Psychology of the Unconscious A Study of the...

748. According to Philo, the serpent is the most spirited of all animals; its nature is that of fire, the rapidity of its movements is great and this without need of any especial limbs. It has a long life and sheds age, with its skin. Therefore it was inculcated in the mysteries, because it is immortal. (Maehly: “Die Schlange in Mythologie und Kultus der klassischen Völker,” 1867, p. 7.)

749. For example, the St. John of Quinten Matsys (see illustration); also two pictures by an unknown Strassburg master in the Gallery at Strassburg.

750. “And the woman—having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication” (Rev. xvii:4). The woman is “drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus”: a striking image of the terrible mother (here, cup = genitals). In the Tibetan myth of Bogda Gesser Khan there is a beetle (treasure attainable with difficulty), which the demoniac old woman guards. Gesser says to her: “Sister, never since I was born have you shown me the beetle my soul.” The mother libido is also the soul. It is significant that the old woman desired the hero as a husband. (Frobenius.)

751. This is also the significance of the mysteries. Their purpose is to lead the useless, regressive incestuous libido over the bridges of symbolism into rational activity, and through that transform the obscure compulsion of the libido working up from the unconscious into social communion and higher moral endeavor.

752. An excellent example of this is the description of the orgies of the Russian sectarian by Mereschkowski, in his book, “Peter the Great and Alexei.” In the cult of the Asiatic Goddesses of love (Anaïtis, Mylitta, etc.), prostitution in the temple was an organized institution. The orgiastic cult of Anâhita (Anaïtis) has been preserved in modern sects, with the Ali Illâhîja, the so-called “extinguishers of light”; with the Yezêds and Dushikkurds, who celebrate nocturnal religious orgies which end in a wild sexual debauch, during which incestuous unions also occur. (Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,” II, p. 64.) Further examples are to be found in the valuable work of Stoll (“Das Sexualleben in der Völkerpsychologie,” Leipzig 1908).

753. Concerning the kiss of the snake, compare Grimm, II, p. 809. By this means, a beautiful woman was set free. The sucking refers to the maternal significance of the snake, which exists along with the phallic. It is a coitus act on the presexual stage. Spielrein’s insane patient (Jahrbuch, III, p. 344) says as follows: “Wine is the blood of Jesus.—The water must be blessed, and was blessed by him. The one buried alive becomes the vineyard. That wine becomes blood—the water is mingled with ‘childishness’ because God says, ‘become like little children.’ There is also a spermatic water which can be drunken with blood. That perhaps is the water of Jesus.” Here we find a commingling of all the various meanings of the way to win immortality. Wiedemann (“Der alte Orient,” II, 2, p. 18; cited by Dieterich: Ibid., p. 101) asserts that it is an Egyptian idea that man draws in the milk of immortality by suckling the breast of a goddess. (Compare with that the myth of Hercules, where the hero attains immortality by a single draw at the breast of Hera.)

754. From the writings of the sectarian Anton Unternährer: “Geheimes Reskript der bernischen Regierung an die Pfarr- und Statthalterämter,” 1821. I owe the knowledge of this fragment to Rev. Dr. O. Pfister.

755. Nietzsche: “Zarathustra”: “And I also give this parable to you: Not a few who wished to drive out the devil from themselves, by that lead themselves into the slough.”

756. Compare the vision of Zosimos.

757. The significance of the communion ritual as a unio mystica with God is at bottom sexual and very corporeal. The primitive significance of the communion is that of a Hierosgamos. Therefore in the fragment of the Attis mysteries handed down by Firmicus it is said that the mystic eats from the Tympanon, drinks from the Kymbalon, and he confesses: ὑπὸ τὸν παστὸν ὑπέδυον, which means the same as: “I have entered the bridal chamber.” Usener (in Dieterich: Ibid., p. 126) refers to a series of quotations from the patristic literature, of which I mention merely one sentence from the speeches of Proclus of Constantinople: ἡ παστας εν ἡ ὁ λογος ενυμφευσατο την σακρα (The bridal chamber in which the Logos has espoused the flesh). The church is also to some extent the bridal chamber, where the spirit unites with the flesh, really the Cömeterium. Irenaeus mentions some more of the initiatory customs of certain gnostic sects, which were undoubtedly nothing but spiritual weddings. (Compare Dieterich: Ibid., p. 127 ff.) In the Catholic church, even yet, a Hierosgamos is celebrated on the installation of a priest. A young maiden there represents the church as bride.

758. Compare also the phantasies of Felicien Rops: The crucified Priapus.

759. Compare with that the symbolism in Nietzsche’s poem: “Why enticest thou thyself into the paradise of the old serpent?”

760. “Thus Spake Zarathustra.”

761. Nietzsche himself must have shown at times a certain predilection for loathsome animals. Compare C. A. Bernoulli: “Franz Oberbeck und Friedrich Nietzsche,” Vol. I, p. 166.

762. I recall Nietzsche’s dream, which is cited in Part I of this book.

763. The Germanic myth of Dietrich von Bern, who had fiery breath, belongs to this idea: He was wounded in the forehead by an arrow, a piece of which remained there fixed; from this, he was called the immortal. In a similar manner, half of Hrûngnir’s wedge-shaped stone fastened itself in Thor’s head. See Grimm: “Mythology,” I, p. 309.

764. “Geschichte der Philosophie,” Vol. I, p. 181.

765. Sa tapo atapyata.

766. The Stoic idea of the creative primal warmth, in which we have already recognized the libido (Part I, Chap. IV), belongs in this connection, also the birth of Mithra from a stone, which resulted solo aestu libidinis (through the heat of the libido only).

767. The place of discipline.

768. In the accurate prose translation this passage reads: “There Kâma developed from him in the beginning” (Deussen: “Gesch. d. Phil.,” Vol. I, p. 123). Kâma is the libido. “The sages found the root of being in the non-being, in the heart, searching with introspection.”

769. “Fame and Eternity.”

770. Grimm: “Mythology,” III. The heroes have serpent’s eyes, as do the kings: ormr î auga. Sigurdr is called Ormr î Auga.

771. Nietzsche’s

“In the green light,

Happiness still plays around the brown abyss.

His voice grows hoarse,

His eye flashes verdigris!”

772. From “The Poverty of the Richest.”

773. Nietzsche’s “Fragments of Dionysus-Dithyrambs.”

“Heavy eyes,

Which seldom love:

But when they love, it flashes out

Like a gold mine

Where a dragon guards the treasure of love.”

774. He is pregnant with the sun.

775. Galatians iii:27 alludes to this primitive idea: “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

776. Just as is Mânî so is Marsyas a crucified one. (See Robertson: “Evangelical Myths,” p. 66.) Both were hung, a punishment which has an unmistakable symbolic value, because the suspension (“to suffer and fear in the torment of suspension”) is the symbol of an unfulfilled wish. (See Freud: “The Interpretation of Dreams.”) Therefore Christ, Odin, Attis hung on trees (= mother). The Talmudic Jesus ben Pandira (apparently the earliest historic Jesus) suffered a similar death, on the eve of a Passover festival in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106–79 B.C.). This Jesus may have been the founder of the “Essenes,” a sect (see Robertson: “Evang. Myths,” p. 123) which stood in a certain relation to subsequent Christianity. The Jesus ben Stada identified with the preceding Jesus, but removed into the second Christian century, was also hung. Both were first stoned, a punishment which was, so to speak, a bloodless one like hanging. The Christian church, which spills no blood, therefore burned. This may not be without significance for a peculiar ceremony reported from Uganda: “When a king of Uganda wished to live forever, he went to a place in Busiro, where a feast was given by the chiefs. At the feast the Mamba Clan was especially held in honor, and during the festivities a member of this clan was secretly chosen by his fellows, caught by them, and beaten to death with their fists; no stick or other weapon might be used by the men appointed to do the deed. After death, the victim’s body was flayed and the skin made into a special whip, etc.

After the ceremony of the feast in Busiro, with its strange sacrifice, the king of Uganda was supposed to live forever, but from that day he was never allowed to see his mother again.” (Quoted from Frazer: “Golden Bough,” Part IV, p. 415.) The sacrifice, which is chosen to purchase everlasting life for another, is here given over to a bloodless death and after that skinned. That this sacrifice has an absolutely unmistakable relation to the mother—as we already know—is corroborated very plainly by Frazer.

777. Frazer: “Adonis, Attis, Osiris,” p. 242.