In the dreams of a woman, the Self, when it personifies itself, manifests as a superior female figure, for example, as a priestess, a sorceress, an earth mother, or a nature or love goddess.
The Self
When a person has inwardly struggled with his anima or with her animus for a sufficiently long time and has reached the point where he or she is no longer identified with it in an unconscious fashion, the unconscious once again takes on a new symbolic form in relating with the ego.
It then appears in the form of the psychic core, that is, the Self.
In the dreams of a woman, the Self, when it personifies itself, manifests as a superior female figure, for example, as a priestess, a sorceress, an earth mother, or a nature or love goddess.
In the dreams of a man, it takes the form of some-one who confers initiations (an Indian guru), a wise old man, a nature spirit, a hero, and so forth.
An Austrian fairy tale recounts the following:
A king posts a soldier to keep watch on the coffin of a cursed black princess who has been bewitched.
It is known that every night she comes to life and tears the guard to pieces. In despair, not wanting to die, the soldier runs away into the forest. There he meets an “old zither player who was, however, the Lord God himself,” and this old musician advises him how to hide in different places in the church and what to do so that the black princess cannot find him. With the help of this miraculous old man, the soldier succeeds in evading the princess’s attack and in this way is able to redeem her. He marries her and becomes the king.
The old zither player who is really God himself, expressed in psychological language, is a symbol of the Self.
He helps the soldier, that is, the ego, to overcome the destructive anima figure and even to redeem it.
In a woman, as we have said, the Self takes on a feminine form. Marie-Louise von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 324 – 325
