Before CHAPTER VIII THE SACRIFICE
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav) and Hinkle, Beatrice M.
This readily explains the fragment from the Sabazios mysteries, transmitted to us by Firmicus:[780] Ταῦρος δράκοντος καὶ πατὴρ ταύρου δράκων[781].
The active fructifying (upward striving) form of the libido is changed into the negative force striving downwards towards death. The hero as zodion of spring (ram, bull) conquers the depths of winter; and beyond the summer solstice is attacked by the unconscious longing for death, and is bitten by the snake. However, he himself is the snake. But he is at war with himself, and, therefore, the descent and the end appear to him as the malicious inventions of the mother of death, who in this way wishes to draw him to herself. The mysteries, however, consolingly promise that there is no contradiction[782] or disharmony when life is changed into death: ταῦρος δράκοντος καὶ πατήρ ταύρου δράκων.
Nietzsche, too, gives expression to this mystery:[783]
“Here do I sit now,
That is, I’m swallowed down
By this the smallest oasis—
—It opened up just yawning,
Its loveliest maw agape.
Hail! hail! to that whalefish,
When he for his guests’ welfare
Provided thus!
· · · · ·
Hail to his belly
If he had also
Such a lovely oasis belly—
The desert grows, woe to him
Who hides the desert!
Stone grinds on stone, the desert
Gulps and strangles.
The monstrous death gazes, glowing brown,
And chews—his life is his chewing ...
Forget not, O man, burnt out by lust,
Thou art the stone, the desert,
Thou art death!”
The serpent symbolism of the Last Supper is explained by the identification of the hero with the serpent: The god is buried in the mother: as fruit of the field, as food coming from the mother and at the same time as drink of immortality he is received by the mystic, or as a serpent he unites with the mystic. All these symbols represent the liberation of the libido from the incestuous fixation through which new life is attained. The liberation is accomplished under symbols, which represent the activity of the incest wish.
It might be justifiable at this place to cast a glance upon psychoanalysis as a method of treatment. In practical analysis it is important, first of all, to discover the libido lost from the control of consciousness. (It often happens to the libido as with the fish of Moses in the Mohammedan legend; it sometimes “takes its course in a marvellous manner into the sea.”) Freud says in his important article, “Zur Dynamik der Übertragung”:[784]
“The libido has retreated into regression and again revives the infantile images.”
This means, mythologically, that the sun is devoured by the serpent of the night, the treasure is concealed and guarded by the dragon: substitution of a present mode of adaptation by an infantile mode, which is represented by the corresponding neurotic symptoms. Freud continues:
“Thither the analytic treatment follows it and endeavors to seek out the libido again, to render it accessible to consciousness, and finally to make it serviceable to reality. Whenever the analytic investigation touches upon the libido, withdrawn into its hiding-place, a struggle must break out; all the forces, which have caused the regression of the libido, will rise up as resistance against the work, in order to preserve this new condition.”
Mythologically this means: the hero seeks the lost sun, the fire, the virgin sacrifice, or the treasure, and fights the typical fight with the dragon, with the libido in resistance. As these parallels show, psychoanalysis mobiles a part of the life processes, the fundamental importance of which properly illustrates the significance of this process.
After Siegfried has slain the dragon, he meets the father, Wotan, plagued by gloomy cares, for the primitive mother, Erda, has placed in his path the snake, in order to enfeeble his sun. He says to Erda:
Wanderer:
All-wise one,
Care’s piercing sting by thee was planted
In Wotan’s dauntless heart
With fear of shameful ruin and downfall.
Filled was his spirit by tidings
Thou didst foretell.
Art thou the world’s wisest of women?
Tell to me now