Is Seele to be understood as the anima?
Prof Jung: Yes, the myth of Mary, the illegitimate mother made pregnant by the animus.
And animus is spirit, the Holy Ghost; therefore his authority is so overwhelming.
Then how, according to the old tradition, did that act take place? How was she impregnated?
Prof. Fierz: The angel came to her.
Prof. Jung: But by what way instead of the via naturalis?
Miss Wolff: By the ear.
Prof.. Jung: Yes, according to that famous hymn: Quae per aurem concepisti, which means, “Thou that hast conceived by the ear.”
Buddha was also not conceived in the regular way.’
So Mary conceived through the ear, she heard the Word, the Word came to her. Now, here the anima has heard something.
That is the way an animus opinion comes into existence in a woman: father always used to say, or the uncles said, or the parson or the doctor said, and therefore it is the eternal truth.
And in a man’s case, it is exactly the same: his anima has heard something, she had an audition, she conceived the Word.
So, expressed in Christian symbolism, that passage would be the conceptio immaculata through the Word, and she is pregnant with a savior.
Of course we don’t know whether this child is really a savior-it might be something else because the case is not clearly Christian.
We are quite in doubt what the father means in this case, and also what the child means.
Mrs. Jung: Zarathustra says here that the old woman spoke to his “Seele.” Is Seele to be understood as the anima?
Prof. Jung: Well, the word soul would have the traditional meaning to Nietzsche, and the idea of the Christian soul has nothing to do with
the anima concept.
The Christian soul is understood to be the innermost thing, and it is said to be immortal, the part of one that survives, and so on.
The soul can be anything which is covered by the unconscious.
While the anima is a specific, empirical concept, it is more like the primitive idea of a soul.
The primitives believe that there are several souls, sometimes as many as six.
That simply means that it is a psychical complex which is detachable or relatively autonomous-an archetypal constituent-and it is more personal than the Christian idea of the soul, which means completeness, totality, the essence of man.
But that is not empirical, but metaphysical and dogmatic; while in the anima concept we have very definite empirical qualities which we can substantiate by evidence.
For instance, the anima is an ambiguous kind of person, female, with a sort of immortality; she lives much longer than man, or she has a peculiar adventurous fate, not only here on
earth but in the land of the hereafter, as one can read in Rider Haggard and such stories.
The interesting thing here is that this anima has heard the Word, has obviously been impregnated, and we don’t know what that child may
be, but apparently it is a lively child and it wants to make itself heard.
And a child that has been conceived by the Word will be a logos, a word of authority. so Zarathustra, without knowing it, is threatened here with the birth of a child that might cry aloud, and it might say something in a voice which is not his own.
You see, that is what Zarathustra risks when he is in solitude without a friend: he will hear voices; while if a friend were there, he would naturally think it was the friend’s voice. In this case, he really spoke of being alone, so we must assume that Zarathustra attempted to be alone with himself.
Then as he could not put down any voices he might hear to another human being, he would be forced to admit that there was another reality than himself, some other thought than his own.
That would of course prove fatal, because it would bring the identity of Nietzsche and Zarathustra to an end; for whether it happened to Nietzsche or to Zarathustra, there would be something outside.
Either of them would have to admit that somebody other than himself had spoken.
From this we may draw the conclusion that sooner or later something will come out which will cast a very peculiar light upon this identity of Nietzsche and Zarathustra. ~Zarathustra Seminars, Page 731-733
Miss Wolff: If you don’t take the child literally, is there not more truth it it-if you say that the relation of the woman to the man is far
more purposeful than the relation of the man to the woman, and he is in that respect a means to an end to her?
Prof Jung: Well, naturally I remain within Nietzsche’s style here when I speak of a child; it is not necessarily a child, but is the purposiveness
of a woman’s Eros.
And that is what a man does not understand at all.
Of course, in speaking of a child, Nietzsche is using a drastic kind of language; if he were speaking more psychologically he would say a
woman’s Eros is purposeful while a man’s Eros is playful.
The Eros or the function of relatedness in a man’s case is not his serious side.
His serious side is the mind-he means business with his mind; and there a woman is playful: she talks in order to have talked. When a man talks, he means business; it is always for some definite purpose.
He is laying down the law, or making a contract or a statement, or giving an opinion; only an idle man who is possessed by the anima will talk for the sake of talking.
But for the woman that is perfectly legitimate, because it is the additional charm in any kind of relationship that she can say what she has to say; if a man does not give that chance to a woman, naturally she feels curtailed, maimed, and the relationship suffers.
While to a man the relationship suffers when he has to do just that kind of talking-usually men dislike that form of playfulness; to talk for the sake of talking is like a misuse of something which ought to be businesslike and rational.
Now, when it comes to the Eros it is just the reverse.
There a man wants to play and doesn’t want to be responsible.
He wants Eros for its own sake, and the purpose of Eros is fulfilled in itself.
As women like talking around, as their aim is thus fulfilled, so a man’s Eros fulfils itself within its own sphere, and then-well, it is just fulfilled and he can go.
When wooing and lovemaking have led up to the culmination, a man walks away because his circle is thus completed: he has had what he
wanted.
But for a woman it is the beginning, not the end, and that is what a man does not understand. Well, one has to learn that as a
woman talks in order to have talked, so a man loves because he wants to love; for him it is finished when for a woman it has just begun.
Of course that is a source of endless misunderstanding.
You see, to a woman relatedness and Eros, which are identical, have purpose-she means business. It is not empty talk about love:
On ne badine pas avec l’amour but she really wants to bring about something.
Just as a man’s mind is not there for what he calls empty talk—-:just as he means that something should be produced-so a woman means that something should be produced out of relatedness.
It is not done in order to have done with it, but in order to bring something about-it may be to breed a child or anything else, but something must come of it.
The woman talks in order to have talked, so a man loves because he wants to love; for him it is finished when for a woman it has just begun.
Of course that is a source of endless misunderstanding.
You see, to a woman relatedness and Eros, which are identical, have purpose-she means business. It is not empty talk about love:
On ne badine pas avec l’amour but she really wants to bring about something.
Just as a man’s mind is not there for what he calls empty talk—-:just as he means that something should be produced-so a woman means that something should be produced out of relatedness.
It is not done in order to have done with it, but in order to bring something about-it may be to breed a child or anything else, but something must come of it. ~Zarathustra Seminars, Page 735-736
