Perhaps a side of the problem which Zarathustra himself has not seen
Miss Wolff: Perhaps a side of the problem which Zarathustra himself has not seen. It might be that snake which he has thrown out of his mouth to other people to handle, so they give it back to him, because without that the circle is not complete.
Prof Jung: Yes, and besides the chapter about the bite of the adder, there is a chapter later where the snake crept into the shepherd’s mouth.
Miss Wolff: I meant that chapter particularly-! anticipated.
Prof Jung: Well, the serpent is rejected by Zarathustra.
He loathes it because it is the earth, the darkness, the Yin, the female principle. Zarathustra is entirely masculine, the masculine archetype of the wise old
man par excellence; and he is the pneuma, the wind-god, and therefore has to reject the serpent.
That is the reason why he throws only the golden ball to his disciples; they add the serpent.
And how does it come about that they are able to do that? You see, it is the pelote again.
Prof Reichstein: They have the connection with the earth because they are also with collectivity.
Prof Jung: Exactly. You see, when Zarathustra is in the circle of his disciples, he already represents that symbolism; one could say that the sun and the serpent symbolized his relation to his disciples.
He is in the center, the pneuma surrounded by the circle of mankind, and mankind is the earth; so his disciples are his earth.
He is rooted in his disciples.
And in throwing the golden ball to them, he gives them himself, his own principle, and they receive it as the earth receives the seed.
They form a circle round him like the earth snake that bites its own tail.
It is the female that forms a ring round the male in the Tantric Yoga also; the Shakti in everlasting embrace with the god Shiva is an eternal symbol, and it is one of the most complete symbols of the self.
The self conceived of as the superpersonal Atman (or the Paramatman or Prajapati or the Purusha) is alone, one could say; therefore, he emanates a world which is his mirror, the mirror being of course of a different substance from that which is mirrored.
The mirror is the shakti that creates the real illusion, the veil of Maya, round the god; the god sees all his millions of faces mirrored in the magic mirror of Maya. 794-795
