10 May 1933 Visions Seminar LECTURE II
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Mrs. Baynes asks this question: “In the last seminar before the Easter holidays, in speaking of the primitive deity found beneath the golden hermaphroditic figure, you made a very striking allusion to the situation in the world today.
You said you thought the great unrest was due to an activity that was being carried on in the unconscious of which there was no real awareness on the conscious level, and that no amount of disarmament conferences, etc., would help matters until this activity had been given some kind of expression.
Does it seem to you that the German revolution is an attempt to deal with these forces of the unconscious, or is it a regressive movement, a ‘sacrilegious backward grasp,’ as it appears to many on-lookers?”
The “sacrilegious backward grasp” is, of course, an allusion to Nietzsche’s expression when he speaks of the liberation of the individual from participation mystique in the family, particularly the fixation to the mother through what Freud calls the unconscious incest fantasy.
This is a big question and it is not without connection with the symbolism we are actually dealing with.
We are now concerned with the vision called “The Belly of the Ancestors,” and the particular situation is the rock in the shape of the old witch that seizes our patient and pulls her inside.
It is the same primitive deity that we met in another form in the vision before, the earth mother, the earth itself taking possession of civilized cultural consciousness-the conscious personality partially overcome by the chthonic unconscious.
We can really draw a parallel between the actual psychological condition prevailing in Germany and this peculiar symbolism.
One can study the symptomatology of such a public movement exactly as a doctor would study the symptomatology of a certain disease; one can make the assumption that the nation is something like a person, that the whole nation is one human being who is shaken by peculiar psychological spasms.
In certain neuroses the symptoms are sometimes very paradoxical and grotesque, they manifest in all sorts of places in very unexpected ways, they contradict each other, and they even contradict the anatomical possibilities.
So for the ordinary layman, as well as the non-specialists among the doctors, it is often exceedingly difficult, a most baffling task, to construct a true picture of the total symptomatology of a neurosis.
It is the same in studying a nation.
One doesn’t know whether the traits one sees should be ascribed to the particular normal nature of that nation, or whether they are neurotic.
Certain traits seem to be peculiarities of a more or less local nature, and one doesn’t know how to value them.
Therefore I answer that question with great hesitation; it is exceedingly difficult to judge events that are happening right under our noses, one can easily go astray in one’s judgment.
But I know a little about the situation naturally, and there really are certain symptoms which one could emphasize.
For instance, the thing that has alarmed the world the most perhaps is the persecution of the Jews.
Certainly one of the most striking features of the turmoil is that outburst of negative feeling, and I really must say, this anti-Semitic manifestation has taken on a form which is clearly regressive, it has a very medieval character.
You have read in the papers that the students have burnt a heap of Jewish literature, all the writings of Magnus Hirschfeld, for example.
Just here I cannot help smiling, because I happen to know something of that stuff of Hirschfeld’s and I don’t mind their burning it.
But it is very interesting that they burn it up in public, exactly as they did five or six hundred years ago.
And it is not very far from the burning of books to the burning of witches.
If that should follow after a while it would also be interesting, not for the people at the stake, but as a good specimen for any museum.
You see that is obviously a symptom.
Then I heard a very interesting story from one of my Jewish friends about a nice Jewish merchant somewhere in Germany.
He is absolutely innocent of any kind of historical knowledge, but the Nazis came to his
shop and threateningly asked him whether he had the Talmud in his possession.
That is as if the Jews were persecuting Christians, and should come and ask whether you had a copy of The Shepherd of Hermas in your house.
In the Middle Ages they did burn innumerable copies of the Talmud-they were after a certain book in particular containing stories about Jesus because they were rather awkward for the Christian tradition.
Also you have perhaps read in the papers that a great discussion has actually taken place in Berlin, as to whether the Germans assimilated Christianity voluntarily or by force, whether it was forced down their throats by the argument of swords and spears, or whether they took it gladly.
Certain professors led the discussion, and one defended the point of view that they took the pill very gladly, and another one said quite the contrary.
Now it is perfectly well known that Charlemagne treated the old Germans very roughly in that particular point, they had no choice whatever.
Just as the Britons accepted Christianity; it was offered to them on the spears of the Roman legions, so they thought better of it naturally; the word “Roman,” or anything coming from Rome, was so identical with the Roman legions that they did not hesitate to swallow it.
I have seen that in Africa with those poor Negroes the missionaries are absolutely identical with the machine guns of the District Commissioner.
They must not offend a missionary, for there is no argument against a machine gun, so they swallow the pill.
That was exactly the case with the Germans in regard to the philosophical and metaphysical values of Christianity, they understood as little of it as the Negroes.
When you ask the mission boys about Christianity, they will tell you a funny story about brotherhood: “I am your brother and you are my brother and we are all good fellows together, like Jesus and Johnny and Marky and Lukey, the whole band”-that is their conception.
The Christian Pueblos have been converted to Catholicism for a long time.
They have Christian names, they are baptized in the Christian church according to the Christian rite, and the Christian Mexican priest comes over every other month to read the Mass.
But when I asked them why they went to church, and what about Christ, they said: “Oh, we like to see what they do, but we don’t understand much about these things.”
Of course not.
So those early Germans who danced about in the woods in their furs, with their spears and their horns, had really no idea; the Roman missionaries told them, and it was enough that they came from Rome, that was perfectly convincing.
One sees all over the world that the true argument is the cannon and the machine gun.
The same discussions are now taking place.
The National Socialist movement began with very strange proceedings, the Jugend Bewegung, for instance.
And at the summer solstice they celebrated the feast of Odin on top of the mountains, they really sacrificed sheep-bloody sacrifices.
That was ridiculous sentimentality, but it was also a symptom, it was an attempt toward the past.
Then I am told that in a house in Bremen, a huge window is decorated with the figure of a man on a cross, but the cross has equal branches, it is by no means a crucifix, and the figure is Odin.
A metaphysical fate very similar to that of Christ befell Odin, he also had a symbolic relation to the cross-the tree.
So in the German Middle Ages, Christ was represented as hanging, not on the cross, but on the tree of life, and according to the old legend, it was the wood of that tree of life which was used for the cross.
You probably have seen such pictures in galleries, where Christ is depicted as hanging on a tree with branches and leaves, a living tree.
And there is a verse from the Edda:
I know that I hung on the windswept tree
Nine nights through,
Wounded by the spear, dedicated to Odin
I myself to myself.
This is an early parallel that is beginning to live again.
Then in Berlin an exhibition of the remains of Nordic religions is actually being arranged.
That indicates the same tendency to revivify the Germanic religious roots. The “Deutsche Christen”s want to abolish the Old Testament.
Another symptom, apparently very remote, is that most suggestive term dritte Reich, the third kingdom.
You see the word Reich does not necessarily mean empire.
The English word “reach” corresponds to Reich, which also means the circumference.
It can be translated as kingdom, and it also has the connotation of empire, and that word comes from the Latin word imperium, meaning a command, an authority that
gives an order for as far as a command or a word can reach.
That is the idea of Reich.
Now this idea of the third kingdom is on the surface nothing but an analogy to what one calls in French history the deuxieme Empire, for example; it is a political and historical designation.
But at the same time it is a very mystical conception.
Long before Hitler appeared people spoke of this dritte Reich, it is the kingdom of the Holy Ghost.
The first Reich is the kingdom of the Father, which is identical with the Old Testament; then comes the Christian epoch, the Kingdom of the Son; and now, according to the mystical expectation, the time has come for the third kingdom, which is the kingdom of the Holy Ghost.
So that political term coincides in the most uncanny way with the idea of the kingdom of the Holy Ghost.
A new kingdom has come, a new spirit is expected.
That is a most remarkable symbol.
One of the reasons why this term, a sort of slogan, has such an extraordinary effect is that many people have heard of the dritte Reich, there is something in the word;
theosophists, astrologists, all sorts of people have alluded to it, and now something has appeared in the world which is apparently quite rational and yet coincides with those ideas.
Moreover, when you talk to non-Jewish Germans, you notice an extraordinary
enthusiasm; it is comparable to the tremendous wave which went through the German nation in the first days of August 1914.
Of course all the surrounding countries succumbed to the misapprehension that the mood which prevailed then in Germany was just war.
I doubt it. I felt it differently when I went through Germany in the moment that the war broke out, I spent well over a week there then.
At the outbreak of the war I was in Inverness, and I returned through Holland and Germany.
I came right through the armies going west, and I had the feeling that it was what one would call in German a Hochzeitsstimmung, a feast of love all over the country.
Everything was decorated with flowers, it was an outburst of love, they all loved each other and everything was beautiful.
Yes, the war was important, a big affair, but the main thing was the brotherly love all over the country, everybody was everybody else’s brother, one could have everything anyone possessed, it did not matter.
The peasants threw open their cellars and handed out whatever they had.
That happened even in the restaurant and buffet at the railroad station.
I was very hungry, I had had nothing to eat for about twenty-four hours, and they had some sandwiches left, and when I asked what they cost, they said, “Oh nothing,just take them!”
And when I first crossed the border into Germany, we were led into an enormous tent
full of beer and sausages and bread and cheese, and we paid nothing, it was one great feast of love.
I was absolutely bewildered.
What is happening now is the same thing, and people outside Germany think it is war.
Perhaps you have seen the cartoon in Punch, a man with a spear and horns, a sort of Teuton with a torch and glowing eyes, and he is breaking loose, he has already torn off one of his fetters.
But that is a misapprehension; a great feast oflove is going on and not a war.
Of course when people are in such a mood, they go mad too, but that is of secondary
importance psychologically.
It makes a hell of a lot of difference to the surrounding countries, but if the people round Germany don’t get crazy, it will not necessarily lead to war.
For the whole thing has a hochzeitlichen character, it is the wedding feast of a nation; therefore that extraordinary display of sentimentality and torrents of feeling.
It is marvellous that the Commercienrat and the Geheimrat could walk beside the workmen-they all marched together.
We say that they could not help it, they were forced to do so. But no, they liked it tremendously on that first day of May.
It is really an outburst of a new spirit which externally of course may have very disagreeable consequences.
Whether you talk to the man in the street, or to the professors in a university, it is all the same; they are trying to get back to the roots of the nation, the psychological roots, and naturally for that purpose it is necessary to make a regression.
You see the pressure under which Germany has been-an enormous pressure, there is no doubt-has heaped a mountain upon them.
They have been in the condition which is expressed in one of the hexagrams of the I Ching under the sign Ta Ch’u, No. 26.
It is the whole weight of the mountain, and below is Chen, the Yang principle, the
masculine creative principle which is held under.
The text begins: “It is good not to eat at home.”
That means, it is good to expand, to come out, to see the world outside.
“And it is advantageous to cross the great river,” meaning, to undertake the great enterprise, because crossing the great river is always a dangerous enterprise in primitive conditions.
That the mountain is above Chen, the heaven, is the image of the domesticated power of the great one; that is, when the active creative principle is held under the weight of the earth, the superior man learns many words of the past.
The German word is Vorzeit, a poetic word meaning the times of long ago.
So the superior man learns the words and the deeds of the past, and thus he learns how to solidify his character.
You see, that is the condition which actually prevails in Germany.
The people are held under the mountain, and so are forced to revivify the thing that is within, and that is the past-they learn again the deeds of the past.
That cartoon in Punch is to the point in a way, only it has an entirely different meaning to the Germans than to the surrounding peoples. It is the same in the life of the individual.
When a person is in analysis, say, having most marvellous experiences, ask the relations and friends what they think about the performance; they have different opinions, it takes on an entirely different aspect seen from the outside.
So when the mountain-or in the vision the earth, that rock-is on top of our patient, she is, as she expresses it, in the belly of the ancestors, and will become acquainted with many words of the past.
As I see it, that is the situation in Germany; even the very negative aspects of this actual
German revolution have a different explanation.
It is a regression and an injustice, there is no doubt about that; but they cannot get together as a nation, they cannot celebrate their love feast, if strangers are in between.
Of course you can say the Jews are scapegoats; of course they are scapegoats, but other people, individuals, do the same thing; in the process of individuation, for instance, they exclude many things, they may desert their relations, which is unjust, cruel, or foolish perhaps, but it serves that one purpose of individuation, of coming together.
In such a historical movement one never knows what the ultimate outcome will be.
There have been great movements in history that simply ended in smoke, but sometimes a new condition of consciousness is reached and something has happened after all.
I am not particularly optimistic about any historical development.
I do not believe very much in progress and in that brotherly business, but sometimes one has to admit that something happens, consciousness really develops to a certain extent.
But the progress does not necessarily mean anything entirely good, as one sees in this revolution; it has very barbarous consequences, it means a great restriction of the spiritual outlook of the people.
For instance, it has brought about the suppression of free speech, no one can say exactly what he thinks, discussion is not allowed.
People who are enormously valuable to a nation as a sort of ferment are expelled, and that is simply a loss, it is most regrettable.
It may have a very bad influence on the further development of the German mind,
because they are isolating themselves from the world, and many things which are important as ingredients are lacking.
If there is no salt in the soup, it is no good, it may be made out of good material, but with no salt you can’t eat it.
Such things may mean the ultimate defeat of this movement, we don’t know, but at all events for the time being we must suspend our judgment.
The German revolution has positive and negative aspects.
It is only interesting to us in that it coincides with this vision which contains the same symbolism.
Now our patient is inside that dark rocky cavern, the situation, as I said, which is expressed in the sign of Ta Ch ‘u.
This is always a sign of inner development; it means union with the historical facts that are in the unconscious, for when you cannot express your life outside because the weight of the mountain is upon you, you must necessarily develop an activity inside.
That development within can only take place through the things that are found inside, and the I Ching calls these the remnants of the past. It is interesting to see what is said in hexagram Ta Ch ‘u about the attitude one should have in such a condition.
The first line is: “There is danger, it is advantageous to desist.”
You see the situation is dangerous because there is pressure and suppression, and therefore the possibility of an outburst which might be volcanic and destructive; so it is advantageous to desist from any kind of enterprise, from any external attempt.
The second line is in accordance with that: “The axle trees are taken away from the cart.”
The Achsenlager are the two trees under the cart into which the axles are inserted, so the cart rests upon the axles; if you remove the axle trees from the cart, you cannot go out in it, there is no movement. Then the third -line is: ”
A good horse follows others.
One is conscious of danger and pursues one’s advantages, the everyday practice of driving a cart, and protection through weapons.
It is advantageous to possess a place to which to go.”
That is an interesting parallel to the actual symptoms in Germany; they are building up an army for protection, practicing the use of weapons, and driving cars-or riding in carts, the earlier form.
This is a preparatory activity which allows the assimilation of the activities of the
ancestors.
The remains of ancestral life which are found in the unconscious consist in what the ancestors have done; there are memories of riding in carts, of using weapons, so one must necessarily do something similar, in order to put those ancestral memories into practice.
Otherwise the pressure would be increased and the danger of an outburst.
Moreover, “it is advantageous to possess a place to which to go.”
That means a home, a country, a situation that is one’s own, so that one is not forced out into the boundless world; if an outburst threatens, one can go where one belongs, one doesn’t need to fly off the handle into space.
Formerly such explosions often led to wars and migrations, as in the great migrations of peoples, or of primitive tribes; after a time of apparent nonexistence, they suddenly burst forth and migrated.
The outburst of Islam is an example: those people had been absolutely invisible Bed-
ouins, star-worshippers, nobody ever heard of them, when suddenly that thing exploded and they migrated all over the world; they threatened Europe, they came up as far as Vienna, even to Switzerland.
The outburst of the Germans in the World War was like that.
But now the danger is less, so one can assume, if allowed to make a positive interpretation of the actual revolution, that they are seeking what they possess in order
to go there, because it is good to have a place to go to, according to the I Ching.
The fourth line says: “The protective board of the young bull.”
That is the board fastened in front of a young bull’s head to make him less dangerous, to check him, and it is a protection to himself as well as to others.
A nother sign of domestication is the gelding or castration of animals, and the next line says: “The tooth of a castrated boar.”
A tooth is a weapon, but that it is the tooth of a castrated animal would signify domestication as well as a means of defense.
Then comes the last line, and I must explain that in each hexagram there is always the possibility that the last line will differ remarkably from the rest, for in the last line the change begins, either in a positive or a negative way.
There might be a hexagram of a generally unfavorable character so that the expectation in the end would be rather negative, and then the last line says: All this leads into a disaster provided that things are really developing as is indicated in the hexagram.
But if one meditates upon it, if one studies and draws conclusions from it, one can
prevent the evil issue, and then the last line is of no importance; it is only valid under the assumption that the conditions explained before continue to prevail, which would naturally lead to disaster.
Or it might be that the hexagram is relatively unfavorable in character, yet the last line
is exceedingly favorable.
For instance, this hexagram is rather unfavorable, full of risk and of doubt, and the last line says: “One obtains the way of heaven, success.”
Now the way of heaven is Tao. External human activities, the conscious activities, are inhibited, they are covered up by the earth.
One is as if buried alive, caught in the bowels of the earth, as it were, where the only thing that can liberate one is an explosion, a wild outburst that scatters death and disaster on all sides.
But it is also possible that one discovers in such a situation the way of heaven, Tao;
namely, that one learns the great art of uniting the remains of ancestral lives to the purposes and inclinations of one’s conscious world, so that the two become one, so that your individual way into the future may be in accordance with the ancestral lives, so that the ancestral spirits can join in, follow.
Then one has the best chance to attain Tao.
Now Mr. Allemann has just given me an interesting contribution to the problem of this ugly idol, the earth mother.
It is taken out of the cabalistic book Der Sohar, 6 and it is a quotation from the commentary to the Book of Job.
The particular psychology of Job’s fate has been considered symbolic of the fate of man in general.
Therefore the great drama of man, as described in Faust, is preceded by the same betting in heaven between the creator and the devil as in the Book of Job.
There has always been the question why such great misfortunes should befall that pious
man.
I will translate the quotation roughly:
And it was the time when the days of the feast came to an end. Then Job sent messengers and offered the sacrifice (or offerings) of exaltation.
You must take that word in its literal meaning; “to exalt” is to put something on a higher level.
The offering for the sacrifice, the exaltation, is of a masculine kind and not feminine.
Thus it rises to the heights but it cannot carry perfection with itself.
And note that if Job had given one part of the sacrifice to the whole ( that means including evil), then the devil, the accuser, would not have had a chance to get at him.
Thou mayest ask: Why has the all-holy one forsaken Job?
Because he worked for the concealment and the veiling of the light by bringing no
other offering than that of exaltation, which rises.
Of this it is said: And thus Job has done every day.
If the evil side had obtained a part of the nourishment of the sacrifice, then that other side would have left the sanctuary and the part of holiness would have been able to
rise higher.
But Job did not wish the other side to enjoy the offering, he avoided that side, which is expressed in the words: And this man was pious, honest, God-fearing, and avoided evil. He brought the offering of exaltation, and therefore the other side could never enjoy
his offering.
Thus it came about that the other side could take all the more from him because he had not given to that side.
And thus the all-holy one himself woke up that accuser, Satan, saying: “Hast thou directed thine heart upon Job, my servant?”
That is a cabalistic explanation of the misfortunes of Job through the fact that he sacrificed the wrong thing-he offered only the thing that rises, which is avoided by the side of evil.
Therefore he increased the power of evil, which then took from him all the more because he had not also given an offering to the side of darkness.
You see, that is the idea which we encounter in these visions.
The collective idea of being good is the reason why our patient is caught by the earth; the dark side is neglected and therefore takes its share all the more.
The earth takes her share-whatever that may be-it catches her, so she loses her freedom, she is inside that dark cavern.
Then she says:Upon the altar lay an Indian guarded on each side by two iron men.
I said to the men: “What are you?” They answered: “We are the great will of a nation. The Indian is dead. We stand here that he may not live again.”
What does that mean?
Mrs. Sigg: It might be possible that she thinks the American nation has crushed the Indian, and she throws the responsibility on that collective will in some way.
Dr. Jung: Quite right.
It was the great will of a nation that the Indian should be suppressed, which means that it is the great will of the nation in her that her primitive or her chthonic side should be suppressed, because she is part of that nation; and since it is the collective will, it is
insurmountably strong.
If you live in such a nation you must follow its customs; you are infected by the whole mental atmosphere, so you must suppress the primitive man in yourself.
There is nothing in your surroundings that would help you to assimilate the primitive man.
This vision explains to her that the problem is not only her personal problem, it is also a national problem.
And this remark in the vision coincides with what we were saying today.
If in the future I talk of synchronicity again, as I have done in the past, please remember this case today, which is a very clear case of it.
The German revolution, and the place we have actually arrived at in our vision, and our discussion, all belong together, it all happens at this time and is in tune with the time.
And that is what the Chinese understand by the right way, the way of heaven, which has
nothing to do with our ideas of celestial dwellings; it is the idea of the harmony, in the operation of the law, between the celestial bodies and the earth, things happen in the right moment.
So this problem is at the same time also the problem of the German nation.
One should not think of the German nation as something all by itself; what is happening
there is a symptom of what is happening to mankind in general.
If the German nation is behaving in such a way, that neurosis, or that problem is everywhere.
Where the problem is the most urgent, where there is the greatest pressure, it shows first, it comes to the surface; but the problem itself is everywhere, everybody shares it.
France has it just as much only it does not show there; there are of course definite reasons why not. Now that Indian is guarded by iron men. Why should these men be of
iron?
Remark: It symbolizes the pressure.
Dr. Jung: Yes, but it is also something one sees very often in dreams, a speech metaphor, the iron will.
One hears that every day in Germany now.
Mrs. Sigg: The cruel will, men who are as cruel and hard as iron, inflexible.
Mr. Henley: The iron man is a slang term for the dollar.
Dr. Jung: The dollar has a lot to do with it! Rockefeller is behind it; for instance, he tries to deprive the Indians of their own religious cult.
I heard many lamentations from the Indians in regard to Rockefeller, who was sending missionaries to prevent them from practicing their traditional ceremonies; he is their worst enemy.
But in this case, the iron men probably symbolize inflexibility.
She says: I said: “Though you are made of iron your joints are weak, they are not supple.” I turned their heads around and kicked them down. They had no joints in their knees and could not rise. Then the Indian arose.
She is breaking the iron will that holds down the primitive psychology connected with the past and with the earth.
What do you think about her very drastic ways?
Dr. Reichstein: She fights them with their own weapons.
Dr. Jung: Yes, she applies the same technique, one could say; they were probably holding the Indian down by force, so she treats them in the same way.
But to treat the will of a nation in that way is a pretty big
undertaking, I should say, so one cannot help feeling suspicious.
One usually finds such violent expressions in dreams or fantasies when the situation is rather uncertain, as when one is having great trouble in doing a thing yet insists that it is perfectly easy.
Or as one gets rather suspicious when a person talks of honesty all the time; because there is too much talk of reliability and unselfishness, one begins to look out for one’s pocketbook and thinks one may have been cheated.
So she is much too bold, much too strong.
Mrs. Sigg: I think she cannot be very serious about it because the Christian idea in that sacrifice seems to be that one must suffer for the nation. In England they used to sing a strange hymn called: “Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee,” the idea being that one must die for the others. So this one Indian must be sacrificed for the
whole nation.
Dr. Jung: No, you must not get sentimental over the Indian.
He is probably in a most disagreeable situation on that altar, but we are not talking
now about the most regrettable fate of the Indian tribes, and that he is a sacrifice for all of them, a sort of crucifixion.
Nor are we speaking of the power psychology of colonization, where naturally the primitive part of the population is always the scapegoat; if anything wrong happens in
such countries it is always due to the dark man.
As it is with us: if something is stolen and the person living in the next house has been in jail, we naturally think he is the thief.
Those strong expressions simply mean that there is a doubt whether that thing will really succeed, it is too good to be true.
Now she continues: Then the Indian arose. He saw the light upon my breast and came
toward me saying: “You have the light.” I shielded the flame with my hands and said: “Yes, but it is not your light. You will not understand. Give me your blood and your sinews and believe in me.”
That is curious. What is her tendency now?
Miss de Witt: She wants his physical force.
Dr. Jung: Such physical force as he has, the sinews and the blood of course, but what for? To kick more iron men’s heads off?
Miss de Witt: To fortify herself.
Dr. Jung: Yes, that is a very primitive idea, and she would like to be equally primitive.
But why should he give his blood and sinews, and why should he believe in her?
Dr. Reichstein: She is beginning to identify with the light, she is here in the role of the Messiah.
Dr. Jung: Exactly. You see, what she demands of the primitive man is nothing less than that he should slice himself to bits and offer his blood and sinews.
In other words, she would eat him, she would swallow him wholesale.
And moreover he should believe in her. But is she in any way better than that primitive man?
Remark: It is an inflation.
Dr. Jung: And why should it be inflation to identify with such a humble little flame?
Answer: Because it is the Purusha.
Dr. Jung: Yes, the Purusha, the god-man, is symbolized by the flame, and here she identifies with that light.
And she tries to swallow the Indian, so he would be getting from a bad situation into a worse.
In the cave he was at least on an altar and people left him in peace, and now he would be swallowed, vanish altogether.
She says: The Indian bowed low. He searched for some way out. (That is quite
understandable.)
Between the floor and the walls of the cavern there was a narrow crack, through which streamed sunlight and cool air.
There seemed no way out. Two great pillars supported the roof of the cavern.
I said: “It is really the belly of an old woman. Perhaps the pillars are her intestines. Destroy them and she may die.” The Indian picked up a rock and threw it at the pillar.
It broke, and formless bodies of men and women fell out and heaped up upon the ground. We drew back. The Indian broke the second pillar. From it issued sharp spears and boiling water.
Well, the situation with the Indian for the time being remains unsolved.
We don’t know whether he really condescends to the cannibalistic feast she is planning for him.
He is seeking a way out, and they only discover a narrow crack through which the outer world, sunlight and cool air, come in.
Her supposition is that they are caught in the belly of the Great Mother, which we already know.
And now comes a detail, the idea that these pillars are intestinal organs of the earth mother.
What typical symbolic situation would that be? You see the Indian could break these pillars.
Mrs. Schlegel: The night sea journey.
Dr. Jung: Yes, the adventure of the hero in the night sea journey.
When he is in the whale-dragon’s belly he always looks about for a way to get out, and finding none, he realizes that if he can kill the monster from within he will be liberated; so he cuts off a great piece of the liver perhaps, or injures the great artery, or he creates fire in the monster’s belly, and kills him thus.
This is exactly the same idea.
The Indian injures the intestinal organs of the earth mother in order to get out of that prison, he is here in the role of the hero.
You remember the whole series of visions began with the story of the red Indian who was the animus psychopompos, the soul-leading animus that performs the adventurous deeds which she is meant to do.
Whatever she ought to do, the Indian goes first and does it for her, a sort of unconscious play in anticipation of future conscious deeds.
Here the Indian anticipates something which she should do later, he destroys the intestinal organs of the Great Mother whatever that means.
Now when he destroys one of the pillars, bodies of men and women fall out. Who would they be?
Mrs. Sawyer: They have also been devoured by the monster.
Dr. Jung: Probably.
When the hero succeeds in killing the monster, he discovers his parents inside whom he had believed to be dead, but it turns out that the monster has swallowed them.
And he discovers other people also, and animals, even woods and hills.
These facts from primitive legends show that the monster symbolizes the past, or death, destruction through time which swallows everything.
But if you could climb down into the belly of time you would find the whole past, first of
all your parents.
This is another parallel to the I Ching.
When you are under the mountain, you remember the words and the deeds of the
past, your former lives; you are in the belly of the ancestors and you remember the ancestral life, of course not as such, but the psychology of the ancestral life.
So that release of the bodies of men and women is one of the characteristic features of the hero’s career; he is a liberator, and in his supreme effort he liberates people from death.
The apokatastasis, the restitution of everything, is the term in the Epistle of St. Paul for the release of all creatures that are sighing in fetters.
He said that all creatures that are in bonds, unfree, the whole of creation, is waiting for the manifestation of the children of God; when that age comes, everything that has been lost and buried will be brought back to complete redemption.
The dogmatic idea of redemption is the complete restitution of the lost creation to the creator, the return of Shakti to Shiva, or the return of Maya to the dormant creator.
Mrs. Crowley: The same idea is in Isaiah.
Dr. Jung: Yes, and the kingdom of heaven that was awaited is the same; the Parousia, according to the early ideas of Christianity, means the immediate reappearance of Christ.
Christ’s prophecy was that he would come back in a relatively short time, that people then living would still ·be alive when he came.
They expected that the end of the world was close at hand, and that Christ would help them to leave the world, clear up everything.
Now what do you think this bit of the hero myth, and the idea of a general redemption, would mean· psychologically to our patient?-provided she understands the meaning of this vision.
Mrs. Crowley: It is the pair of opposites coming together, is it not?
Dr. Jung: Yes, but more specifically, what does that idea of apokatastasis mean as an individual experience?
Mrs. Sawyer: The state of Tao?
Dr. Jung: Not necessarily, but it would be at all events a state of exaltation, of great expectation, which would concern not only herself, but also collectivity.
She might gather from such a vision that we are actually living at a time when people have such experiences, when the kingdom of heaven is very near, so the immediate manifestation of redemption might take place at any time.
There is some such feeling in it because this is an exceedingly collective image, and whenever one experiences symbolism of a collective character-if one realizes the vision at all one has the feeling that something most significant has occurred.
If it were only personal it would have no particular meaning; it has meaning only when one assumes that it has meaning not only for oneself, but for a nation at least, if not for the whole of humanity.
Now the Indian broke the second pillar too and from it issued sharp spears and boiling water. What does that suggest?
To interpret such things one must be quite naive.
Suppose you are in a cave, standing near an Indian friend, and he breaks that pillar and out come the spears.
What would you say?
Mr. Henley: It would be getting into hot water, and the spears mean trouble.
Dr. Jung: Yes, a speech metaphor again.
To get into hot water means a very awkward situation, it would burn, and the spears would wound you.
So there is the danger that she will be exposed to wounds of different sorts.
Her Indian friend is a savior, mind you; he is a redeemer, not of his own race in this case, but of that particular white psychology.
He begins to work down in the bowels of the earth in order to bring about the
apokatastasis, and it will be an apokatastasis of things that are not agreeable.
It sounds very nice to bring back the bodies of the parents and other people whom time has swallowed, but if they should live again, you would have to live with them and that is no simple thing; it might cause no end of trouble.
You might have very lovely parents, but if you thought that for the rest of your life you would have to put up with that problem again, I think you would hesitate.
And not only that, the second pillar
brings out spears and boiling water also.
Why just that?
Mrs. Crowley: It is again symbolical perhaps, not so individual. It might be the opposites, the unconscious conflict, so there would probably be spears again from above and below.
Dr. Jung: I am afraid it is far more drastic and real.
For should the Indian bring about that apokatristasis for her, the past would be brought
back, and that means the whole weight of the past.
And where are we in relation to the past? We have a totally different point of view.
There would be a terrible conflict with the past, and if it prevailed, we might be
swallowed again, overruled by primitive tendencies, and then the conflict would no longer be inside, it would be outside.
Try it. Try to be naive, try to be primitive, try to be like a “harmless Canadian” and speak
the truth for twenty-four hours, and in no time you will feel what the spears and the boiling water mean.
You will see that it is tremendously difficult to get the past into one’s life, as is indicated in this symbolism. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 970-985
A National Socialistic movement akin to the German Faith Movement in which Professor
Hauer of these seminars played a leading role (see above, 24June 1931, n. 1). The
German Christians sought to purify Christianity by excising all Jewish elements from it. In
“Wotan” Jung speaks of the movement and his fears about it; see CW 10, pars. 397-98; see also A. Samuels, “New Material Concerning Jung, Anti-Semitism and the Nazis,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 38 (4): 463-70.