preliminary expressions of sexual coloring. He divides

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

fourth year, generally speaking, he calls the presexual stage, for there

he sees the libido or life energy occupied chiefly in the functions of

nutrition and growth, and he draws an analogy between this period and

that of the caterpillar stage of the butterfly.

The second stage includes the years from this time until puberty, and

this he speaks of as the prepubertal stage.

The third period is that from puberty onward and can be considered the

time of maturity.

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

different individuals, that are fully inaugurated those various

manifestations which have so marked a sexual coloring that there can be

no question of their relationship, although at that time sexuality in

the adult meaning of the word does not exist.

Jung explains the polymorphism of these phenomena as arising from a

gradual movement of the libido from exclusive service in the function of

nutrition into new avenues which successively open up with the

development of the child until the final inauguration of the sexual

function proper at puberty. Normally these childish bad habits are

gradually relinquished until the libido is entirely withdrawn from these

immature phases and with the ushering in of puberty for the first time

“appears in the form of an undifferentiated sexual primitive power,

clearly forcing the individual towards division, budding, etc.”

However, if in the course of its movement from the function of nutrition

to the sexual function the libido is arrested or retarded at any phase,

then a _fixation_ may result, creating a disturbance in the harmony of

the normal development. For, although the libido is retarded and remains

clinging to some childish manifestation, time goes on and the physical

growth of the child does not stand still. Soon a great contrast is

created between the infantile manifestations of the emotional life and

the needs of the more adult individual, and the foundation is thus

prepared for either the development of a definite neurosis or else for

those weaknesses of character or symptomatic disturbances which are not

sufficiently serious to be called a neurosis.

One of the most active and important forms of childish libido occupation

is in phantasy making. The child’s world is one of imagery and

make-believe where he can create for himself that satisfaction and

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

and real demands of life are made upon him it becomes increasingly

necessary that his libido be taken away from his phantastic world and

used for the required adaptation to reality needed by his age and

condition, until finally for the adult the freedom of the whole libido

is necessary to meet the biological and cultural demands of life.

Instead of thus employing the libido in the real world, however, certain

people never relinquish the seeking for satisfaction in the shadowy

world of phantasy and even though they make certain attempts at

adaptation they are halted and discouraged by every difficulty and

obstacle in the path of life and are easily pulled back into their inner

psychic world. This condition is called a state of _introversion_. It is

concerned with the past and the reminiscences which belong thereto.

Situations and experiences which should have been completed and finished

long ago are still dwelt upon and lived with. Images and matters which

were once important but which normally have no significance for their

later age are still actively influencing their present lives. The nature

and character of these phantasy products are legion, and are easily

recognized in the emotional attitudes and pretensions, the childish

illusions and exaggerations, the prejudices and inconsistencies which

people express in manifold forms. The actual situation is inadequately

faced; small matters are reacted towards in an exaggerated manner; or

else a frivolous attitude is maintained where real seriousness is

demanded. In other words, there is clearly manifested an inadequate

psychic adaptation towards reality which is quite to be expected from

the child, but which is very discordant in the adult.

The most important of these past influences is that of the parents.

Because they are the first objects of the developing childish love, and

afford the first satisfaction and pleasure to the child, they become the

models for all succeeding efforts, as Freud has worked out. This he

called the _nuclear_ or _root complex_ because this influence was so

powerful it seemed to be the determining factor in all later

difficulties in the life of the individual.

In this phase of the problem lies the third great difference between

Jung’s interpretation of the observed phenomena and that of Freud.

Jung definitely recognizes that there are many neurotic persons who

clearly exhibited in their childhood the same neurotic tendencies that

are later exaggerated. Also that an almost overwhelming effect on the

destiny of these children is exercised by the influence of the parents,

the frequent over-anxiety or tenderness, the lack of sympathy or

understanding, in other words, the complexes of the parent reacting upon

the child and producing in him love, admiration, fear, distrust, hate,

revolt. The greater the sensitiveness and impressionability of the

child, the more he will be stamped with the familial environment, and

the more he will unconsciously seek to find again in the world of

reality the model of his own small world with all the pleasures and

satisfactions, or disappointments and unhappinesses with which it was

filled.

This condition to be sure is not a recognized or a conscious one, for

the individual may think himself perfectly free from this past influence

because he is living in the real world, and because actually there is a

great difference between the present conditions and that of his childish

past. He sees all this, intellectually, but there is a wide gap between

the intellectual grasp of a situation and the emotional development, and

it is the latter realm wherein lies the disharmony. However, although

many ideas and feelings are connected with the parents, analysis reveals

very often that they are only subjective and that in reality they bear

little resemblance to the actual past situation. Therefore, Jung speaks

no longer of the real father and mother but uses the term imago or image

to represent the father or mother, because the feelings and phantasies

frequently do not deal with the real parents but with the distorted and

subjective image created by the imagination of the individual.

Following this distinction Jung sees in the Oedipus complex of Freud

only a symbol for the “childish desire towards the parents and for the

conflict which this craving evokes,” and cannot accept the theory that

in this early stage of childhood the mother has any real sexual

significance for the child.

The demands of the child upon the mother, the jealousy so often

exhibited, are at first connected with the rôle of the mother as

protector, caretaker and supplier of nutritive wants, and only later,

with the germinating eroticism, does the child’s love become admixed

with the developing sexual quality. The chief love objects are still the

parents and he naturally continues to seek and to find in them

satisfaction for all his desires. In this way the typical conflict is

developed which in the son is directed towards the father and in the

daughter towards the mother. This jealousy of the daughter towards the

mother is called the _Electra complex_ from the myth of Electra who took

revenge on her mother for the murder of the husband because she was in

this way deprived of her father.

Normally as puberty is attained the child gradually becomes more or less

freed from his parents, and upon the degree in which this is

accomplished depends his health and future well-being.

This demand of nature upon the young individual to free himself from the

bonds of his childish dependency and to find in the world of reality his

independent existence is so imperious and dominating that it frequently

produces in the child the greatest struggles and severest conflicts, the

period being characterized symbolically as a _self-sacrifice_ by Jung.

It frequently happens that the young person is so closely bound in the

family relations that it is only with the greatest difficulty that he

can attain any measure of freedom and then only very imperfectly, so

that the libido sexualis can only express itself in certain feelings and

phantasies which clearly reveal the existence of the complex until then

entirely hidden and unrealized. Now commences the secondary struggle

against the unfilial and immoral feelings with a consequent development

of intense resistances expressing themselves in irritation, anger,

revolt and antagonism against the parents, or else in an especially

tender, submissive and yielding attitude which over-compensates for the

rebellion and reaction held within.

This struggle and conflict gives rise to the unconscious phantasy of

self-sacrifice which really means the sacrificing of the childish

tendencies and love type in order to free libido; for his nature demands

that he attain the capacity for the accomplishment of his own personal

fulfilment, the satisfaction of which belongs to the developed man and

woman.

This conception has been worked out in detail by Jung in the book which

is herein presented to English readers.

We now come to the most important of Jung’s conceptions in that it bears

practically upon the treatment of certain types of the neuroses and

stands theoretically in direct opposition to Freud’s hypothesis. While

recognizing fully the influence of the parents and of the sexual

constitution of the child, Jung refuses to see in this infantile past

the real cause for the later development of the illness. He definitely

places the cause of the pathogenic conflict _in the present moment_ and

considers that in seeking for the cause in the distant past one is only

following the desire of the patient, which is to withdraw himself as

much as possible from the present important period.

The conflict is produced by some important task or duty which is

essential biologically and practically for the fulfilment of the ego of

the individual, but before which an obstacle arises from which he

shrinks, and thus halted cannot go on. With this interference in the

path of progression libido is stored up and a _regression_ takes place

whereby there occurs a reanimation of past ways of libido occupation

which were entirely normal to the child, but which for the adult are no

longer of value. These regressive infantile desires and phantasies now

alive and striving for satisfaction are converted into symptoms, and in

these surrogate forms obtain a certain gratification, thus creating the

external manifestations of the neurosis. Therefore Jung does not ask

from what psychic experience or point of fixation in childhood the

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

avoiding, or what obstacle in his life’s path he is unable to overcome?

What is the cause of his regression to past psychic experiences?

Following this theory Jung expresses the view that the elaborate

phantasies and dreams produced by these patients are really forms of

compensation or artificial substitutes for the unfulfilled adaptation to

reality. The sexual content of these phantasies and dreams is only

apparently and not actually expressive of a real sexual desire or incest

wish, but is a regressive employment of sexual forms to symbolically

express a present-day need when the attainment of the present ego demand

seems too difficult or impossible, and no adaptation is made to what is

possible for the individual’s capability.[3]

With this statement Jung throws a new light on the work of analytic

psychology and on the conception of the neurotic symptoms, and renders

possible of understanding the many apparent incongruities and

conflicting observations which have been so disturbing to the critics.

It now becomes proper to ask what has been established by all this mass

of investigation into the soul, and what is its value not only as a

therapeutic measure for the neurotic sufferer, but also for the normal

human being?

First and perhaps most important is the recognition of a definite

psychological determinism. Instead of human life being filled with

foolish, meaningless or purposeless actions, errors and thoughts, it can

be demonstrated that no expression or manifestation of the psyche,

however trifling or inconsistent in appearance, is really lawless or

unmotivated. Only a possession of the technique is necessary in order to

reveal, to any one desirous of knowing, the existence of the unconscious

determinants of his mannerisms, trivial expressions, acts and behavior,

their purpose and significance.

This leads into the second fundamental conception, which is perhaps even

less considered than the foregoing, and that is the relative value of

the conscious mind and thought. It is the general attitude of people to

judge themselves by their surface motives, to satisfy themselves by

saying or thinking “this is what I want to do or say” or “I intended to

do thus and so,” but somehow what one thought, one intended to say or

expected to do is very often the contrary of what actually is said or

done. Every one has had these experiences when the gap between the

conscious thought and action was gross enough to be observed. It is also

a well known experience to consciously desire something very much and

when it is obtained to discover that this in no wise satisfied or

lessened the desire, which was then transferred to some other object.

Thus one became cognizant of the fact that the feeling and idea

presented by consciousness as the desire was an error. What is the

difficulty in these conditions? Evidently some other directing force

than that of which we are aware is at work.

Dr. G. Stanley Hall uses a very striking symbol when he compares the

mind to an iceberg floating in the ocean with one-eighth visible above

the water and seven-eighths below—the one-eighth above being that part

called conscious and the seven-eighths below that which we call the

unconscious. The influence and controlling power of the unconscious

desires over our thoughts and acts are in this relative proportion.

Faint glimmers of other motives and interests than those we accept or

which we believe, often flit into consciousness. These indications, if

studied or valued accurately, would lead to the realization that

consciousness is but a single stage and but one form of expression of

mind. Therefore its dictum is but one, often untrustworthy, approach to

the great question as to what is man’s actual psychic accomplishment,

and as to what in particular is the actual soul development of the

individual.

A further contribution of equal importance has been the empiric

development of a dynamic theory of life; the conception that life is in

a state of flux—movement—leading either to construction or destruction.

Through the development man has reached he has attained the power by

means of his intelligence and understanding of definitely directing to a

certain extent this life energy or libido into avenues which serve his

interest and bring a real satisfaction for the present day.

When man through ignorance and certain inherent tendencies fails to

recognize his needs or his power to fulfil them, or to adapt himself to

the conditions of reality of the present time, there is then produced

that reanimation of infantile paths by which an attempt is made to gain

fulfilment or satisfaction through the production of symptoms or

attitudes.

The acceptance of these statements demands the recognition of the

existence of an infantile sexuality and the large part played by it in

the later life of the individual. Because of the power and imperious

influence exerted by the parents upon the child, and because of the

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

and the perseverance of this first love model in the psyche, he finds it

very difficult, on reaching the stage of adult development and the time

for seeking a love object outside of the family, to gain a satisfactory

model.

It is exceedingly important for parents and teachers to recognize the

requirements of nature, which, beginning with puberty, imperiously

demand of the young individual a separation of himself from the parent

stem and the development of an independent existence. In our complex

modern civilization this demand of nature is difficult enough of

achievement for the child who has the heartiest and most intelligent

co-operation of his parents and environment—but for the one who has not

only to contend with his own inner struggle for his freedom but has in

addition the resistance of his parents who would hold him in his

childhood at any cost, because they cannot endure the thought of his

separation from them, the task becomes one of the greatest magnitude. It

is during this period when the struggle between the childish inertia and

nature’s urge becomes so keen, that there occur the striking

manifestations of jealousy, criticism, irritability all usually directed

against the parents, of defiance of parental authority, of runaways and

various other psychic and nervous disorders known to all.

This struggle, which is the first great task of mankind and the one

which requires the greatest effort, is that which is expressed by Jung

as the self-sacrifice motive—the sacrifice of the childish feelings and

demands, and of the irresponsibility of this period, and the assumption

of the duties and tasks of an individual existence.

It is this great theme which Jung sees as the real motive lying hidden

in the myths and religions of man from the beginning, as well as in the

literature and artistic creations of both ancient and modern time, and

which he works out with the greatest wealth of detail and painstaking

effort in the book herewith presented.

This necessitates a recognition and revaluation of the enormous

importance and influence of the ego and the sexual instinct upon the

thought and reaction of man, and also predicates a displacement of the

psychological point of gravity from the will and intellect to the realm

of the emotions and feelings. The desired end is a synthesis of these

two paths or the use of the intellect constructively in the service of

the emotions in order to gain for the best interest of the individual

some sort of co-operative reaction between the two.

No one dealing with analytic psychology can fail to be struck by the

tremendous and unnecessary burdens which man has placed upon himself,

and how greatly he has increased the difficulties of adaptation by his

rigid intellectual views and moral formulas, and by his inability to

admit to himself that he is actually just a human being imperfect, and

containing within himself all manner of tendencies, good and bad, all

striving for some satisfactory goal. Further, that the refusal to see

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

actual condition, and that in fact, through the cheap pretense of being

able only to consider himself as a very virtuous person, or as shocked

and hurt when observing the “sins” of others, he actually is prevented

from developing his own character and bringing his own capacities to

their fullest expressions.

There is frequently expressed among people the idea of how fortunate it

is that we cannot see each other’s thoughts, and how disturbing it would

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

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

striving, longing, wishing for satisfaction, for happiness; those

desires which instinctively crave their own gratification but which can

only be really fulfilled by adapting them to the real world and to the

social group.

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

influence in all human endeavor is found in the ego itself, in its

desires, wishes, needs and satisfactions, in short, in its need for

self-expression and self-perpetuation, the evolutionary impetus in life?

The basis for the unpleasantness of this idea may perhaps be found in an

inner resistance in nature itself which forces man to include others in

his scheme, lest his own greedy desires should serve to destroy him. But

even with this inner demand and all the ethical and moral teachings of

centuries it is everywhere evident that man has only very imperfectly

learned that it is to his own interest to consider his neighbor and that

it is impossible for him to ignore the needs of the body social of which

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

impulse is objectionable because of the ideal conception that

self-striving and so-called selfish seeking are unworthy, ignoble and

incompatible with a desirable character and must be ignored at all cost.

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

all these centuries to even approximate it, as evidenced in our human

relations and institutions, and is quite as ineffectual in this realm as

in that of sexuality where the effort to overcome this imperious

domination has been attempted by lowering the instinct, and seeing in it

something vile or unclean, something unspeakable and unholy. Instead of

destroying the power of sexuality this struggle has only warped and

distorted, injured and mutilated the expression; for not without

destruction of the individual can these fundamental instincts be

destroyed. Life itself has needs and imperiously demands expression

through the forms created. All nature answers to this freely and simply

except man. His failure to recognize himself as an instrument through

which the life energy is coursing and the demands of which must be

obeyed, is the cause of his misery. Despite his possession of intellect

and self-consciousness, he cannot without disaster to himself refuse the

tasks of life and the fulfilment of his own needs. Man’s great task is

the adaptation of himself to reality and the recognition of himself as

an instrument for the expression of life according to his individual

possibilities.

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

found.

The value of self-consciousness lies in the fact that man is enabled to

reflect upon himself and learn to understand the true origin and

significance of his actions and opinions, that he may adequately value

the real level of his development and avoid being self-deceived and

therefore inhibited from finding his biological adaptation. He need no

longer be unconscious of the motives underlying his actions or hide

himself behind a changed exterior, in other words, be merely a series of

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

extent become a self-creating and self-determining being.

Indeed, there seems to be an impulse towards adaptation quite as Bergson

sees it, and it would seem to be a task of the highest order to use

intelligence to assist one’s self to work with this impulse.

Through the investigation of these different avenues leading into the

hidden depths of the human being and through the revelation of the

motives and influences at work there, although astonishing to the

uninitiated, a very clear and definite conception of the actual human

relationship—brotherhood—of all mankind is obtained. It is this

recognition of these common factors basically inherent in humanity from

the beginning and still active, which is at once both the most hopeful

and the most feared and disliked part of psychoanalysis.

It is disliked by those individuals who have prided themselves upon

their superiority and the distinction between their reactions and

motives and those of ordinary mankind. In other words, they attempt to

become personalities through elevating themselves and lowering others,

and it is a distinct blow to discover that beneath these pretensions lie

the very ordinary elements shared in common by all. On the other hand,

to those who have been able to recognize their own weaknesses and have

suffered in the privacy of their own souls, the knowledge that these

things have not set them apart from others, but that they are the common

property of all and that no one can point the finger of scorn at his

fellow, is one of the greatest experiences of life and is productive of

the greatest relief.

It is feared by many who realize that in these painfully acquired

repressions and symptoms lie their safety and their protection from

directly facing and dealing with tendencies and characteristics with

which they feel unable to cope. The repression and the accompanying

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

sort of compromise or substitute formation which permit, although only

in a wasteful and futile manner, the activity of the repressed

tendencies. Nevertheless, to analyze the individual back to his original

tendencies and reveal to him the meaning of these substitute formations

would be a useless procedure in which truly “the last state of that man

would be worse than the first” if the work ceased there. The aim is not

to destroy those barriers upon which civilized man has so painfully

climbed and to reduce him to his primitive state, but, where these have

failed or imperfectly succeeded, to help him to attain his greatest

possibilities with less expenditure of energy, by less wasteful methods

than nature provides. In this achievement lies the hopeful and valuable

side of this method—the development of the synthesis. It is hopeful

because now a way is opened to deal with these primitive tendencies

constructively, and render their effects not only harmless but useful,

by utilizing them in higher aims, socially and individually valuable and

satisfactory.

This is what has occurred normally in those individuals who seem capable

and constructive personalities; in those creative minds that give so

much to the race. They have converted certain psychological tendencies

which could have produced useless symptoms or destructive actions into

valuable productions. Indeed it is not uncommon for strong, capable

persons to state themselves that they knew they could have been equally

capable of a wasteful or destructive life. This utilization of the

energy or libido freed by removing the repressions and the lifting of

infantile tendencies and desires into higher purposes and directions

suitable for the individual at his present status is called

_sublimation_.

It must not be understood by this discussion that geniuses or wonderful

personalities can be created through analysis, for this is not the aim

of the procedure. Its purpose is to remove the inhibitions and

restrictions which interfere with the full development of the

personality, to help individuals attain to that level where they really

belong, and to prepare people to better understand and meet life whether

they are neurotic sufferers or so-called “normal people” with the

difficulties and peculiarities which belong to all.

This reasoning and method of procedure is only new when the application

is made to the human being. In all improvements of plants and animals

these general principles have been recognized and their teachings

constructively utilized.

Luther Burbank, that plant wizard whose work is known to all the world,

says, “A knowledge of the battle of the tendencies within a plant is the

very basis of all plant improvement,” and “it is not that the work of

plant improvement brings with it, incidentally, as people mistakenly

think, a knowledge of these forces, it is the knowledge of these forces,

rather, which makes plant improvement possible.”

Has this not been also the mistake of man regarding himself, and the

cause, partly at least, of his failure to succeed in actually reaching a

more advanced and stable development?

This recognition of man’s biological relationship to all life and the

practical utilization of this recognition, necessitates a readjustment

of thought and asks for an examination and reconsideration of the facts

of human conduct which are observable by any thoughtful person. A quiet

and progressive upheaval of old ideas has taken place and is still going

on. Analytic psychology attempts to unify and value all of the various

phenomena of man which have been observed and noted at different times

by isolated investigators of isolated manifestations and thus bring some

orderly sequence into the whole. It offers a method whereby the

relations of the human being biologically to all other living forms can

be established, the actual achievement of man himself adequately valued,

and opens a vista of the possibilities of improvement in health,

happiness and accomplishment for the human being.

BEATRICE M. HINKLE.

=10 Gramercy Park.=

AUTHOR’S NOTE

My task in this work has been to investigate an individual phantasy

system, and in the doing of it problems of such magnitude have been

uncovered, that my endeavor to grasp them in their entirety has

necessarily meant only a superficial orientation toward those paths, the

opening and exploration of which may possibly crown the work of future

investigators with success.

I am not in sympathy with the attitude which favors the repression of

certain possible working hypotheses because they are perhaps erroneous,

and so may possess no lasting value. Certainly I endeavored as far as

possible to guard myself from error, which might indeed become

especially dangerous upon these dizzy heights, for I am entirely aware

of the risks of these investigations. However, I do not consider

scientific work as a dogmatic contest, but rather as a work done for the

increase and deepening of knowledge.

This contribution is addressed to those having similar ideas concerning

science.

In conclusion, I must render thanks to those who have assisted my

endeavors with valuable aid, especially my dear wife and my friends, to

whose disinterested assistance I am deeply indebted.

C. G. JUNG.

ZURICH.

CONTENTS

PAGE

AUTHOR’S NOTE xlvii

PART I

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION 3

Relation of the Incest Phantasy to the Oedipus Legend—Moral

revulsion over such a discovery—The unity of the antique and

modern psychology—Followers of Freud in this field—The need

of analyzing historical material in relation to individual

analysis.

I.— CONCERNING THE TWO KINDS OF THINKING 8

Antiquity of the belief in dreams—Dream-meanings

psychological, not literal—They concern wish-fulfilments—A

typical dream: the sexual assault—What is symbolic in our

every-day thinking?—One kind of thinking: intensive and

deliberate, or directed—Directed thinking and thinking in

words—Origin of speech in primitive nature sounds—The

evolution of speech—Directed thinking a modern

acquisition—Thinking, not directed, a thinking in images:

akin to dreaming—Two kinds of thinking: directed and dream

or phantasy thinking—Science an expression of directed

thinking—The discipline of scholasticism as a

forerunner—Antique spirit created not science but

mythology—Their world of subjective phantasies similar to

that we find in the childmind of to-day; or in the

savage—The dream shows a similar type—Infantile thinking and

dreams a re-echo of the prehistoric and the ancient—The

myths a mass-dream of the people: the dream the myth of the

individual—Phantastic thinking concerns wishes—Typical

cases, showing kinship with ancient myths—Psychology of man

changes but slowly—Phantastic thinking tells us of mythical

or other material of undeveloped and no longer recognized

wish tendencies in the soul—The sexual base—The wish,

because of its disturbing nature, expressed not directly,

but symbolically.

II.— THE MILLER PHANTASIES 42

Miss Miller’s unusual suggestibility—Identifying herself

with others—Examples of her autosuggestibility and

suggestive effect—Not striking in themselves, but from

analytic viewpoint they afford a glance into the soul of the

writer—Her phantasies really tell of the history of her

love.

III.— THE HYMN OF CREATION 49

Miss Miller’s description of a sea-journey—Really a

description of “introversion”—A retreat from reality into

herself—The return to the real world with erotic impression

of officer singing in the night-watch—The undervaluing of

such erotic impressions—Their often deep effect—The

succeeding dream, and poem—The denied erotic impression

usurps an earlier transference: it expresses itself through

the Father-Imago—Analysis of the poem—Relation to Cyrano,

Milton and Job—The attempt to escape the problem by a

religious and ethical pose—Contrast with real

religion—Escape from erotic by transference to a God or

Christ—This made effective by mutual transference: “Love one

another”—The erotic spiritualized, however—The inner

conflict kept conscious by this method—The modern, however,

represses the conflict and so becomes neurotic—The function

of Christianity—Its biologic purpose fulfilled—Its forms of

thought and wisdom still available.

IV.— THE SONG OF THE MOTH 87

The double rôle of Faust: creator and destroyer—“I came not

to send peace, but a sword”—The modern problem of choice

between Scylla of world-renunciation and Charybdis of

world-acceptance—The ethical pose of The Hymn of Creation

having failed, the unconscious projects a new attempt in the

Moth-Song—The choice, as in Faust—The longing for the sun

(or God) the same as that for the ship’s officer—Not the

object, however: the longing is important—God is our own

longing to which we pay divine honors—The failure to replace

by a real compensation the libido-object which is

surrendered, produces regression to an earlier and discarded

object—A return to the infantile—The use of the parent

image—It becomes synonymous with God, Sun, Fire—Sun and

snake—Symbols of the libido gathered into the sun-symbol—The

tendency toward unity and toward multiplicity—One God with

many attributes: or many gods that are attributes of

one—Phallus and sun—The sun-hero, the well-beloved—Christ as

sun-god—“Moth and sun” then brings us to historic depths of

the soul—The sun-hero creative and destructive—Hence: Moth

and Flame: burning one’s wings—The destructiveness of being

fruitful—Wherefore the neurotic withdraws from the conflict,

committing a sort of self-murder—Comparison with Byron’s

Heaven and Earth.

PART II

I.— ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO 127

A backward glance—The sun the natural god—Comparison with

libido—Libido, “sun-energy”—The sun-image as seen by the

mystic in introversion—The phallic symbol of the

libido—Faust’s key—Mythical heroes with phallic

attributes—These heroes personifications of the human libido

and its typical fates—A definition of the word “libido”—Its

etymological context.

II.— THE CONCEPTION AND THE GENETIC THEORY OF LIBIDO 139

A widening of the conception of libido—New light from the

study of paranoia—The impossibility of restricting the

conception of libido to the sexual—A genetic definition—The

function of reality only partly sexual—Yet this, and other

functions, originally derivations from procreative

impulse—The process of transformation—Libido, and the

conception of will in general—Examples in mythology—The

stages of the libido: its desexualized derivatives and

differentiations—Sublimation vs. repression—Splittings off

of the primal libido—Application of genetic theory of libido

to introversion psychoses—Replacing reality by archaic

surrogates—Desexualizing libido by means of phantastic

analogy formations—Possibly human consciousness brought to

present state in this manner—The importance of the little

phrase: “Even as.”

III.— THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO. A POSSIBLE SOURCE OF 157

PRIMITIVE HUMAN DISCOVERIES

An example of transition of the libido—Act of boring with

forefinger: an infantile presexual activity—Similar

activities in patient’s early childhood—Outcome in dementia

præcox—Its phantasies related to mythological products: a

reproduction of the creations of antiquity—The freeing of

libido from the nutritive to enter the sexual function—The

epoch of suckling and the epoch of displaced rhythmic

activity—These followed by the beginnings of onanistic

attempts—An obstacle in the sexual zone produces regression

to a previous mode—These regressions easier in earlier

stages of humanity than now—The ethnological phantasy of

boring—Examples—The production of fire—Its sexual

significance—A substitute for coitus—The invention of

fire-making then due to the need of supplying a symbol for

the sexual act—The psychological compulsion for such

transitions of the libido based on an original division of

the will—Regression to incestuous—Prohibition here sends

incestuous component of libido back to presexual—Character

of its application here—The substitution of Mother-Earth for

the parent—Also of infantile boring—Leading then to

discovery of fire—An example in Hindoo literature—The sexual

significance of the mouth—Its other function: the mating

call—The regression which produced fire through boring also

elaborated the mating call—The beginnings of speech—Example

from the Hindoo—Speech and fire the first fruits of

transformation of libido—The fire-preparation regarded as

forbidden, as robbery—The forbidden thing onanism—Onanism a

cheating of sexuality of its purpose—The ceremonial

fire-production a substitute for the possibility of

onanistic regression—Thus a transformation of libido ensues.

IV.— THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 191

The cause of introversion—The forward and backward flow of

the libido—The abnormal third—The conflict rooted in the

incest problem—The “terrible mother”—Miss Miller’s

introversion—An internal conflict—Its product of hypnagogic

vision and poem—The uniformity of the unconscious in all

men—The unconscious the object of a true psychology—The

individual tendency with its production of the hero cult—The

love for the hero or god a love for the unconscious—A

turning back to the mother of humanity—Such regressions act

favorably within limits—Miss Miller’s mention of the

Sphinx—Theriomorphic representations of the libido—Their

tendency to represent father and mother—The Sphinx

represents the fear of the mother—Miss Miller’s mention of

the Aztec—Analysis of this figure—The significance of the

hand symbolically—The Aztec a substitute for the Sphinx—The

name Chi-wan-to-pel—The connection of the anal region with

veneration—Chiwantopel and Ahasver, the Wandering Jew—The

parallel with Chidher—Heroes generating themselves through

their own mothers—Analogy with the Sun—Setting and rising

sun: Mithra and Helios, Christ and Peter, Dhulqarnein and

Chidher—The fish symbol—The two Dadophores: the two

thieves—The mortal and immortal parts of man—The Trinity

taken from phallic symbolism—Comparison of libido with

phallus—Analysis of libido symbolism always leads back to

the mother incest—The hero myth the myth of our own

suffering unconscious—Faust.

V.— SYMBOLISM OF THE MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 233

The crowd as symbol of mystery—The city as symbol of the

mother—The motive of continuous “union”—The typical journey

of the sun-hero—Examples—A longing for rebirth through the

mother—The compulsion to symbolize the mother as City, Sea,

Source, etc.—The city as terrible mother and as holy

mother—The relation of the water-motive to rebirth—Of the

tree-motive—Tree of life a mother-image—The bisexual

character of trees—Such symbols to be understood

psychologically, not anatomically—The incestuous desire aims

at becoming a child again, not at incest—It evades incest by

creating myths of symbolic rebirth—The libido spiritualized

through this use of symbols—To be born of the spirit—This

compulsion toward symbolism brings a release of forces bound

up in incest—This process in Christianity—Christianity with

its repression of the manifest sexual the negative of the

ancient sexual cult—The unconscious transformation of the

incest wish into religious exercise does not meet the modern

need—A conscious method necessary, involving moral

autonomy—Replacing belief by understanding—The history of

the symbolism of trees—The rise of the idea of the terrible

mother a mask of the incest wish—The myth of Osiris—Related

examples—The motive of “devouring”—The Cross of Christ: tree

of death and tree of life—Lilith: the devouring mother—The

Lamias—The conquering of the mother—Snake and dragon: the

resistance against incest—The father represents the active

repulse of the incest wish of the son—He frequently becomes

the monster to be overcome by the hero—The Mithraic

sacrificing of the incest wish an overcoming of the mother—A

replacing of archaic overpowering by sacrifice of the

wish—The crucified Christ an expression of this

renunciation—Other cross sacrifices—Cross symbol possesses

significance of “union”—Child in mother’s womb: or man and

mother in union—Conception of the soul a derivative of

mother imago—The power of incest prohibition created the

self-conscious individual—It was the coercion to

domestication—The further visions of Miss Miller.

VI.— THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE FROM THE MOTHER 307

The appearance of the hero Chiwantopel on horseback—Hero and

horse equivalent of humanity and its repressed libido—Horse

a libido symbol, partly phallic, partly maternal, like the

tree—It represents the libido repressed through the incest

prohibition—The scene of Chiwantopel and the

Indian—Recalling Cassius and Brutus: also delirium of

Cyrano—Identification of Cassius with his mother—His

infantile disposition—Miss Miller’s hero also infantile—Her

visions arise from an infantile mother transference—Her hero

to die from an arrow wound—The symbolism of the arrow—The

onslaught of unconscious desires—The deadly arrows strike

the hero from within—It means the state of introversion—A

sinking back into the world of the child—The danger of this

regression—It may mean annihilation or new life—Examples of

introversion—The clash between the retrogressive tendency in

the individual unconscious and the conscious forward

striving—Willed introversion—The unfulfilled sacrifice in

the Miller phantasy means an attempt to renounce the mother:

the conquest of a new life through the death of the old—The

hero Miss Miller herself.

VII.— THE DUAL MOTHER ROLE 341

Chiwantopel’s monologue—His quest for the “one who

understands”—A quest for the mother—Also for the

life-companion—The sexual element in the wish—The battle for

independence from the mother—Its peril—Miss Miller’s use of

Longfellow’s Hiawatha—An analysis of Hiawatha—A typical hero

of the libido—The miraculous birth—The hero’s birth symbolic

because it is really a rebirth from the mother-spouse—The

twofold mother which in Christian mythology becomes twofold

birth—The hero his own procreator—Virgin conception a mask

for incestuous impregnation—Hiawatha’s early life—The

identification of mother-nature with the mother—The killing

of a roebuck a conquering of the parents—He takes on their

strength—He goes forth to slay the father in order to

possess the mother—Minnehaha, the mother—Hiawatha’s

introversion—Hiding in the lap of nature really a return to

the mother’s womb—The regression to the presexual revives

the importance of nutrition—The inner struggle with the

mother, to overpower and impregnate her—This fight against

the longing for the mother brings new strength—The Mondamin

motive in other myths—The Savior-hero the fruit of the

entrance of the libido into the personal maternal

depths—This is to die, and be born again—Hiawatha’s struggle

with the fish-monster—A new deliverance from the mother—And

so again with Megissogwon, the Magician—The hero must again

and again conquer the mother—Then follows his marriage with

Minnehaha—Other incidents, his death: the sinking of the sun

in the west—Miss Miller also reminded by Chiwantopel’s

longing of Wagner’s Siegfried—Analysis of the Siegfried

myth—The treasure-guarding dragon—The dragon the son’s

repressed longing for the mother—Symbolism of the cave—The

separation from the mother, the hero’s conquering of the

dragon—The symbolism of the cup—Drinking from the mother—Cup

of the blood of Christ—The resultant mysterious union of

man—Profane interpretations of this mystery—The phallic

significance of the serpent—The snake as representing the

introverting libido—Self-procreation: or creation of the

world through introversion—The world thus an emanation of

the libido—The hero himself a serpent—The psychoanalytic

treatment of regression—The hidden libido touched upon

causes a struggle: that is, the hero fights the fight with

the treasure-guarding dragon—The awakening of

Brunhilde—Siegfried finding his mother: a symbol of his own

libido—The conquest of the terrible mother brings the love

and life-giving mother.

VIII.— THE SACRIFICE 428

Miss Miller’s vision again—The paradoxical striving of the

libido away from the mother toward the mother—The destroying

mother becomes beneficent on being conquered—Chiwantopel a

hero of words, not deeds—He has not that will to live which

breaks the magic circle of the incestuous—His identification

with the author, and her wish for the parents—The end is the

devouring of the daughter’s libido by the mother—Sexuality

of the unconscious merely a symbol—Idle dreaming the mother

of the fear of death—This downward path in the poetry of

Hölderlin—The estrangement from reality, the introversion

leading to death—The necessity of freeing libido for a

complete devotion to life—Otherwise bound by unconscious

compulsion: Fate—Sublimation through voluntary work—Creation

of the world through cosmic sacrifice—Man discovers the

world when he sacrifices the mother—The incest barrier as

the producer of thought—Budding sexuality drawing the

individual from the family—The mind dawns at the moment the

child begins to be free of the mother—He seeks to win the

world, and leave the mother—Childish regression to the

presexual brings archaic phantasies—The incest problem not

physical, but psychological—Sacrifice of the horse:

sacrifice of the animal nature—The sacrifice of the “mother

libido”: of the son to the mother—Superiority of Christian

symbol: the sacrifice, not only of lower nature, but the

whole personality—Miss Miller’s phantasy passes from

sacrifice of the sexual, to sacrifice of the infantile

personality—Problem of psychoanalysis, expressed

mythologically, the sacrifice and rebirth of the infantile

hero—The libido wills the destruction of its creation: horse

and serpent—The end of the hero by means of earthquake—The

one who understands him is the mother.

“_Therefore theory, which gives to facts their value and significance,

is often very useful, even if it is partially false, for it throws light

on phenomena which no one observed, it forces an examination, from many

angles, of facts which no one had hitherto studied, and it gives the

impulse for more extended and more productive researches._

“_It is, therefore, a moral duty for the man of science to expose

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

order that science may continue to progress. A writer has attacked the

author for this very severely, saying, here is a scientific ideal very

limited and very paltry. But those who are endowed with a mind

sufficiently serious and impersonal as not to believe that all that they

write is the expression of truth absolute and eternal, approve of this

theory which places the aims of science well above the miserable vanity

and paltry ‘amour propre’ of the scientist._”—GUGLIELMO FERRERO.

_Les Lois Psychologiques du Symbolisme—1895. Preface, p. viii._

PART I

INTRODUCTION

Any one who can read Freud’s “Interpretation of the Dream” without

scientific rebellion at the newness and apparently unjustified daring of

its analytical presentation, and without moral indignation at the

astonishing nudity of the dream interpretation, and who can allow this

unusual array of facts to influence his mind calmly and without

prejudice, will surely be deeply impressed at that place where Freud

calls to mind the fact that an individual psychologic conflict, namely,

the Incest Phantasy, is the essential root of that powerful ancient

dramatic material, the Oedipus legend. The impression made by this

simple reference may be likened to that wholly peculiar feeling which

arises in us if, for example, in the noise and tumult of a modern street

we should come across an ancient relic—the Corinthian capital of a

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

were given over to the noisy ephemeral life of the present, when

something very far away and strange appears to us, which turns our

attention to things of another order; a glimpse away from the incoherent

multiplicity of the present to a higher coherence in history. Very

likely it would suddenly occur to us that on this spot where we now run

busily to and fro a similar life and activity prevailed two thousand

years ago in somewhat other forms; similar passions moved mankind, and

man was likewise convinced of the uniqueness of his existence. I would

liken the impression which the first acquaintance with the monuments of

antiquity so easily leaves behind to that impression which Freud’s

reference to the Oedipus legend makes—for while we are still engaged

with the confusing impressions of the variability of the Individual

Soul, suddenly there is opened a revelation of the simple greatness of

the Oedipus tragedy—that never extinguished light of the Grecian

theatre.

This breadth of outlook carries in itself something of revelation. For

us, the ancient psychology has long since been buried among the shadows

of the past; in the schoolroom one could scarcely repress a sceptical

smile when one indiscreetly reckoned the comfortable matronly age of

Penelope and the age of Jocasta, and comically compared the result of

the reckoning with the tragic-erotic struggles in the legend and drama.

We did not know at that time (and who knows even to-day?) that the

mother can be the all-consuming passion of the son, which perhaps

undermines his whole life and tragically destroys it, so that not even

the magnitude of the Oedipus Fate seems one jot overdrawn. Rare and

pathologically understood cases like Ninon de Lenclos and her son[4] lie

too far removed from most of us to give a living impression. But when we

follow the paths traced out by Freud, we arrive at a recognition of the

present existence of such possibilities, which, although they are too

weak to enforce incest, are still strong enough to cause disturbances of

considerable magnitude in the soul. The admission of such possibilities

to one’s self does not occur without a great burst of moral revulsion.

Resistances arise which only too easily dazzle the intellect, and,

through that, make knowledge of self impossible. Whenever we succeed,

however, in stripping feelings from more scientific knowledge, then that

abyss which separates our age from the antique is bridged, and, with

astonishment, we see that Oedipus is still a living thing for us. The

importance of such an impression should not be undervalued. We are

taught by this insight that there is an identity of elementary human

conflicts existing independent of time and place. That which affected

the Greeks with horror still remains true, but it is true for us only

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

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

succeeded in forgetting that an indissoluble common bond binds us to the

people of antiquity. With this truth a path is opened to the

understanding of the ancient mind; an understanding which so far has not

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

side, to an intellectual comprehension. Through buried strata of the

individual soul we come indirectly into possession of the living mind of

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

stable point of view outside our own culture, from which, for the first

time, an objective understanding of their mechanisms would be possible.

At least that is the hope which we get from the rediscovery of the

Oedipus problem.

The enquiry made possible by Freud’s work has already resulted

fruitfully; we are indebted to this stimulation for some bold attacks

upon the territory of the history of the human mind. There are the works

of Riklin,[5] Abraham,[6] Rank,[7] Maeder,[8] Jones,[9]—recently

Silberer has joined their ranks with a beautiful investigation entitled

“Phantasie und Mythus.”[10] We are indebted to Pfister[11] for a

comprehensive work which cannot be overlooked here, and which is of much

importance for Christian religious psychology. The leading purpose of

these works is the unlocking of historical problems through the

application of psychoanalytic knowledge; that is to say, knowledge drawn

from the activity of the modern unconscious mind concerning specific

historical material.

I must refer the reader entirely to the specified works, in order that

he may gain information concerning the extent and the kind of insight

which has already been obtained. The explanations are in many cases

dubious in particulars; nevertheless, this detracts in no way from the

total result. It would be significant enough if only the far-reaching

analogy between the psychologic structure of the historical relics and

the structure of the recent individual psychologic products alone were

demonstrated. This proof is possible of attainment for every intelligent

person through the work done up to this time. The analogy prevails

especially in symbolism, as Riklin, Rank, Maeder, and Abraham have

pointed out with illuminating examples; it is also shown in the

individual mechanisms of unconscious work, that is to say in repression,

condensation, etc., as Abraham explicitly shows.

Up to the present time the psychoanalytic investigator has turned his

interest chiefly to the analysis of the individual psychologic problems.

It seems to me, however, that in the present state of affairs there is a

more or less imperative demand for the psychoanalyst to broaden the

analysis of the individual problems by a comparative study of historical

material relating to them, just as Freud has already done in a masterly

manner in his book on “Leonardo da Vinci.”[12] For, just as the

psychoanalytic conceptions promote understanding of the historic

psychologic creations, so reversedly historical materials can shed new

light upon individual psychologic problems. These and similar

considerations have caused me to turn my attention somewhat more to the

historical, in the hope that, out of this, new insight into the

foundations of individual psychology might be won.

CHAPTER I

CONCERNING THE TWO KINDS OF THINKING

It is a well-known fact that one of the principles of analytic

psychology is that the dream images are to be understood symbolically;

that is to say, that they are not to be taken literally just as they are

presented in sleep, but that behind them a hidden meaning has to be

surmised. It is this ancient idea of a dream symbolism which has

challenged not only criticism, but, in addition to that, the strongest

opposition. That dreams may be full of import, and, therefore, something

to be interpreted, is certainly neither a strange nor an extraordinary

idea. This has been familiar to mankind for thousands of years, and,

therefore, seems much like a banal truth. The dream interpretations of

the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and the story of Joseph who interpreted

Pharaoh’s dreams, are known to every one, and the dream book of

Artemidorus is also familiar. From countless inscribed monuments of all

times and peoples we learn of foreboding dreams, of significant, of

prophetic and also of curative dreams which the Deity sent to the sick,

sleeping in the temple. We know the dream of the mother of Augustus, who

dreamt she was to be with child by the Deity transformed into a snake.

We will not heap up references and examples to bear witness to the

existence of a belief in the symbolism of dreams. When an idea is so

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

indeed, as is mostly the case, _is not literally true, but is true

psychologically_. In this distinction lies the reason why the old fogies

of science have from time to time thrown away an inherited piece of

ancient truth; because it was not literal but psychologic truth. For

such discrimination this type of person has at no time had any

comprehension.

From our experience, it is hardly conceivable that a God existing

outside of ourselves causes dreams, or that the dream, eo ipso, foresees

the future prophetically. When we translate this into the psychologic,

however, then the ancient theories sound much more reconcilable, namely,

_the dream arises from a part of the mind unknown to us, but none the

less important, and is concerned with the desires for the approaching

day_. This psychologic formula derived from the ancient superstitious

conception of dreams, is, so to speak, exactly identified with the

Freudian psychology, which assumes a rising wish from the unconscious to

be the source of the dream.

As the old belief teaches, the Deity or the Demon speaks in symbolic

speech to the sleeper, and the dream interpreter has the riddle to

solve. In modern speech we say this means that the dream is a _series of

images, which are apparently contradictory and nonsensical, but arise in

reality from psychologic material which yields a clear meaning_.

Were I to suppose among my readers a far-reaching ignorance of dream

analysis, then I should be obliged to illustrate this statement with

numerous examples. To-day, however, these things are quite well known,

so that one must proceed carefully with every-day dream material, out of

consideration for a public educated in these matters. It is a special

inconvenience that no dream can be recounted without being obliged to

add to it half a life’s history which affords the individual foundations

of the dream, but there are some few typical dreams which can be told

without too great a ballast. One of these is the dream of the sexual

assault, which is especially prevalent among women. A girl sleeping

after an evening happily spent in dancing, dreams that a robber breaks

open her door noisily and stabs through her body with a lance. This

theme, which explains itself, has countless variations, some simple,

some complicated. Instead of the lance it is a sword, a dagger, a

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

a burglary, a pursuit, a robbery, or it is some one hidden in the closet

or under the bed. Or the danger may be illustrated by wild animals; for

instance, a horse which throws the dreamer to the ground and kicks her

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

threatening trunks, and finally snakes in endless variety. Sometimes the

snake creeps into the mouth, sometimes it bites the breast like

Cleopatra’s legendary asp, sometimes it comes in the rôle of the

paradisical snake, or in the variations of Franz Stuck, whose pictures

of snakes bear the significant titles “Vice,” “Sin,” “Lust.” The mixture

of lust and anxiety is expressed incomparably in the very atmosphere of

these pictures, and far more brutally, indeed, than in Mörike’s charming

poem.

_The Maiden’s First Love Song_

What’s in the net?

Behold,

But I am afraid,

Do I grasp a sweet eel,

Do I seize a snake?

Love is a blind

Fisherwoman;

Tell the child

Where to seize.

Already it leaps in my hands.

Oh, Pity, or delight!

With nestlings and turnings

It coils on my breast,

It bites me, oh, wonder!

Boldly through the skin,

It darts under my heart.

Oh, Love, I shudder!

What can I do, what can I begin?

That shuddering thing;

There it crackles within

And coils in a ring.

It must be poisoned.

Here it crawls around.

Blissfully I feel as it worms

Itself into my soul

And kills me finally.

All these things are simple, and need no explanation to be intelligible.

Somewhat more complicated, but still unmistakable, is the dream of a

woman; she sees the triumphal arch of Constantine. A cannon stands

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

out of the tube; the projectile hits her; it goes into her pocket, into

her purse. There it remains, and she holds her purse as if something

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

only the stock of the cannon, and over that Constantine’s motto, “In hoc

signo vinces.”

These few references to the symbolic nature of dreams are perhaps

sufficient. For whomsoever the proof may appear insufficient, and it is

certainly insufficient for a beginner, further evidence may be found in

the fundamental work of Freud, and in the works of Stekel and Rank which

are fuller in certain particulars. We must assume here that the dream

symbolism is an established fact, in order to bring to our study a mind

suitably prepared for an appreciation of this work. We would not be

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

that an intellectual image can be projected into our conscious psychic

activity; an image which apparently obeys such wholly other laws and

purposes than those governing the conscious psychic product.

_Why are dreams symbolic?_ Every “why” in psychology is divided into two

separate questions: first, _for what purpose are dreams symbolic_? We

will answer this question only to abandon it at once. Dreams are

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

wish, which is the source of the dream, may remain unknown. The question

why this is so and not otherwise, leads us out into the far-reaching

experiences and trains of thought of the Freudian psychology.

Here the second question interests us, viz., _How is it that dreams are

symbolic?_ That is to say, from where does this capacity for symbolic

representation come, of which we, in our conscious daily life, can

discover apparently no traces?

Let us examine this more closely. Can we really discover nothing

symbolic in our every-day thought? Let us follow our trains of thought;

let us take an example. We think of the war of 1870 and 1871. We think

about a series of bloody battles, the siege of Strassburg, Belfort,

Paris, the Treaty of Peace, the foundation of the German Empire, and so

on. How have we been thinking? We start with an idea, or super-idea, as

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

guided by a feeling of direction, we think about individual

reminiscences of the war. In this we can find nothing symbolic, and our

whole conscious thinking proceeds according to this type.[13]

If we observe our thinking very narrowly, and follow an intensive train

of thought, as, for example, the solution of a difficult problem, then

suddenly we notice that we are thinking in words, that in wholly

intensive thinking we begin to speak to ourselves, or that we

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

absolutely clear. It must certainly have happened to any one who has

lived for some time in a foreign country, that after a certain period he

has begun to think in the language of the country. A very intensive

train of thinking works itself out more or less in _word form_; that is,

if one wants to express it, to teach it, or to convince any one of it.

Evidently it directs itself wholly to the outside world. To this extent,

this directed or logical thinking is a reality thinking,[14] having a

real existence for us; that is to say, a thinking which adjusts itself

to actual conditions,[15] where we, expressed in other words, imitate

the succession of objectively real things, so that the images in our

mind follow after each other in the same strictly causal succession as

the historical events outside of our mind.[16]

We call this thinking, thinking with directed attention. It has, in

addition, the peculiarity that one is tired by it, and that, on this

account, it is set into action only for a time. Our whole vital

accomplishment, which is so expensive, is adaptation to environment; a

part of it is the directed thinking, which, biologically expressed, is

nothing but a process of psychic assimilation, which, as in every vital

accomplishment, leaves behind a corresponding exhaustion.

The material with which we think is _language and speech concept_, a

thing which has been used from time immemorial as something external, a

bridge for thought, and which has a single purpose—that of

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

speak to others.[17]

Speech is originally a system of emotional and imitative sounds—sounds

which express terror, fear, anger, love; and sounds which imitate the

noises of the elements, the rushing and gurgling of water, the rolling

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

so on; and, finally, those which represent a combination of the sounds

of perception and of affective reaction.[18] Likewise in the more or

less modern languages, large quantities of onomatopoetic relics are

retained; for example, sounds for the movement of water,—

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

ruisseau, river, Rhein.

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

Thus language is originally and essentially nothing but a system of

signs or symbols, which denote real occurrences, or their echo in the

human soul.

Therefore one must decidedly agree with Anatole France,[19] when he

says,

“What is thought, and how do we think? We think with words; that alone

is sensual and brings us back to nature. Think of it! The

metaphysician has only the perfected cry of monkeys and dogs with

which to construct the system of the world. That which he calls

profound speculation and transcendent method is to put end to end in

an arbitrary order the natural sounds which cry out hunger, fear, and

love in the primitive forests, and to which were attached little by

little the meanings which one believed to be abstract, when they were

only crude.

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

which compose a book of philosophy, will teach us so much regarding

the universe, that we can live in it no longer.”

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

furthest removed from our fellows, this thinking is nothing but the

first notes of a long-drawn-out call to our companions that water had

been found, that we had killed the bear, that a storm was approaching,

or that wolves were prowling around the camp. A striking paradox of

Abélard’s which expresses in a very intuitive way the whole human

limitation of our complicated thinking process, reads,—“_Sermo generatur

ab intellectu et generat intellectum_.”[20]

Any system of philosophy, no matter how abstract, represents in means

and purpose nothing more than an extremely cleverly developed

combination of original nature sounds.[21] Hence arises the desire of a

Schopenhauer or a Nietzsche for recognition and understanding, and the

despair and bitterness of their loneliness. One might expect, perhaps,

that a man full of genius could pasture in the greatness of his own

thoughts, and renounce the cheap approbation of the crowd which he

despises; yet he succumbs to the more powerful impulse of the herd

instinct. His searching and his finding, his call, belong to the herd.

When I said just now that directed thinking is properly a thinking with

words, and quoted that clever testimony of Anatole France as drastic

proof of it, a misunderstanding might easily arise, namely, that

directed thinking is really only “word.” That certainly would go too

far. Language should, however, be comprehended in a wider sense than

that of speech, which is in itself only the expression of the formulated

thought which is capable of being communicated in the widest sense.

Otherwise, the deaf mute would be limited to the utmost in his capacity

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

the spoken word, he has his “language.” This language, considered from

the standpoint of history, or in other words, directed thinking, is here

a descendant of the primitive words, as, for instance, Wundt[22]

expresses it.

“A further important result of that co-operation of sound and sign

interchange consists in the fact that very many words gradually lose

altogether their original concrete thought meaning, and turn into

signs for general ideas and for the expression of the apperceptive

functions of relation and comparison and their products. In this

manner abstract thought develops, which, because it would not be

possible without the change of meaning lying at the root of it, is

indeed a production of that psychic and psychophysical reciprocal

action out of which the development of language takes place.”

Jodl[23] denies the identity of language and thought, because, for one

reason, one and the same psychic fact might be expressed in different

languages in different ways. From that he draws the conclusion that a

“super-language thinking” exists. Certainly there is such a thing,

whether with Erdmann one considers it “hypologisch,” or with Jodl as

“super-language.” Only this is not logical thinking. My conception of it

agrees with the noteworthy contribution made by Baldwin, which I will

quote here word for word.[24]

“The transmission from pre-judgmental to judgmental meaning is just

that from knowledge which has social confirmation to that which gets

along without it. The meanings utilized for judgment are those already

developed in their presuppositions and applications through the

confirmation of social intercourse. Thus, the personal judgment,

trained in the methods of social rendering, and disciplined by the

interaction of its social world, projects its content into that world

again. In other words, the platform for all movement into the

assertion of individual judgment—the level from which new experience

is utilized—is already and always socialized; and it is just this

movement that we find reflected in the actual results as the sense of

the ‘appropriateness’ or synomic character of the meaning rendered.

“Now the development of thought, as we are to see in more detail, is

by a method essentially of trial and error, of experimentation, of the

use of meanings as worth more than they are as yet recognized to be

worth. The individual must use his own thoughts, his established

knowledges, his grounded judgments, for the embodiment of his new

inventive constructions. He erects his thought as we say

‘schematically’—in logic terms, ‘problematically,’ conditionally,

disjunctively; projecting into the world an opinion still peculiar to

himself, as if it were true. _Thus all discovery proceeds._ But this

is, from the linguistic point of view, still to use the current

language, still to work by meanings already embodied in social and

conventional usage.

“Language grows, therefore, just as thought does, by never losing its

synomic or dual reference; its meaning is both personal and social.

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

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

social copy-system, thus established, reflects the judgmental

processes of the race, and in turn becomes the training school of the

judgment of new generations.

“Most of the training of the self, whereby the vagaries of personal

reaction to fact and image are reduced to the basis of sound judgment,

comes through the use of speech. When the child speaks, he lays before

the world his suggestion for a general or common meaning. The

reception he gets confirms or refutes him. In either case he is

instructed. His next venture is now from a platform of knowledge on

which the newer item is more nearly convertible into the common coin

of effective intercourse. The point to notice here is not so much the

exact mechanism of the exchange—secondary conversion—by which this

gain is made, as the training in judgment that the constant use of it

affords. In each case, effective judgment is the common judgment.

“Here the object is to point out that it is secured by the development

of a function _whose rise is directly ad hoc_, directly for the social

experimentation by which growth in personal competence is advanced as

well—_the function of speech_.

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

tangible—the actual—the historical—instrument of the development and

conservation of psychic meaning. It is the material evidence and proof

of the _concurrence of social and personal judgment_. In it synomic

meaning, judged as ‘appropriate,’ becomes ‘social’ meaning, held as

socially generalized and acknowledged.”

These arguments of Baldwin abundantly emphasize the wide-reaching

limitations of thinking caused by language.[25] These limitations are of

the greatest significance, both subjectively and objectively; at least

their meaning is great enough to force one to ask one’s self if, after

all, in regard to independence of thought, Franz Mauthner, thoroughly

sceptical, is not really correct in his view that thinking is speech and

nothing more. Baldwin expresses himself more cautiously and reservedly;

nevertheless, his inner meaning is plainly in favor of the primacy of

speech (naturally not in the sense of the spoken word); the directed

thinking, or as we might perhaps call it, the thinking in internal

speech, is the manifest instrument of culture, and we do not go astray

when we say that the powerful work of education which the centuries have

given to directed thinking has produced, just through the peculiar

development of thinking from the individual subjective into the social

objective, a practical application of the human mind to which we owe

modern empiricism and technic, and which occurs for absolutely the first

time in the history of the world. Inquisitive minds have often tormented

themselves with the question why the undoubtedly extraordinary knowledge

of mathematics and principles and material facts united with the

unexampled art of the human hand in antiquity never arrived at the point

of developing those known technical statements of fact, for instance,

the principles of simple machines, beyond the realm of the amusing and

curious to a real technic in the modern sense. There is necessarily only

one answer to this; the ancients almost entirely, with the exception of

a few extraordinary minds, lacked the capacity to allow their interest

to follow the transformations of inanimate matter to the extent

necessary for them to be able to reproduce the process of nature,

creatively and through their own art, by means of which alone they could

have succeeded in putting themselves in possession of the force of

nature. That which they lacked was training in directed thinking, or, to

express it psychoanalytically, the ancients did not succeed in tearing

loose the libido which might be sublimated, from the other natural

relations, and did not turn voluntarily to anthropomorphism. The secret

of the development of culture lies in the _mobility of the libido_, and

in its capacity for transference. It is, therefore, to be assumed that

the directed thinking of our time is a more or less modern acquisition,

which was lacking in earlier times.

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

not think directedly? Then our thinking lacks the major idea, and the

feeling of direction which emanates from that.[26] We no longer compel

our thoughts along a definite track, but let them float, sink and mount

according to their own gravity. According to Kulpe[27] thinking is a

kind of inner will action, the absence of which necessarily leads to an

automatic play of ideas. James understands the non-directed thinking, or

“merely associative” thinking, as the ordinary one. He expresses himself

about that in the following manner:

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

which produces the other; _a sort of passive dream-state of which the

higher animals are also capable_. This sort of thinking leads,

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

theoretical nature.

“As a rule, the links of this sort of irresponsible thinking, which

are accidentally bound together, are empirically concrete things, not

abstractions.”

We can, in the following manner, complete these definitions of William

James. This sort of thinking does not tire us; it quickly leads us away

from reality into phantasies of the past and future. Here, thinking in

the form of speech ceases, image crowds upon image, feeling upon

feeling; more and more clearly one sees a tendency which creates and

makes believe, not as it truly is, but as one indeed might wish it to

be.[28] The material of these thoughts which turns away from reality,

can naturally be only the past with its thousand memory pictures. The

customary speech calls this kind of thinking “dreaming.”

Whoever attentively observes himself will find the general custom of

speech very striking, for almost every day we can see for ourselves how,

when falling asleep, phantasies are woven into our dreams, so that

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

Thus we have two forms of thinking—_directed thinking_ and _dream or

phantasy thinking_. The first, working for communication with speech

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

goes on without trouble, working spontaneously, so to speak, with

reminiscences. The first creates innovations, adaptations, imitates

reality and seeks to act upon it. The latter, on the contrary, turns

away from reality, sets free subjective wishes, and is, in regard to

adaptation, wholly unproductive.[29]

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

ways of thinking, and turn back to the second proposition, namely, how

comes it that we have two different ways of thinking? I have intimated

above that history shows us that directed thinking was not always as

developed as it is at present. In this age the most beautiful expression

of directed thinking is science, and the technic fostered by it. Both

things are indebted for their existence simply to an energetic education

in directed thinking. At the time, however, when a few forerunners of

the present culture, like the poet Petrarch, first began to appreciate

Nature understandingly[30] there was already in existence an equivalent

for our science, to wit, scholasticism.[31] This took its objects from

the phantasies of the past, and it gave to the mind a dialectic training

in directed thinking. The only success which beckoned the thinker was

rhetorical victory in disputation, and not a visible transformation of

reality.

The subjects of thinking were often astonishingly phantastical; for

example, questions were discussed, such as how many angels could have a

place on the point of a needle? Whether Christ could have done his work

of redemption equally well if he had come into the world as a pea? The

possibility of such problems, to which belong the metaphysical problems

in general, viz., to be able to know the unknowable, shows us of what

peculiar kind that mind must have been which created such things which

to us are the height of absurdity. Nietzsche had guessed, however, at

the biological background of this phenomenon when he spoke of the

“beautiful tension” of the Germanic mind which the Middle Ages created.

Taken historically, scholasticism, in the spirit of which persons of

towering intellectual powers, such as Thomas of Aquinas, Duns Scotus,

Abélard, William of Occam and others, have labored, is the mother of the

modern scientific attitude, and a later time will see clearly how and in

what scholasticism still furnishes living undercurrents to the science

of to-day. Its whole nature lies in dialectic gymnastics which have

raised the symbol of speech, the word, to an almost absolute meaning, so

that it finally attained to that substantiality which expiring antiquity

could lend to its _logos_ only temporarily, through attributes of

mystical valuation. The great work of scholasticism, however, appears to

be the foundation of firmly knitted intellectual sublimation, the

_conditio sine qua non_ of the modern scientific and technical spirit.

Should we go further back into history, we shall find that which to-day

we call science, dissolved into an indistinct cloud. The modern

culture-creating mind is incessantly occupied in stripping off all

subjectivity from experience, and in finding those formulas which bring

Nature and her forces to the best and most fitting expression. It would

be an absurd and entirely unjustified self-glorification if we were to

assume that we are more energetic or more intelligent than the

ancients—our materials for knowledge have increased, but not our

intellectual capacity. For this reason, we become immediately as

obstinate and insusceptible in regard to new ideas as people in the

darkest times of antiquity. Our knowledge has increased but not our

wisdom. The main point of our interest is displaced wholly into material

reality; antiquity preferred a mode of thought which was more closely

related to a phantastic type. Except for a sensitive perspicuity towards

works of art, not attained since then, we seek in vain in antiquity for

that precise and concrete manner of thinking characteristic of modern

science. We see the antique spirit create not science but mythology.

Unfortunately, we acquire in school only a very paltry conception of the

richness and immense power of life of Grecian mythology.

Therefore, at first glance, it does not seem possible for us to assume

that that energy and interest which to-day we put into science and

technic, the man of antiquity gave in great part to his mythology. That,

nevertheless, gives the explanation for the bewildering changes, the

kaleidoscopic transformations and new syncretistic groupings, and the

continued rejuvenation of the myths in the Grecian sphere of culture.

Here, we move in a world of phantasies, which, little concerned with the

outer course of things, flows from an inner source, and, constantly

changing, creates now plastic, now shadowy shapes. This phantastical

activity of the ancient mind created artistically _par excellence_. The

object of the interest does not seem to have been to grasp hold of the

“how” of the real world as objectively and exactly as possibly, but to

æsthetically adapt subjective phantasies and expectations. There was

very little place among ancient people for the coldness and disillusion

which Giordano Bruno’s thoughts on eternity and Kepler’s discoveries

brought to modern humanity. The naïve man of antiquity saw in the sun

the great Father of the heaven and the earth, and in the moon the

fruitful good Mother. Everything had its demons; they animated equally a

human being and his brother, the animal. Everything was considered

according to its anthropomorphic or theriomorphic attributes, as human

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

in order to illustrate its movement. Thus arose an idea of the universe

which was not only very far from reality, but was one which corresponded

wholly to subjective phantasies.

We know, from our own experience, this state of mind. It is an infantile

stage. To a child the moon is a man or a face or a shepherd of the

stars. The clouds in the sky seem like little sheep; the dolls drink,

eat and sleep; the child places a letter at the window for the

Christ-child; he calls to the stork to bring him a little brother or

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

cat. We know, too, that lower races, like the negroes, look upon the

locomotive as an animal, and call the drawers of the table the child of

the table.

As we learn through Freud, the dream shows a similar type. Since the

dream is unconcerned with the real condition of things, it brings the

most heterogeneous matter together, and a world of impossibilities takes

the place of realities. Freud finds progression characteristic of

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

excitation from the system of the inner or outer perception through the

“endopsychic” work of association, conscious and unconscious, to the

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

the reverse, namely, regression of the thought excitation from the

preconscious or unconscious to the system of perception, by the means of

which the dream receives its ordinary impression of sensuous

distinctness, which can rise to an almost hallucinating clearness. The

dream thinking moves in a retrograde manner towards the raw material of

memory. “The structure of the dream thoughts is dissolved during the

progress of regression into its raw material.” The reanimation of the

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

side is regression to the infantile memory material, which might also be

understood as regression to the original perception, but which deserves

especial mention on account of its independent importance. This

regression might, indeed, be considered as “historical.” The dream,

according to this conception, might also be described as _the substitute

of the infantile scene, changed through transference into the recent

scene_.

The infantile scene cannot carry through its revival; it must be

satisfied with its return as a dream. From this conception of the

historical side of regression, it follows consequently that the modes of

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

at the same time an analogous and infantile character. This is truly the

case, as experience has abundantly shown, so that to-day every one who

is familiar with the subject of dream analysis confirms Freud’s

proposition that _dreams are a piece of the conquered life of the

childish soul_. Inasmuch as the childish psychic life is undeniably of

an archaic type, this characteristic belongs to the dream in quite an

unusual degree. Freud calls our attention to this especially.

“The dream, which fulfils its wishes by a short, regressive path,

affords us only an example of the primary method of working of the

psychic apparatus, which has been abandoned by us as unsuitable. That

which once ruled in the waking state, when the psychical life was

still young and impotent, appears to be banished to the dream life, in

somewhat the same way as the bow and arrow, those discarded, primitive

weapons of adult humanity, have been relegated to the nursery.”[32]

All this experience suggests to us that we draw a parallel between the

phantastical, mythological thinking of antiquity and the similar

thinking of children, between the lower human races and dreams.[33] This

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

our knowledge of comparative anatomy and the history of development,

which show us how the structure and function of the human body are the

results of a series of embryonic changes which correspond to similar

changes in the history of the race. Therefore, the supposition is

justified that ontogenesis corresponds in psychology to phylogenesis.

Consequently, it would be true, as well, that the state of infantile

thinking in the child’s psychic life, as well as in dreams, is nothing

but a re-echo of the prehistoric and the ancient.[34]

In regard to this, Nietzsche takes a very broad and remarkable

standpoint.[35]

“In our sleep and in our dreams we pass through the whole thought of

earlier humanity. I mean, in the same way that man reasons in his

dreams, he reasoned when in the waking state many thousands of years.

The first _causa_ which occurred to his mind in reference to anything

that needed explanation, satisfied him and passed for truth. In the

dream this atavistic relic of humanity manifests its existence within

us, for it is the foundation upon which the higher rational faculty

developed, and which is still developing in every individual. The

dream carries us back into earlier states of human culture, and

affords us a means of understanding it better. The dream thought is so

easy to us now, because we are so thoroughly trained to it through the

interminable stages of evolution during which this phantastic and

facile form of theorizing has prevailed. To a certain extent the dream

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

meet the severe demands for trained thought, made by the conditions of

a higher civilization.

“From these facts, we can understand how lately more acute logical

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

developed; when our functions of reason and intelligence still reach

back involuntarily to those primitive forms of conclusion, and we live

about half our lives in this condition.”

We have already seen that Freud, independently of Nietzsche, has reached

a similar standpoint from the basis of dream analysis. The step from

this established proposition to the perception of the myths as familiar

dream images is no longer a great one. Freud has formulated this

conclusion himself.[36]

“The investigation of this folk-psychologic formation, myths, etc., is

by no means finished at present. To take an example of this, however,

it is probable that the myths correspond to the distorted residue of

wish phantasies of whole nations, the secularized dreams of young

humanity.”

Rank[37] understands the myths in a similar manner, as a mass dream of

the people.[38] Riklin[39] has insisted rightly upon the dream mechanism

of the fables, and Abraham[40] has done the same for the myths. He says:

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

and

“Thus the myth is a _sustained, still remaining_ fragment from the

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

individual.”

An unprejudiced reading of the above-mentioned authors will certainly

allay all doubts concerning the intimate connection between dream

psychology and myth psychology. The conclusion results almost from

itself, that the age which created the myths thought childishly—that is

to say, phantastically, as in our age is still done, to a very great

extent (associatively or analogically) in dreams. The beginnings of myth

formations (in the child), the taking of phantasies for realities, which

is partly in accord with the historical, may easily be discovered among

children.

One might raise the objection that the mythological inclinations of

children are implanted by education. The objection is futile. Has

humanity at all ever broken loose from the myths? Every man has eyes and

all his senses to perceive that the world is dead, cold and unending,

and he has never yet seen a God, nor brought to light the existence of

such from empirical necessity. On the contrary, there was need of a

phantastic, indestructible optimism, and one far removed from all sense

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

Christ really the highest salvation and the redemption of the world.

Thus one can indeed withhold from a child the substance of earlier myths

but not take from him the need for mythology. One can say, that should

it happen that all traditions in the world were cut off with a single

blow, then with the succeeding generation, the whole mythology and

history of religion would start over again. Only a few individuals

succeed in throwing off mythology in a time of a certain intellectual

supremacy—the mass never frees itself. Explanations are of no avail;

they merely destroy a transitory form of manifestation, but not the

creating impulse.

Let us again take up our earlier train of thought.

We spoke of the ontogenetic re-echo of the phylogenetic psychology among

children, we saw that phantastic thinking is a characteristic of

antiquity, of the child, and of the lower races; but now we know also

that our modern and adult man is given over in large part to this same

phantastic thinking, which enters as soon as the directed thinking

ceases. A lessening of the interest, a slight fatigue, is sufficient to

put an end to the directed thinking, the exact psychological adaptation

to the real world, and to replace it with phantasies. We digress from

the theme and give way to our own trains of thought; if the slackening

of the attention increases, then we lose by degrees the consciousness of

the present, and the phantasy enters into possession of the field.

Here the important question obtrudes itself: How are phantasies created?

From the poets we learn much about it; from science we learn little. The

psychoanalytic method, presented to science by Freud, shed light upon

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

stutterer imagines he is a great orator. The truth of this, Demosthenes,

thanks to his energy, has proven. The poor man imagines himself to be a

millionaire, the child an adult. The conquered fight out victorious

battles with the conquerer; the unfit torments or delights himself with

ambitious plans. We imagine that which we lack. The interesting question

of the “why” of all this we must here leave unanswered, while we return

to the historic problem: From what source do the phantasies draw their

materials?[41] We chose, as an example, a typical phantasy of puberty. A

child in that stage before whom the whole frightening uncertainty of the

future fate opens, puts back the uncertainty into the past, through his

phantasy, and says, “If only I were not the child of my ordinary

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

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

come, and the count would take his child back with him to his wonderful

castle,” and so it goes on, as in Grimm’s Fairy Tales which the mother

tells to her children.[42] With a normal child, it stops with the

fugitive, quickly-passing idea which is soon covered over and forgotten.

However, at one time, and that was in the ancient world of culture, the

phantasy was an openly acknowledged institution. The heroes,—I recall

Romulus and Remus, Semiramis, Moses and many others,—have been separated

from their real parents.[43] Others are directly sons of gods, and the

noble races derive their family trees from heroes and gods. As one sees

by this example, the phantasy of modern humanity is nothing but a

re-echo of an old-folk-belief, which was very widespread originally.[44]

The ambitious phantasy chooses, among others, a form which is classic,

and which once had a true meaning. The same thing holds good in regard

to the sexual phantasy. In the preamble we have spoken of dreams of

sexual assault: the robber who breaks into the house and commits a

dangerous act. That, too, is a mythological theme, and in the

prehistoric era was certainly a reality too.[45] Wholly apart from the

fact that the capture of women was something general in the lawless

prehistoric times, it was also a subject of mythology in cultivated

epochs. I recall the capture of Proserpina, Deianira, Europa, the Sabine

women, etc. We must not forget that, even to-day, marriage customs exist

in various regions which recall the ancient custom of marriage by

capture.

The symbolism of the instrument of coitus was an inexhaustible material

for ancient phantasy. It furnished a widespread cult that was designated

phallic, the object of reverence of which was the phallus. The companion

of Dionysus was Phales, a personification of the phallus proceeding from

the phallic Herme of Dionysus. The phallic symbols were countless. Among

the Sabines, the custom existed for the bridegroom to part the bride’s

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

symbols. In addition, there existed in enormous quantities theriomorphic

representations of the sexual instinct, in connection with which the

bull, the he-goat, the ram, the boar and the ass were frequently used.

An undercurrent to this choice of symbol was furnished by the sodomitic

inclination of humanity. When in the dream phantasy of modern man, the

feared man is replaced by an animal, there is recurring in the

ontogenetic re-echo the same thing which was openly represented by the

ancients countless times. There were he-goats which pursued nymphs,

satyrs with she-goats; in still older times in Egypt there even existed

a shrine of a goat god, which the Greeks called Pan, where the

Hierodules prostituted themselves with goats.[46] It is well known that

this worship has not died out, but continues to live as a special custom

in South Italy and Greece.[47]

To-day we feel for such a thing nothing but the deepest abhorrence, and

never would admit it still slumbered in our souls. Nevertheless, just as

truly as the idea of the sexual assault is there, so are these things

there too; which we should contemplate still more closely,—not through

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

since these things are venerable relics of past culture periods. We

have, even to-day, a clause in our penal code against sodomy. But that

which was once so strong as to give rise to a worship among a highly

developed people has probably not wholly disappeared from the human soul

during the course of a few generations. We may not forget that since the

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

with the so-called “normal sexuality,” only eighty generations have

passed. And what are eighty generations? They shrink to an imperceptible

period of time when compared with the space of time which separates us

from the homo-Neandertalensis or Heidelbergensis. I might call to mind,

in this connection, some choice thoughts of the great historian

Guglielmo Ferrero:[48]

“It is a very common belief that the further man is separated from the

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

feelings; that the psychology of humanity changes from century to

century, like fashions of literature. Therefore, no sooner do we find

in past history an institution, a custom, a law or a belief a little

different from those with which we are familiar, than we immediately

search for some complex meanings, which frequently resolve themselves

into phrases of doubtful significance.

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

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

to another, it does not change the functioning of his mind. The

fundamental laws of the mind remain the same, at least during the

short historical period of which we have knowledge, and all phenomena,

even the most strange, must be capable of explanation by those common

laws of the mind which we can recognize in ourselves.”

The psychologist should accept this viewpoint without reservation as

peculiarly applicable to himself. To-day, indeed, in our civilization

the phallic processions, the Dionysian mysteries of classical Athens,

the barefaced Phallic emblems, have disappeared from our coins, houses,

temples and streets; so also have the theriomorphic representations of

the Deity been reduced to small remnants, like the Dove of the Holy

Ghost, the Lamb of God and the Cock of Peter adorning our church towers.

In the same way, the capture and violation of women have shrunken away

to crimes. Yet all of this does not affect the fact that we, in

childhood, go through a period in which the impulses toward these

archaic inclinations appear again and again, and that through all our

life we possess, side by side with the newly recruited, directed and

adapted thought, a phantastic thought which corresponds to the thought

of the centuries of antiquity and barbarism. Just as our bodies still

keep the reminders of old functions and conditions in many old-fashioned

organs, so our minds, too, which apparently have outgrown those archaic

tendencies, nevertheless bear the marks of the evolution passed through,

and the very ancient re-echoes, at least dreamily, in phantasies.

The symbolism which Freud has discovered, is revealed as an expression

of a thinking and of an impulse limited to the dream, to wrong conduct,

and to derangements of the mind, which form of thinking and impulse at

one time ruled as the mightiest influence in past culture epochs.

The question of _whence_ comes the inclination and ability which enables

the mind to express itself symbolically, brings us to the distinction

between the two kinds of thinking—the directed and adapted on one hand,

and the subjective, fed by our own egotistic wishes, on the other. The

latter form of thinking, presupposing that it were not constantly

corrected by the adapted thinking, must necessarily produce an

overwhelmingly subjectively distorted idea of the world. We regard this

state of mind as infantile. It lies in our individual past, and in the

past of mankind.

With this we affirm the important fact that man in his phantastic

thinking has kept a condensation of the psychic history of his

development. An extraordinarily important task, which even to-day is

hardly possible, is to give a systematic description of phantastic

thinking. One may, at the most, sketch it. While directed thinking is a

phenomenon conscious throughout,[49] the same cannot be asserted of

phantastic thinking. Doubtless, a great part of it still falls entirely

in the realm of the conscious, but, at least, just as much goes along in

half shadows, and generally an undetermined amount in the unconscious;

and this can, therefore, be disclosed only indirectly.[50] By means of

phantastic thinking, directed thinking is connected with the oldest

foundations of the human mind, which have been for a long time beneath

the threshold of the consciousness. The products of this phantastic

thinking arising directly from the consciousness are, first, waking

dreams, or day-dreams, to which Freud, Flournoy, Pick and others have

given special attention; then the dreams which offer to the

consciousness, at first, a mysterious exterior, and win meaning only

through the indirectly inferred unconscious contents. Lastly, there is a

so-called wholly unconscious phantasy system in the split-off complex,

which exhibits a pronounced tendency towards the production of a

dissociated personality.[51]

Our foregoing explanations show wherein the products arising from the

unconscious are related to the mythical. From all these signs it may be

concluded that the soul possesses in some degree historical strata, the

oldest stratum of which would correspond to the unconscious. The result

of that must be that an introversion occurring in later life, according

to the Freudian teaching, seizes upon regressive infantile reminiscences

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

with stronger introversion and regression (strong repressions,

introversion psychoses), there come to light pronounced traits of an

archaic mental kind which, under certain circumstances, might go as far

as the re-echo of a once manifest, archaic mental product.

This problem deserves to be more thoroughly discussed. As a concrete

example, let us take the history of the pious Abbé Oegger which Anatole

France has communicated to us.[52] This priest was a hypercritical man,

and much given to phantasies, especially in regard to one question,

viz., the fate of Judas; whether he was really damned, as the teaching

of the church asserts, to everlasting punishment, or whether God had

pardoned him after all. Oegger sided with the intelligent point of view

that God, in his all-wisdom, had chosen Judas as an instrument, in order

to bring about the highest point of the work of redemption by

Christ.[53] This necessary instrument, without the help of which the

human race would not have been a sharer in salvation, could not possibly

be damned by the all-good God. In order to put an end to his doubts,

Oegger went one night to the church, and made supplication for a sign

that Judas was saved. Then he felt a heavenly touch upon his shoulder.

Following this, Oegger told the Archbishop of his resolution to go out

into the world to preach God’s unending mercy.

Here we have a richly developed phantasy system before us. It is

concerned with the subtle and perpetually undecided question as to

whether the legendary figure of Judas is damned or not. The Judas legend

is, in itself, mythical material, viz., the malicious betrayal of a

hero. I recall Siegfried and Hagen, Balder and Loki. Siegfried and

Balder were murdered by a faithless traitor from among their closest

associates. This myth is moving and tragic—it is not honorable battle

which kills the noble, but evil treachery. It is, too, an occurrence

which is historical over and over again. One thinks of Cæsar and Brutus.

Since the myth of such a deed is very old, and still the subject of

teaching and repetition, it is the expression of a psychological fact,

that envy does not allow humanity to sleep, and that all of us carry, in

a hidden recess of our heart, a deadly wish towards the hero. This rule

can be applied generally to mythical tradition. _It does not set forth

any account of the old events, but rather acts in such a way that it

always reveals a thought common to humanity, and once more rejuvenated._

Thus, for example, the lives and deeds of the founders of old religions

are the purest condensations of typical, contemporaneous myths, behind

which the individual figure entirely disappears.[54]

But why does our pious Abbé torment himself with the old Judas legend?

He first went into the world to preach the gospel of mercy, and then,

after some time, he separated from the Catholic church and became a

Swedenborgian. Now we understand his Judas phantasy. _He was the Judas_

who betrayed his Lord. Therefore, first of all, he had to make sure of

the divine mercy, in order to be Judas in peace.

This case throws a light upon the mechanism of the phantasies in

general. The known, conscious phantasy may be of mythical or other

material; it is not to be taken seriously as such, for it has an

indirect meaning. If we take it, however, as important per se, then the

thing is not understandable, and makes one despair of the efficiency of

the mind. But we saw, in the case of Abbé Oegger, that his doubts and

his hopes did not turn upon the historical problem of Judas, but upon

his own personality, which wished to win a way to freedom for itself

through the solution of the Judas problem.

_The conscious phantasies tell us of mythical or other material of

undeveloped or no longer recognized wish tendencies in the soul._ As is

easily to be understood, an innate tendency, an acknowledgment of which

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

contain a thing that may be in accord with our conscious character. It

concerns the tendencies which are considered immoral, and as generally

impossible, and the strongest resentment is felt towards bringing them

into the consciousness. What would Oegger have said had he been told

confidentially that he was preparing himself for the Judas rôle? And

what in ourselves do we consider immoral and non-existent, or which we

at least wish were non-existent? It is that which in antiquity lay

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

manifestations. Therefore, we need not wonder in the least when we find

this at the base of most of our phantasies, even if the phantasies have

a different appearance. Because Oegger found the damnation of Judas

incompatible with God’s goodness, he thought about the conflict in that

way; that is the conscious sequence. Along with this is the unconscious

sequence; because Oegger himself wished to be a Judas, he first made

sure of the goodness of God. To Oegger, Judas was the symbol of his own

unconscious tendency, and he made use of this symbol in order to be able

to meditate over his unconscious wish. The direct coming into

consciousness of the Judas wish would have been too painful for him.

_Thus, there must be typical myths which are really the instruments of a

folk-psychological complex treatment._ Jacob Burckhardt seems to have

suspected this when he once said that every Greek of the classical era

carried in himself a fragment of the Oedipus, just as every German

carries a fragment of Faust.[55]

The problem which the simple story of the Abbé Oegger has brought

clearly before us confronts us again when we prepare to examine

phantasies which owe their existence this time to an exclusively

unconscious work. We are indebted for the material which we will use in

the following chapters to the useful publication of an American woman,

Miss Frank Miller, who has given to the world some poetical

unconsciously formed phantasies under the title, “Quelque faits

d’imagination créatrice subconsciente.”—_Vol. V., Archives de

Psychologie, 1906._[56]

CHAPTER II

THE MILLER PHANTASIES

We know, from much psychoanalytic experience, that whenever one recounts

his phantasies or his dreams, he deals not only with the most important

and intimate of his problems, but with the one the most painful at that

moment.[57]

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

system, we must give our attention carefully to the particulars which I

will discuss, following as best I can Miss Miller’s presentation.

In the first chapter, “Phénomènes de suggestion passagère ou

d’autosuggestion instantanée,” Miss Miller gives a list of examples of

her unusual suggestibility, which she herself considers as a symptom of

her nervous temperament; for example, she is excessively fond of caviar,

whereas some of her relatives loathe it. However, as soon as any one

expresses his loathing, she herself feels momentarily the same loathing.

I do not need to emphasize especially the fact that such examples are

very important in individual psychology; that caviar is a food for which

nervous women frequently have an especial predilection, is a fact well

known to the psychoanalyst.

Miss Miller has an extraordinary faculty for taking other people’s

feelings upon herself, and of identification; for example, she

identifies herself to such a degree in “Cyrano” with the wounded

Christian de Neuvillette, that she feels in her own breast a truly

piercing pain at that place where Christian received the deadly blow.

From the viewpoint of analytic psychology, the theatre, aside from any

esthetic value, may be considered as an institution for the treatment of

the mass complex. The enjoyment of the comedy, or of the dramatic plot

ending happily is produced by an unreserved identification of one’s own

complexes with the play. The enjoyment of tragedy lies in the thrilling

yet satisfactory feeling that something which might occur to one’s self

is happening to another. The sympathy of our author with the dying

Christian means that there is in her a complex awaiting a similar

solution, which whispers softly to her “hodie tibi, cras mihi,” and that

one may know exactly what is considered the effectual moment Miss Miller

adds that she felt a pain in her breast, “Lorsque Sarah Bernhardt se

précipite sur lui pour étancher le sang de sa blessure.” Therefore the

effectual moment is when the love between Christian and Roxane comes to

a sudden end.

If we glance over the whole of Rostand’s play, we come upon certain

moments, the effect of which one cannot easily escape and which we will

emphasize here because they have meaning for all that follows. Cyrano de

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

countless duels, loves Roxane, who, for her part unaware of it, loves

Christian, because of the beautiful verses which really originate from

Cyrano’s pen, but which apparently come from Christian. Cyrano is the

misunderstood one, whose passionate love and noble soul no one suspects;

the hero who sacrifices himself for others, and, dying, just in the

evening of life, reads to her once more Christian’s last letter, the

verses which he himself had composed.

“Roxane, adieu, je vais mourir!

C’est pour ce soir, je crois, ma bien-aimée!

J’ai l’âme lourde encore d’amour inexprimé.

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

Mes regards dont c’était les frémissantes fêtes,

Ne baiseront au vol les gestes que vous faites;

J’en revois un petit qui vous est familier

Pour toucher votre front et je voudrais crier—.

Et je crie:

Adieu!—Ma chère, ma chérie,

Mon trésor—mon amour!

Mon coeur ne vous quitta jamais une seconde,

Et je suis et je serai jusque dans l’autre monde

Celui qui vous aime sans mesure, celui—”

Whereupon Roxane recognizes in him the real loved one. It is already too

late; death comes; and in agonized delirium, Cyrano raises himself, and

draws his sword:

“Je crois, qu’elle regarde....

Qu’elle ose regarder mon nez, la camarde!

(Il lève son épée.)

Que dites-vous?... C’est inutile!

Je le sais!

Mais on ne se bat pas dans l’espoir du succès!

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

—Qu’est-ce que c’est que tous ceux-là?—Vous êtes mille?

Ah! je vous reconnais, tous mes vieux ennemis!

Le mensonge!

(Il frappe de son épée le vide.)

Tiens, tiens, ha! ha! les Compromis,

Les Préjugés, les Lâchetés!...

(Il frappe.)

Que je pactise?

Jamais, jamais!—Ah, te voilà, toi, la Sottise!

—Je sais bien qu’à la fin vous me mettrez à bas;

N’importe: je me bats! je me bats! je me bats!

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

Arrachez! Il y a malgré vous quelque chose

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

Mon salut balaiera largement le seuil bleu.

Quelque chose que sans un pli, sans une tache,

J’emporte malgré vous, et c’est—mon panache.”

Cyrano, who under the hateful exterior of his body hid a soul so much

more beautiful, is a yearner and one misunderstood, and his last triumph

is that he departs, at least, with a clean shield—“Sans un pli et sans

une tache.” The identification of the author with the dying Christian,

who in himself is a figure but little impressive and sympathetic,

expresses clearly that a sudden end is destined for her love just as for

Christian’s love. The tragic intermezzo with Christian, however, is

played as we have seen upon a background of much wider significance,

viz., the misunderstood love of Cyrano for Roxane. Therefore, the

identification with Christian has only the significance of a substitute

memory (“deckerinnerung”), and is really intended for Cyrano. That this

is just what we might expect will be seen in the further course of our

analysis.

Besides this story of identification with Christian, there follows as a

further example an extraordinarily plastic memory of the sea, evoked by

the sight of a photograph of a steamboat on the high seas. (“Je sentis

les pulsations des machines, le soulèvement des vagues, le balancement

du navire.”)

We may mention here the supposition that there are connected with sea

journeys particularly impressive and strong memories which penetrate

deeply into the soul and give an especially strong character to the

surface memories through unconscious harmony. To what extent the

memories assumed here agree with the above mentioned problem we shall

see in the following pages.

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

bathing, Miss Miller wound a towel around her hair, in order to protect

it from a wetting. At the same moment she had the following strong

impression:

“Il me sembla que j’étais sur un piédestal, une véritable statue

égyptienne, avec tous ses détails: membres raides, un pied en avant,

la main tenant des insignes,” and so on.

Miss Miller identified herself, therefore, with an Egyptian statue, and

naturally the foundation for this was a subjective pretension. That is

to say, “I am like an Egyptian statue, just as stiff, wooden, sublime

and impassive,” qualities for which the Egyptian statue is proverbial.

One does not make such an assertion to one’s self without an inner

compulsion, and the correct formula might just as well be, “as stiff,

wooden, etc., as an Egyptian statue I might indeed be.” The sight of

one’s own unclothed body in a bath has undeniable effects for the

phantasy, which can be set at rest by the above formula.[58]

The example which follows this, emphasizes the author’s personal

influence upon an artist:

“J’ai réussi à lui faire rendre des paysages, comme ceux du lac Léman,

où il n’a jamais été, et il prétendait que je pouvais lui faire rendre

des choses qu’il n’avait jamais vues, et lui donner la sensation d’une

atmosphère ambiante qu’il n’avait jamais sentie; bref que je me

servais de lui comme lui-même se servait de son crayon, c’est à dire

comme d’un simple instrument.”

This observation stands in abrupt contrast to the phantasy of the

Egyptian statue. Miss Miller had here the unspoken need of emphasizing

her almost magic effect upon another person. This could not have

happened, either, without an unconscious need, which is particularly

felt by one who does not often succeed in making an emotional impression

upon a fellow being.

With that, the list of examples which are to picture Miss Miller’s

autosuggestibility and suggestive effect, is exhausted. In this respect,

the examples are neither especially striking nor interesting. From an

analytical viewpoint, on the contrary, they are much more important,

since they afford us a glance into the soul of the writer. Ferenczi[59]

has taught us in an excellent work what is to be thought about

suggestibility, that is to say, that these phenomena win new aspects in

the light of the Freudian libido theory, in so much as their effects

become clear through “Libido-besetzungen.” This was already indicated

above in the discussion of the examples, and in the greatest detail

regarding the identification with Christian. The identification becomes

effective by its receiving an influx of energy from the strongly

accentuated thought and emotional feeling underlying the Christian

motif. Just the reverse is the suggestive effect of the individual in an

especial capacity for concentrating interest (that is to say, libido)

upon another person, by which the other is unconsciously compelled to

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

cases where Miss Miller is put under the effects of suggestion; that is

to say, when the libido has spontaneously gained possession of certain

impressions, and this is impossible if the libido is dammed up to an

unusual degree by the lack of application to reality. Miss Miller’s

observations about suggestibility inform us, therefore, of the fact that

the author is pleased to tell us in her following phantasies something

of the history of her love.

CHAPTER III

THE HYMN OF CREATION

The second chapter in Miss Miller’s work is entitled, “Gloire à Dieu.

Poème onirique.”

When twenty years of age, Miss Miller took a long journey through

Europe. We leave the description of it to her:

“After a long and rough journey from New York to Stockholm, from there

to Petersburg and Odessa, I found it a true pleasure[60] to leave the

world of inhabited cities—and to enter the world of waves, sky and

silence—I stayed hours long on deck to dream, stretched out in a

reclining chair. The histories, legends and myths of the different

countries which I saw in the distance, came back to me indistinctly

blended together in a sort of luminous mist, in which things lost

their reality, while the dreams and thoughts alone took on somewhat

the appearance of reality. At first, I even avoided all company and

kept to myself, lost wholly in my dreams, where all that I knew of

great, beautiful and good came back into my consciousness with new

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

to my distant friends, reading and sketching out short poems about the

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

character.”

It may seem superfluous, perhaps, to enter intimately into all these

details. If we recall, however, the remark made above,—that when people

let their unconscious speak, they always tell us the most important

things of their intimate selves—then even the smallest detail appears to

have meaning. Valuable personalities invariably tell us, through their

unconscious, things that are generally valuable, so that patient

interest is rewarded.

Miss Miller describes here a state of “introversion.” After the life of

the cities with their many impressions had been absorbing her interest

(with that already discussed strength of suggestion which powerfully

enforced the impression) she breathed freely upon the ocean, and after

so many external impressions, became engrossed wholly in the internal

with intentional abstraction from the surroundings, so that things lost

their reality and dreams became truth. We know from psychopathology that

certain mental disturbances[61] exist which are first manifested by the

individuals shutting themselves off slowly, more and more, from reality

and sinking into their phantasies, during which process, in proportion

as the reality loses its hold, the inner world gains in reality and

determining power.[62] This process leads to a certain point (which

varies with the individual) when the patients suddenly become more or

less conscious of their separation from reality. The event which then

enters is the pathological excitation: that is to say, the patients

begin to turn towards the environment, with diseased views (to be sure)

which, however, still represent the compensating, although unsuccessful,

attempt at transference.[63] The methods of reaction are, naturally,

very different. I will not concern myself more closely about this here.

This type appears to be generally a psychological rule which holds good

for all neuroses and, therefore, also for the normal in a much less

degree. We might, therefore, expect that Miss Miller, after this

energetic and persevering introversion, which had even encroached for a

time upon the feeling of reality, would succumb anew to an impression of

the real world and also to just as suggestive and energetic an influence

as that of her dreams. Let us proceed with the narrative:

“But as the journey drew to an end, the ship’s officers outdid

themselves in kindness (tout ce qu’il y a de plus empressé et de plus

aimable) and I passed many amusing hours teaching them English. On the

Sicilian coast, in the harbor of Catania, I wrote a sailor’s song

which was very similar to a song well known on the sea, (Brine, wine

and damsels fine). The Italians in general all sing very well, and one

of the officers who sang on deck during night watch, had made a great

impression upon me and had given me the idea of writing some words

adapted to his melody. Soon after that, I was very nearly obliged to

reverse the well-known saying, ‘Veder Napoli e poi morir,’—that is to

say, suddenly I became very ill, although not dangerously so. I

recovered to such an extent, however, that I could go on land to visit

the sights of the city in a carriage. This day tired me very much, and

since we had planned to see Pisa the following day, I went on board

early in the evening and soon lay down to sleep without thinking of

anything more serious than the beauty of the officers and the ugliness

of the Italian beggars.”

One is somewhat disappointed at meeting here, instead of the expected

impression of reality, rather a small intermezzo, a flirtation.

Nevertheless, one of the officers, the singer, had made a great

impression (il m’avait fait beaucoup d’impression). The remark at the

close of the description, “sans songer à rien de plus sérieux qu’à la

beauté des officiers,” and so on, diminishes the seriousness of the

impression, it is true. The assumption, however, that the impression

openly influenced the mood very much, is supported by the fact that a

poem upon a subject of such an erotic character came forth immediately,

“Brine, wine and damsels fine,” and in the singer’s honor. One is only

too easily inclined to take such an impression lightly, and one admits

so gladly the statements of the participators when they represent

everything as simple and not at all serious. I dwell upon this

impression at length, because it is important to know that an erotic

impression after such an introversion, has a deep effect and is

undervalued, possibly, by Miss Miller. The suddenly passing sickness is

obscure and needs a psychologic interpretation which cannot be touched

upon here because of lack of data. The phenomena now to be described can

only be explained as arising from a disturbance which reaches to the

very depths of her being.

“From Naples to Livorno, the ship travelled for a night, during which

I slept more or less well,—my sleep, however, is seldom deep or

dreamless. It seemed to me as if my mother’s voice wakened me, just at

the end of the following dream. At first I had a vague conception of

the words, ‘When the morning stars sang together,’ which were the

praeludium of a certain confused representation of creation and of the

mighty chorals resounding through the universe. In spite of the

strange, contradictory and confused character which is peculiar to the

dream, there was mingled in it the chorus of an oratorio which has

been given by one of the foremost musical societies of New York, and

with that were also memories of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost.’ Then from

out of this whirl, there slowly emerged certain words, which arranged

themselves into three strophes and, indeed, they seemed to be in my

own handwriting on ordinary blue-lined writing paper on a page of my

old poetry book which I always carried around with me; in short, they

appeared to me exactly as some minutes later they were in reality in

my book.”

Miss Miller now wrote down the following poem, which she rearranged

somewhat a few months later, to make it more nearly, in her opinion,

like the dream original.

“When the Eternal first made Sound

A myriad ears sprang out to hear,

And throughout all the Universe

There rolled an echo deep and clear:

All glory to the God of Sound!

“When the Eternal first made Light

A myriad eyes sprang out to look,

And hearing ears and seeing eyes

Once more a mighty choral took:

All glory to the God of Light!

“When the Eternal first gave Love

A myriad hearts sprang into life;

Ears filled with music, eyes with light;

Pealed forth with hearts with love all rife:

All glory to the God of Love!”

Before we enter upon Miss Miller’s attempt to bring to light through her

suppositions[64] the root of this subliminal creation, we will attempt a

short analytic survey of the material already in our possession. The

impression on the ship has already been properly emphasized, so that we

need have no further difficulty in gaining possession of the dynamic

process which brought about this poetical revelation. It was made clear

in the preceding paragraphs that Miss Miller possibly had not

inconsiderably undervalued the importance of the erotic impression. This

assumption gains in probability through experience, which shows that,

very generally, relatively weak erotic impressions are greatly

undervalued. One can see this best in cases where those concerned,

either from social or moral grounds, consider an erotic relation as

something quite impossible; for example, parents and children, brothers

and sisters, relations (homosexual) between older and younger men, and

so on. If the impression is relatively slight, then it does not exist at

all for the participators; if the impression is strong, then a tragic

dependence arises, which may result in some great nonsense, or be

carried to any extent. This lack of understanding can go unbelievably

far; mothers, who see the first erections of the small son in their own

bed, a sister who half-playfully embraces her brother, a twenty-year-old

daughter who still seats herself on her father’s lap, and then has

“strange” sensations in her “abdomen.” They are all morally indignant to

the highest degree if one speaks of “sexuality.” Finally, our whole

education is carried on with the tacit agreement to know as little as

possible of the erotic, and to spread abroad the deepest ignorance in

regard to it. It is no wonder, therefore, that the judgment, _in

puncto_, of the importance of an erotic impression is generally unsafe

and inadequate.

Miss Miller was under the influence of a deep erotic impression, as we

have seen. Because of the sum-total of the feelings aroused by this, it

does not seem that this impression was more than dimly realized, for the

dream had to contain a powerful repetition. From analytic experience,

one knows that the early dreams which patients bring for analysis are

none the less of especial interest, because of the fact that they bring

out criticisms and valuations of the physician’s personality, which

previously, would have been asked for directly in vain. They enrich the

conscious impression which the patient had of his physician, and often

concerning very important points. They are naturally erotic observations

which the unconscious was forced to make, just because of the quite

universal undervaluation and uncertain judgment of the relatively weak

erotic impression. In the drastic and hyperbolic manner of expression of

the dream, the impression often appears in almost unintelligible form on

account of the immeasurable dimension of the symbol. A further

peculiarity which seems to rest upon the historic strata of the

unconscious, is this—that an erotic impression, to which conscious

acknowledgment is denied, usurps an earlier and discarded transference

and expresses itself in that. Therefore, it frequently happens, for

example, that among young girls at the time of their first love,

remarkable difficulties develop in the capacity for erotic expression,

which may be reduced analytically to disturbances through a regressive

attempt at resuscitation of the father image, or the “Father-Imago.”[65]

Indeed, one might presume something similar in Miss Miller’s case, for

the idea of the masculine creative deity is a derivation, analytically

and historically psychologic, of the “Father-Imago,”[66] and aims, above

all, to replace the discarded infantile father transference in such a

way that for the individual the passing from the narrow circle of the

family into the wider circle of human society may be simpler or made

easier.

In the light of this reflection, we can see, in the poem and its

“Praeludium,” the religious, poetically formed product of an

introversion depending upon the surrogate of the “Father-Imago.” In

spite of the incomplete apperception of the effectual impression,

essential component parts of this are included in the idea of

compensation, as marks, so to speak, of its origin. (Pfister has coined

for this the striking expression, “Law of the Return of the Complex.”)

The effectual impression was that of the officer singing in the night

watch, “When the morning stars sang together.” The idea of this opened a

new world to the girl. (Creation.)

This creator has created tone, then light, and then love. That the first

to be created should have been tone, can be made clear only

individually, for there is no cosmogony except the Gnosis of Hermes, a

generally quite unknown system, which would have such tendencies. But

now we might venture a conjecture, which is already apparent, and which

soon will be proven thoroughly, viz., the following chain of

associations: the singer—the singing morning stars—the God of tone—the

Creator—the God of Light—(of the sun)—(of the fire)—and of Love.

The links of this chain are proven by the material, with the exception

of sun and fire, which I put in parentheses, but which, however, will be

proven through what follows in the further course of the analysis. All

of these expressions, with one exception, belong to erotic speech. (“My

God, star, light; my sun, fire of love, fiery love,” etc.) “Creator”

appears indistinct at first, but becomes understandable through the

reference to the undertone of Eros, to the vibrating chord of Nature,

which attempts to renew itself in every pair of lovers, and awaits the

wonder of creation.

Miss Miller had taken pains to disclose the unconscious creation of her

mind to her understanding, and, indeed through a procedure which agrees

in principle with psychoanalysis, and, therefore, leads to the same

results as psychoanalysis. But, as usually happens with laymen and

beginners, Miss Miller, because she had no knowledge of psychoanalysis,

left off at the thoughts which necessarily bring the deep complex lying

at the bottom of it to light in an indirect, that is to say, censored

manner. More than this, a simple method, merely the carrying out of the

thought to its conclusion, is sufficient to discover the meaning. Miss

Miller finds it astonishing that her unconscious phantasy does not,

following the Mosaic account of creation, put light in the first place,

instead of tone.

Now follows an explanation, theoretically constructed and correct ad

hoc, the hollowness of which is, however, characteristic of all similar

attempts at explanation. She says:

“It is perhaps interesting to recall that Anaxagoras also had the

Cosmos arise out of chaos through a sort of whirlwind, which does not

happen usually without producing sound.[67] But at this time I had

studied no philosophy, and knew nothing either of Anaxagoras or of his

theories about the ‘νοῦς,’ which I, unconsciously, was openly

following. At that time, also, I was equally in complete ignorance of

Leibnitz, and, therefore, knew nothing of his doctrine ‘dum Deus

calculat, fit mundus.’”

Miss Miller’s references to Anaxagoras and to Leibnitz both refer to

creation by means of thought; that is to say, that divine thought alone

could bring forth a new material reality, a reference at first not

intelligible, but which will soon, however, be more easily understood.

We now come to those fancies from which Miss Miller principally drew her

unconscious creation.

“In the first place, there is the ‘Paradise Lost’ by Milton, which we

had at home in the edition illustrated by Doré, and which had often

delighted me from childhood. Then the ‘Book of Job,’ which had been

read aloud to me since the time of my earliest recollection. Moreover,

if one compares the first words of ‘Paradise Lost’ with my first

verse, one notices that there is the same verse measure.

“‘Of man’s first disobedience ...

“‘When the Eternal first made sound.’

“My poem also recalls various passages in Job, and one or two places

in Handel’s Oratorio ‘The Creation,’ which came out very indistinctly

in the first part of the dream.”[68]

The “Lost Paradise” which, as is well known, is so closely connected

with the beginning of the world, is made more clearly evident by the

verse—

“Of man’s first disobedience”

which is concerned evidently with the fall, the meaning of which need

not be shown any further. I know the objection which every one

unacquainted with psychoanalysis will raise, viz., that Miss Miller

might just as well have chosen any other verse as an example, and that,

accidentally, she had taken the first one that happened to appear which

had this content, also accidentally. As is well known, the criticism

which we hear equally from our medical colleagues, and from our

patients, is generally based on such arguments. This misunderstanding

arises from the fact that the law of causation in the psychical sphere

is not taken seriously enough; that is to say, there are no accidents,

no “just as wells.” It is so, and there is, therefore, a sufficient

reason at hand why it is so. It is moreover true that Miss Miller’s poem

is connected with the fall, wherein just that erotic component comes

forth, the existence of which we have surmised above.

Miss Miller neglects to tell which passages in Job occurred to her mind.

These, unfortunately, are therefore only general suppositions. Take

first, the analogy to the Lost Paradise. Job lost all that he had, and

this was due to an act of Satan, who wished to incite him against God.

In the same way mankind, through the temptation of the serpent, lost

Paradise, and was plunged into earth’s torments. The idea, or rather the

mood which is expressed by the reference to the Lost Paradise, is Miss

Miller’s feeling that she had lost something which was connected with

satanic temptation. To her it happened, just as to Job, that she

suffered innocently, for she did not fall a victim to temptation. Job’s

sufferings are not understood by his friends;[69] no one knows that

Satan has taken a hand in the game, and that Job is truly innocent. Job

never tires of avowing his innocence. Is there a hint in that? We know

that certain neurotic and especially mentally diseased people

continually defend their innocence against non-existent attacks;

however, one discovers at a closer examination that the patient, while

he apparently defends his innocence without reason, fulfils with that a

“Deckhandlung,” the energy for which arises from just those impulses,

whose sinful character is revealed by the contents of the pretended

reproach and calumny.[70]

Job suffered doubly, on one side through the loss of his fortune, on the

other through the lack of understanding in his friends; the latter can

be seen throughout the book. The suffering of the misunderstood recalls

the figure of Cyrano de Bergerac—he too suffered doubly, on one side

through hopeless love, on the other side through misunderstanding. He

falls, as we have seen, in the last hopeless battle against “Le

Mensonge, les Compromis, les Préjugés, les Lâchetés et la Sottise.—Oui,

Vous m’arrachez tout le laurier et la rose!”

Job laments

“God delivereth me to the ungodly,

And casteth me into the hands of the wicked,

I was at ease, and he brake me asunder;

Yea, he hath taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces:

“_He hath also set me up for his mark.

His archers compass me round about_;

He cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare;

He poureth out my gall upon the ground.

He breaketh me with breach upon breach;

He runneth upon me like a giant.”—_Job_ xvi: 11–15.

The analogy of feeling lies in the suffering of the hopeless struggle

against the more powerful. It is as if this conflict were accompanied

from afar by the sounds of “creation,” which brings up a beautiful and

mysterious image belonging to the unconscious, and which has not yet

forced its way up to the light of the upper world. We surmise, rather

than know, that this battle has really something to do with creation,

with the struggles between negations and affirmations. The references to

Rostand’s “Cyrano” through the identification with Christian, to

Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” to the sorrows of Job, misunderstood by his

friends, betray plainly that in the soul of the poet something was

identified with these ideas. She also has suffered like Cyrano and Job,

has lost paradise, and dreams of “creation,”—creation by means of

thought—fruition through the whirlwind of Anaxagoras.[71]

We once more submit ourselves to Miss Miller’s guidance:

“I remember that when fifteen years old, I was once very much stirred

up over an article, read aloud to me by my mother, concerning the idea

which spontaneously produced its object. I was so excited that I could

not sleep all night because of thinking over and over again what that

could mean.

“From the age of nine to sixteen, I went every Sunday to a

Presbyterian Church, in charge of which, at that time, was a very

cultured minister. In one of the earliest memories which I have

retained of him, I see myself as a very small girl sitting in a very

large pew, continually endeavoring to keep myself awake and pay

attention, without in the least being able to understand what he meant

when he spoke to us of Chaos, Cosmos and the Gift of Love (don

d’amour).”

There are also rather early memories of the awakening of puberty (nine

to sixteen) which have connected the idea of the cosmos springing from

chaos with the “don d’amour.” The medium in which these associations

occur is the memory of a certain very much honored ecclesiastic who

spoke those dark words. From the same period of time comes the

remembrance of that excitement about the idea of the “creative thought”

which from itself “produced its object.” Here are two ways of creation

intimated: the creative thought, and the mysterious reference to the

“don d’amour.”

At the time when I had not yet understood the nature of psychoanalysis,

I had a fortunate opportunity of winning through continual observation a

deep insight into the soul of a fifteen-year-old girl. Then I

discovered, with astonishment, what the contents of the unconscious

phantasies are, and how far removed they are from those which a girl of

that age shows outwardly. There are wide-reaching phantasies of truly

mythical fruitfulness. The girl was, in the split-off phantasy, the

race-mother of uncounted peoples.[72] If we deduct the poetically spoken

phantasy of the girl, elements are left which at that age are common to

all girls, for the unconscious content is to an infinitely greater

degree common to all mankind than the content of the individual

consciousness. For it is the condensation of that which is historically

the average and ordinary.

Miss Miller’s problem at this age was the common human problem: “How am

I to be creative?” Nature knows but one answer to that: “Through the

child (don d’amour!).” “But how is the child attained?” Here the

terrifying problem emerges, which, as our analytic experience shows, is

connected with the father,[73] where it cannot be solved; because the

original sin of incest weighs heavily for all time upon the human race.

The strong and natural love which binds the child to the father, turns

away in those years during which the humanity of the father would be all

too plainly recognized, to the higher forms of the father, to the

“Fathers” of the church, and to the Father God,[74] visibly represented

by them, and in that there lies still less possibility of solving the

problem. However, mythology is not lacking in consolations. Has not the

_logos_ become flesh too? Has not the divine _pneuma_, even the _logos_,

entered the Virgin’s womb and lived among us as the son of man? That

whirlwind of Anaxagoras was precisely the divine νοῦς which from out of

itself has become the world. Why do we cherish the image of the Virgin

Mother even to this day? Because it is always comforting and says

without speech or noisy sermon to the one seeking comfort, “I too have

become a mother,”—through the “idea which spontaneously produces its

object.”

I believe that there is foundation enough at hand for a sleepless night,

if those phantasies peculiar to the age of puberty were to become

possessed of this idea—the results would be immeasurable! All that is

psychologic has an under and an over meaning, as is expressed in the

profound remark of the old mystic: οὐρανὸς ἄνο, οὐρανὸς κάτο, αἰθέρα

ἄνο, αἰθέρα κάτο, πᾶν τοῦτο ἄνο, πᾶν τοῦτο κάτο, τοῦτο λαβὲ καὶ

εὐτυχει[75]—

We would show but slight justice, however, to the intellectual

originality of our author, if we were satisfied to trace back the

commotion of that sleepless night absolutely and entirely to the sexual

problem in a narrow sense. That would be but one-half, and truly, to

make use of the mystic’s expression, only the under half. The other half

is the intellectual sublimation, which strives to make true in its own

way the ambiguous expression of “the idea which produces its object

spontaneously,”—_ideal creation in place of the real_.

In such an intellectual accomplishment of an evidently very capable

personality, the prospect of a spiritual fruitfulness is something which

is worthy of the highest aspiration, since for many it will become a

necessity of life. Also this side of the phantasy explains, to a great

extent, the excitement, for it is a thought with a presentiment of the

future; one of those thoughts which arise, to use one of Maeterlinck’s

expressions,[76] from the “inconscient supérieur,” that “prospective

potency” of subliminal combinations.[77]

I have had the opportunity of observing certain cases of neuroses of

years’ duration, in which, at the time of the beginning of the illness

or shortly before, a dream occurred, often of visionary clarity. This

impressed itself inextinguishably upon the memory, and in analysis

revealed a hidden meaning to the patient which anticipated the

subsequent events of life; that is to say, their psychologic

meaning.[78] I am inclined to grant this meaning to the commotion of

that restless night, because the resulting events of life, in so far as

Miss Miller consciously and unconsciously unveils them to us, are

entirely of a nature to confirm the supposition that that moment is to

be considered as the inception and presentiment of a sublimated aim in

life.

Miss Miller concludes the list of her fancies with the following

remarks:

“The dream seemed to me to come from a mixture of the representation

of ‘Paradise Lost,’ ‘Job,’ and ‘Creation,’ with ideas such as ‘thought

which spontaneously produces its object’: ‘the gift of love,’ ‘chaos,

and cosmos.’”

In the same way as colored splinters of glass are combined in a

kaleidoscope, in her mind fragments of philosophy, æsthetics and

religion would seem to be combined—

“under the stimulating influence of the journey, and the countries

hurriedly seen, combined with the great silence and the indescribable

charm of the sea. ‘Ce ne fut que cela et rien de plus.’ ‘Only this,

and nothing more!’”

With these words, Miss Miller shows us out, politely and energetically.

Her parting words in her negation, confirmed over again in English,

leave behind a curiosity; viz., what position is to be negated by these

words? “Ce ne fut que cela et rien de plus”—that is to say, really, only

“le charme impalpable de la mer”—and the young man who sang melodiously

during the night watch is long since forgotten, and no one is to know,

least of all the dreamer, that he was a morning star, who came before

the creation of a new day.[79] One should take care lest he satisfy

himself and the reader with a sentence such as “ce ne fut que cela.”

Otherwise, it might immediately happen that one would become disturbed

again. This occurs to Miss Miller too, since she allowed an English

quotation to follow,—“Only this, and nothing more,” without giving the

source, it is true. The quotation comes from an unusually effective

poem, “The Raven” by Poe. The line referred to occurs in the following:

“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door—

‘’Tis some visitor.’ I muttered, ‘tapping at my chamber door’—

Only this, and nothing more.”

The spectral raven knocks nightly at his door and reminds the poet of

his irrevocably lost “Lenore.” The raven’s name is “Nevermore,” and as a

refrain to every verse he croaks his horrible “Nevermore.” Old memories

come back tormentingly, and the spectre repeats inexorably “Nevermore.”

The poet seeks in vain to frighten away the dismal guest; he calls to

the raven:

“‘Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend,’ I shrieked,

upstarting—

‘Get thee back into the tempest and the night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken, quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’

Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’”

That quotation, which, apparently, skips lightly over the situation,

“Only this, and nothing more,” comes from a text which depicts in an

affecting manner the despair over the lost Lenore. That quotation also

misleads our poet in the most striking manner. Therefore, she

undervalues the erotic impression and the wide-reaching effect of the

commotion caused by it. It is this undervaluation, which Freud has

formulated more precisely as “repression,” which is the reason why the

erotic problem does not attain directly conscious treatment, and from

this there arise “these psychologic riddles.” The erotic impression

works in the unconscious, and, in its stead, pushes symbols forth into

consciousness. Thus, one plays hide-and-seek with one’s self. First, it

is “the morning stars which sing together”; then “Paradise Lost”; then

the erotic yearning clothes itself in an ecclesiastical dress and utters

dark words about “World Creation” and finally rises into a religious

hymn to find there, at last, a way out into freedom, a way against which

the censor of the moral personality can oppose nothing more. The hymn

contains in its own peculiar character the marks of its origin. It thus

has fulfilled itself—the “Law of the Return of the Complex.” The night

singer, in this circuitous manner of the old transference to the

Father-Priest, has become the “Eternal,” the “Creator,” the _God of

Tone, of Light, of Love_.

The indirect course of the libido seems to be a way of sorrow; at least

“Paradise Lost” and the parallel reference to Job lead one to that

conclusion. If we take, in addition to this, the introductory intimation

of the identification with Christian, which we see concludes with

Cyrano, then we are furnished with material which pictures the indirect

course of the libido as truly a way of sorrow. It is the same as when

mankind, after the sinful fall, had the burden of the earthly life to

bear, or like the tortures of Job, who suffered under the power of Satan

and of God, and who himself, without suspecting it, became a plaything

of the superhuman forces which we no longer consider as metaphysical,

but as metapsychological. Faust also offers us the same exhibition of

God’s wager.

_Mephistopheles_:

What will you bet? There’s still a chance to gain him

If unto me full leave you give

Gently upon my road to train him!

_Satan_:

But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will

curse thee to thy face.—_Job_ i: 11.

While in Job the two great tendencies are characterized simply as good

and bad, the problem in Faust is a pronouncedly erotic one; viz., the

battle between sublimation and eros, in which the Devil is strikingly

characterized through the fitting rôle of the erotic tempter. The erotic

is lacking in Job; at the same time Job is not conscious of the conflict

within his own soul; he even continuously disputes the arguments of his

friends who wish to convince him of evil in his own heart. To this

extent, one might say that Faust is considerably more honorable since he

openly confesses to the torments of his soul.

Miss Miller acts like Job; she says nothing, and lets the evil and the

good come from the other world, from the metapsychologic. Therefore, the

identification with Job is also significant in this respect. A wider,

and, indeed, a very important analogy remains to be mentioned. The

creative power, which love really is, rightly considered from the

natural standpoint, remains as the real attribute of the Divinity,

sublimated from the erotic impression; therefore, in the poem God is

praised throughout as Creator.

Job offers the same illustration. Satan is the destroyer of Job’s

fruitfulness. God is the fruitful one himself, therefore, at the end of

the book, he gives forth, as an expression of his own creative power,

this hymn, filled with lofty poetic beauty. In this hymn, strangely

enough, two unsympathetic representatives of the animal kingdom,

behemoth and the leviathan, both expressive of the crudest force

conceivable in nature, are given chief consideration; the behemoth being

really the phallic attribute of the God of Creation.

“Behold now behemoth, which I made as well as thee;

He eateth grass as an ox.

Lo, now; his strength is in his loins,

And his force is in the muscles of his belly.

He moveth his tail like a cedar:

The sinews of his thighs are knit together.

His bones are as tubes of brass;

His limbs are like bars of iron.

He is the chief of the ways of God:

He only that made him giveth him his sword....

Behold, if a river overflow, he trembleth not;

He is confident though a Jordan swell even to his mouth.

Shall any take him when he is on the watch.

Or pierce through his nose with a snare?

Canst thou draw leviathan with a fish-hook?

Or press down his tongue with a cord?...

Lay thy hand upon him;

Remember the battle and do no more.

None is so fierce that dare stir him up:

Who then is he that can stand before me?

Who hath first given unto me, that I should repay him?

Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.”

—_Job_ xl: 15–20, 23–24; xli: 1, 8, 10–11.

God says this in order to bring his power and omnipotence impressively

before Job’s eyes. God is like the behemoth and the leviathan; the

fruitful nature giving forth abundance,—the untamable wildness and

boundlessness of nature,—and the overwhelming danger of the unchained

power.[80]

But what has destroyed Job’s earthly paradise? The unchained power of

nature. As the poet lets it be seen here, God has simply turned his

other side outwards for once; the side which man calls the devil, and

which lets loose all the torments of nature on Job, naturally for the

purpose of discipline and training. The God who created such

monstrosities, before whom the poor weak man stiffens with anxiety,

truly must hide qualities within himself which are food for thought.

This God lives in the heart, in the unconscious, in the realm of

metapsychology. There is the source of the anxiety before the

unspeakably horrible, and of the strength to withstand the horrors. The

person, that is to say his conscious “I,” is like a plaything, like a

feather which is whirled around by different currents of air; sometimes

the sacrifice and sometimes the sacrificer, and he cannot hinder either.

The Book of Job shows us God at work both as creator and destroyer. Who

is this God? A thought which humanity in every part of the world and in

all ages has brought forth from itself and always again anew in similar

forms; a power in the other world to which man gives praise, a power

which creates as well as destroys, an idea necessary to life. Since,

psychologically understood, the divinity is nothing else than a

projected complex of representation which is accentuated in feeling

according to the degree of religiousness of the individual, so God is to

be considered as the representative of a certain sum of energy (libido).

This energy, therefore, appears projected (metaphysically) because it

works from the unconscious outwards, when it is dislodged from there, as

psychoanalysis shows. As I have earlier made apparent in the “Bedeutung

des Vaters,” the religious instinct feeds upon the incestuous libido of

the infantile period. In the principal forms of religion which now

exist, the father transference seems to be at least the moulding

influence; in older religions, it seems to be the influence of the

mother transference which creates the attributes of the divinity. The

attributes of the divinity are omnipotence, a sternly persecuting

paternalism ruling through fear (Old Testament) and a loving paternalism

(New Testament). These are the attributes of the libido in that wide

sense in which Freud has conceived this idea empirically. In certain

pagan and also in certain Christian attributes of divinity the maternal

stands out strongly, and in the former the animal also comes into the

greatest prominence.[81] Likewise, the infantile, so closely interwoven

with religious phantasies, and from time to time breaking forth so

violently, is nowhere lacking.[82] All this points to the sources of the

dynamic states of religious activity. These are those impulses which in

childhood are withdrawn from incestuous application through the

intervention of the incest barrier and which, especially at the time of

puberty, as a result of affluxes of libido coming from the still

incompletely employed sexuality, are aroused to their own peculiar

activity. As is easily understood, that which is valuable in the

God-creating idea is not the form but the power, the libido. The

primitive power which Job’s Hymn of Creation vindicates, the

unconditional and inexorable, the unjust and the superhuman, are truly

and rightly attributes of libido, which “lead us unto life,” which “let

the poor be guilty,” and against which struggle is in vain. Nothing

remains for mankind but to work in harmony with this will. Nietzsche’s

“Zarathustra” teaches us this impressively.

We see that in Miss Miller the religious hymn arising from the

unconscious is the compensating amend for the erotic; it takes a great

part of its materials from the infantile reminiscences which she

reawakened into life by the introversion of the libido. Had this

religious creation not succeeded (and also had another sublimated

application been eliminated) then Miss Miller would have yielded to the

erotic impression, either to its natural consequence or to a negative

issue, which would have replaced the lost success in love by a

correspondingly strong sorrow. It is well known that opinions are much

divided concerning the worth of this issue of an erotic conflict, such

as Miss Miller has presented to us. It is thought to be much more

beautiful to solve unnoticed an erotic tension, in the elevated feelings

of religious poetry, in which perhaps many other people can find joy and

consolation. One is wrong to storm against this conception from the

radical standpoint of fanaticism for truth.

I think that one should view with philosophic admiration the strange

paths of the libido and should investigate the purposes of its

circuitous ways.

It is not too much to say that we have herewith dug up the erotic root,

and yet the problem remains unsolved. Were there not bound up with that

a mysterious purpose, probably of the greatest biological meaning, then

certainly twenty centuries would not have yearned for it with such

intense longing. Doubtless, this sort of libidian current moves in the

same direction as, taken in the widest sense, did that ecstatic ideal of

the Middle Ages and of the ancient mystery cults, one of which became

the later Christianity. There is to be seen biologically in this ideal

an exercise of psychologic projection (of the paranoidian mechanism, as

Freud would express it).[83] The projection consists in the repressing

of the conflict into the unconscious and the setting forth of the

repressed contents into seeming objectivity, which is also the formula

of paranoia. The repression serves, as is well known, for the freeing

from a painful complex from which one must escape by all means because

its compelling and oppressing power is feared. The repression can lead

to an apparent complete suppression which corresponds to a strong

self-control. Unfortunately, however, self-control has limits which are

only too narrowly drawn. Closer observation of people shows, it is true,

that calm is maintained at the critical moment, but certain results

occur which fall into two categories.

_First_, the suppressed effect comes to the surface immediately

afterwards; seldom directly, it is true, but ordinarily in the form of a

displacement to another object (e. g. a person is, in official

relations, polite, submissive, patient, and so on, and turns his whole

anger loose upon his wife or his subordinates).

_Second_, the suppressed effect creates compensations elsewhere. For

example, people who strive for excessive ethics, who try always to

think, feel, and act altruistically and ideally, avenge themselves,

because of the impossibility of carrying out their ideals, by subtle

maliciousness, which naturally does not come into their own

consciousness as such, but which leads to misunderstandings and unhappy

situations. Apparently, then, all of these are only “especially

unfortunate circumstances,” or they are the guilt and malice of other

people, or they are tragic complications.

One is, indeed, freed of the conscious conflict, nevertheless it lies

invisible at one’s feet, and is stumbled over at every step. The technic

of the apparent suppressing and forgetting is inadequate because it is

not possible of achievement in the last analysis—it is in reality a mere

makeshift. The religious projection offers a much more effectual help.

In this one keeps the conflict in sight (care, pain, anxiety, and so on)

and gives it over to a personality standing outside of one’s self, the

Divinity. The evangelical command teaches us this:

“Cast all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you.”—_I Peter_

v: 7.

“In nothing be anxious; but in every thing by prayer and

supplication ... let your requests be made known unto God.”—_Phil._

iv: 6.

One must give the burdening complex of the soul consciously over to the

Deity; that is to say, associate it with a definite representation

complex which is set up as objectively real, as a person who answers

those questions, for us unanswerable. To this inner demand belongs the

candid avowal of sin and the Christian humility presuming such an

avowal. Both are for the purpose of making it possible for one to

examine one’s self and to know one’s self.[84] One may consider the

mutual avowal of sins as the most powerful support to this work of

education (“Confess, therefore, your sins one to another.”—James v: 16).

These measures aim at a conscious recognition of the conflicts,

thoroughly psychoanalytic, which is also _a conditio sine qua non_ of

the psychoanalytic condition of recovery. Just as psychoanalysis in the

hands of the physician, a secular method, sets up the real object of

transference as the one to take over the conflicts of the oppressed and

to solve them, so the Christian religion sets up the Saviour, considered

as real; “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness

of sins....” (Eph. i: 7 and Col. i: 14.)[85] He is the deliverer and

redeemer of our guilt, a God who stands above sin, “who did no sin,

neither was guile found in his mouth” (Pet. ii: 22). “Who his own self

bare our sins in his body upon the tree” (Pet. ii: 24). “Therefore

Christ has been sacrificed once to take away the sins of many” (Heb. ix:

28). The God, thus thought of, is distinguished as innocent in himself

and as the self-sacrificer. (These qualities are true also for that

amount of energy—libido—which belongs to the representation complex

designated the Redeemer.) The conscious projection towards which the

Christian education aims, offers, therefore, a double benefit: first,

one is kept conscious of the conflict (sins) of two opposing tendencies

mutually resistant, and through this one prevents a known trouble from

becoming, by means of repressing and forgetting, an unknown and

therefore so much more tormenting sorrow. Secondly, one lightens one’s

burden by surrendering it to him to whom all solutions are known. One

must not forget that the individual psychologic roots of the Deity, set

up as real by the pious, are concealed from him, and that he, although

unaware of this, still bears the burden alone and is still alone with

his conflict. This delusion would lead infallibly to the speedy breaking

up of the system, for Nature cannot indefinitely be deceived, but the

powerful institution of Christianity meets this situation. The command

in the book of James is the best expression of the psychologic

significance of this: “Bear ye one another’s burdens.”[86]

This is emphasized as especially important in order to preserve society

upright through mutual love (Transference); the Pauline writings leave

no doubt about this:

“Through love be servants one to another.”—_Gal._ v: 13.

“Let love of the brethren continue.”—_Heb._ xiii: 1.

“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works.

Not forgetting our own assembling together as is the custom of some,

but exhorting one another.”—_Heb._ x: 24–25.

We might say that the real transference taught in the Christian

community is the condition absolutely necessary for the efficacy of the

miracle of redemption; the first letter of John comes out frankly with

this:

“He that loveth his brother abideth in the light.”—_I John_ ii: 10.

“If we love one another, God abideth in us.”—_I John_ iv: 12.

The Deity continues to be efficacious in the Christian religion only

upon the foundation of brotherly love. Consequently, here too the

mystery of redemption is the unresisting real transference.[87] One may

properly ask one’s self, for what then is the Deity useful, if his

efficacy consists only in the _real transference_? To this also the

evangelical message has a striking answer:

“Men are all brothers in Christ.”

“So Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many,

shall appear a second time apart from sin to them that wait for him

unto salvation.”—_Heb._ ix: 28.

The condition of transference among brothers is to be such as between

man and Christ, a spiritual one. As the history of ancient cults and

certain Christian sects shows, this explanation of the Christian

religion is an especially important one biologically, for the

psychologic intimacy creates certain shortened ways between men which

lead only too easily to that from which Christianity seeks to release

them, namely to the sexual relation with all those consequences and

necessities under which the really already highly civilized man had to

suffer at the beginning of our Christian era. For just as the ancient

religious experience was regarded distinctly as a bodily union with the

Deity,[88] just so was worship permeated with sexuality of every kind.

Sexuality lay only too close to the relations of people with each other.

The moral degeneracy of the first Christian century produced a moral

reaction arising out of the darkness of the lowest strata of society

which was expressed in the second and third centuries at its purest in

the two antagonistic religions, Christianity on the one side, and

Mithracism on the other. These religions strove after precisely that

higher form of social intercourse symbolic of a projected “become flesh”

idea (logos), whereby all those strongest impulsive energies of the

archaic man, formerly plunging him from one passion into another,[89]

and which seemed to the ancients like the compulsion of the evil

constellations, as εἱμαρμένη,[90] and which in the sense of later ages

might be translated as the driving force of the libido,[91] the δύναμις

κινητική[92] of Zeno, could be made use of for social preservation.[93]

It may be assumed most certainly that the domestication of humanity has

cost the greatest sacrifices. An age which produced the stoical ideal

must certainly have known why and against what it was created. The age

of Nero serves to set off effectually the famous extracts from the

forty-first letter of Seneca to Lucilius:

“One drags the other into error, and how can we attain to salvation

when no one bids us halt, when all the world drives us in deeper?”

“Do you ever come across a man unafraid in danger, untouched by

desires, happy in misfortune, peaceful in the midst of a storm,

elevated above ordinary mortals, on the same plane as the gods, does

not reverence seize you? Are you not compelled to say, ‘Such an

exalted being is certainly something different from the miserable body

which he inhabits?’ A divine strength rules there, such an excellent

mind, full of moderation, raised above all trivialities, which smiles

at that which we others fear or strive after: a heavenly power

animates such a person, a thing of this kind does not exist without

the coöperation of a deity. The largest part of such a being belongs

to the region from which he came. Just as the sun’s rays touch the

earth in reality and yet are at home only there from whence they come,

so an eminent holy man associates with us. He is sent to us that we

may learn to know the divine better, and although with us, still

really belongs to his original home. He looks thither and reaches

towards it; among us he walks as an exalted being.”

The people of this age had grown ripe for identification with the λόγος

(word) “become flesh,” for the founding of a new fellowship, united by

one idea,[94] in the name of which people could love each other and call

each other brothers.[95] The old vague idea of a μεσίτης (Messiah), of a

mediator in whose name new ways of love would be created, became a fact,

and with that humanity made an immense step forward. This had not been

brought about by a speculative, completely sophisticated philosophy, but

by an elementary need in the mass of people vegetating in spiritual

darkness. The profoundest necessities had evidently driven them towards

that, since humanity did not thrive in a state of dissoluteness.[96] The

meaning of those cults—I speak of Christianity and Mithracism—is clear;

it is a moral restraint of animal impulses.[97] The dynamic appearance

of both religions betrays something of that enormous feeling of

redemption which animated the first disciples and which we to-day

scarcely know how to appreciate, for these old truths are empty to us.

Most certainly we should still understand it, had our customs even a

breath of ancient brutality, for we can hardly realize in this day the

whirlwinds of the unchained libido which roared through the ancient Rome

of the Cæsars. The civilized man of the present day seems very far

removed from that. He has become merely neurotic. So for us the

necessities which brought forth Christianity have actually been lost,

since we no longer understand their meaning. We do not know against what

it had to protect us.[98] For enlightened people, the so-called

religiousness has already approached very close to a neurosis. In the

past two thousand years Christianity has done its work and has erected

barriers of repression, which protect us from the sight of our own

“sinfulness.” The elementary emotions of the libido have come to be

unknown to us, for they are carried on in the unconscious; therefore,

the belief which combats them has become hollow and empty. Let whoever

does not believe that a mask covers our religion, obtain an impression

for himself from the appearance of our modern churches, from which style

and art have long since fled.

With this we turn back to the question from which we digressed, namely,

whether or not Miss Miller has created something valuable with her poem.

If we bear in mind under what psychologic or moral conditions

Christianity came into existence; that is to say, at a time when fierce

brutality was an every-day spectacle, then we understand the religious

seizure of the whole personality and the worth of that religion which

defended the people of the Roman culture against the visible storms of

wickedness. It was not difficult for those people to remain conscious of

sin, for they saw it every day spread out before their eyes. The

religious product was at that time the accomplishment of the total

personality. Miss Miller not only undervalues her “sins,” but the

connection between the “depressing and unrelenting need” and her

religious product has even escaped her. Thus her poetical creation

completely loses the living value of a religious product. It is not much

more than a sentimental transformation of the erotic which is secretly

carried out close to consciousness and principally possesses the same

worth as the manifest content of the dream[99] with its uncertain and

delusive perishableness. Thus the poem is properly only a dream become

audible.

To the degree that the modern consciousness is eagerly busied with

things of a wholly other sort than religion, religion and its object,

original sin, have stepped into the background; that is to say, into the

unconscious in great part. Therefore, to-day man believes neither in the

one nor in the other. Consequently the Freudian school is accused of an

impure phantasy, and yet one might convince one’s self very easily with

a rather fleeting glance at the history of ancient religions and morals

as to what kind of demons are harbored in the human soul. With this

disbelief in the crudeness of human nature is bound up the disbelief in

the power of religion. The phenomenon, well known to every

psychoanalyst, of the unconscious transformation of an erotic conflict

into religious activity is something _ethically wholly worthless_ and

nothing but an hysterical production. Whoever, on the other hand, to his

conscious sin just as consciously places religion in opposition, does

something the greatness of which cannot be denied. This can be verified

by a backward glance over history. Such a procedure is sound religion.

_The unconscious recasting of the erotic into something religious lays

itself open to the reproach of a sentimental and ethically worthless

pose._

By means of the secular practice of the naïve projection which is, as we

have seen, nothing else than a veiled or indirect real-transference

(through the spiritual, through the logos), Christian training has

produced a widespread weakening of the animal nature so that a great

part of the strength of the impulses could be set free for the work of

social preservation and fruitfulness.[100] This abundance of libido, to

make use of this singular expression, pursues with a budding renaissance

(for example Petrarch) a course which outgoing antiquity had already

sketched out as religious; viz., the way of the transference to

nature.[101] The transformation of this libidinous interest is in great

part due to the Mithraic worship, which was a nature religion in the

best sense of the word;[102] while the primitive Christians exhibited

throughout an antagonistic attitude to the beauties of this world.[103]

I remember the passage of St. Augustine mentioned by J. Burckhardt:

“Men draw thither to admire the heights of the mountains and the

powerful waves of the sea—and to turn away from themselves.”

The foremost authority on the Mithraic cult, Franz Cumont,[104] says as

follows:

“The gods were everywhere and mingled in all the events of daily life.

The fire which cooked the means of nourishment for the believers and

which warmed them; the water which quenched their thirst and cleansed

them; also the air which they breathed, and the day which shone for

them, were the objects of their homage. Perhaps no religion has given

to its adherents in so large a degree as Mithracism opportunity for

prayer and motive for devotion. When the initiated betook himself in

the evening to the sacred grotto concealed in the solitude of the

forest, at every step new sensations awakened in his heart some

mystical emotion. The stars that shone in the sky, the wind that

whispered in the foliage, the spring or brook which hastened murmuring

to the valley, even the earth which he trod under his feet, were in

his eyes divine; and all surrounding nature a worshipful fear of the

infinite forces that swayed the universe.”

These fundamental thoughts of Mithracism, which, like so much else of

the ancient spiritual life, arose again from their grave during the

renaissance are to be found in the beautiful words of Seneca:[105]

“When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than the

ordinary, and whose boughs are so closely interwoven that the sky

cannot be seen, the stately shadows of the wood, the privacy of the

place, and the awful gloom cannot but strike you, as with the presence

of a deity, or when we see some cave at the foot of a mountain

penetrating the rocks, not made by human hands, but hollowed out to

great depths by nature; it fills the mind with a religious fear; we

venerate the fountain-heads of great rivers; the sudden eruption of a

vast body of water from the secret places of the earth, obtains an

altar: we adore likewise the springs of warm baths, and either the

opaque quality or immense depths, hath made some lakes sacred.”

All this disappeared in the transitory world of the Christian, only to

break forth much later when the thought of mankind had achieved that

_independence of the idea_ which could resist the æsthetic impression,

so that thought was no longer fettered by the emotional effects of the

impression, but could rise to reflective observation. Thus man entered

into a new and independent relation to nature whereby the foundation was

laid for natural science and technique. With that, however, there

entered in for the first time a displacement of the weight of interest;

there arose again real-transference which has reached its greatest

development in our time. Materialistic interest has everywhere become

paramount. Therefore, the realms of the spirit, where earlier the

greatest conflicts and developments took place, lie deserted and fallow;

the world has not only lost its God as the sentimentalists of the

nineteenth century bewail, but also to some extent has lost its soul as

well. One, therefore, cannot wonder that the discoveries and doctrines

of the Freudian school, with their wholly psychologic views, meet with

an almost universal disapproval. Through the change of the centre of

interest from the inner to the outer world, the knowledge of nature has

increased enormously in comparison with that of earlier times. By this

the anthropomorphic conception of the religious dogmas has been

definitely thrown open to question; therefore, the present-day religions

can only with the greatest difficulty close their eyes to this fact; for

not only has the intense interest been diverted from the Christian

religion, but criticism and the necessary correction have increased

correspondingly. The Christian religion seems to have fulfilled its

great biological purpose, in so far as we are able to judge. It has led

human thought to independence, and has lost its significance, therefore,

to a yet undetermined extent; in any case its dogmatic contents have

become related to Mithracism. In consideration of the fact that this

religion has rendered, nevertheless, inconceivable service to education,

one cannot reject it “eo ipso” to-day. It seems to me that we might

still make use in some way of its form of thought, and especially of its

great wisdom of life, which for two thousand years has been proven to be

particularly efficacious. The stumbling block is the _unhappy

combination of religion and morality_. That must be overcome. There

still remain traces of this strife in the soul, the lack of which in a

human being is reluctantly felt. It is hard to say in what such things

consist; for this, ideas as well as words are lacking. If, in spite of

that, I attempt to say something about it, I do it parabolically, using

Seneca’s words:[106]

“Nothing can be more commendable and beneficial if you persevere in

the pursuit of wisdom. It is what would be ridiculous to wish for when

it is in your power to attain it. There is no need to lift up your

hands to Heaven, or to pray the servant of the temple to admit you to

the ear of the idol that your prayers may be heard the better. God is

near thee; he is with thee. Yes, Lucilius, a holy spirit resides

within us, the observer of good and evil, and our constant guardian.

And as we treat him, he treats us; no good man is without a God. Could

any one ever rise above the power of fortune without his assistance?

It is he that inspires us with thoughts, upright, just and pure. We do

not, indeed, pretend to say what God; but that a God dwells in the

breast of every good man is certain.”

CHAPTER IV

THE SONG OF THE MOTH

A little later Miss Miller travelled from Geneva to Paris. She says:

“My weariness on the railway was so great that I could hardly sleep an

hour. It was terrifically hot in the ladies’ carriage.”

At four o’clock in the morning she noticed a moth that flew against the

light in her compartment. She then tried to go to sleep again. Suddenly

the following poem took possession of her mind.

_The Moth to the Sun_

“I longed for thee when first I crawled to consciousness.

My dreams were all of thee when in the chrysalis I lay.

Oft myriads of my kind beat out their lives

Against some feeble spark once caught from thee.

And one hour more—and my poor life is gone;

Yet my last effort, as my first desire, shall be

But to approach thy glory; then, having gained

One raptured glance, I’ll die content.

For I, the source of beauty, warmth and life

Have in his perfect splendor once beheld.”

Before we go into the material which Miss Miller offers us for the

understanding of the poem, we will again cast a glance over the

psychologic situation in which the poem originated. Some months or weeks

appear to have elapsed since the last direct manifestation of the

unconscious that Miss Miller reported to us; about this period we have

had no information. We learn nothing about the moods and phantasies of

this time. If one might draw a conclusion from this silence it would be

presumably that in the time which elapsed between the two poems, really

nothing of importance had happened, and that, therefore, this poem is

again but a voiced fragment of the unconscious working of the complex

stretching out over months and years. It is highly probable that it is

concerned with the same complex as before.[107] The earlier product, a

hymn of creation full of hope, has, however, but little similarity to

the present poem. The poem lying before us has a truly hopeless,

melancholy character; moth and sun, two things which never meet. One

must in fairness ask, is a moth really expected to rise to the sun? We

know indeed the proverbial saying about the moth that flew into the

light and singed its wings, but not the legend of the moth that strove

towards the sun. Plainly, here, two things are connected in her thoughts

that do not belong together; first, the moth which fluttered around the

light so long that it burnt itself; and then, the idea of a small

ephemeral being, something like the day fly, which, in lamentable

contrast to the eternity of the stars, longs for an imperishable

daylight. This idea reminds one of Faust:

“Mark how, beneath the evening sunlight’s glow

The green-embosomed houses glitter;

The glow retreats, done is the day of toil,

It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;

Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil

Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!

Then would I see eternal Evening gild

The silent world beneath me glowing....

Yet, finally, the weary god is sinking;

The new-born impulse fires my mind,—

I hasten on, his beams eternal drinking,

The day before me and the night behind,

Above me heaven unfurled, the floor of waves beneath me,—

A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.

Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid

Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.”

Not long afterwards, Faust sees “the black dog roving there through

cornfields and stubble,” the dog who is the same as the devil, the

tempter, in whose hellish fires Faust has singed his wings. When he

believed that he was expressing his great longing for the beauty of the

sun and the earth, “he went astray thereover” and fell into the hands of

“the Evil One.”

“Yes, resolute to reach some brighter distance,

On earth’s fair sun I turn my back.”

This is what Faust had said shortly before, in true recognition of the

state of affairs. The honoring of the beauty of nature led the Christian

of the Middle Ages to pagan thoughts which lay in an antagonistic

relation to his conscious religion, just as once Mithracism was in

threatening competition with Christianity, for Satan often disguises

himself as an angel of light.[108]

The longing of Faust became his ruin. The longing for the Beyond had

brought as a consequence a loathing for life, and he stood on the brink

of self-destruction.[109] The longing for the beauty of this world led

him anew to ruin, into doubt and pain, even to Marguerite’s tragic

death. His mistake was that he followed after both worlds with no check

to the driving force of his libido, like a man of violent passion. Faust

portrays once more the folk-psychologic conflict of the beginning of the

Christian era, but what is noteworthy, in a reversed order.

Against what fearful powers of seduction Christ had to defend himself by

means of his hope of the absolute world beyond, may be seen in the

example of Alypius in Augustine. If any of us had been living in that

period of antiquity, he would have seen clearly that that culture must

inevitably collapse because humanity revolted against it. It is well

known that even before the spread of Christianity a remarkable

expectation of redemption had taken possession of mankind. The following

eclogue of Virgil might well be a result of this mood:

“Ultima Cumæi venit jam carminis ætas;[110]

Magnus ab integro Sæclorum nascitur ordo,

Jam redit et Virgo,[111] redeunt Saturnia regna;

Jam nova progenies cælo demittitur alto.

Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum

Desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo,

Casta fave Lucina: tuus jam regnat Apollo.

“Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,

Inrita perpetua solvent formidine terras.

Ille deum vitam accipiet divisque videbit

Permixtos heroas et ipse videbitur illis,

Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.”[112]

The turning to asceticism resulting from the general expansion of

Christianity brought about a new misfortune to many: monasticism and the

life of the anchorite.[113]

Faust takes the reverse course; for him the ascetic ideal means death.

He struggles for freedom and wins life, at the same time giving himself

over to the Evil One; but through this he becomes the bringer of death

to her whom he loves most, Marguerite. He tears himself away from pain

and sacrifices his life in unceasing useful work, through which he saves

many lives.[114] His double mission as saviour and destroyer has already

been hinted in a preliminary manner:

_Wagner_:

With what a feeling, thou great man, must thou

Receive the people’s honest veneration!

_Faust_:

Thus we, our hellish boluses compounding,

Among these vales and hills surrounding,

Worse than the pestilence, have passed.

Thousands were done to death from poison of my giving;

And I must hear, by all the living,

The shameless murderers praised at last!

A parallel to this double rôle is that text in the Gospel of Matthew

which has become historically significant:

“I came not to send peace, but a sword.”—_Matt._ x: 34.

Just this constitutes the deep significance of Goethe’s Faust, that he

clothes in words a problem of modern man which has been turning in

restless slumber since the Renaissance, just as was done by the drama of

Oedipus for the Hellenic sphere of culture. What is to be the way out

between the Scylla of renunciation of the world and the Charybdis of the

acceptance of the world?

The hopeful tone, voiced in the “Hymn to the God of Creation,” cannot

continue very long with our author. The pose simply promises, but does

not fulfil. The old longing will come again, for it is a peculiarity of

all complexes worked over merely in the unconscious[115] that they lose

nothing of their original amount of affect. Meanwhile, their outward

manifestations can change almost endlessly. One might therefore consider

the first poem as an unconscious longing to solve the conflict through

positive religiousness, somewhat in the same manner as they of the

earlier centuries decided their conscious conflicts by opposing to them

the religious standpoint. This wish does not succeed. Now with the

second poem there follows a second attempt which turns out in a

decidedly more material way; its thought is unequivocal. Only once

“having gained one raptured glance ...” and then—to die.

From the realms of the religious world, the attention, just as in

Faust,[116] turns towards the sun of this world, and already there is

something mingled with it which has another sense, that is to say, _the

moth which fluttered so long around the light that it burnt its wings_.

We now pass to that which Miss Miller offers for the better

understanding of the poem. She says:

“This small poem made a profound impression upon me. I could not, of

course, find immediately a sufficiently clear and direct explanation

for it. However, a few days later when I once more read a certain

philosophical work, which I had read in Berlin the previous winter,

and which I had enjoyed very much, (I was reading it aloud to a

friend), I came across the following words: ‘La même aspiration

passionnée de la mite vers l’étoile, de l’homme vers Dieu.’ (The same

passionate longing of the moth for the star, of man for God.) I had

forgotten this sentence entirely, but it seemed very clear to me that

precisely these words had reappeared in my hypnagogic poem. In

addition to that it occurred to me that a play seen some years

previously, ‘La Mite et La Flamme,’ was a further possible cause of

the poem. It is easy to see how often the word ‘moth’ had been

impressed upon me.”

The deep impression made by the poem upon the author shows that she put

into it a large amount of love. In the expression “aspiration

passionnée” we meet the passionate longing of the moth for the star, of

man for God, and indeed, the moth is Miss Miller herself. Her last

observation that the word “moth” was often impressed upon her shows how

often she had noticed the word “moth” as applicable to herself. _Her

longing for God resembles the longing of the moth for the “star.”_ The

reader will recall that this expression has already had a place in the

earlier material, “when the morning stars sang together,” that is to

say, the ship’s officer who sings on deck in the night watch. The

passionate longing for God is the same as that longing for the singing

morning stars. It was pointed out at great length in the foregoing

chapter that this analogy is to be expected: “Sic parvis componere magna

solebam.”

It is shameful or exalted just as one chooses, that the divine longing

of humanity, which is really the first thing to make it human, should be

brought into connection with an erotic phantasy. Such a comparison jars

upon the finer feelings. Therefore, one is inclined in spite of the

undeniable facts to dispute the connection. An Italian steersman with

brown hair and black moustache, and the loftiest, dearest conception of

humanity! These two things cannot be brought together; against this not

only our religious feelings revolt, but our taste also rebels.

It would certainly be unjust to make a comparison of the two objects as

concrete things since they are so heterogeneous. One loves a Beethoven

sonata but one loves caviar also. It would not occur to any one to liken

the sonata to caviar. It is a common error for one to judge the longing

according to the quality of the object. The appetite of the gourmand

which is only satisfied with goose liver and quail is no more

distinguished than the appetite of the laboring man for corned beef and

cabbage. The longing is the same; the object changes. Nature is

beautiful only by virtue of the longing and love given her by man. The

æsthetic attributes emanating from that has influence primarily on the

libido, which alone constitutes the beauty of nature. The dream

recognizes this well when it depicts a strong and beautiful feeling by

means of a representation of a beautiful landscape. Whenever one moves

in the territory of the erotic it becomes altogether clear how little

the object and how much the love means. The “sexual object” is as a rule

overrated far too much and that only on account of the extreme degree to

which libido is devoted to the object.

Apparently Miss Miller had but little left over for the officer, which

is humanly very intelligible. But in spite of that a deep and lasting

effect emanates from this connection which places divinity on a par with

the erotic object. The moods which apparently are produced by these

objects do not, however, spring from them, but are manifestations of her

strong love. When Miss Miller praises either God or the sun she means

her love, that deepest and strongest impulse of the human and animal

being.

The reader will recall that in the preceding chapter the following chain

of synonyms was adduced: the singer—God of sound—singing morning

star—creator—God of Light—sun—fire—God of Love.

At that time we had placed sun and fire in parentheses. Now they are

entitled to their right place in the chain of synonyms. With the

changing of the erotic impression from the affirmative to the negative

the symbols of light occur as the paramount object. In the second poem

where the longing is clearly exposed it is by no means the terrestrial

sun. Since the longing has been turned away from the real object, its

object has become, first of all, a subjective one, namely, God.

Psychologically, however, God is the name of a representation-complex

which is grouped around a strong feeling (the sum of libido). Properly,

the feeling is what gives character and reality to the complex.[117]

_The attributes and symbols of the divinity must belong in a consistent

manner to the feeling_ (_longing, love, libido, and so on_). If one

honors God, the sun or the fire, then one honors one’s own vital force,

the libido. It is as Seneca says: “God is near you, he is with you, in

you.” God is our own longing to which we pay divine honors.[118] If it

were not known how tremendously significant religion was, and is, this

marvellous play with one’s self would appear absurd. There must be

something more than this, however, because, notwithstanding its

absurdity, it is, in a certain sense, conformable to the purpose in the

highest degree. To bear a God within one’s self signifies a great deal;

it is a guarantee of happiness, of power, indeed even of omnipotence, as

far as these attributes belong to the Deity. To bear a God within one’s

self signifies just as much as to be God one’s self. In Christianity,

where, it is true, the grossly sensual representations and symbols are

weeded out as carefully as possible, which seems to be a continuation of

the poverty of symbols of the Jewish cult, there are to be found plain

traces of this psychology. There are even plainer traces, to be sure, in

the “becoming-one with God” in those mysteries closely related to the

Christian, where the mystic himself is lifted up to divine adoration

through initiatory rites. At the close of the consecration into the Isis

mysteries the mystic was crowned with the palm crown,[119] he was placed

on a pedestal and worshipped as Helios.[120] In the magic papyrus of the

Mithraic liturgy published by Dieterich there is the ἱερός λόγος[121] of

the consecrated one:

Ἐγώ εἰμι σύμπλανος ὑμῖν ἀστὴρ καὶ ἐκ τοῦ βάθους ἀναλάμπων.[122]

The mystic in religious ecstasies put himself on a plane with the stars,

just as a saint of the Middle Ages put himself by means of the stigmata

on a level with Christ. St. Francis of Assisi expressed this in a truly

pagan manner,[123] even as far as a close relationship with the brother

sun and the sister moon. These representations of “becoming-one with

God” are very ancient. The old belief removed the becoming-one with God

until the time after death; the mysteries, however, suggest this as

taking place already in this world. A very old text brings most

beautifully before one this unity with God; it is the song of triumph of

the ascending soul.[124]

“I am the God Atum, I who alone was.

I am the God Rê at his first splendor.

I am the great God, self-created, God of Gods,

To whom no other God compares.”

“I was yesterday and know to-morrow; the battle-ground of Gods was

made when I spoke. I know the name of that great God who tarries

therein.

“I am that great Phoenix who is in Heliopolis, who there keeps account

of all there is, of all that exists.

“I am the God Min, at his coming forth, who placed the feathers upon

my head.[125]

“I am in my country, I come into my city. Daily I am together with my

father Atum.[126]

“My impurity is driven away, and the sin which was in me is overcome.

I washed myself in those two great pools of water which are in

Heracleopolis, in which is purified the sacrifice of mankind for that

great God who abideth there.

“I go on my way to where I wash my head in the sea of the righteous. I

arrive at this land of the glorified, and enter through the splendid

portal.

“Thou, who standest before me, stretch out to me thy hands, it is I, I

am become one of thee. Daily am I together with my Father Atum.”

The identification with God necessarily has as a result the enhancing of

the meaning and power of the individual.[127] That seems, first of all,

to have been really its purpose: a strengthening of the individual

against his all too great weakness and insecurity in real life. This

great megalomania thus has a genuinely pitiable background. The

strengthening of the consciousness of power is, however, only an

external result of the “becoming-one with God.” Of much more

significance are the deeper-lying disturbances in the realm of feeling.

_Whoever introverts libido—that is to say, whoever takes it away from a

real object without putting in its place a real compensation—is

overtaken by the inevitable results of introversion._ The libido, which

is turned inward into the subject, awakens again from among the sleeping

remembrances one which contains the path upon which earlier the libido

once had come to the real object. At the very first and in foremost

position it was father and mother who were the objects of the childish

love. They are unequalled and imperishable. Not many difficulties are

needed in an adult’s life to cause those memories to reawaken and to

become effectual. _In religion the regressive reanimation of the

father-and-mother imago is organized into a system._ The benefits of

religion are the benefits of parental hands; its protection and its

peace are the results of parental care upon the child; its mystic

feelings are the unconscious memories of the tender emotions of the

first childhood, just as the hymn expresses it:

“I am in my country, I come into my city. Daily am I together with my

father Atum.”[128]

The visible father of the world is, however, the sun, the heavenly fire;

therefore, Father, God, Sun, Fire are mythologically synonymous. The

well-known fact that in the sun’s strength the great generative power of

nature is honored shows plainly, very plainly, to any one to whom as yet

it may not be clear that in the Deity man honors his own libido, and

naturally in the form of the image or symbol of the present object of

transference. This symbol faces us in an especially marked manner in the

third Logos of the Dieterich papyrus. After the second prayer[129] stars

come from the disc of the sun to the mystic, “five-pointed, in

quantities, filling the whole air. If the sun’s disc has expanded, you

will see an immeasurable circle, and fiery gates which are shut off.”

The mystic utters the following prayer:

Ἐπακουσόν μου, ἀκουσόν μου—ὁ συνδήσας πνεύματι τὰ πύρινα κλεῖθρα τοῦ

οὐρανοῦ, δισώματος πυρίπολε, φωτὸς κτίστα—πυρίπνοε, πυρίθυμε,

πνευματόφως, πυριχαρῆ, καλλίφως, φωτοκράτωρ, πυρισώματε, φωτοδότα,

πυρισπόρε, πυρικλόνε, φωτόβιε, πυριδῖνα, φωτοκινῆτα, κεραυνοκλόνε,

φωτὸς κλέος, αὐξησίφως, ἐνπυρισχησίφως, ἀστροδάμα.[130]

The invocation is, as one sees, almost inexhaustible in light and fire

attributes, and can be likened in its extravagance only to the

synonymous attributes of love of the mystic of the Middle Ages. Among

the innumerable texts which might be used as an illustration of this, I

select a passage from the writings of Mechthild von Magdeburg

(1212–1277):

“O Lord, love me excessively and love me often and long; the oftener

you love me, so much the purer do I become; the more excessively you

love me, the more beautiful I become; the longer you love me, the more

holy will I become here upon earth.”

God answered: “That I love you often, that I have from my nature, for

I myself am love. That I love you excessively, that I have from my

desire, for I too desire that men love me excessively. That I love you

long, that I have from my everlastingness, for I am without end.”[131]

The religious regression makes use indeed of the parent image without,

however, consciously making it an object of transference, for the incest

horror[132] forbids that. It remains rather as a synonym, for example,

of the father or of God, or of the more or less personified symbol of

the sun and fire.[133] Sun and fire—that is to say, the fructifying

strength and heat—are attributes of the libido. In Mysticism the

inwardly perceived, divine vision is often merely sun or light, and is

very little, or not at all, personified. In the Mithraic liturgy there

is found, for example, a significant quotation:

Ἡ δὲ πορεία τῶν ὁρωμένων θεῶν διὰ τοῦ δίσκου, πατρός μου, θεοῦ

φανήσεται.[134]

Hildegarde von Bingen (1100–1178) expresses herself in the following

manner:[135]

“But the light I see is not local, but far off, and brighter than the

cloud which supports the sun. I can in no way know the form of this

light since I cannot entirely see the sun’s disc. But within this

light I see at times, and infrequently, another light which is called

by me the living light, but when and in what manner I see this I do

not know how to say, and when I see it all weariness and need is

lifted from me, then too, I feel like a simple girl and not like an

old woman.”

Symeon, the New Theologian (970–1040), says the following:

“My tongue lacks words, and what happens in me my spirit sees clearly

but does not explain. It sees the invisible, that emptiness of all

forms, simple throughout, not complex, and in extent infinite. For it

sees no beginning, and it sees no end. It is entirely unconscious of

the meanings, and does not know what to call that which it sees.

Something complete appears, it seems to me, not indeed through the

being itself, but through a participation. For you enkindle fire from

fire, and you receive the whole fire; but this remains undiminished

and undivided, as before. Similarly, that which is divided separates

itself from the first; and like something corporeal spreads itself

into several lights. This, however, is something spiritual,

immeasurable, indivisible, and inexhaustible. For it is not separated

when it becomes many, but remains undivided and is in me, and enters

within my poor heart like a sun or circular disc of the sun, similar

to the light, for it is a light.”[136]

That that thing, perceived as inner light, as the sun of the other

world, is longing, is clearly shown by Symeon’s words:[137]

“And following It my spirit demanded to embrace the splendor beheld,

but it found It not as creature and did not succeed in coming out from

among created beings, so that it might embrace that uncreated and

uncomprehended splendor. Nevertheless it wandered everywhere, and

strove to behold It. _It penetrated the air, it wandered over the

Heavens, it crossed over the abysses, it searched, as it seemed to it,

the ends of the world._[138] But in all of that it found nothing, for

all was created. And I lamented and was sorrowful, and my breast

burned, and I lived as one distraught in mind. But It came, as It

would, and descending like a luminous mystic cloud, It seemed to

envelop my whole head so that dismayed I cried out. But flying away

again It left me alone. And when I, troubled, sought for It, I

realized suddenly _that It was in me, myself, and in the midst of my

heart It appeared as the light of a spherical sun_.”

In Nietzsche’s “Glory and Eternity” we meet with an essentially similar

symbol:

“Hush! I see vastness!—and of vasty things

Shall man be done, unless he can enshrine

Them with his words? Then take the night which brings

The heart upon thy tongue, charmed wisdom mine!

“I look above, there rolls the star-strewn sea.

O night, mute silence, voiceless cry of stars!

And lo! A sign! The heaven its verge unbars—

A shining constellation falls towards me.”[139]

It is not astonishing if Nietzsche’s great inner loneliness calls again

into existence certain forms of thought which the mystic ecstasy of the

old cults has elevated to ritual representation. In the visions of the

Mithraic liturgy we have to deal with many similar representations which

we can now understand without difficulty as the ecstatic symbol of the

libido:

Μετὰ δὲ τὸ ειπεῖν σε τὸν δεύτερον λόγον, ὅπου σιγὴ δὶς καὶ τὰ

ἀκόλουθα, σύρισον δὶς καὶ πόππυσον δὶς καὶ εὐθέως ὄψει ἀπὸ τοῦ δίσκου

ἀστέρας προσερχομένους πενταδακτυλιαίους πλείστους καὶ πιπλῶντας ὅλον

τὸν αέρα. Σὺ δὲ πάλιν λέγε: σιγή, σιγή. Καὶ τοῦ δίσκου ἀνοιγέντος ὄψει

ἄπειρον κύκλωμα καὶ θύρας πυρίνας ἀποκεκλεισμένας.[140]

Silence is commanded, then the vision of light is revealed. The

similarity of the mystic’s condition and Nietzsche’s poetical vision is

surprising. Nietzsche says “constellation.” It is well known that

constellations are chiefly therio- or anthropo-morphic symbols.

The papyrus says, ἀστέρας πενταδακτυλιαίους[141] (similar to the

“rosy-fingered” Eos), which is nothing else than an anthropomorphic

image. Accordingly, one may expect from that, that by long gazing a

living being would be formed out of the “flame image,” a “star

constellation” of therio- or anthropo-morphic nature, for the symbolism

of the libido does not end with sun, light and fire, but makes use of

wholly other means of expression. I yield precedence to Nietzsche:

_The Beacon_[142]

“Here, where the island grew amid the seas,

A sacrificial rock high-towering,

Here under darkling heavens,

Zarathustra lights his mountain-fires.

“These flames with grey-white belly,

In cold distances sparkle their desire,

Stretches its neck towards ever purer heights—

A snake upreared in impatience:

“This signal I set up there before me.

This flame is mine own soul,

Insatiable for new distances,

Speeding upward, upward its silent heat.

“At all lonely ones I now throw my fishing rod.

Give answer to the flame’s impatience,

Let me, the fisher on high mountains,

Catch my seventh, last solitude!”

Here libido becomes fire, flame and snake. The Egyptian symbol of the

“living disc of the sun,” the disc with the two entwining snakes,

contains the combination of both the libido analogies. The disc of the

sun with its fructifying warmth is analogous to the fructifying warmth

of love. The comparison of the libido with sun and fire is in reality

analogous.

There is also a “causative” element in it, for sun and fire as

beneficent powers are objects of human love; for example, the sun-hero

Mithra is called the “well-beloved.” In Nietzsche’s poem the comparison

is also a causative one, but this time in a reversed sense. The

comparison with the snake is unequivocally phallic, corresponding

completely with the tendency in antiquity, which was to see in the

symbol of the phallus the quintessence of life and fruitfulness. _The

phallus is the source of life and libido, the great creator and worker

of miracles_, and as such it received reverence everywhere. We have,

therefore, three designating symbols of the libido: First, the

_comparison by analogy_, as sun and fire. Second, the _comparisons based

on causative relations_, as A: Object comparison. The libido is

designated by its object, for example, the beneficent sun. B: _The

subject comparison_, in which the libido is designated by its place of

origin or by analogies of this, for example, by phallus or (analogous)

snake.

To these two fundamental forms of comparison still a third is added, in

which the “tertium comparationis” is _the activity_; for example, the

libido is dangerous when fecundating like the bull—through the power of

its passion—like the lion, like the raging boar when in heat, like the

ever-rutting ass, and so on.

This activity comparison can belong equally well to the category of the

analogous or to the category of the causative comparisons. _The

possibilities of comparison mean just as many possibilities for symbolic

expression_, and from this basis all the infinitely varied symbols, so

far as they are libido images, may properly be reduced to a very simple

root, that is, just to _libido and its fixed primitive qualities_. This

psychologic reduction and simplification is in accordance with the

historic efforts of civilization to unify and simplify, to syncretize,

the endless number of the gods. We come across this desire as far back

as the old Egyptians, where the unlimited polytheism as exemplified in

the numerous demons of places finally necessitated simplification. All

the various local gods, Amon of Thebes, Horus of Edfu, Horus of the

East, Chnum of Elephantine, Atum of Heliopolis, and others,[143] became

identified with the sun God Rê. In the hymns to the sun the composite

being Amon-Rê-Harmachis-Atum was invoked as “the only god which truly

lives.”[144]

Amenhotep IV (XVIII dynasty) went the furthest in this direction. He

replaced all former gods by the “living great disc of the sun,” the

official title reading:

“The sun ruling both horizons, triumphant in the horizon in his name;

the glittering splendor which is in the sun’s disc.”

“And, indeed,” Erman adds,[145] “the sun, as a God, should not be

honored, but the sun itself as a planet which imparts through its

rays[146] the infinite life which is in it to all living creatures.”

Amenhotep IV by his reform completed a work which is psychologically

important. He united all the bull,[147] ram,[148] crocodile[149] and

pile-dwelling[150] gods into the disc of the sun, and made it clear that

their various attributes were compatible with the sun’s attributes.[151]

A similar fate overtook the Hellenic and Roman polytheism through the

syncretistic efforts of later centuries. The beautiful prayer of

Lucius[152] to the queen of the Heavens furnishes an important proof of

this:

“Queen of Heaven, whether thou art the genial Ceres, the prime parent

of fruits;—or whether thou art celestial Venus;—or whether thou art

the sister of Phœbus;—or whether thou art Proserpina, terrific with

midnight howlings—with that feminine brightness of thine illuminating

the walls of every city.”[153]

This attempt to gather again into a few units the religious thoughts

which were divided into countless variations and personified in

individual gods according to their polytheistic distribution and

separation makes clear the fact that already at an earlier time

analogies had formally arisen. Herodotus is rich in just such

references, not to mention the systems of the Hellenic-Roman world.

Opposed to the endeavor to form a unity there stands a still stronger

endeavor to create again and again a multiplicity, so that even in the

so-called severe monotheistic religions, as Christianity, for example,

the polytheistic tendency is irrepressible. The Deity is divided into

three parts at least, to which is added the feminine Deity of Mary and

the numerous company of the lesser gods, the angels and saints,

respectively. These two tendencies are in constant warfare. There is

only one God with countless attributes, or else there are many gods who

are then simply known differently, according to locality, and personify

sometimes this, sometimes that attribute of the fundamental thought, an

example of which we have seen above in the Egyptian gods.

With this we turn once more to Nietzsche’s poem, “The Beacon.” We found

the flame there used as an image of the libido, theriomorphically

represented as a snake (also as an image of the soul:[154] “This flame

is mine own soul”). We saw that the snake is to be taken as a phallic

image of the libido (upreared in impatience), and that this image, also

an attribute of the conception of the sun (the Egyptian sun idol), is an

image of the libido in the combination of sun and phallus. It is not a

wholly strange conception, therefore, that the sun’s disc is represented

with a penis, as well as with hands and feet. We find proof for this

idea in a peculiar part of the Mithraic liturgy: ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ὁ

καλούμενος αὐλός, ἡ ἀρχὴ τοῦ λειτουργοῦντος ἀνέμου. Ὄψει γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ

δίσκου ὡς αὐλὸν κρεμάμενον.[155]

This extremely important vision of a tube hanging down from the sun

would produce in a religious text, such as that of the Mithraic liturgy,

a strange and at the same time meaningless effect if it did not have the

phallic meaning. The tube is the place of origin of the wind. The

phallic meaning seems very faint in this idea, but one must remember

that the wind, as well as the sun, is a fructifier and creator. This has

already been pointed out in a footnote.[156] There is a picture by a

Germanic painter of the Middle Ages of the “conceptio immaculata” which

deserves mention here. The conception is represented by a tube or pipe

coming down from heaven and passing beneath the skirt of Mary. Into this

flies the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove for the impregnation of the

Mother of God.[157]

Honegger discovered the following hallucination in an insane man

(paranoid dement): The patient sees in the sun an “upright tail” similar

to an erected penis. When he moves his head back and forth, then, too,

the sun’s penis sways back and forth in a like manner, and out of that

the wind arises. This strange hallucination remained unintelligible to

us for a long time until I became acquainted with the Mithraic liturgy

and its visions. This hallucination threw an illuminating light, as it

appears to me, upon a very obscure place in the text which immediately

follows the passage previously cited:

εἰς δὲ τὰ μέρη τὰ πρὸς λίβα ἀπέραντον οἷον ἀπηλιώτην. Ἐὰν ᾖ

κεκληρώμενος εἰς δὲ τὰ μέρη τοῦ ἀπηλιώτου ὁ ἕτερος, ὁμοίως εἰς τὰ μέρη

τὰ ἐκείνου ὄψει τὴν ἀποφορὰν τοῦ ὁρμάτος.

Mead translates this very clearly:[158]

“And towards the regions westward, as though it were an infinite

Eastwind. But if the other wind, towards the regions of the East,

should be in service, in the like fashion shalt thou see towards the

regions of that side the converse of the sight.”

In the original ὅραμα is the vision, the thing seen. ἀποφορά means

properly the carrying away. The sense of the text, according to this,

might be: the thing seen may be carried or turned sometimes here,

sometimes there, according to the direction of the wind. The ὅραμα is

the tube, “the place of origin of the wind,” which turns sometimes to

the east, sometimes to the west, and, one might add, generates the

corresponding wind. The vision of the insane man coincides astonishingly

with this description of the movement of the tube.[159]

The various attributes of the sun, separated into a series, appear one

after the other in the Mithraic liturgy. According to the vision of

Helios, seven maidens appear with the heads of snakes, and seven gods

with the heads of black bulls.

It is easy to understand the maiden as a symbol of the libido used in

the sense of causative comparison. The snake in Paradise is usually

considered as feminine, as the seductive principle in woman, and is

represented as feminine by the old artists, although properly the snake

has a phallic meaning. Through a similar change of meaning the snake in

antiquity becomes the symbol of the earth, which on its side is always

considered feminine. The bull is the well-known symbol for the

fruitfulness of the sun. The bull gods in the Mithraic liturgy were

called κνωθακοφύλακες, “guardians of the axis of the earth,” by whom the

axle of the orb of the heavens was turned. The divine man, Mithra, also

had the same attributes; he is sometimes called the “Sol invictus”

itself, sometimes the mighty companion and ruler of Helios; he holds in

his right hand the “bear constellation, which moves and turns the

heavens.” The bull-headed gods, equally ἱεροὶ καὶ ἄλκιμοι νεανίαι with

Mithra himself, to whom the attribute νεώτερος, “young one,” “the

newcomer,” is given, are merely attributive components of the same

divinity. The chief god of the Mithraic liturgy is himself subdivided

into Mithra and Helios; the attributes of each of these are closely

related to the other. Of Helios it is said: ὄψει θεὸν νεώτερον εὐειδῆ

πυρινότριχα ἐν χιτῶνι λευκῷ καὶ χλαμύδι κοκκίνῃ, ἔχοντα πύρινον

στέφανον.[160]

Of Mithra it is said: ὄψει θεὸν ὑπερμεγέθη, φωτινὴν ἔχοντα τὴν ὄψιν,

νεώτερον, χρυσοκόμαν, ἐν χιτῶνι λευκῳ καὶ χρυσῳ στεφάνῳ καὶ ἀναξυρίσι,

κατέχοντα τῇ δεξιᾷ χειρὶ μόσχου ὦμόν χρύσεον, ὅς ἐστιν ἄρκτος ἡ κινοῦσα

καὶ ἀντιστρέφουσα τὸν οὐρανόν, κατὰ ὥραν ἀναπολεύουσα καὶ καταπολεύουσα.

ἔπειτα ὄψει αὐτοῦ ἐκ τῶν ὀμμάτων ἀστραπὰς καὶ ἐκ τοῦ σώματος ἀστέρας

ἁλλομένους.[161]

If we place fire and gold as essentially similar, then a great accord is

found in the attributes of the two gods. To these mystical pagan ideas

there deserve to be added the probably almost contemporaneous vision of

Revelation:

“And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks. And in the midst

of the candlesticks[162] one like unto the son of man, clothed with a

garment down to the foot, and girt about at the breasts with a golden

girdle. And his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as

snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire. And his feet like unto

burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and his voice

as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven

stars,[163] and out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged

sword,[164] and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his

strength.”—_Rev._ i: 12 ff.

“And I looked, and beheld a white cloud, and upon the cloud I saw one

sitting like unto the son of man, having on his head a golden crown,

and in his hand a sharp sickle.”[165]—_Rev._ xiv: 14.

“And his eyes were as a flame of fire, and upon his head were many

diadems. And he was arrayed in a garment[166] sprinkled with blood....

And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses,

clothed in fine linen,[167] white and pure. And out of his mouth

proceeded a sharp sword.”—_Rev._ xix: 12–15.

One need not assume that there is a direct dependency between the

Apocalypse and the Mithraic liturgy. The visionary images of both texts

are developed from a source, not limited to one place, but found in the

soul of many divers people, because the symbols which arise from it are

too typical for it to belong to one individual only. I put these images

here to show how the primitive symbolism of light gradually developed,

with the increasing depth of the vision, into the idea of the sun-hero,

the “well-beloved.”[168] The development of the symbol of light is

thoroughly typical. In addition to this, perhaps I might call to mind

the fact that I have previously pointed out this course with numerous

examples,[169] and, therefore, I can spare myself the trouble of

returning to this subject.[170] These visionary occurrences are the

psychological roots of the sun-coronations in the mysteries. Its rite is

religious hallucination congealed into liturgical form, which, on

account of its great regularity, could become a generally accepted outer

form. After all this, it is easily understood how the ancient Christian

Church, on one side, stood in an especial bond to Christ as “sol novus,”

and, on the other side, had a certain difficulty in freeing itself from

the earthly symbols of Christ. Indeed Philo of Alexandria saw in the sun

the image of the divine logos or of the Deity especially (“De Somniis,”

1:85). In an Ambrosian hymn Christ is invoked by “O sol salutis,” and so

on. At the time of Marcus Aurelius, Meliton, in his work,[171] περὶ

λούτρου, called Christ the Ἥλιος ἀνατολης ... μόνος ἥλιος οὗτος

ἀνέτειλεν ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ.[172]

Still more important is a passage from Pseudo-Cyprian:[173]

“O quam præclara providentia ut illo die quo factus est sol, in ipso

die nasceretur Christus, v. Kal. Apr. feria IV, et ideo de ipso ad

plebem dicebat Malachias propheta: ‘Orietur vobis sol iustitiæ et

curatio est in pennis ejus,’ hic est sol iustitiæ cuius in pennis

curatio præostendebatur.”[174][175]

In a work nominally attributed to John Chrysostomus, “De Solstitiis et

Aequinoctiis,”[176] occurs this passage:

“Sed et dominus nascitur mense Decembri hiemis tempore, VIII. Kal.

Januarias, quando oleæ maturæ præmuntur ut unctio, id est Chrisma,

nascatur—sed et Invicti natalem appellant. Quis utique tam invictus

nisi dominus noster qui mortem subactam devicit? Vel quod dicant Solis

esse natalem, ipse est sol iustitiæ, de quo Malachias propheta dixit:

‘Dominus lucis ac noctis conditor et discretor qui a propheta Sol

iustitiæ cognominatus est.’”[177]

According to the testimony of Eusebius of Alexandria, the Christians

also shared in the worship of the rising sun, which lasted into the

fifth century:

οὐαῖ τοῖς προσκυνοῦσι τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὴν σελήνην καὶ τοὺς ἀστέρας.

Πολλοὺς γὰρ οἶδα τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας καὶ εὐχομένους εἰς τὸν ἥλιον. Ἤδη

γὰρ ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου, προσεύχονται καὶ λέγουσιν “Ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς”

καὶ οὐ μόνον Ἡλιογνώσται καὶ αἱρετικοὶ τοῦτο ποιοῦσιν ἀλλὰ καὶ

χριστιανοὶ καὶ ἀφέντες τὴν πίστιν τοῖς αἱρετικοῖς συναμίγνυνται.[178]

Augustine preached emphatically to the Christians:

“Non est Dominus Sol factus sed per quem Sol factus est—ne quis

carnaliter sapiens Solem istum (Christum) intelligendum putaret.”

Art has preserved much of the remnants of sun-worship,[179] thus the

nimbus around the head of Christ and the halo of the saints in general.

The Christian legends also attribute many fire and light symbols to the

saints.[180] The twelve apostles, for example, are likened to the twelve

signs of the zodiac, and are represented, therefore, with a star over

the head.[181]

It is not to be wondered at that the heathen, as Tertullian avows,

considered the sun as the Christian God. Among the Manichaeans God was

really the sun. One of the most remarkable works extant, where the

Pagan, Asiatic, Hellenic and Christian intermingle, is the Ἐξήγησις περὶ

των ἐν Περσίδι πραχθέντων, edited by Wirth.[182] This is a book of

fables, but, nevertheless, a mine for near-Christian phantasies, which

gives a profound insight into Christian symbolism. In this is found the

following magical dedication: Διὶ Ἡλίῳ θεῳ μεγάλῳ βασιλεῖ Ἰησοῦ—.[183]

In certain parts of Armenia the rising sun is still worshipped by

Christians, that “it may let its foot rest upon the faces of the

worshippers.”[184] The foot occurs as an anthropomorphic attribute, and

we have already met the theriomorphic attribute in the feathers and the

sun phallus. Other comparisons of the sun’s ray, as knife, sword, arrow,

and so on, have also, as we have learned from the psychology of the

dream, a phallic meaning at bottom. This meaning is attached to the foot

as I here point out,[185] and also to the feathers, or hair, of the sun,

which signify the power or strength of the sun. I refer to the story of

Samson, and to that of the Apocalypse of Baruch, concerning the phœnix

bird, which, flying before the sun, loses its feathers, and, exhausted,

is strengthened again in an ocean bath at evening.

Under the symbol of “moth and sun” we have dug down into the historic

depths of the soul, and in doing this we have uncovered an old buried

idol, the youthful, beautiful, fire-encircled and halo-crowned sun-hero,

who, forever unattainable to the mortal, wanders upon the earth, causing

night to follow day; winter, summer; death, life; and who returns again

in rejuvenated splendor and gives light to new generations. The longing

of the dreamer concealed behind the moth stands for him.

The ancient pre-Asiatic civilizations were acquainted with a sun-worship

having the idea of a God dying and rising again (Osiris, Tammuz,

Attis-Adonis),[186] Christ, Mithra and his bull,[187] Phœnix and so on.

The beneficent power as well as the destroying power was worshipped in

fire. The forces of nature always have two sides, as we have already

seen in the God of Job. This reciprocal bond brings us back once more to

Miss Miller’s poem. Her reminiscences support our previous supposition,

that the symbol of moth and sun is a condensation of two ideas, about

one of which we have just spoken; the other is the moth and the flame.

As the title of a play, about the contents of which the author tells us

absolutely nothing, “Moth and Flame” may easily have the well-known

erotic meaning of flying around the flame of passion until one’s wings

are burned. The passionate longing, that is to say, the libido, has its

two sides; it is power which beautifies everything, and which under

other circumstances destroys everything. It often appears as if one

could not accurately understand in what the destroying quality of the

creative power consists. A woman who gives herself up to passion,

particularly under the present-day condition of culture, experiences the

destructive side only too soon. One has only to imagine one’s self a

little away from the every-day moral conditions in order to understand

what feelings of extreme insecurity overwhelm the individual who gives

himself unconditionally over to Fate.

To be fruitful means, indeed, to destroy one’s self, because with the

rise of the succeeding generation the previous one has passed beyond its

highest point; thus our descendants are our most dangerous enemies, whom

we cannot overcome, for they will outlive us, and, therefore, without

fail, will take the power from our enfeebled hands. The anxiety in the

face of the erotic fate is wholly understandable, for there is something

immeasurable therein. Fate usually hides unknown dangers, and the

perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to venture upon life is easily

explained by his desire to be allowed to stand still, so as not to take

part in the dangerous battle of life.[188] _Whoever renounces the chance

to experience must stifle in himself the wish for it, and, therefore,

commits a sort of self-murder._ From this the death phantasies which

readily accompany the renunciation of the erotic wish are made clear. In

the poem _Miss Miller has voiced these phantasies_.

She adds further to the material with the following:

“I had been reading a selection from one of Byron’s poems which

pleased me very much and made a deep and lasting impression. Moreover,

the rhythm of my last two verses, ‘For I the source, etc.,’ and the

two lines of Byron’s are very similar.

‘Now let me die as I have lived in faith,

Nor tremble though the universe should quake.’”

This reminiscence with which the series of ideas is closed confirms the

death phantasies which follow from renunciation of the erotic wish. The

quotation comes—which Miss Miller did not mention—from an uncompleted

poem of Byron’s called “Heaven and Earth.”[189] The whole verse follows:

“Still blessed be the Lord,

For what is passed,

For that which is;

For all are His,

From first to last—

Time—Space—Eternity—Life—Death—

The vast known and immeasurable unknown

He made and can unmake,

And shall I for a little gasp of breath

Blaspheme and groan?

No, let me die as I have lived in faith,

Nor quiver though the universe may quake!”

The words are included in a kind of praise or prayer, spoken by a

“mortal” who is in hopeless flight before the mounting deluge. Miss

Miller puts herself in the same situation in her quotation; that is to

say, she readily lets it be seen that her feeling is similar to the

despondency of the unhappy ones who find themselves hard pressed by the

threatening mounting waters of the deluge. With this the writer allows

us a deep look into the dark abyss of her longing for the sun-hero. We

see that her longing is in vain; she is a mortal, only for a short time

borne upwards into the light by means of the highest longing, and then

sinking to death, or, much more, urged upwards by the fear of death,

like the people before the deluge, and in spite of the desperate

conflict, irretrievably given over to destruction. This is a mood which

recalls vividly the closing scene in “Cyrano de Bergerac”:[190]

_Cyrano_:

Oh, mais ... puisqu’elle est en chemin,

Je l’attendrai debout ... et l’épée à la main.

Que dites-vous?... C’est inutile? Je le sais.

Mais on ne se bat pas dans l’espoir du succès.

Non, non. C’est bien plus beau lorsque c’est inutile.

Je sais bien qu’à la fin vous me mettrez à bas....

We already know sufficiently well what longing and what impulse it is

that attempts to clear a way for itself to the light, but that it may be

realized quite clearly and irrevocably, it is shown plainly in the

quotation “No, let me die,” which confirms and completes all earlier

remarks. The divine, the “much-beloved,” who is honored in the image of

the sun, is also the goal of the longing of our poet.

Byron’s “Heaven and Earth” is a mystery founded on the following passage

from Genesis, chapter vi:2: “And it came to pass ... that the sons of

God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them

wives of all that they chose.” Byron offers as a further motif for his

poem the following passage from Coleridge: “_And woman wailing for her

Demon lover_.” Byron’s poem is concerned with two great events, one

psychologic and one telluric; the passion which throws down all

barriers; and all the terrors of the unchained powers of nature: a

parallel which has already been introduced into our earlier discussion.

The angels Samiasa and Azaziel burn with sinful love for the beautiful

daughters of Cain, Anah and Aholibama, and force a way through the

barrier which is placed between mortal and immortal. They revolt as

Lucifer once did against God, and the archangel Raphael raises his voice

warningly:

“But man hath listened to his voice

And ye to woman’s—beautiful she is,

The serpent’s voice less subtle than her kiss.

The snake but vanquished dust; but she will draw

A second host from heaven to break heaven’s law.”

The power of God is threatened by the seduction of passion; a second

fall of angels menaces heaven. Let us translate this mythologic

projection back into the psychologic, from whence it originated. Then it

would read: the power of the good and reasonable ruling the world wisely

is threatened by the chaotic primitive power of passion; therefore

passion must be exterminated; that is to say, projected into mythology.

The race of Cain and the whole sinful world must be destroyed from the

roots by the deluge. It is the inevitable result of that sinful passion

which has broken through all barriers. Its counterpart is the sea and

the waters of the deep and the floods of rain,[191] the generating,

fructifying and “maternal waters,” as the Indian mythology refers to

them. Now they leave their natural bounds and surge over the mountain

tops, engulfing all living things; for passion destroys itself. The

libido is God and Devil. With the destruction of the sinfulness of the

libido an essential portion of the libido would be destroyed. Through

the loss of the Devil, God himself suffered a considerable loss,

somewhat like an amputation upon the body of the Divinity. The

mysterious hint in Raphael’s lament concerning the two rebels, Samiasa

and Azaziel, suggests this.

“... Why,

Cannot this earth be made, or be destroyed,

Without involving ever some vast void

In the immortal ranks?...”

Love raises man, not only above himself, but also above the bounds of

his mortality and earthliness, up to divinity itself, and in the very

act of raising him it destroys him. Mythologically, this

self-presumption finds its striking expression in the building of the

heaven-high tower of Babel, which brings confusion to mankind.[192] In

Byron’s poem it is the sinful ambition of the race of Cain, for love of

which it makes even the stars subservient and leads away the sons of God

themselves. If, indeed, longing for the highest things—if I may speak

so—is legitimate, then it lies in the circumstances that it leaves its

human boundaries, that of sinfulness, and, therefore, destruction. The

longing of the moth for the star is not absolutely pure and transparent,

but glows in sultry mist, for man continues to be man. Through the

excess of his longing he draws down the divine into the corruption of

his passion;[193] therefore, he seems to raise himself to the Divine;

but with that his humanity is destroyed. Thus the love of Anah and

Aholibama for their angels becomes the ruin of gods and men. The

invocation with which Cain’s daughters implore their angels is

psychologically an exact parallel to Miss Miller’s poem.

_Anah_:[194]

Seraph!

From thy sphere!

Whatever star[195] contains thy glory.

In the eternal depths of heaven

Albeit thou watchest with the ‘seven,’

Though through space infinite and hoary

Before thy bright wings worlds will be driven,

Yet hear!

Oh! think of her who holds thee dear!

And though she nothing is to thee,

Yet think that thou art all to her.

· · · · ·

Eternity is in thy years,

Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes;

With me thou canst not sympathize,

Except in love, and there thou must

Acknowledge that more loving dust

Ne’er wept beneath the skies.

Thou walkest thy many worlds,[196] thou seest

The face of him who made thee great,

As he hath made of me the least

Of those cast out from Eden’s gate;

Yet, Seraph, dear!

Oh hear!

For thou hast loved me, and I would not die

Until I know what I must die in knowing,

That thou forgettest in thine eternity

Her whose heart death could not keep from o’erflowing

For thee, immortal essence as thou art,[197]

Great is their love who love in sin and fear;

And such, I feel, are waging in my heart

A war unworthy: to an Adamite

Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts appear.

For sorrow is our element....

· · · · ·

The hour is near

Which tells me we are not abandoned quite.

Appear! Appear!

Seraph!

My own Azaziel! be but here,

And leave the stars to their own light.

_Aholibama_:

I call thee, I await thee and I love thee.

· · · · ·

Though I be formed of clay,

And thou of beams[198]

More bright than those of day on Eden’s streams,

Thine immortality cannot repay

With love more warm than mine

My love. There is a ray[199]

In me, which though forbidden yet to shine,

I feel was lighted at thy God’s and mine.[200]

It may be hidden long: death and decay

Our mother Eve bequeathed us—but my heart

Defies it: though this life must pass away,

Is that a cause for thee and me to part?

· · · · ·

I can share all things, even immortal sorrow;

For thou hast ventured to share life with me,

And shall I shrink from thine eternity?

No, though the serpent’s sting[201] should pierce me through,

And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil

Around me still.[202] And I will smile

And curse thee not, but hold

Thee in as warm a fold

As—but descend and prove

A mortal’s love

For an immortal....

The apparition of both angels which follows the invocation is, as

always, a shining vision of light.

_Aholibama_:

The clouds from off their pinions flinging

As though they bore to-morrow’s light.

_Anah_:

But if our father see the sight!

_Aholibama_:

He would but deem it was the moon

Rising unto some sorcerer’s tune

An hour too soon.

· · · · ·

_Anah_:

Lo! They have kindled all the west,

Like a returning sunset....

On Ararat’s late secret crest

A wild and many colored bow,

The remnant of their flashing path,

Now shines!...

At the sight of this many-colored vision of light, where both women are

entirely filled with desire and expectation, Anah makes use of a simile

full of presentiment, which suddenly allows us to look down once more

into the dismal dark depths, out of which for a moment the terrible

animal nature of the mild god of light emerges.

“... and now, behold! it hath

Returned to night, as rippling foam,

Which the leviathan hath lashed

From his unfathomable home,

When sporting on the face of the calm deep,

Subsides soon after he again hath dash’d

Down, down to where the ocean’s fountains sleep.”

Thus like the leviathan! We recall this overpowering weight in the scale

of God’s justice in regard to the man Job. There, where the deep sources

of the ocean are, the leviathan lives; from there the all-destroying

flood ascends, the all-engulfing flood of animal passion. That stifling,

compressing feeling[203] of the onward-surging impulse is projected

mythologically as a flood which, rising up and over all, destroys all

that exists, in order to allow a new and better creation to come forth

from this destruction.

_Japhet_:

The eternal will

Shall deign to expound this dream

Of good and evil; and redeem

Unto himself all times, all things;

And, gather’d under his almighty wings,

Abolish hell!

And to the expiated Earth

Restore the beauty of her birth.

_Spirits_:

And when shall take effect this wondrous spell?

_Japhet_:

When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain

And then in glory.

_Spirits_:

New times, new climes, new arts, new men, but still

The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill,

Shall be amongst your race in different forms;

But the same mortal storms

Shall oversweep the future, as the waves

In a few hours the glorious giants’ graves.

The prophetic visions of Japhet have almost prophetic meaning for our

poetess; with the death of the moth in the light, evil is once more laid

aside; the complex has once again, even if in a censored form, expressed

itself. With that, however, the problem is not solved; all sorrow and

every longing begins again from the beginning, but there is “Promise in

the Air”—the premonition of the Redeemer, of the “Well-beloved,” of the

Sun-hero, who again mounts to the height of the sun and again descends

to the coldness of the winter, who is the light of hope from race to

race, the image of the libido.

PART II

CHAPTER I

ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO

Before I enter upon the contents of this second part, it seems necessary

to cast a backward glance over the singular train of thought which the

analysis of the poem “The Moth to the Sun” has produced. Although this

poem is very different from the foregoing Hymn of Creation, closer

investigation of the “longing for the sun” has carried us into the realm

of the fundamental ideas of religion and astral mythology, which ideas

are closely related to those considered in the first poem. The creative

God of the first poem, whose dual nature, moral and physical, was shown

especially clearly to us by Job, has in the second poem a new

qualification of astral-mythological, or, to express it better, of

astrological character. The God becomes the sun, and in this finds an

adequate natural expression quite apart from the moral division of the

God idea into the heavenly father and the devil. The sun is, as Renan

remarked, really the only rational representation of God, whether we

take the point of view of the barbarians of other ages or that of the

modern physical sciences. In both cases the sun is the parent God,

mythologically predominantly the Father God, from whom all living things

draw life; He is the fructifier and creator of all that lives, the

source of energy of our world. The discord into which the soul of man

has fallen through the action of moral laws[204] can be resolved into

complete harmony through the sun as the natural object which obeys no

human moral law. The sun is not only beneficial, but also destructive;

therefore the zodiacal representation of the August heat is the

herd-devouring lion whom the Jewish hero Samson[205] killed in order to

free the parched earth from this plague. Yet it is the harmonious and

inherent nature of the sun to scorch, and its scorching power seems

natural to men. It shines equally on the just and on the unjust, and

allows useful living objects to flourish as well as harmful ones.

Therefore, the sun is adapted as is nothing else to represent the

visible God of this world. That is to say, that driving strength of our

own soul, which we call libido, and whose nature it is to allow the

useful and injurious, the good and the bad to proceed. That this

comparison is no mere play of words is taught us by the mystics. When by

looking inwards (introversion) and going down into the depths of their

own being they find “in their heart” the image of the Sun, they find

their own love or libido, which with reason, I might say with physical

reason, is called the Sun; for our source of energy and life is the Sun.

Thus our life substance, as an energic process, is entirely Sun. Of what

special sort this “Sun energy” seen inwardly by the mystic is, is shown

by an example taken from the Hindoo mythology.[206] From the explanation

of Part III of the “Shvetâshvataropanishad” we take the following

quotation, which relates to the Rudra:[207]

(2) “Yea, the one Rudra who all these worlds with ruling power doth

rule, stands not for any second. Behind those that are born he stands;

at ending time ingathers all the worlds he hath evolved, protector

(he).

(3) “He hath eyes on all sides, on all sides surely hath faces, arms

surely on all sides, on all sides feet. With arms, with wings he

tricks them out, creating heaven and earth, the only God.

(4) “Who of the gods is both the source and growth, the Lord of all,

the Rudra. Mighty seer; who brought the shining germ of old into

existence—may he with reason pure conjoin us.”[208]

These attributes allow us clearly to discern the all-creator and in him

the Sun, which has wings and with a thousand eyes scans the world.[209]

The following passages confirm the text and join to it the idea most

important for us, that God is also contained in the individual creature:

(7) “Beyond this (world) the Brahman beyond, the mighty one, in every

creature hid according to its form, the one encircling Lord of all,

Him having known, immortal they become.

(8) “I know this mighty man, Sun-like, beyond the darkness, Him (and

him) only knowing, one crosseth over death; no other path (at all) is

there to go.

(11) “... spread over the universe is He the Lord therefore as

all-pervader, He’s benign.”

The powerful God, the equal of the Sun, is in that one, and whoever

knows him is immortal.[210] Going on further with the text, we come upon

a new attribute, which informs us in what form and manner Rudra lived in

men.

(12) “The mighty monarch, He, the man, the one who doth the essence

start towards that peace of perfect stainlessness, lordly, exhaustless

light.

(13) “The Man, the size of a thumb, the inner self, sits ever in the

heart of all that’s born, by mind, mind ruling in the heart, is He

revealed. That they who know, immortal they become.

(14) “The Man of the thousands of heads (and) thousands of eyes (and)

thousands of feet, covering the earth on all sides, He stands beyond,

ten finger-breadths.

(15) “The Man is verily this all, (both) what has been and what will

be, Lord (too) of deathlessness which far all else surpasses.”

Important parallel quotations are to be found in the “Kathopanishad,”

section 2, part 4.

(12) “The Man of the size of a thumb, resides in the midst within the

self, of the past and the future, the Lord.

(13) “The Man of the size of a thumb like flame free from smoke, of

past and of future the Lord, the same is to-day, to-morrow the same

will He be.”

Who this Tom-Thumb is can easily be divined—the phallic symbol of the

libido. The phallus is this hero dwarf, who performs great deeds; he,

this ugly god in homely form, who is the great doer of wonders, since he

is the visible expression of the creative strength incarnate in man.

This extraordinary contrast is also very striking in “Faust” (the mother

scene):

_Mephistopheles_:

I’ll praise thee ere we separate: I see

Thou knowest the devil thoroughly:

Here take this key.

_Faust_:

That little thing!

_Mephistopheles_:

Take hold of it, not undervaluing!

_Faust_:

It glows, it shines, increases in my hand!

_Mephistopheles_:

How much it is worth, thou soon shalt understand,

The key will scent the true place from all others!

Follow it down!—’twill lead thee to the Mothers![211]

Here the devil again puts into Faust’s hand the marvellous tool, a

phallic symbol of the libido, as once before in the beginning the devil,

in the form of the black dog, accompanied Faust, when he introduced

himself with the words:

“Part of that power, not understood,

Which always wills the bad and always creates the good.”

United to this strength, Faust succeeded in accomplishing his real life

task, at first through evil adventure and then for the benefit of

humanity, for without the evil there is no creative power. Here in the

mysterious mother scene, where the poet unveils the last mystery of the

creative power to the initiated, Faust has need of the phallic magic

wand (in the magic strength of which he has at first no confidence), in

order to perform the greatest of wonders, namely, the creation of Paris

and Helen. With that Faust attains the divine power of working miracles,

and, indeed, only by means of this small, insignificant instrument. This

paradoxical impression seems to be very ancient, for even the Upanishads

could say the following of the dwarf god:

(19) “Without hands, without feet, He moveth, He graspeth: Eyeless He

seeth, (and) earless He heareth: He knoweth what is to be known, yet

is there no knower of Him. Him call the first, mighty the Man.

(20) “Smaller than small, (yet) greater than great in the heart of

this creature the self doth repose ... etc.”

The phallus is the being, which moves without limbs, which sees without

eyes, which knows the future; and as symbolic representative of the

universal creative power existent everywhere immortality is vindicated

in it. It is always thought of as entirely independent, an idea current

not only in antiquity, but also apparent in the pornographic drawings of

our children and artists. It is a seer, an artist and a worker of

wonders; therefore it should not surprise us when certain phallic

characteristics are found again in the mythological seer, artist and

sorcerer. Hephaestus, Wieland the smith, and Mani, the founder of

Manicheism, whose followers were also famous, have crippled feet. The

ancient seer Melampus possessed a suggestive name (Blackfoot),[212] and

it seems also to be typical for seers to be blind. Dwarfed stature,

ugliness and deformity have become especially typical for those

mysterious chthonian gods, the sons of Hephaestus, the Cabiri,[213] to

whom great power to perform miracles was ascribed. The name signifies

“powerful,” and the Samothracian cult is most intimately united with

that of the ithyphallic Hermes, who, according to the account of

Herodotus, was brought to Attica by the Pelasgians. They are also called

μεγάλοι θεοί, the great gods. Their near relations are the “Idaean

dactyli” (finger or Idaean thumb),[214] to whom the mother of the gods

had taught the blacksmith’s art. (“The key will scent the true place

from all others! follow it down!—’twill lead thee to the Mothers!”) They

were the first leaders, the teachers of Orpheus, and invented the

Ephesian magic formulas and the musical rhythms.[215] The characteristic

disparity which is shown above in the Upanishad text, and in “Faust,” is

also found here, since the gigantic Hercules passed as an Idaean dactyl.

The colossal Phrygians, the skilled servants of Rhea,[216] were also

Dactyli. The Babylonian teacher of wisdom, Oannes,[217] was represented

in a phallic fish form.[218] The two sun heroes, the Dioscuri, stand in

relation to the Cabiri;[219] they also wear the remarkable pointed

head-covering (Pileus) which is peculiar to these mysterious gods,[220]

and which is perpetuated from that time on as a secret mark of

identification. Attis (the elder brother of Christ) wears the pointed

cap, just as does Mithra. It has also become traditional for our

present-day chthonian infantile gods,[221] the brownies (Penates), and

all the typical kind of dwarfs. Freud[222] has already called our

attention to the phallic meaning of the hat in modern phantasies. A

further significance is that probably the pointed cap represents the

foreskin. In order not to go too far afield from my theme, I must be

satisfied here merely to present the suggestion. But at a later

opportunity I shall return to this point with detailed proof.

The dwarf form leads to the figure of the divine boy, the _puer

eternus_, the young Dionysus, Jupiter Anxurus, Tages,[223] and so on. In

the vase painting of Thebes, already mentioned, a bearded Dionysus is

represented as ΚΑΒΕΙΡΟΣ, together with a figure of a boy as Παῖς,

followed by a caricatured boy’s figure designated as ΠΡΑΤΟΛΑΟΣ and then

again a caricatured man, which is represented as ΜΙΤΟΣ.[224] Μίτος

really means thread, but in orphic speech it stands for semen. It was

conjectured that this collection corresponded to a group of statuary in

the sanctuary of a cult. This supposition is supported by the history of

the cult as far as it is known; it is an original Phœnician cult of

father and son;[225] of an old and young Cabir who were more or less

assimilated with the Grecian gods. The double figures of the adult and

the child Dionysus lend themselves particularly to this assimilation.

One might also call this the cult of the large and small man. Now, under

various aspects, Dionysus is a phallic god in whose worship the phallus

held an important place; for example, in the cult of the Argivian

Bull—Dionysus. Moreover, the phallic herme of the god has given occasion

for a personification of the phallus of Dionysus, in the form of the god

Phales, who is nothing else but a Priapus. He is called ἑταῖρος or

σύγκωμος Βάκχου[226].[227] Corresponding to this state of affairs, one

cannot very well fail to recognize in the previously mentioned Cabiric

representation, and in the added boy’s figure, the picture of man and

his penis.[228] The previously mentioned paradox in the Upanishad text

of large and small, of giant and dwarf, is expressed more mildly here by

man and boy, or father and son.[229] The motive of deformity which is

used constantly by the Cabiric cult is present also in the vase picture,

while the parallel figures to Dionysus and Παῖς are the caricatured

Μίτος and Πρατόλαος. Just as formerly the difference in size gave

occasion for division, so does the deformity here.[230]

Without first bringing further proof to bear, I may remark that from

this knowledge especially strong sidelights are thrown upon the original

psychologic meaning of the religious heroes. Dionysus stands in an

intimate relation with the psychology of the early Asiatic God who died

and rose again from the dead and whose manifold manifestations have been

brought together in the figure of Christ into a firm personality

enduring for centuries. We gain from our premise the knowledge that

these heroes, as well as their typical fates, are personifications of

the human libido and its typical fates. They are imagery, like the

figures of our nightly dreams—the actors and interpreters of our secret

thoughts. And since we, in the present day, have the power to decipher

the symbolism of dreams and thereby surmise the mysterious psychologic

history of development of the individual, so a way is here opened to the

understanding of the secret springs of impulse beneath the psychologic

development of races. Our previous trains of thought, which demonstrate

the phallic side of the symbolism of the libido, also show how

thoroughly justified is the term “libido.”[231] Originally taken from

the sexual sphere, this word has become the most frequent technical

expression of psychoanalysis, for the simple reason that its

significance is wide enough to cover all the unknown and countless

manifestations of the Will in the sense of Schopenhauer. It is

sufficiently comprehensive and rich in meaning to characterize the real

nature of the psychical entity which it includes. The exact classical

significance of the word libido qualifies it as an entirely appropriate

term. Libido is taken in a very wide sense in Cicero:[232]

“(Volunt ex duobus opinatis) bonis (nasci) Libidinem et Lætitiam; ut

sit lætitia præsentium bonorum: libido futurorum.—Lætitia autem et

Libido in bonorum opinione versantur, cum Libido ad id, quod videtur

bonum, illecta et inflammata rapiatur.—Natura enim omnes ea, quæ bona

videntur, sequuntur, fugiuntque contraria. Quamobrem simul objecta

species cuiuspiam est, quod bonum videatur, ad id adipiscendum

impellit ipsa natura. Id cum constanter prudenterque fit, ejusmodi

appetitionem stoici βούλησιν appellant, nos appellamus voluntatem; eam

illi putant in solo esse sapiente, quam sic definiunt; voluntas est

quæ quid cum ratione desiderat: quæ autem ratione adversa incitata est

vehementius, ea libido est, vel cupiditas effrenata, quæ in omnibus

stultis invenitur.”[233]

The meaning of libido here is “to wish,” and in the stoical distinction

of will, dissolute desire. Cicero[234] used “libido” in a corresponding

sense:

“Agere rem aliquam libidine, non ratione.”[235]

In the same sense Sallust says:

“Iracundia pars est libidinis.”

In another place in a milder and more general sense, which completely

approaches the analytical use:

“Magisque in decoris armis et militaribus equis, quam in scortis et

conviviis libidinem habebant.”[235]

Also:

“Quod si tibi bona libido fuerit patriæ, etc.”

The use of libido is so general that the phrase “libido est scire”

merely had the significance of “I will, it pleases me.” In the phrase

“aliquam libido urinæ lacessit” libido had the meaning of urgency. The

significance of sexual desire is also present in the classics.

This general classical application of the conception agrees with the

corresponding etymological context of the word, _libido_ or _lubido_

(with _libet_, more ancient _lubet_), it pleases me, and _libens_ or

_lubens_ = gladly, willingly. Sanskrit, _lúbhyati_ = to experience

violent longing, _lôbhayati_ = excites longing, _lubdha-h_ = eager,

_lôbha-h_ = longing, eagerness. Gothic = _liufs_, and Old High German

_liob_ = love. Moreover, in Gothic, _lubains_ was represented as hope;

and Old High German, _lobôn_ = to praise, _lob_ = commendation, praise,

glory; Old Bulgarian, _ljubiti_ = to love, _ljuby_ = love; Lithuanian,

_liáupsinti_ = to praise.[236] It can be said that the conception of

libido as developed in the new work of Freud and of his school has

functionally the same significance in the biological territory as has

the conception of energy since the time of Robert Mayer in the physical

realm.[237] It may not be superfluous to say something more at this

point concerning the conception of libido after we have followed the

formation of its symbol to its highest expression in the human form of

the religious hero.