Carl Jung, Emma Jung, Marie-Louise Von Franz. Barbara Hannah on “Animus” – Anthology
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Hildegard von Bingen transcended the animus; that is one woman’s service to the spirit. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 30.
To a man the anima is the Mother of God who gives birth to the Divine Child. To a woman the animus is the Holy Spirit, the procreator. He is at once the light and the dark God — not the Christian God of Love who contains neither the Devil nor the Son. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Pages 31-32.
The ego wants explanation always in order to assert its existence…Try to live without the ego. Whatever must come to you, will come. Don’t worry! …Don’t allow yourself to be led astray by the ravings of the animus…He will try every stunt to get you out of the realization of stillness, which is truly the Self. ~Carl Jung, Letters Volume 1; Page 427.
We can never enter the collective unconscious but we can send the anima or animus to bring us information. By making things with your hands without conscious intent you find a vision of the things of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, The Cornwall Seminar, Page 26.
Where one is identified with the collective unconscious, there is no recognition of the things which come from the unconscious, they cannot be distinguished from those of the self. Such a condition is a possession by the anima or animus. Possession by the animus or anima creates a certain psychological hermaphroditism. The principle of individuation demands a dissociation or differentiation of the male and the female in ourselves. We must dissociate our self from the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Cornwall Seminar, Page 26.
In states of excitement we speak to ourselves as though to an excited horse, that bit is the part possessed by the anima. In a woman the animus is multiform so that he cannot be nailed down so well as the anima. ~Carl Jung, Cornwall Seminar, Page 27.
On a low level the animus is an inferior Logos, a caricature of the differentiated masculine mind, just as on a low level the anima is a caricature of the feminine Eros. ~Carl Jung, Commentary Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 41.
For the son, the animus is hidden in the dominating power of the mother and sometimes she leaves him with a sentimental attachment that lasts throughout life and seriously impairs the fate of the adult. ~Carl Jung, CW 9, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, Page 29.
The animus is the masculine thinking in a woman. ~ Carl Jung, CW 13, The Philosophical Tree; Page 267.
Like every archetype, the animus has a Janus face. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, The Philosophical Tree; Page 268.
When a woman realizes her shadow the animus can be constellated. If the shadow remains in the unconscious the animus possesses her through the shadow. When she realizes her animus, mystical generation can occur. Sarah was Abraham’s legitimate wife, but Hagar, the dark one, had the procreative animus. Out of darkness the light is born. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 30.
A woman is oriented towards the animus because it is the son of the unknown father, the Old Sage, whom she never comes to know. This motive is hinted at in the Gnostic texts where Sophia in her madness loves the Great Father On the other hand a man does not know the mother of the anima. She may be personified, for example, in Sophia or the seven times veiled Isis. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 30.
To a man the anima is the Mother of God who gives birth to the Divine Child. To a woman the animus is the Holy Spirit, the procreator. He is at once the light and the dark God — not the Christian God of Love who contains neither the Devil nor the Son. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung; Pages 31-32.
The animus which is not realized by the mother is like a part of a soul with a relative existence of its own. . ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 29.
The power operating through the animus emanates specifically from the self, which is hidden behind it, and from its mana. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 29.
. . . no man can converse with an animus for five minutes without becoming the victim of his own anima. Anyone who still had enough sense of humour to listen objectively to the ensuing dialogue would be staggered by the vast number of commonplaces, misapplied truisms, clichés from newspapers and novels, shop-soiled platitudes of every description interspersed with vulgar abuse and brain-splitting lack of logic. It is a dialogue which, irrespective of its participants, is repeated millions and millions of times in all languages of the world and always remains essentially the same. ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections; Page 392 and Aion, CW 9, ii, Page 15
With a little self-criticism one can see through the shadow-so far as its nature is personal. But when it appears as an archetype, one encounters the same difficulties as with anima and animus. In other words, it is quite within the bounds of possibility for a man to recognize the relative evil of his nature, but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of absolute evil. ~Carl Jung; CW 17; The Shadow; Page 338; par. 19.
The symbolic form of love (animus-anima) shrinks from nothing, least of all from sexual union. Carl Jung, Letters Volume 1, Pages 213-214.
It has just struck me that in my commentary I have suggested using “logos” for “hun” instead of “animus,” because “animus” is a natural term for the “mind” of a woman, corresponding to the “anima” of a man. European philosophy must take into account the existence of feminine psychology. The “anima” of a woman might suitably be designated “Eros.” ~Carl Jung to Richard Wilhelm, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 67-68.
The animus of women is an answer to the spirit which rules the man. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 479-481.
To begin with I did not have the feeling at all that I was guilty of plagiarism with my [anima/animus] theory, but in the last 5 years it has become more and more uncanny as I have discovered quite suspicious traces of it also in the old alchemists, and now the mischief seems complete since it turns out that I was discovered already in the 18th century. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 248.
Thus hun [Animus] means ‘cloud-demon,’ a higher ‘breath-soul’ belonging to the yang principle and therefore masculine. After death, hun rises upward and becomes shen, the ‘expanding and self-revealing’ spirit or god. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.
The fact that the animus and the anima part after death and go their ways independently shows that, for the Chinese consciousness, they are distinguishable psychic factors which have markedly different effects, and, despite the fact that originally they are united in ‘the one effective, true human nature’, in the ‘house of the Creative,’ they are two. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.
‘The animus is in the heavenly heart.’ The animus lives in the daytime in the eyes (that is in consciousness); at night it houses in the liver. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.
Hun [Animus], then, would be the discriminating light of consciousness and of reason in man, originally coming from the logos spermatikos of hsing, and returning after death through shen to the Tao. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 116.
The animus lives in the daytime in the eyes; at night it houses in the liver. When living in the eyes, it sees; when housing itself in the liver, it dreams. Dreams are the wanderings of the spirit through all nine Heavens and all the nine Earths. ~Richard Wilhelm, Secret of the Golden Flower
In any case, animus (hun) is the light, yang-soul, while anima (p’o) is the dark, yin-soul. ~Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 16.
If, on the other hand, it has been possible during life to set going the “backward-flowing, rising movement of the life-forces, if the forces of the anima are mastered by the animus, then a release from external things takes place. They are recognized but not desired. ~Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 17.
If we want to draw the psychological conclusion we must go further and say that the West has an anima, that is, a feminine unconscious, and that the East has an animus, that is, a masculine unconscious. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 204.
Possession caused by the anima or animus presents a different picture. . . .In the state of possession both figures lose their charm and their values; they retain them only when they are turned away from the world, in the introverted state, when they serve as bridges to the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222f.
The animus is obstinate, harping on principles, laying down the law, dogmatic, world-reforming, theoretic, word-mongering, argumentative, and domineering. Both alike have bad taste: the anima surrounds herself with inferior people, and the animus lets himself be taken in by second-rate thinking. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222f.
The “Soul” which accrues to ego-consciousness during the Opus has a feminine character in the man and a masculine character in a woman. His anima wants to reconcile and unite; her animus tries to discern and discriminate. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Par. 522.
The animus corresponds to the paternal Logos just as the anima corresponds to the maternal Eros. ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Par. 28f.
Thus animus and anima are images representing archetypal figures which mediate between consciousness and the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 341-343.
The projection of anima and animus causes mutual fascination. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 402.
The unpleasant power-complex of the female animus is encountered only when a woman does not allow her feeling to express itself naturally or handles it in an inferior way. But this, as said, can happen in all situations of life and has nothing whatever to do with the right to vote. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 477-478
So we should talk to our animus or anima…so you listen to the inner mentor, you develop your inner ear; or you write automatically, and a word is formed by your hand, or your mouth speaks that which you have not thought ~Carl Jung, Cornwall Seminar, Page 26.
And mind you, the animus is as terrible a reality as the anima. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 295
The animus is not created by the conscious, it is a creation of the unconscious, and therefore it is a personification of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 208
The animus is a sort of film between reality and a woman’s mind, she always talks about things as they should be, so when she says a thing is really so, it is really not so at all. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1228.
The animus when on his way, on his quest, is really a psychopompos, leading the soul back to the stars whence it came. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1229
On the way back out of the existence in the flesh, the psychopompos [Animus] develops such a cosmic aspect, he wanders among the constellations, he leads the soul over the rainbow bridge into the blossoming fields of the stars. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1229
I could even go as far as to say that without the anima and animus there would be no object, no other human being, because you perceive differences only through that which is a likeness to the differences in yourself. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1357
The animus is meant to be cosmic. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1228.
The animus is not created by the conscious, it is a creation of the unconscious, and therefore it is a personification of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Pages 208-209
The anima and animus have tremendous influence because we leave the shadow to them. ~Carl Jung, Dream Analysis, Page 53.
A woman possessed by the animus is always in danger of losing her femininity, her adapted feminine persona, just as a man in like circumstances runs the risk of effeminacy. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336
For a woman, the typical danger emanating from the unconscious comes from above, from the “spiritual” sphere personified by the animus, whereas for a man it comes from the chthonic realm of the “world and woman,” i.e., the anima projected on to the world. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 559
If we want to draw the psychological conclusion we must go further and say that the West has an anima, that is, a feminine unconscious, and that the East has an animus, that is, a masculine unconscious. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 8th Dec 1939
A subtle body, breath or smoke resembling, which can also be correctly described as anima. Anima is the feminine of animus, which is identical with the Greek word anemos which means wind or breath. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 24 Feb 1939
I would strongly advise you to do this bit of analysis with a woman, since experience has shown that analysis with a man always has an effect on the animus, which for its part loosens up the personality again, whereas analysis with a woman tends on the contrary to have a “precipitating” effect. C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 190-191
Animus Quotations by Marie-Louise Von Franz:
The animus fosters loneliness in women, whereas the anima thrusts men headlong into relationships and the confusion that accompanies them.The hunger is also typical.
Woman needs life, relationships with people, and participation in meaningful activity. Part of her hunger comes from an awareness of dormant, unused aptitudes.
The animus contributes to her unrest so that she is never satisfied; one must always do more for an animus-possessed woman. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 55
Here the woman can have a transforming effect. If she can stand for her human rights without animus, and if she has a good relationship with the man she loves, she can tell him things about feminine psychology which will help him to differentiate his feelings. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 9
In our Christian civilization, as I mentioned, the image of the woman is incompletely represented.
As Jung has said, she has no representative in the Upper Parliament.
One could say that the anima is neglected and the real woman is uncertain as to her own essence, her own being, of what she is, or could be.
So either she regresses to a primitive instinctive pattern and clings to that, which protects her from the projection that civilization exerts on her, or she falls into the animus and builds up a picture of herself to compensate the uncertainty within her.
In a matriarchal structure, such as in South India, women have natural confidence in their own womanhood. They know their importance and that they are different from men in a special way, and that this does not imply any inferiority.
Therefore they can assert their human existence and being in a natural way. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 10
The source of evil and of things going wrong in women’s lives is often a failure to deal with and to get over hurt feelings, for hurt feelings open the door to animus attacks. The source of things going wrong, and of evil in women, in a tremendous number of cases, is that archetypal reaction of not getting over a hurt, or resentment, or a bad mood, through being disappointed in the feeling realm, and then being overpowered by the animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 35
If you can get back to the origin of the hurt and where you have not worked it out, the animus possession will stop; for that is where it jumped in, and that is why in animus possession there is always an undertone of the reproachful hurt woman. 35
Animus possession in a woman annoys men madly; they go up in the air at once. But what really gets the man’s goat is this undertone of lamenting reproachfulness.
Men who know a little more about this know that eighty-five percent of animus possession in women is a disguised appeal for love, although unfortunately it has the wrong effect, since it chases away the very love that is wanted. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 35
Underneath the animus there is a feeling of reproach and at the same time of wanting to get back at the one who has hurt you. It is a vicious circle, and arguing develops into a typical animus scene. Thus the ignored femininity which plays up in a woman’s anger is something archetypal. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 35
If the woman is in Tao and functioning according to the inner laws of her being, she can afford that kind of feminine nastiness, and it is not animus possession. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 43
There is the expression “a typical lovers’ quarrel.’’ We would call it an anima-animus quarrel, the sword crossing of animus and anima, which consists in a most horrible way of hurting each other in the most vulnerable spots. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 55
Just where the man has a most uncertain delicate feeling, the woman places the thorn of her animus; and where the woman wants to be understood or accepted, the man comes out with some anima poison dart. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 55-56
A world in which nothing on the harsh side is ever allowed, is not on the side of life, and here we come to a typically feminine problem. The more feminine a woman is, and the less aggressive her animus, the more she will tend to be overrun by her surroundings. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 65
So we have a marvelous picture of the annoying and irritating side that a woman’s animus can produce. It shows how a grownup, intelligent woman can entangle herself in such a silly idiotic quarrel or discussion. The irritated animus loses his sense of humor and is ungrateful and full of power. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 66
But usually there is a projection of the woman’s destructive animus onto the man. Even if there is no man on the outside to torture her, the woman will get it from within, for when she is alone her animus assures her that she is lonely and nobody and nothing and will never get anywhere—the sadist within tells her that ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 70
In every couple relationship there are actually four figures involved: the man and his anima, and the woman and her animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 76
I have often observed that women who make a first attempt to use their mind, say at the university, show an animus especially inclined to mix up the instrument of the mental work and its meaning. It is typical for a kind of half-baked animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 78
As soon as she touches anything on the side of life activity she may fall into animus possession or a power drive and become as cold, ruthless, and brutal as her father was. All she can do is to keep right out of the life of the spirit. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 88
The animus is a kind of primitive man, just as the anima in men is a kind of primitive woman who overdoes things and then collapses. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 88
That is the tragedy of such women, but they can get to the turning point, and in the second half of life have their hands healed and can stretch them out for what they want—not from the animus or from the ego, but, according to nature, simply stretch out their hands toward something they love. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 97
It is typical for the animus that, statistically seen, he is generally right, which is why we fall for him. But he is not right in the actual situation. You might say to such a lonely woman that she should introvert more, sink into her loneliness. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 99
A woman who always gives advice irritates a man. It needs a veiling of the inner face of her animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 99
The head is a wonderful image of the animus, with its opinions and musings going on all the time. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 111
The moon god is another beautiful animus figure but different from the head in the sea because he is not the single ghost of a dead person but the generally recognized god of the tribe, a god to whom the Eskimos do not show much love but to whom they pray for luck in hunting. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 115
I have seen analysands again and again cheat themselves in this way.
They fight with animus and anima, abreact the emotion, then think they do not need to talk about it. But this is an illusion! ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 135
Women, much more than men, especially if they do not have a strong animus, vegetate in an amazing way. They can live ten or twenty years like plants, without either a positive or a negative drama in their lives. They just exist. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 159
When women have an undeveloped animus, when they have not worked on the animus, their mental functions often remain fixed on gossip and thinking about their neighbors. They get interested in a divorce in the neighborhood and want to know how ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 174
And it is very true that if women live alone for a long time without being in touch with men, they generally fall into the hands of the animus. It is very difficult to stand loneliness without getting overwhelmed by the unconscious, and in a woman’s case naturally by the animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 193
It is just the same but one layer further in. You could say that with a woman the animus always anticipates what she has to do later in reality. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 16
If she has a puer aeternus animus, she generally has a creative problem, and the cure for women is unfortunately exactly the same as for men: it is also work. When you say that, do you include having children? ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 16
In private life it is the animus of the devouring mother who takes the lead for the sheep-son. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 44
The devouring animus of the mother feeds on the innocence and the best and most devoted feelings of the son. And there too the sheep have been eaten by the shepherd. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 44
With a woman, it is the animus who whispers something at the back of her mind, some kind of “nothing but” remark. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 85
In the case of a woman, it is the animus who engineers things, and he is always a professional pessimist who excludes the tertium quod non datur. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 149
The animus says to the woman that he knows there are only so many possibilities; he says the thing can only go in such and such a way, thereby blocking off any possibility of life producing something itself. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 149
Like so many women who feel unloved, in her bitterness she has sold herself completely to the animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 208
The pretension of knowing all the answers is exactly what the father-animus produces in a woman: the assumption that everything is self-evident—the illusion of knowing it all. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 209
Women usually accept any new spirit of the times more quickly than men, and accept it with their animus, which is a logos spermatikos, because frequently they are less skeptical. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Dreams, Page 89
When a woman stays alone, she often falls into the animus.
The Arabs say of a woman who leads a lonely life that a djinn has captured her in the desert! ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Dreams, Page 105
Animus Personification of the masculine nature in the unconscious of a woman. The animus is often recognized in projection onto spiritual authorities; in this way, a woman’s inner image of masculinity finds expression. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Dreams, Page 193
There the wolf becomes an attribute of a dark feminine goddess and of dark nature. In the dreams of modem women the wolf often represents the animus, or that strange devouring attitude women can have when possessed by the animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, Page 255
Even if one watches one’s shadow or one’s animus, if one is not constantly on the alert, these figures get one in a moment of fatigue or in an abaissement du niveau mental. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, Page 321
In general, the extraverted man has an introverted anima, while the introverted woman has an extraverted animus, and vice versa. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, Page 30
If I project my animus onto a man it is as though a part of my psychic energy would flow towards that man and at the same time I would feel attracted to him. This acts like an arrow, an amount of psychic energy which is very pointed. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz – Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motifs in Fairytales, Page 71
Unfortunately, possession carries the conviction that one is right. Just as Russian protagonists are convinced that the Western world is the destructive thing, so if the animus has you, you are sure that it is so. Marie-Louise Von Franz, Meaning of Redemption in Fairytales, Page 105
The great thing is to know that. Like most of my brothers and sisters, when I am possessed by the animus, I do not notice it I am convinced it is my own and not the animus’s opinion. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Meaning of Redemption in Fairytales, Page 105
When you are too much in the animus you cannot get out of it at once, so keep quiet. Go back into your room and say, “This is all wrong, there is something very suspicious about the state in which I find myself so I will not say anything for a few days,” and then afterwards you can thank God that for once you managed to keep it inside. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Meaning of Redemption in Fairytales, Page 105
Thus when a woman feels she needs to assert herself in some respect vis-à-vis the man, she finds herself face to face with the problem of a “two-front war”—against the man, on one hand, and against her own animus, which spoils her plan, on the other. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 145
This masculine spirit is the animus of the woman, mentioned earlier, which now, however, no longer manifests purely as affect, impulse, and vital force, but has become human, can express itself in words and deeds on a human level. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 148
The prince can be looked at as an animus figure within the woman, and in this case it would mean that when a woman makes an effort to develop the masculine side of herself, she inevitably passes through a temporary phase in which she behaves arrogantly and unskillfully by way of compensation for her otherwise yielding feminine nature. (History shows this, for example, in the behavior of the first feminists before the First World War.) ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 149
Jung tried to prove in his life’s work that behind the animus and anima in the unconscious of man and woman, a still mightier content dwells hidden, the true “atomic nucleus” of the psyche, which he called the Self to distinguish it from the ordinary everyday ego. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 153
Women, for example, often confuse the rigid opinion of their own animus with the much softer divine inner voice, which is why the French are wont to remark sardonically, “Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut!” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 154
Beyond those, it seems to have been chosen by nature to serve the development of consciousness and the realization of the Self; for without a deep psychic relationship and interaction with a member of the opposite sex, one cannot become conscious of one’s animus or anima. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 155
Jung pointed out in his work that the tendency exists for both animus and anima to be projected onto a human partner, or in the framework of the Christian tradition to be projected onto the dogma. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 209
The projection of anima and animus onto religious figures was in many ways quite useful, because it protected people from overvaluing and deifying the opposite sex, the result of which was that there was more room for straightforward, realistic personal relationships. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 220
Today the religious symbols that could have served as a vehicle for the projections of anima and animus have lost their meaning for many people. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 220
Anima and animus have fallen back into the unconscious of men and women, where, as Jung showed, they create complications in people’s relationships. To this we can ascribe the enormous number of shattered marriages we see around us today. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 220
When men and women get to know more about their own anima or animus, they get along better with the opposite sex and also redeem these figures within themselves. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 221
The animus, however, does not express itself so often in women as an erotic fantasy or mood, but rather as “sacred” convictions. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 279
One can seldom contradict the animus, for it (he) is always right; the only problem is that his opinion is not based on the actual situation. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 279
The animus appears in many myths, not only as death, but also as a bandit and murderer, for example, as the knight Bluebeard, who murdered all his wives. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 280
The animus then embodies those half-conscious, cold, unscrupulous thoughts that many women permit themselves in the “quiet hours,” especially when they are neglecting matters that are obligations from the feeling point of view—thoughts about the division of the family inheritance, manipulative plans in which they go so far as to wish other people’s death. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 280
Like the anima, the animus, too, consists not only of negative properties. It too has an extraordinarily positive and valuable side, in which it, like the anima, can form a bridge to the experience of the Self and perform a creative function. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 281
The animus frequently appears, as it does in this dream, as a group of men, or as some other collective image. Thus also the pronouncements of the animus possessed woman usually begin with “one should” or “everyone knows” or “it is always the case . . . ,” etc. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 281
Many myths and fairy tales tell of a prince, who has been turned into an animal or a monster by sorcery, being saved by a woman. This is a symbolic representation of the development of the animus toward consciousness. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 281
As the anima does with men, the animus also creates states of possession in women. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 282
Through her suffering, the animus (for both the demon and the savior are two aspects of the same inner power) can be gradually transformed into a positive inner force. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 282
In real life, too, it takes a long time for a woman to bring the animus into consciousness, and it costs her a great deal of suffering. But if she succeeds in freeing herself from his possession, he changes into an “inner companion” of the highest value, who confers on her positive masculine qualities such as initiative, courage, objectivity, and intellectual clarity. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 282
The creative courage in the truth conferred by the animus gives a woman the daring to enunciate new ideas that can inspire men to new enterprises. Often in history women have recognized the value of new creative ideas earlier than men, who are more emotionally conservative. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 282
As mentioned, the woman’s animus can lead to courage, a spirit of enterprise, truthfulness, in its highest form, to spiritual depth and intensity; but this only happens if beforehand she musters the objectivity to call her own “sacred” convictions into question and to accept the guiding messages of her dreams, even when they contradict her convictions. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 283
For this reason Jung says that the integration of the shadow is an apprentice’s work, but the integration of the animus and anima is a masterpiece. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 319
In the Middle Ages, the negative animus of women was embodied in the devil (the witch trials), the positive animus in Christ. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 320
Women in general have this tendency-to take up new ideas, new movements, because their mind (the animus in them) is less bound by tradition. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 41
Today the problem of projection of animus and anima onto collective religious figures has become much less acute, and thus these contents exert pressure directly and immediately on the individual. Hence the vulnerability of marriages. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 320
The beard plays an enormous role in fairy tales. You know the story of Bluebeard, who killed his wives. Now he is a wonderful image of the destructive, murderous animus! There is also the tale of King Thrushbeard, which illustrates the transformation of the negative into the positive animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 18
When one is possessed by the animus, one has a holy conviction about one’s assumptions. But one must ask, “ls that what I really believe?” One must pin down the flow. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 19
Women cannot fight the animus by killing him-they can only (catch him by pinning him by the beard so they can then escape. The male hero in myths fights, overcomes, conquers the monster. The feminine follows the path of individuation by suffering and escaping. lt is enough if a woman can walk out into the human situation, rebuild human relatedness, relationship. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 20
If a woman hasn’t gone through the experience of being trapped by the demon animus, she has only unconscious thoughts. It is the demon who provides her. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 21
Such a woman becomes a vampire because she has no life in herself. But she needs life and so must take it where she finds it. The negative devil-animus kills every feminine aspect in life. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 23
The Div represents the darker, more archaic form or image of God. The daughter belongs to a particular civilization. The anima is usually one step behind, and therefore the animus is also represented by a very primitive, pagan God. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 31
The animus produces emotional, stormy arguments. Whereas the anima is subject to subtle moods that come out in spoiling remarks. The animus is prone to brutal demonstrations of his power-brute force. The anima has more cunning ways to get what she wants or to make her presence known. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 31
In dreams we often see disorderly hair, which shows animus confusion. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 32
The animus loves to create a misty atmosphere, an ambiance which one cannot find one’s orientation. The spreading of a cloud over a country is also attributed to dwarfs and giants because they disturb consciousness. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 32
Animus possession may take the form of criticizing everybody and everything-and the damnable thing about the animus is that he is quite right’ but likely to be wrong in the specific situation. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 36
A way to stop the arguing and criticizing is for the woman to say to her animus’ “lf you are so terribly fanatical about what is wrong and what ‘should’ be’ let’s look at my shadow.” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 36
if a woman has a strong animus, and can overcome her reluctance to knowing her shadow, she can develop a degree of male objectivity about what goes on in her and thereby become conscious’ She must learn to tell the difference between herself and her opinions, between her feminine ego and her masculine animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 36
Jung once said that where love is lacking, power jumps in. A woman with a strong animus has a prestige persona which she tries to protect. That is power. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 37
When a woman comes to grips with her animus, when she reflects on his influence in her life, he drowns in her reflections’ while she herself is saved from drowning. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 38
Women can be tortured by the animus, who tells them they are a complete failure, that their life is finished and now it is too late. The thing to do then is to say, “Okay, I am a failure; let’s not discuss it any more.” This is a sort of stepping out of it and thus one saves energy and can turn to something else. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 39
Every possession by the animus is a secret inflation, ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 39
lf you check on the standards used by the animus in his constant criticism, you find that they are always a collective truth, something much beyond the individual. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 40
A genuine spiritual attitude which lacks the negative quality of the animus does not oppose real feminine life. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 40
Women are not committed to specific ideas (though their animus may be), and that is why they are able to contribute to the renewal of collective attitudes. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 42
The animus is frequently like this, too impatient: a woman feels she must make up her mind immediately, cut through a situation, act one way or another, instead of waiting for the pregnant psyche to bring forth the proper new development. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 43
Through this appeasement of the animus, one may find one’s true feelings and discover that it was all animus talk. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 44
Every animus conflict, if it is serious enough, seems to touch these deepest, archetypal layers of the psyche where there is an ongoing conflict between the light god and the dark god. That is why we should try to stand outside the conflict and at the same time watch it, try to realize it objectively. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 45
The animus figure appears here as a totem animal, the life principle of the girl’s tribe, the guarantee of their prosperity. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 58
It is important to understand this, because we can see it in people today who blindly marry an anima or animus projection, which then leads to a situation where the couple is not able to deal with the problem. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 58
Sometimes the relationship involves only the anima and the animus and not the human beings at all: anima and animus are attracted to one other, but when the two people are thrown together they may not be able to stand each other at all! ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 60
Animus and anima are not always happy to have this relationship-they lose part of their power when they are made conscious. They would prefer to remain gods and goddesses and keep their power. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 75
In the animus situation, his destructiveness takes the form of an inner argument, which makes it necessary to give him something to chew on. But for a man, if he goes into a place where the anima herself is, it would mean that here he takes a step into life. This has to do with the fact that the anima is an archetype of life, and the animus an archetype of death. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 77
The anima’s darkness is that she wants to entangle the man in the doubtful ambiguities of life, while the dark side of the animus is a demon who would pull women away from life, cut them off from it. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 77
By the term Animus, I understand the masculine, spirit or unconscious mind of woman. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 2
Now when a woman writes of the animus, she is always up against the fact that the animus himself may have his own views on the matter. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 4
Jung once pointed out in a seminar that, whereas portraits of the anima are exceedingly common in literature, good portraits of the animus are very rare. He thought this might be because the animus to a great extent writes the books of women himself and prefers not to give himself away. (The anima, on the contrary, seems to be rather fond of sitting for her portrait!) Thus when I write, I never feel quite sure how much the animus, like a wily old fox, is obliterating his tracks with his brush! ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 4-5
In fact, you can never arrive at the animus unless you see the shadow, unless you see your own inferior sides. When you see your shadow, you can detach from the animus, but as long as you don’t see it, you have not a ghost of a chance. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 9-10
On the one hand, these figures have a personal aspect so that we can talk of my animus or your anima and, on the other, they are inhabitants of the collective unconscious so that it sometimes seems far more correct to speak of the animus and the anima. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 13
Therefore it seems to me of vital importance to never forget that the animus— however personally we may take him— is also a figure of the collective unconscious. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 14
The thing we must never forget in dealing with the animus is that he is dual, he always has a negative and positive aspect (a fact that, of course, also applies to the anima). ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 15
Perhaps the most usual and least unpleasant way of learning to know our animus is through our dreams. In dreams he usually appears personified, and it is there that we first lean to regard him as a person. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 17
The place where the animus usually makes us most unhappy is when he interferes in our relationships. As mentioned before, ‘ the leading principle of women and the anima is Eros, and that of men and the animus is Logos. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 18
It is also in our vital relationships to men that we usually first discover the animus in projection. As long as. the projection fits, we are generally totally unaware that it exists. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 18
The animus, therefore, can have an exceedingly severing effect. If the relationship— to the husband, analyst, or someone else— is important enough to us, we shall suffer a great deal in this respect. But this also forms an invaluable incentive to investigate and discover the animus. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 18
These conversations with the anima or animus are a form of so-called active imagination, a technique which is unsurpassed in providing a middle territory where conscious and unconscious can unite. ~ Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 20
(It is true that a modem woman who faces her unconscious because her life is disturbed by knowing too little of her own mind or animus, is in a very different position from the Brontes.) ~Barbara Hannah – The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 21
One day, when a woman who did a good deal of active imagination was talking to her animus, she heard him suddenly remark: “You and I are in a most awfully difficult position. We are linked together like Siamese twins and yet belong to totally different realities. You know, your reality is just as invisible and ghostlike to me as mine is to you.” ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 22
The animus, which appeared in the first dream as a bird-headed monster with a bubblelike bodv, begins to lose its dangerous and destructive character in a dream where he is living on the moon as the ghostly lover of a human girl. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 23
The animus opinions have turned us into a beast of prey. But if we admit and know that we let the animus catch us (in this case, facing the fact that we have lost the hour and made a nuisance of ourselves, if not worse), we suffer the penalty and thus, by our suffering, give the blood that can transform the animus. ~ Barbara Hannah. The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 24
The animus. it is true, will always turn the tables very neatly and if he fails in his endeavor to make a woman blame the analyst, husband, partner, or whoever it be, then he will attempt to throw the whole balance on the woman herself. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 24
Doubt is the crown of life and all certainty is merely one-sided. For in uncertainty and doubt, truth and error come together. Doubt is life, truth is often stagnation and death. When you are in doubt you have the greatest opportunity to unite the dark and the light sides of life. ~ Carl Jung, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 25
Extreme certainty in the animus is always a sign that only one side of him is constellated, for his real dual nature forms a most painful paradox. Enduring this paradox is one of the chief ways we can give the “blood” needed to transform the animus. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 25
In order to get a real idea of the practical side of the animus, we must see him at work in a human life. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 26
Barbara Hannah, “The Problem of Women’s Plots in The Evil Vineyard,” The Guild of Pastoral Psychology, lecture no. 51
The appearance of Mary Magdalene “herself,” who tells Jeanne that she is finally liberated, agrees with our own experience, according to which it is only with the help of the Self that we can be freed from the animus in his possessive aspect. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 39
Jung has often pointed out that the animus thinks in terms of 11,000 virgins, that is, statistics and numbers. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 30
The shadow not only maims the animus but destroys the woman s instinct as well. And all the princess can rescue is the head. (Talking to a head is a well-known archetypal motif: Wotan and Mimirs head, for instance.) ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 52
Of equally great importance In every woman’s life is relationship, for here she experiences the conditio sine qua non for freeing herself from the tyranny of being possessed by the animus, a possession which often happens entirely unknown to the woman herself, for the opinions he insinuates destroy the flow of all spontaneous life. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 62
This animus interference on. the outside has several aspects. First he interferes between us and the outside world and particularly in our relationships. With irrelevant opinions he cuts us off from our environment, from reality and from everything which is near, dear, and important to us. His is not the outside realm, but the inner. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 65
The sapientia, wisdom, will then tell us the important things and save us from the superfluities of our animus opinions and will save a man from the promiscuous arrows of Cupid:.. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 70
One might even say that the main purpose of working on the animus is to lead our interest back to, the moon, that is back to a woman’s own principle so that she may be the counterpart of man (and man the real counterpart of woman). and not a weak imitation. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 95-96
Unlike the anima, it is very difficult to find good material in which to see the animus at work. When I lectured on “The Animus in Literature” in 1957, I read a great many books by women with this point in view. I must break it to you that the harvest in literature has, on the face of it, been exceedingly disappointing. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 106
I asked myself therefore where the animus was in such a woman as Jane Austen? Although he does not portray himself, he cannot help from bowing into the game somewhere. The Evil Vineyard by Marie Hay which Jung introduced to me and said that it was the best example of a woman’s plot he had ever met. This book shows the spiritus rector particularly clearly. And then, if we have time, I should like to consider the books of Mary Webb particularly Precious Bane, which is the best animus story I know with the exception of Wuthering Heights. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 107-108
A man writes with his conscious mind; he can hold the line of his plot and his anima creates the atmosphere or the feeling tone of the book. Whereas a woman usually is quite at home in the feeling tone and can hold it consciously herself, but the life of the book, the plot, is in the hands of her spiritus rector. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 108
The animus, as spiritus rector, creates the structure of women’s plots, whereas the anima leaves this to man’s conscious mind and provides the atmosphere and feeling tone of his book. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 109
When a bad animus case produces a marvelous opinion one must say “Is it really yourself? Do you really stand behind this thought? Are you convinces that things are really like that? Then a woman will often realize that she actually does not really think that herself and one has to ask whose opinion it is. ~Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 113
…since animus and anima were originally deities, everything belonging to them is exceedingly important. One should always go into the secret history of such cases in order to find out the value of apparently quite unimportant little things, for they have some secret value and powerful magic effects. ~Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 115
A woman’s vessel cannot be made by the mind but must be formed by Eros, by relatedness. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 121
As you know, the animus is in his right place only when he is functioning in that unknown invisible existence where he belongs. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 129
The tendency to distort reality on the part of both animus and anima is perhaps the most common reason why people have such difficulty with active imagination. They have not yet succeeded in imprisoning their animus, he is still all over the place, and he succeeds in distorting any direct experience of the inner world until it seems too silly to be taken seriously at all. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 132
Maria Prophetissa’s marriage of gum to gum is meant to sublimate the elusive, fugitive Mercurius, near cousin of the animus Hermes, the two being practically synonymous. Hermes, remember, is set at the highest stage in Jung’s four levels of development. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 136
As far as my experience goes, a desire only becomes an object of the animus if in one way or the other we are not taking the full responsibility for it and are indulging in fantasies about it. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 139
A vitally important point, and one we are apt to be very sentimental about, is the fact that it requires cruelty to glue down the animus. We have depended on him, spoiled and pampered him without realizing it, and thus it requires downright heroism to turn against him. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 142
But we can be sure that if we are controlling our anima or animus, we will get into a situation that is exceedingly difficult; we will be put to the test for sure. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 143
Controlling the animus or anima is like creating a vacuum. When you lift yourself out of a certain volume of space, it leaves a vacuum and then everything rushes in to fill the gap. People who make an attempt to take control over these figures meet other conditions that almost force them back to their former state. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 155
In real life, women generally deal with not the entire animus but with that part of the animus that is mostly an opinionating substitute for the depths of the spirit. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 146
The animus in the literary of women serves very much indeed as a form of the spirit, the spiritus rector, the ruling spirit of the work so to speak. The literary “spirit” of a woman’s novel has individually recognizable features. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 147
Before the Middle Ages, the animus is but scarcely documented. The animus of women had little chance to differentiate itself and develop, as it was so well contained by projection onto men—husbands, warriors, priests, statesmen, and the like. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 147
More direct examples of the animus can be seen in the personality and deeds of Judith in The Book of Judith or in Sarah and Asmodaeus in the Book of Tobit. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 148
The animus, in a demonic form, was known to possess women (as we witness with the sixteenth-century nun Jeanne Fery) or appeared in the form of the Grand Master among witches. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 148
I personally wasted many years trying with intellectual means to catch the animus at work in myself. This is somewhat like the dog chasing its own tail. One never catches the animus when he is constellated through writing, speech or thought, for these are tools of the spirit. It was first thought Eros that I got a glimpse of a feeling of a certain unreality, when the animus was aroused. Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 148
The animus does his best to swallow you and then despises you when he succeeds. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 148
I f the animus can take apart and take apart the object, it is a sign that we are actually only seeing our own faces in the object, and we are failing to perceive the object itself. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 149
Nothing but despair or great love will provide a woman with the necessary impetus to have it out with her animus. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 150
The more we can expel the animus from the personal world by by strengthening our hold on the Eros principle, the more chance we have of developing our minds. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 150
What imprisons our animus is seeing reality by learning to experience what is true without the destructive veils of opinions in between. This tendency to distort is the reason why people such difficulty in. active imagination… ~Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 154
To imprison the anima or animus means a great sacrifice. It is an extraordinary accomplishment for a woman to say to her animus: “I will put you in a test tube for later examination.” ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 154
If the animus is free and all over the place, he can kill life with his opinions much like an arrow or spear can kill any living creature. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 155
The animus is the factor that forms projections. The same applies to a a man but in the case of the anima it is a mood or a resentment. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 169
Animus means “mind” or “Spirit and corresponds to the paternal logos. The man’s anima performs the same function. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 169
This apparently extraordinary situation is due to the fact that when animus and anima meet, the animus seizes his sword of power and the anima sprays her poison. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 170
Nature is conservative and is not easy to disturb, and animus and anima defend their rights to the last ditch. Having a profound doubt as to the wisdom of forcing something upon nature with which it would have been better not to interfere, we then perhaps feel as if we should not bring things to consciousness. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 171
Jane Austen depicts a woman’s world of gossip but, in her early books, a world seen through the eyes of the animus. As I see it, she made an attempt to put her animus in the resin thus partially humanizing this woman’s world. ~Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 199
A woman’s writing is, to some extent, a “having it out” with her animus, or in more ordinary language, her creative spirit. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 201
An animus-possessed woman cannot return to her instinct directly but must go through the spiritual side of the animus and reach the instinct again by that route. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 222
Moreover, the anima in her role of Maya, the world, is always trying to entangle a man in the outside world, whereas the animus tries to cut a woman out of her natural eras entanglements with her environment and to direct her attention to the inner world and to the animus himself. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 272
It is my considered opinion that the ego alone can do very little with the animus, for he is always too clever for it. ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 301
But the animus, in his original form, always tries to belittle the importance of the three-dimensional world, and here he reduces it to his favorite formula: “nothing but.” ~ Barbara Hannah, The Animus The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women, Page 308
When you try to make the shadow conscious, or to become conscious of your own shadow, the inferior function will give the animus or the anima figure a special quality. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Psychotherapy, Page 89
For the animus what counts is insight or truth for truth’s sake over and against any admixture of sensuality or power craving. Only a woman who loves the truth for its own sake can integrate the animus, and then he becomes, like the anima, a bridge to the Self, that is, to the knowledge of the Self. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Psychotherapy, Page 183
Fashion, the film world, and the anima possession of men reinforce the temptation for women to play the puella role, just as the animus possession of mothers and women makes young men into “eternal youths.” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Psychotherapy, Page 228
If one analyzes women who are identified with the Great Mother, they often seem like an imposing massa confusa of emotions, unconscious scheming, animus opinions, and so on, behind which, however, one finds a very small, sensitive, childish ego. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Psychotherapy, Page 229
Animus possessed women often dream that they are imprisoned in a tower, they have imprisoned themselves in this neurotic defense mechanism and cannot get out of it. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Dreams and Visions of St. Niklaus von der Flue, Page 14
in a woman it is the animus which thinks: “One ought”, “It should be done”, “Everyone thinks so.” The animus of a woman is a doctrinarian, an announcer of collective rules and not of rules for one person and no one else. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Dreams and Visions of St. Niklaus von der Flue, Page 67
It is really their own masculine drive, their animus, that has estranged them from their feminine identity. It’s the result of social life in general and not of their husbands. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 133
In its negative form a woman’s inner man, the animus, is a power of evil destructive to human life. He separates a woman from her own femininity. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 154
But, you see, that is the essence of what one calls possession. When a woman is possessed by the animus, she thinks that the animus is herself. Only when, or if, she wakes up does she come to realize, “No, that’s not me.” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 159
Now, the animus is the most frequent form of possession in a woman. She is suddenly entered by a mood of cold male determination, taken over by abstract, opinionated thinking, and driven by an impulse toward rash, brutal, determined action-none of which is at all in her feminine character. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 160
What Marilyn Monroe was to men, Valentino was to women. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 165
The positive animus is an innermost instinctive awareness of the inner truth, a basic inner truthfulness which guides the spiritual woman in her individuation, toward becoming her own self ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 176
A woman who has no animus has no pep, no enterprise, no intelligence, no initiative. She is a very poor creature. She is just a womb producing children and a hand cooking in the kitchen. A woman without an animus is nothing. So the animus is an exceedingly positive thing. It is the intelligence. It is the spiritual longing. The whole spirituality of women is connected with the animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 185
The nigredo indicates a condition of depression and sadness, a condition of being driven by instinctive impulses, passions (the appearance of wild animals), emotions, etc. Shadow and animus or anima appear in this stage in a destructive form. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz – Dreams A Study of the Dreams of Jung, Descartes, Socrates, and Other Historical Figures, Page 109
It was a borderline situation, a woman who, in complete animus possession, had smashed up her relationship with a man to whom she had a terrific transference. She was a walking animus and had nothing but her animus to live on. Complete destruction of her feminine personality had gone on for many years (a schizophrenic disposition), and she was within an ace of going off her head. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Creation Myths, Page 17
The heretic Girard di Monteforte (near Turin) even interpreted God as the primordially existing mind, or spirit, of man (!) and the Son as the spirit (animus) of man(!) beloved by God, but the Holy Spirit as the understanding of Scripture. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Projection & Re-Collection, Page 49
The animus as divine puer aeternus on the other hand, appears as a creative spirit who can inspire a woman to undertake her own spiritual achievements. This spirit is a spirit of love, that is, of her own living inner mystery, ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Projection & Re-Collection, Page 134
Whereas the anima usually appears in the form of a fascination, an allurement that draws the man into life, the animus often appears as a spirit of death; indeed there are even fairy tales in which a woman marries a handsome, unknown stranger who is revealed later on as death personified, · a revelation that brings about the death of the woman herself. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Projection & Re-Collection, Page 135
This is tied to the fact that, as a projection-making factor, a man’s anima produces mainly passive, that is, empathetic, projections that bind the man to objects; the animus, .on the other hand, produces more active, that is, more judgmental, projections that tend to cut the woman off from the world of objects. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Projection & Re-Collection, Page 135
The shadow or the animus and anima can infuse a person with curiously distorted thoughts about himself, but only that reflection which proceeds from the Self, the inner center, could be correctly described as genuine moral reflection. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Projection & Re-Collection, Page 168
The animus is very partial to argument, and he can drive an originally clear-thinking man to such despair that he can even become the animus of his own anima and argue just like a woman himself. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Aion, Page 20
It is – as mentioned before much easier to gain insight into the shadow than into the animus and anima. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Aion, Page 21
Although the ancient Greeks saw them more plastically, the animus and anima are not missing in Christianity; in fact they occupy the highest place as Christ and his bride, the church. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Aion, Page 22
The animus and anima stage is correlated with polytheism and the Self with monogamy. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Aion, Page 119
Goethe makes Faust, who is occupied with the translation of the Gospel of John, ask himself if the passage, “In the beginning was the Word,” would not read better if it were, “In the beginning was Power,” or “Meaning,” and finally he has him write, “In the beginning was the Deed.” ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 1-2
For the primitive woman, or the young woman, or for the primitive in every woman, a man distinguished by physical prowess becomes an animus figure. Typical examples are the heroes of legend, or present-day sports celebrities, cowboys, bull fighters, aviators, and so on. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 3
For more exacting women, the animus figure is a man who accomplishes deeds, in the sense that he directs his power toward something of great significance. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 3
Animus images representing the stages of power and deed are projected upon a hero figure. But there are also women in whom this aspect of masculinity is already harmoniously coordinated with the feminine principle and lending it effective aid. These are the active, energetic, brave, and forceful women. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 4
The problem of the woman of today seems rather to lie in her attitude to the animus-logos, to the masculine-intellectual element in the narrower sense; because the extension of consciousness in general, greater consciousness in all fields, seems to be an inescapable demand – as well as a gift – of our time. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 4
One expression of this is the fact that along with the discoveries and inventions of the last fifty years, we have also had the beginning of the so-called woman’s movement, the struggle of women for equal rights with men. Happily, we have today survived the worst product of this struggle, the “bluestocking.” ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 5
From time to time we hear it said that there is no necessity for woman to occupy herself with spiritual or intellectual matters, that this is only an idiotic aping of man, or a competitive drive betokening megalomania. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 5
This fact can be explained as follows: if the possibility of spiritual functioning is not taken up by the conscious mind, the psychic energy intended for it falls into the unconscious, and there activates the archetype of the animus. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 6
There are many women who, when they have reached the place where they are confronted by intellectual demands, say, “I would rather have another child,” in order to escape or at least to postpone the uncomfortable and disturbing demand. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 7
However, projection means not only the transference of an image to another person, but also of the activities that go with it, so that a man to whom the animus image has been transferred is expected to take over all the functions that have remained undeveloped in the woman in question, whether the thinking function, or the power to act, or responsibility toward the outside world. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 9
In turn, the woman upon whom a man has projected his anima must feel for him, or make relationships for him, and this symbiotic relationship is, in my opinion, the real cause for the compulsive dependence that exists in these cases. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 10
An archetype, such as the animus represents, will never really coincide with an individual man, the less so the more individual that man is. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 11
This, and the fact that the anima and animus mutually constellate each other (since an anima manifestation calls forth the animus, and vice versa, producing a vicious circle very difficult to break), forms one of the worst complications in the relations between men and women. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 11
Here we come to what is most essentially meaningful in the animus problem, namely, the masculine-intellectual component within the woman herself. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 12
It is true that what is primarily feminine is overrun and repressed by the autocratic entrance upon the scene of this masculinity, but the feminine element can only get into its right place by a detour that includes coming to terms with the masculine factor, the animus. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 13
What is really necessary is that feminine intellectuality, logos in the woman, should be so fitted into the nature and life of the woman that a harmonious cooperation between the feminine and masculine factors ensues and no part is condemned to a shadowy existence. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 13
For when the feminine side is so overwhelmed and pushed into the background by the animus, there easily arise depressions, general dissatisfaction, and loss of interest in life. These are all intelligible symptoms pointing to the fact that one half of the personality is partly robbed of life by the encroachment of the animus. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 13
In a state of identification with the animus, we think, say, or do something in the full conviction that it is we who are doing it, while in reality, without our having been aware of it, the animus has been speaking through us. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 14
The same sort of unrelated thinking also appears in a man when he is identified with reason or the logos principle and does not himself think, but lets ” it” think. Such men are naturally especially well-suited to embody the animus of a woman. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 15
On the other hand, her lack of discrimination has a good side; it makes the woman unprejudiced and therefore she frequently discovers and appraises spiritual values more quickly than a man, whose developed critical power tends to make him so distrustful and prejudiced that it often takes him considerable time to see a value which less prejudiced persons have long since recognized. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 15
Only when woman’s mental power is no longer applied to the mastering of daily tasks but goes beyond, seeking a new field of activity, does the animus come into play. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 16
The power and authority of the animus phenomenon can be partly explained by the primitive mental lack of differentiation between imagination and reality. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 19
Since what belongs to mind- that is, thought- possesses at the same time the character of indisputable reality, what the animus says seems also to be indisputably true. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 19
It is maliciously said that woman is so lacking in the gift of invention, that if the kitchen spoon had not been invented by a man, we would today still be stirring the soup with a stick! ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 21
In the Edda there is a riddle contest between the wandering Odin and his host, a memorial of the time when the masculine mind was occupied with riddle guessing as woman’s mind is still today. Similar stories have come down to us from antiquity and the Middle Ages. We have the riddle of the Sphinx, or of Oedipus, the hair-splitting of the sophists and scholastics. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 16
The animus is expert at sketching in and making plausible a picture that represents us as we would like to be seen, for example, as the “ideal lover,” the “appealing, helpless child,” the “selfless handmaiden,” the “extraordinarily original person,” the “one who is really born to something better,” and so-on. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 18
The creativity of woman finds its expression in the sphere of living, not only in her biological functions as mother but in the shaping of life generally, be it in her activity as educator, in her role as companion to man, as mother in the home, or in some other form. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 21
But also there are those in whom the integration has failed, in whom masculine behavior has overrun and suppressed the feminine principle. These are the over-energetic, ruthless, brutal, men-women, the Xantippes who are not only active but aggressive. In many women, this primitive masculinity is also expressed in their erotic life, and then their approach to love has a masculine aggressive character and is not, as is usual in women, involved with and determined by feeling but functions on its own, apart from the rest of the personality, as happens predominantly with men. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 4
Although this is surely true in many cases, especially of the phenomena at the beginning of the woman’s movement, nevertheless, as an explanation of the matter, it is not justified. If the problem is not faced, if woman does not meet adequately the demand for consciousness or intellectual activity, the animus becomes autonomous and negative, and works destructively on the individual herself and in her relations to other people. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 5
Formerly, the animus, together with its associated problems, could be transferred to the beyond (for to many women the Biblical Father-God meant a metaphysical, superhuman aspect of the animus image), and as long as spirituality could be thus convincingly expressed in the generally valid forms of religion, no conflict developed. Only now when this can no longer be achieved, does our problem arise. ~Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Page 7
