In memory of Hermann Sigg,/ my very dear friend,/ died on 9 January 1927.
Hermann Sigg (1875- 1927) was a businessman and a close friend and neighbor of Jung’s and the founder, in 1904, of Haus Sigg & Co., which specialized in olive oil and had plantations and factories in Tunisia, Spain, and France.
The company was responsible for most of the olive oil imports in Switzerland. Sigg’s obituary in the Neue Zurcher Zeitung described him as a “very kind, very upright, farsighted businessman” (January 14, 1927) .
In 1927 Jung painted an image of the map from his Liverpool dream in the calligraphic volume of LN to which he gave the following inscription:
“D. IX januarii anno 1927 obiit Hermannus Sigg aet.s.52 amicus meus. [9 January 1927 my friend Hermann Sigg died aged 52 ]” (see below, p. 240 ).
At his tower in Bollingen, Jung painted a mural bearing a stone-carved inscription in Latin and describing the culmination of the process of the rebirth of the divine that forms a central theme of Liber Novus and the Black Books.
“This is where the God is buried,/ this is where he arose. / like the fire inside the mountains,/ like the worm from the earth,/ the God begins. / like that serpent from ashes, / like the Phoenix from the flames, / the God arises / in a wondrous way. / like the rising sun, / like flame from the wood, / the God rises above. / like ailment in the body,/ like the child in its mother’s womb,/ the God is born. / He creates divine madness,/ fateful errors,/ sorrow and heartache.
/ like a tree / man stretches out his arms / and sees himself/ as a heavenly man / that he did not know,/ facing the world’s orb / and the four rivers of paradise. / And he will see the face / of the higher man and spirit, / of the greatest father / and the mother of God. / And in an inconceivable birth / the God frees himself/ from man / from image, / from every form, / while he enters / the unimaginable and absolute / secret./ In memory of Hermann Sigg,/ my very dear friend,/ died on
9 January 1927.” ~The Black Books, Vol. VII, Page 239, fn 252
