Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Miss Wolff: This chapter opens in an unusual way with a question put to Zarathustra, and I think no other chapter does. And afterwards Zarathustra seems to be putting a question, but that cannot be because he is quite alone where he is hiding this secret thing under his coat. So perhaps we have to find out who is really addressing him.
Prof .Jung: Whom do you suppose? Who is the nearest?
Miss Wolff “He says “my brother.”
Prof. Jung: Yes, but the supposition from the former chapter is that he is in solitude, that nobody else is there. Yet apparently he is two
a gam.
Miss Wolff: It would be Nietzsche’s own voice then.
Prof Jung: Yes, he is asking himself.
That is according to the rule. He says: Da wurde eins zu zwei, und Zarathustra ging an mir vorbei.s
When he is alone Zarathustra appears as his second person.
So one notices that, with that Zarathustra element in him, Nietzsche is very secretive.
He walks about in a funny way and seems to be concealing something.
It is just as though he were asking himself why he was stealing along so furtively.
But unfortunately he never takes it seriously enough; he forgets all his science and his criticism when it comes to his own psychology.
It is a funny thing that people who have a most psychological and discriminating attitude in dealing with the psychology of primitives, say,
or perhaps the psychology of other people, forget everything when it comes to themselves.
They forget every virtue and become as vicious as other people.
For instance, those people who have that Christian interest in their neighbor indulge in no end of kindness, in spite of being told that the fellow they are taking care of is perhaps just a cheat, not worth all their consideration; yet when they should apply that kindness to themselves, they have no mercy.
Then they are just as hard as steel, cruel-and think that is a virtue. But it is no virtue. It is a vice. They create a desert in themselves.
And so Nietzsche, being exceedingly psychological and discriminating in his other writings, when it comes to himself is not critical.
He forgets all about it.
He should say, “Now who is there alone? Am I alone? Is Zarathustra alone?”
Then he would instantly see that he is not alone: there is always that second one, that friend, with him.
The creative man wants to be alone, ought to be alone, and when he discovers that he is two he should be serious about it and say, “Now, old man, what are you doing? You are hiding something.”
Then he would have objectivity.
If once only he could have a decent discussion with Zarathustra and ask him about his secret psychology, he would discover that Zarathustra also is two, that he consists of a man and a woman.
And then he would have the whole game, the whole drama.
Of course we cannot expect that of a man who lived in a time when such things were out of the question. I only mention it in order to bring the thing up to date.
Miss Wolff: Since Nietzsche could not do that, might not this be like the voice of the dreamer you told us about in Ascona, who had such an objective voice in his dreams?6 He might have a sort of innermost psychological consciousness that calls his attention to the fact that he is the friend of the evil doers. That is quite logical because formerly he said he was going to meet his seven devils. Now he is with seven devils and the first appearance of the evil doers is this child he hides, and then the old woman.
Prof. Jung: I quite agree.
You know, Nietzsche at his mental best was really a discriminating psychologist and when he is truly at his best he represents himself, his own self; in that which he does out of his most individual substance, the self appears.
So we could say just as well that this is the impersonal voice of the self, that his intellectual or philosophic or psychological consciousness begins to manifest here.
We shall have many situations where it comes in, so that one really marvels that he never could grasp it; for instance, in this jewel, and the star, and later on in the chapter about the adder, it comes so close that one would almost expect him to be able to realize it.
Yet he does not; it was not of his time.
Of course we fall down somewhere else; we make this discrimination now but we omit something else. And we never shall become
perfect-happily not!
Mrs. Baynes: He tells this chapter in the past tense, so I thought that the child he carried in his arms was the truth the old woman gave him.
Prof Jung: Well, it would be hardly worthwhile for Zarathustra to make such a fuss about that, like an old spinster, perfectly ridiculous.
One sees that the woman is cheating, and what Zarathustra says here is not particularly wise; moreover it has often been said before; one can read very similar things in Schopenhauer.
Mrs. Baynes: Yes; but inasmuch as he knew so little of woman he probably thought it was the last word of wisdom, so it would be legitimate to take it that he thought it was a great truth.
Prof Jung: You are quite right; on the surface that is so.
But you see, though this whole chapter really contains some very profound things, they are under the disguise of wrong ideas and sentiments.
So I would say, yes, in a way what the old woman whispered to him would be the child he is hiding, but there is more in that child.
For instance, if he had realized that this woman who speaks to him is really another voice, that she is not only his invention, he would have been able to lay his hand on the treasure hidden behind that phantasmagoria.
Mrs. Jung: You said that the anima was pregnant with the Superman and that the father was the Holy Ghost.
I should like to know what is the role of the individual?
It seems to me that nothing is born if it is left to archetypes only.
Prof. Jung: Well, the individual of course has the heaviest burden in this case because he is the living carrier of all those figures.
You see, the living individual has to carry the anima that is pregnant.
He is really
the Joseph in the whole show, the means by which the thing becomes real.
The individual is the human being in space and time, in the here
and now, who has to make that inner drama real.
And that is the great
trouble. For instance, the man Jesus suffered miserably for the divine
drama that was enacted in him.
That is the role of the individual-bad
enough!
Prof Fierz: I should like to point out that the foregoing chapter deals with the brother, and in the preceding one he is speaking his brethren; he seems to have concentrated more and more on one person, and in the chapter we are discussing, even he disappears and the anima appears. It is as if she were emanating through these chapters; it goes more and more away from collectivity and then she appears.
Prof Jung: That is necessary; otherwise she could not appear.
Prof Fierz: It is quite logical.
Prof Jung: Oh yes, it is concentrating upon himself. It should come to that head, otherwise nothing would be realized.
Mrs. Crowley: I think in this chapter the secret was the wisdom of the serpent, or the serpent attitude of understanding, and in the next
chapter the serpent appears.
Prof Jung: Yes, that was already in the air. ~Zarathustra Seminars, Page 744-747