1935 5 June LECTURE 5 Zarathustra Seminar
1935 5 Jung LECTURE 5 Zarathustra Seminar
Prof. Jung:
Mrs. Baumann asks what the difference is between the figure of the old wise man in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, and the old wise man in the woman’s fantasies which we dealt with in a former seminar.
Of course there is a considerable difference between that figure as it appears in a woman’s case and in a man’s case.
In a man it is as a rule the typical archetype, but Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is not the typical old wise man; only in certain places is he typical, which comes from the fact that Nietzsche himself is identical with him, thus blurring the picture.
Then the archetype gets mixed up with personal traits which ordinarily it would not contain.
The figure of the old wise man is much rarer in a woman and not so typical, because wisdom in her case is usually connected with the archetypal earth mother.
In the particular case to which Mrs. Baumann refers, the old wise man was not typical, but was falsified, because we had to deal there with a rather formidable animus that was very much against the woman’s instincts and interfered with the feminine side of her character.
There was a very marked masculine tendency which reinforced the figure of the animus; this is the reason why the wise old man appeared at all.
With a very feminine woman, the archetype of wisdom would always be connected with the mother, and the other image would appear in the animus.
Therefore, to take the figure of the wise old man in either of these two cases as typical is a mistake.
I think we are quite safe in assuming that the particular element of wisdom in a woman’s case is associated with the mother archetype, the so-called earth mother, and in a man’s case with the fatherlike figure, the typical wise old man.
The usual sequence of these images in a woman, the way in which they appear empirically, is, first, the animus as a personification of the unconscious, and then wisdom in the form of the mother.
In a man it is just the reverse: the anima first appears as a personification of the unconscious and the element of wisdom in the form of the old wise man.
So when we speak of the old wise man we usually mean the figure as it appears in a man, but a certain exaggeration of the animus can produce that archetype in a woman, as the mother archetype may appear in a man.
For example, one finds the motif of the earth mother in the Nordic myth of Wotan who goes to Erda in order to inquire about the future, to learn the wisdom of the mother.
But the earth mother is a sort of pale archetype in a man which does not function as it functions in a woman.
And, though the archetype of the wise old man does exist in a woman, it has little practical importance.
We will go on now with the chapter called, “The Tree upon the Hill”:
“Yea, into the evil!” cried the youth. “How is it possible that thou hast discovered my soul?”
Zarathustra smiled, and said: “Many a soul one will never discover, unless one first invent it.”
“Yea, into the evil!” cried the youth once more. “Thou saidst the truth, Zarathustra.
I trust myself no longer since I sought to rise into the height, and nobody trusteth me any longer; how doth that happen?
I change too quickly: my to-day refuteth my yesterday.
I often overleap the steps when I clamber; for so doing, none of the steps pardon me.
When aloft, I find myself always alone. No one speaketh unto me: the frost of solitude maketh me tremble. What do I seek on the height?
My contempt and my longing increase together; the higher I clamber, the more do I despise him who clambereth. What doth he seek on the height?
How ashamed I am of my clambering and stumbling! How I mock at my violent panting! How I hate him who Rieth! How tired I am on the height!”
What is the meaning of these paragraphs? What is the youth complaining about?
Mrs. Baynes: I think he complains because he has the sense of not taking the whole of himself along when he tries to climb.
Prof Jung: But what is it that impresses him obviously?
Mrs. Baynes: That he is completely by himself first of all, and the fact that he is not at one with himself on account of the one-sidedness; he is only on the side of the Geist.
Prof. Jung: Yes, he went up a bit too far and was dancing on clouds, and here comes the recognition which is symbolized by the youth.
And who would the youth be?
Miss Hannah: Nietzsche, I suppose.
Prof. Jung: Well, Nietzsche is every figure, as we know, so it can only be a particular part.
Prof Reichstein: He is the natural part.
Prof Jung: Yes, he shows a very natural reaction; he is very much in doubt about Zarathustra’s leap.
Of course he has participated in it, but when Zarathustra was dancing on the clouds there was no youth.
Now he appears under the symbol of the tree, and embodies the doubt really. And the fact that he is a youth would symbolize what?
Prof. Reichstein: He is not yet developed; he is young in contrast to Zarathustra.
Prof. Jung: Yes. As the archetype of the wise man Zarathustra is always old, but at times, when he is too mixed up with Nietzsche, he begins to leap like a kitten and then he is absolutely ridiculous.
Think of Zarathustra in long robes dancing and such nonsense!-the bad taste is already convincing.
If he were young, yes, but one can imagine Zarathustra leaping about as little as one can Zoroaster the founder of a religion: he is obliged by his name to be dignified.
So when he begins to dance it is comical; that is a sort of pathological element.
You see, if Nietzsche were really insane when he talks in this ridiculous way, no reaction would be visible; it would be repressed.
When Zarathustra leaps, he would get stuck in the air from that moment on-remain
there and talk probably very high stuff, more and more unnatural, more and more crazy.
But since Nietzsche is not yet insane, a natural reaction comes up within him, indicated by the title of this chapter, the tree, which is the symbol of just the opposite, of the thing that is rooted.
And if he were insane, the young man would not exist.
But Nietzsche cannot deny the existence of a contrasting figure; over against the old wise man there is a young man who is rather grieved with this pathological situation Zarathustra has brought about.
It is as if he were taking the situation onto himself.
You see, the one that strove upwards was really Zarathustra.
The young man was only tempted by Zarathustra to do something which, to a young man, would not have been so bad; if a young man becomes enthusiastic and loses the ground under his feet for a while, it is not dangerous: he is supposed to do that.
But if Zarathustra leaps into the air, it is nonsense.
And as the young man is identical with Zarathustra he feels the same compunction which Zarathustra feels.
You see, Zarathustra says, “I change too quickly”-namely, Zarathustra came to that symbol of the tree, to the realization which is just in contrast to what he has been before, while the young man talks as if he were Zarathustra, and takes over the bad conscience which Zarathustra ought to feel for changing.
Yesterday he danced on the clouds and today he contradicts himself, “My today refuteth my yesterday.”
Of course if Zarathustra thinks of himself as a hero, naturally he can to anything he
wants, but a human being would be accused of absurd, paradoxical, irresponsible behavior.
So the young man is that part of Nietzsche which is normal and which is not on a level with Zarathustra; he is a new edition of the pale criminal.
You see, as soon as Zarathustra overreaches himself, up comes the figure of the pale criminal, the one who cannot stand the sight of himself, and is unable to remain at his own level because it is really too high.
Now Zarathustra, contemplating the tree by which they stood, said:
“This tree standeth lonely here on the hills; it hath grown up high above man and beast.
And if it wanted to speak, it would have none who could understand it: so high hath it grown.
Now it waiteth and waiteth,-for what doth it wait? It dwelleth too close to the seat of the clouds; it waiteth perhaps for the first lightning?”
What does it mean that Zarathustra emphasizes just this particular quality-that the tree stands isolated upon a hill?
Dr. Schlegel: It is the situation of Zarathustra himself.
Prof. Jung: Yes, and inasmuch as Nietzsche is identical with Zarathustra, it is Nietzsche’s own situation.
You see, this is a very particular conflict; the youth would be the ordinary human being who has common sense and knows quite well that jumping into the air means coming
down again, that one will surely have a reaction.
But Zarathustra is not an ordinary human being, but something inhuman or
Superhuman; hence the idea of the Superman.
Yet that element which builds up Zarathustra is a living reality in Nietzsche, and it takes him far up into the clouds.
Inasmuch as Zarathustra is a real fact in Nietzsche, he is like the tree which stands alone upon the mountain high above ordinary humanity.
So here a sort of differentiation takes place; first Zarathustra tries to get higher and higher, and that is criticized by this chapter, which points out that this is unnatural behavior.
It is approaching insanity. That leaping into the air contains a kernel of truth, then.
It corresponds to the reality in Nietzsche himself; there is an extraordinary genius in Nietzsche which could be compared to a being high above ordinary mankind.
But these comical jumps and jerks are due to the fact that the ordinary man wants to jump up too, and then it becomes grotesque.
If that ordinary man could only remain quiet and stay below in the valley, not trying to imitate Zarathustra, the whole thing would be acceptable: that would be the normal condition.
The tree can stand up there because it is a tree, not human but a symbol of growth, while the human being is down below in the valley.
But because Nietzsche identifies with Zarathustra, it cannot be a tree; it must necessarily be a human being who overreaches himself, and in that act it is like Zarathustra dancing, walking on air, which is absurd.
That is all a consequence of the fact that Nietzsche identifies with Zarathustra, and also with the young man, and naturally the young man is identical with Zarathustra and takes over all the compunction Zarathustra ought to feel for that absurd behavior before.
So a general mix-up is created.
To restore the natural and human situation, you must make a difference between
Nietzsche and Zarathustra, Nietzsche being the human individual and Zarathustra the archetype that is rooted in humanity since eternity and because he has roots, he is like a tree.
There are peculiar trees in the Bush which grow to a height of sixty or seventy meters and are considered to be sacred; they reach far above ordinary trees and usually they are haunted by ghosts or demons that have voices, and the voices must be obeyed.
In India, certain trees are thought to be inhabited by the trimurti, the Indian Trinity; and usually they have in the villages an asvatta tree, the sacred tree of Buddha, sometimes with a hole in the trunk which is supposed to be inhabited by the deity, or the deity may live in the branches.
It is the same idea as the Bush soul, of course with a certain differentiation.
The Bush souls of primitives are thought to inhabit certain animals with whom they are then related.
If the tiger contains a man’s Bush soul then that man is the brother of the tiger-or the python, or the crocodile; and the Bush soul, under a different aspect, lives in certain plants or stones or rivers, and then he is the brother of that river or whatever it is.
All that simply means the recognition that a part of the human psyche is essentially not human. It is naturally not what primitives assume it to be, but is a fact which we would call a projection-and we no longer know that projection, we are unconscious of it.
I think I have never met a European who was aware of having a Bush soul, but I am a bit doubtful: there are cases that approach it.
Then there is another phenomenon of the Bush soul which is very marked with us.
Do you know how that is experienced?
You see, when the gods disappear from rivers and trees and mountains and animals, they become most banal.
Mrs. Fierz: Is it Die Tucke des Objekts?
Miss Wolff: Is it when objects become animated, as in occult phenomena, for instance?
Prof. Jung: Yes, there are very obvious cases when pieces of furniture, certain pictures, etc., behave in a very funny way.
One sees that in parapsychology, and of course the lowest form is the Tucke des Objekts, when objects play tricks upon you.
Another example would be our peculiar dependence upon objects: we are quite unhappy if we are without certain objects which are dear to us-people are sometimes utterly lost without them.
You know that famous story about Kant: his Bush soul, outside of himself, which always directed him, was the topmost button on the coat of one of his listeners who attended his lectures very regularly year after year.
He used to walk up and down continuously gazing upon that topmost button; he developed all his thoughts out of it, and once when it was missing Kant could not deliver his lecture. He was completely put off because the god was absent.
A primitive would have realized it, and would have said, “This button is sacred, a fetish, and please take care to always bring it with you to inspire me or I am lost.”
Kant of course never would have thought of such a thing, but it is the truth.
It can take many other forms.
There is a story that Schiller could not write unless he smelt the peculiar odor of rotting apples, so he always had apples in a drawer of his writing table.
And peculiar habits can take the place of such a fetish.
We belittle these things because they are so utterly banal; we think it is merely curious, but if we look at them from the functional standpoint, we see that they plan an important part in the functioning of the psyche of those people.
For instance, if one of Kant’s audience had been absent, or if instead of having fifty he had had only one or two, he would have been able to lecture-and if he had been ill he probably would have been able to lecture-but when that button wasn’t there, he could not.
He had another Bush soul in the church tower which he saw from the window of his study; he was always looking at it, and when it was taken down, he was incapacitated for months because he had no point de repere.
Because the Bush soul phenomenon is a sort of point de repere, primitives always have such things-like a shrine or the churinga of the Central Australian aborigines for instance-and inasmuch as it does function, they assume rightly that it is filled with life, that it contains soul.
It is the same thing when one can develop a problem more easily when talking to somebody; even if one’s partner in the discussion does not fully understand the argument, it is enough that one talks to somebody for things to become much clearer.
Sometimes grateful people say, “When I talk to you I always get a new thought, presuming that the partner is producing that thought or has a certain effect upon them.”
So our point of view concerning the tree is that Nietzsche has a Bush soul which is identical with the archetype of the wise old man, and this chapter should inform him of the fact that the wise old man is not human, but is also of the nature of the tree, and one therefore cannot identify with him.
The Hindus, for instance, think that the gods are more or less identical with trees, or that they live in certain animals, showing that they are not human.
Therefore, to dream of animals or impressive plants means dreaming of the deity, because these things are not human.
So nothing could inform Nietzsche better than this identity with the tree; the right thoughts are there but the conclusions are wrong.
It is true of course that the tree is also human inasmuch as it is Zarathustra who is human-like; it is an account of the human likeness that Nietzsche is tempted to identify with it.
As men think they can identify with the anima who is not quite human: she is also a kind of Bush soul; a man possessed by the anima is just a piece of something that you can no longer talk to.
And when a woman identifies with the animus without thinking, she identifies with the Bush soul, and then she is not quite human and loses human contact.
Any decent discussion ceases instantly when the anima or animus enters the game.
Now Zarathustra, inasmuch as he is not identical with Nietzsche, realizes here his own nature.
This chapter is like a dream in which Nietzsche, the dreamer, is informed that Zarathustra is a tree and if he only could understand that, he would no longer identify and all these absurdities would come to an end-his conflict would come to an end.
It would be better to assume that he was the young man, but he need not descend as far as that, because he was no longer the young man when he wrote Zarathustra.
He should be his own age, neither young nor old, neither an embryo nor five thousand years old.
Prof. Reichstein: Would it not be more natural if instead of the young man a woman’s figure would come?
Prof. Jung: That would be an identification with the anima.
Prof. Reichstein: Yes, but the young man is a kind of compensation, and the real compensation would be the anima here.
Prof. Jung: No, that would be an entirely different conflict, one between the wise old man and the anima.
But you see, that conflict is settled, for when the anima is rescued out of the brothel of the world, she follows the wise old man, as his sibylla, his somnambule.
If the anima is in the brothel the old wise man does not exist; he can only appear when the anima is redeemed from the brothel.
Of course she would be the complete opposite of the wise old man when she is in the brothel, but then the opposition is so complete that the other part is invisible.
Prof. Fierz: I should like to point out another thing in connection with the big tree. The Sequoia trees in the Yosemite valley, which are the biggest in the world, are considered especially sacred because they have been struck so many times by lightning. And the guide told us that the Red Indians made their fires near those trees in a storm; they
believed Manitu spoke to the trees in the flashes of lightning and they were protected. He said that was a very natural superstition, for the trees are so big that they must be struck often by lightning.
Prof Jung: Well, in the next paragraph you have it: he says such trees are struck by lightning.
What does Zarathustra mean by that?
Prof Reichstein: I think it is inspiration.
Prof. Jung: On one side, it is inspiration.
As the archetype of the old wise man is a further bridge to the depths of the unconscious, he is supposed to know the great secrets and to have divine inspiration
which could come to him in the form of lightning.
As a rule, lightning is dangerous even to a big tree-it can kill it-but if the tree is old enough and big enough it only injures it slightly.
But can the human being that is identical with the archetype of the wise old man stand the lightning from heaven?
Mrs. Fierz: No, he will be killed.
Prof Jung: Of course.
One should not identify with such a peculiar old tree; for in such a position it is easily struck by lightning-almost as if it were meant to be struck.
One even plants trees as a protection against lightning because they attract it; tree tops are good conductors, real foundations of electric currents.
The outpour of electricity at the top of a tree during a thunderstorm is amazing, and under certain conditions one sees the fire of St. Elmo, the strange fire which is sometimes seen on top of the masts of ships.·,
That is merely the current which comes out of the tops of things during an electrically charged condition; of course where the positive current of electricity from the earth streams out, it makes the point of attraction for the lightning coming down from the clouds.
The usual danger of this archetype is that the divine inspiration or manifestation, the creative impulse, strikes there first, and therefore wisdom is needed where there are such thunderstorms.
People who are not exposed to storms are never in need of wisdom it is quite superfluous-a mere luxury, but a man like Nietzsche would need it because he is always threatened by storms, having this tremendous opposition in his nature.
Whoever possesses such widely separated pairs of opposites will be in danger of the lightning on account of the electrical charges, and it will always hit the topmost point.
Then the archetype of the wise old man is animated because wisdom must come to one’s aid, otherwise one is insufficiently protected.
Now what are the streaks of lightning in our psychological language?
Inspiration has been mentioned but inspiration is not as destructive or dynamic as lightning.
Mr. Allernann: An explosion of the collective unconscious.
Prof Jung: But how does it appear empirically?
Mrs. Fierz: As panic.
Prof Jung: Yes, a brainstorm, or a sudden most dangerous impulse, an obsession or a possession-or an immediate certainty of what you are going to do.
When the collective unconscious comes up and breaks into your life, it is as if it were a thunder-cloud out of which leaps the lightning.
That means a tremendous impulse, a dynamic explosion in your system, and if you are lacking in wisdom you meet that tension with a brain box which is much too small, and usually it is isolated against the earth: then you get it!
Therefore if you are wise, you will have a wide surface and be well connected with the earth; then you are reasonably protected against the danger of the lightning.
Not always though.
So, as Mr. Allemann rightly remarked, it is a condition, an assault or an immediate explosion in which one is suddenly overwhelmed by the collective unconscious; to call it inspiration is pretty mild: it doesn’t fully describe the danger of such an event.
When Zarathustra had said this, the youth called out with violent gestures: “Yea, Zarathustra, thou speakest the truth.
My destruction I longed for, when I desired to be on the height, and thou art the lightning for which I waited! Lo! what have I been since thou hast appeared amongst us? It is mine envy of thee that hath destroyed me!”-Thus spake the youth, and wept bitterly.
Zarathustra, however, put his arm about him, and led the youth away with him.
This paragraph corroborates what we have been saying.
The young man identified himself with Zarathustra.
Zarathustra was the temptation for him, he strove to be like him; and then Zarathustra became his danger: the archetype broke in upon him.
You see, the ordinary man Nietzsche went too far.
That is again a sort of prophecy that in the near future the collective unconscious will send this lightning to destroy Nietzsche.
Therefore Zarathustra is compared to the thunder-cloud.
Mrs. Baumann: He also says, “I am the lightning.”
Prof. Jung: Yes, and that means the dangerous invasion.
You know, the archetype in itself does not mean invasion and destruction; it is
eternally quiet unless it becomes constellated, stirred up by the misbehavior of man.
If a man leaves too many things to the unconscious and so gets into a tight corner, the archetype begins to stir as if in compensation.
And then if he thinks what a devil of a fellow he is to have such a good idea, well, there he is!
He is identifying with the source of his idea and becomes too big.
The lightning has struck him and he is done for.
You see the youth says, “It is mine envy of thee that hath destroyed me!”
That is very clear: he wanted to be like Zarathustra but Zarathustra did not allow him to remain normal; the young man did not realize what a terrible danger he was incurring by identifying with an archetype.
Now here is a question by Mr. Allemann, “The problem of the anima rescued by the old man from the brothel of the world, has brought up in me the question of the meaning of the heavenly Sophia. Is she the identification of both old man and anima in the hierosgamos?”
It is true that the conception of Sophia in that Gnostic treatise, the Pistis Sophia, is the identity or the absolute union of the wise old man with the anima.
If you study the anima problem you will surely see that peculiar development from Hawwah to Sophia, and such a development cannot be without the intervention of the wise old man.
But the wise old man doesn’t undergo such a development-he is not included in the world one could say, he is static; while the anima is very much involved in the world.
That is the part of man which is partially of this earth-and it can be very much of this earth: she may be in the brothel of muladhara, muladhara at its worst.
It is even very important that the anima is projected into the earth, that she descends very low, for otherwise her ascent to the heavenly condition in the form of Sophia has no meaning.
There is no point in it.
She is the one that is rooted in the earth as well as in the heaven, both root and branch of the tree.
The archetype of the old wise man, if looked at from the side of the anima, is always a secondary figure that only appears as the result, or as the divine intercession or intervention in the life and the development of the anima.
In the end, inasmuch as the anima transforms into Sophia, there is no longer the wise old man or the anima because they become one.
That is the problem of the hermaphrodite in alchemy, the union of the male and the female.
Mrs. Sigg: It seems so strange that Zarathustra does exactly the same thing that the anima does as Salome; it is horrible that the old wise man should be like a female dancer.
Prof. Jung: Yes, it is one of those perversions-that is perfectly true; and it all comes from the fact that we have no anima in Zarathustra.
Only very near the end anima figures appear in the erotic poem “Unter Tilichtern der Wuste.”
We have here the most perverse phenomenon, the wise old man appearing as identical with Nietzsche himself without the anima.
So it is quite unavoidable that Zarathustra sometimes shows symptoms of being the dancer, the anima.
It takes the whole development of Zarathustra to call Nietzsche’s attention to the
fact that there is an anima.
Of course that has very much to do with his personal life, and it is of course also characteristic of the fact that the anima problem only reaches about as far as the Rhine.
East of the Rhine the problem either of the wise old man or the Puer Aeternus comes up.
The whole mental revolution in Germany is chiefly an activity of the Puer Aeternus, but there the wise old man is absent.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra was an attempt to foresee and to compensate for the danger that his country would fall a victim to the Puer Aeternus, the boy.
That same problem is in Goetz’s Das Reich ohne Raum, the kingdom within-of course it has nothing to do with the Christian kingdom of heaven-where there is a revolution of boys.
Nietzsche had so much foresight that he tried to compensate the coming events by a book of wisdom, but of course it was in vain.
You see, the only possibility by which a Puer revolution can be avoided is the anima; without the anima it becomes unavoidable.
And when they had walked a while together, Zarathustra began to speak thus:
“It rendeth my heart. Better than thy words express it, thine eyes tell me all thy danger.”
Here Zarathustra very clearly realizes the situation.
He admits that he is having the same conflict as the young man; Zarathustra’ heart is torn too: he knows what it means to the young man to be pulled up to the heights and not to be at one with himself.
For Zarathustra is also not at one with himself inasmuch as he is Nietzsche.
The Alpha and Omega of all the trouble with Nietzsche is of course that he is all the time identical with his figures, never separated from them.
He has no psychological critique whatever and so he cannot give them their true value;
he cannot conceive of a psychological existence that is not himself, not his consciousness.
But that is all a consequence of his time.
If he had been more modern, if he had had psychologial critique, he would have said, “This spirit of Zarathustra is a tree spirit, but a spirit that takes me up to heaven and then lets me fall again is surely not myself: it is an elemental power to which I have fallen a victim.”
Mrs. Adler: How does that agree with the idea of Nietzsche’s function?
Prof Jung: Zarathustra is the greatness in Nietzsche, the demon, and Nietzsche has the mission to write Zarathustra to compensate for the coming events in those people.
But the way in which he tries to compensate is utterly inefficient on account of the fact that he identifies with Zarathustra.
The prophet that identifies with Jahve makes a mistake; he can say he speaks the word which is given him by the Lord, but he must make a difference between himself and the Lord.
When Nietzsche says, “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” he means, “Thus Spake Nietzsche.”
Mrs. Sigg: In the biography of Nietzsche, I noticed that the minister at his father’s funeral compared his father to a tree that had lost its leaves-the family had lost everything. It seems that Nietzsche from the very beginning got into an identification with his father; when he was a boy of four or five he was called the little minister because he was always preaching. He was very serious and behaved like an old man.
Prof. Jung: Yes, that must be expected because he was affected by that archetype from the very beginning, and circumstances helped it to a great extent.
The extreme dependence upon authority was a typical German difficulty, however.
It has taken an entirely different form now and is said to no longer exist, but it is still there in a different form.
That is of course at the bottom of the whole trouble there-it is still the psychology of a young boy who has a father; for a time he pleases the father far too much, and then he displeases him entirely.
It is the same mistake: the problem is still the father, and the mother does not exist
yet; therefore, there is no anima in the whole game, exactly as in Nietzsche’s case.
There are surely two things in the world, the Yang and the Yin, the man and the woman, and if the woman is disregarded, it is a mistake.
It is said, for instance, that the reason the Mithraic cult did not survive was that women were excluded; the women cultivated the Magna Mater and the men went to the Mithraic grottoes, and that accounts for the downfall.
Whereas Christianity won out because man and woman were together in spite of the fact that Christianity is chiefly a masculine religion, a father religion, in which the feminine element, in the beginning at least, was little considered.
Later on in the development of the Catholic church, it became much more prominent, but Protestantism has again done away with it.
Protestantism generated a secret philosophy, however, where the feminine element was cultivated again, but with a sort of hostility; the main body of tradition in
Freemasonry is based on the mother cult and it is therefore hostile to the church.
Dr. Schlegel: Is not the conception in the church itself, the church as the mother?
Prof Jung: Yes, but that is abstract.
The church has nothing to say, it is ruled by the Pope-the Pope and the College of Cardinals constitute the church.
Dr. Schlegel: That is true, but in the unconscious the church is the mother.
Prof Jung: Well, it was the later psychological thought, the later Catholics, that brought in the feminine element, even using the symbols of the secret philosophy.
The Litany of Loreto contains all the symbols of the secret philosophy, the hortus conclusus, and the rosa mystica, and the vas insigne devotionis, for example.”
Dr. Schlegel: Has not the church been represented as the bride of Jesus?
Prof Jung: Oh yes, therefore they made use of “The Song of Songs,” which was originally an ordinary love song; there are a number of songs in worldly literature of the same style.
But it was interpreted as a mystical relationship between man and God, or chiefly between man and Sophia.
First it was in the secret traditions, and then in the Christian church it was used as a symbol of the relationship between Jesus and the church.
You see, the symbols have been used, but all under the heading of the masculine deity; Mary never entered the Trinity, the feminine element was excluded.
And even the Holy Ghost, in spite of the fact that it is symbolized by a dove, is made a neuter, a breath that creates father and son, but not the mother: that was refuted by the church.
That one exception, the Theotokos, the idea that the mother of God was identical with Sophia, is heretical.
Of course it makes a tremendous difference whether the female principle rules or not.
The female principle is always contained-even in a male religion it comes in by a side way-but it makes a tremendous difference whether it is actually the ruling principle.
If it is the ruling principle, or if there is at least the condominium of both principles, it produces a religious form that is entirely different from the religion we know.
If you study the religious psychology of Paul, you find the female principle still in
operation, as in the idea, for instance, that those redeemed by love are beyond the Law.
That was Christ’s idea too, and that is typically feminine.
The masculine point of view is the Law, but the point of view of love is of course feminine.
The one is Logos and the other Eros.
Well now, Zarathustra here shows clearly that he understands the peril in which the youth finds himself-the youth of course being the part of Nietzsche which simply cannot join in and which will be destroyed if he identifies with Zarathustra.
He says, “As yet thou art not free; thou still seekest freedom. Too unslept hath thy seeking made thee, and too wakeful. On the open height wouldst thou be; for the stars thirsteth thy soul. But thy bad impulses also thirst for freedom.”
Here, one could say, the whole tragedy of Zarathustra begins.
That young man is striving to identify with Zarathustra, to be a dweller on the heights and to be free from the fetters of the earth, but if he escapes the law of the earth he becomes an inhuman spirit: he will be struck by lightning and destroyed.
Now why does he want that freedom? And freedom from what?
Well, very obviously, as Zarathustra says, there are evil instincts below, the wild dogs:
‘Thy wild dogs want liberty; they bark for joy in their cellar when thy spirit endeavoureth to open all prison doors.”
If you have the choice between the beautiful heights and the kennel full of wild dogs, then surely one can understand why a man wants to escape the kennel and make for the heights.
It is as if there were an evil smell down below and naturally he seeks the pure light, so it is quite understandable that he would try to be above himself.
But then he will identify with Zarathustra-he will be struck by lightning-so if he wants to live at all he must not seek such freedom.
For if he contains wild dogs, evil instincts in his system, he is partially a wild dog and he should not try to escape from his own dog-likeness, he should remain there in his kennel.
If he escapes the body, he will decay; he simply escapes life if he escapes the kennel.
Now, it is most important that Zarathustra so gladly assumes that the thing down below in the valley must be a kennel full of wild dogs, for that is by no means certain.
It might be horses and asses and cows, quite lovely things, perhaps some pigs too, and the whole makes a perfectly workable farm, exceedingly useful and also quite nice.
Why just wild dogs? Why such a hysterical statement? What kind of psychology does such an assumption imply?
Miss Wolff: Christian.
Prof Jung: Yes, it is late Christian psychology, or ordinary Protestant psychology-there is his father.
To him the body is of course evil; one does not even look at it, but simply assumes it is wild dogs.
But even if that were true, these dogs are a part of nature like wolves.
Of course they are not just agreeable-there are nice animals and animals that are not so nice-but in themselves they are all right; wolves occasionally eat human beings if they are very hungry, but we also eat animals, and by the million, so we have absolutely no ground for blaming those animals for eating a man occasionally.
So there is no reason why we should revile our instincts.
They are just the ordinary appetites, just as bad and just as nice as the instincts of all nature.
It is that particular moralistic Protestantism which reviles instincts and makes them inacceptable; they get evil because we put the devil into them.
We say they are devils and cannot be touched, and naturally they will be bad because we send them to hell.
Nature is neither good nor bad, and if we judge nature by our foolish categories, it is as if we put it into a dirty drawer which would make even pure nature dirty.
Then Zarathustra goes on, Still art thou a prisoner-it seemeth to me-who deviseth liberty for himself: …
That means he is the wild dog imprisoned in the kennel, and how marvelous
that he wants to walk on clouds, to no longer be that awful thing there!
Now, what an attitude to life!
That is ordinary Protestant morality, poison, and a complete contradiction to what Zarathustra preaches in other places.
Ah! sharp becometh the soul of such prisoners, but also deceitful and wicked.
To purify himself, is still necessary for the freedom of the spirit.
Not enough that you get a free spirit, you have to purify yourself from the dog in you.
Much of the prison and the mould still remaineth in him; pure hath his eye still to become.
The eye means his vision, the way in which he conceives of things and envisages problems.
Well, that doesn’t need to be clean from the admixture of earth, but very much from the admixture of Protestantism.
Yea, I know thy danger.
But by my love and hope I conjure thee: cast not thy love and hope away!
Noble thou feelest thyself still, and noble others also feel thee still, though they bear thee a grudge and cast evil looks.
Know this, that to everybody a noble one standeth in the way.
Also to the good, a noble one standeth in the way: and even when they call him a good man, they want thereby to put him aside.
Here again Zarathustra cherishes the aspiration of the young man to become a spirit himself; he lets him feel that his existence in the body and in natural conditions is just a pity, and if he is a noble man he surely will not give up his hope and his love: in other words he will escape his natural existence.
Then he says, “Know this, that to everybody a noble one standeth in the way.”
Sure enough, the one who tries to escape the ordinary human conditions and become an eternal spirit is a stumbling block. It is quite right that he should be considered so; he is really a nuisance and that is not right.
Otherwise, the reasonable conclusion would be that the only thing to be done for the world would be for everybody to commit suicide-then all problems would be settled.
But that is the cure of headache by cutting off the head.
We cannot do away with the living man by making him spirit-he must live here and we must really assume that inasmuch as there is life it makes sense, and that life is not properly lived when we deny half of life.
He calls the belief in a certain tradition and the life of the body in natural conditions,
the standpoint of the good people, and he assumes that those people are against the heroes who want to jump out of the body.
Yes, happily enough they are against it, otherwise everybody would become lunatics and escape human existence.
The new, would the noble man create, and a new virtue.
The old, wanteth the good man, and that the old should be conserved.
Much better that the old things should be preserved than create new things that have no feet and are somewhere in the air, mere castles in Spain. That is just the trouble in creating new things, the necessity that they really live and stand upon the earth within the reach of man.
What is the use of creating fantasies which are mere mirror effects in the air?
But it is not the danger of the noble man to turn a good man, but lest he should become a blusterer, a scoffer, or a destroyer.
Sure enough, the danger that he would become an ordinary good man is the thing which is least considered, but that would be the greatest danger to this kind of hero.
That he should become insolent, a scoffer and a destroyer would be a lesser danger, for then he could be easily gotten rid of. Ah! I have known noble ones who lost their highest hope.
And then they disparaged all high hopes.
Then lived they shamelessly in temporary pleasures, and beyond the day had hardly an aim.
That is just because they had that attitude, either on top of everything, above the clouds, or in the slime, but nothing in between-as if there were no green earth where things were perfectly nice and sound and balanced.
“Spirit is also voluptuousness,” said they.
This is the standpoint that spirit or mind is either a god, marvelously pure, the stratosphere fifty or sixty degrees centigrade below zero, or it is a hothouse of vices.
We have seen all that, first a tremendous exaggeration of the spirit, then nothing but animal voluptuousness.
Then broke the wings of the spirit; …Well, they would break its wings by overreaching themselves.
And now it creepeth about and defileth where it gnawer.
Once they thought of becoming heroes; …
They would have done much better not to think of that. But sensualists are they now.
A trouble and a terror is the hero to them.
Then they are just the contrary of heroes, they become vicious hogs.
But then they are simply heroes of the slime.
But by my love and hope I conjure thee: cast not away the hero in thy soul! Maintain holy thy highest hope!
Thus spake Zarathustra.
That sounds of course awfully well, provided you really can fulfil it.
But if it costs your body how can you pull it off? You cannot fulfil it if you have destroyed your body.
That is the problem with which he ends here, and you see from the title of the next chapter, “The Preachers of Death,” what he has to realize. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 523-540
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