Barbara Hannah: The cat’s archetypal image is present in us all.

Barbara Hannah: The cat’s archetypal image is present in us all.

“The cat’s archetypal image is present in us all.

It is clearer to women, for the cat – even the tomcat – is much more feminine in behavior than, for instance, the dog. Men have the cat also, but here it is more connected with the anima.

Thus they do not escape the disastrous tendency of their anima cat to spin plots.

She usually hooks on to ambition, power and money where temptations are great and men are not so terribly conscious.

And then, of course, Tefnut entangles them in sexual affairs of all kinds and is delighted when they turn out disastrously.

The anima is much farther away for men and therefore more difficult to make conscious.

In fact, catching plots is the conditio sine qua non of men becoming conscious of their animas.

This is the most difficult task of all for men, far more difficult than it is for woman to become conscious of her animus.
”
But perhaps the cat is especially important on account of her tendency to go off with Tefnut into the depths of the unconscious and to degenerate into all kinds of injurious or even fatal behavior.

This degeneration is certainly very reminiscent of the days we live in, where plots are so readily spun in the unconscious and
subconscious lives of women and men alike, not only in ourselves but even on a worldwide scale.

All that each one of us can do is to work honestly on the archetypal image of the cat in our own souls.

Perhaps we may each then add “an infinitesimal grain [on] the scales of humanity’s soul” ~Barbara Hannah.The Archetypal Symbolism of Animals, Page 51.